The Incas of Cusco (Cuzco) originally represented …

Years: 1396 - 1539

The Incas of Cusco (Cuzco) originally represented one of the small and relatively minor ethnic groups, the Quechuas, that dot the central and southern Andes of Peru.

Gradually, as early as the thirteenth century, they began to expand and incorporate their neighbors.

Inca expansion is slow until about the middle of the fifteenth century, when the pace of conquest begins to accelerate, particularly under the rule of the great emperor Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (1438-71).

Historian John Hemming describes Pachacuti as "one of those protean figures, like Alexander or Napoleon, who combine a mania for conquest with the ability to impose his will on every facet of government."

Under his rule and that of his son, Topa Inca Yupanqui (1471-93), the Incas come to control upwards of a third of South America, with a population of nine to sixteen million inhabitants under their rule.

Pachacuti also promulgates a comprehensive code of laws to govern his far-flung empire, called Tawantinsuyu, while consolidating his absolute temporal and spiritual authority as the God of the Sun who rules from a magnificently rebuilt Cusco.

Although displaying distinctly hierarchical and despotic features, Incan rule also exhibits an unusual measure of flexibility and paternalism.

The basic local unit of society is the ayllu), which forms an endogamous nucleus of kinship groups who possess collectively a specific, although often disconnected, territory.

In the ayllu, grazing land is held in common (private property does not exist), whereas arable land is parceled out to families in proportion to their size.

Because self-sufficiency is the ideal of Andean society, family units claim parcels of land in different ecological niches in the rugged Andean terrain.

In this way, they achieve what anthropologists have called "vertical complementarity," that is, the ability to produce a wide variety of crops—such as maize, potatoes, and quinoa (a protein-rich grain)—at different altitudes for household consumption.

The principle of complementarity also applies to Andean social relations, as each family head has the right to ask relations, allies, or neighbors for help in cultivating his plot.

In return, he is obligated to offer them food and chicha (a fermented corn alcoholic beverage), and to help them on their own plots when asked.

Mutual aid forms the ideological and material bedrock of all Andean social and productive relations.

This system of reciprocal exchange exists at every level of Andean social organization: members of the ayllus, curacas (local lords) with their subordinate ayllus, and the Inca himself with all his subjects. Ayllus often form parts of larger dual organizations with upper and lower divisions called moieties, and then still larger units, until they comprise the entire ethnic group.

As it expands, the Inca state becomes, historian Nathan Wachtel writes, "the pinnacle of this immense structure of interlocking units. It imposed a political and military apparatus on all of these ethnic groups, while continuing to rely on the hierarchy of curacas, who declared their loyalty to the Inca and ruled in his name."

In this sense, the Incas establish a system of indirect rule that enables the incorporated ethnic groups to maintain their distinctiveness and self-awareness within a larger imperial system.

All Inca people collectively work the lands of the Inca, who serves as representative of the God of the Sun—the central god and religion of the empire.

In return, they receive food, as well as chicha and coca leaves (which are chewed and used for religious rites and for medicinal purposes); or they make cloth and clothing for tribute, using the Inca flocks; or they regularly performed mita, or service for public works, such as roads and buildings, or for military purposes that enable the development of the state.

The Inca people also maintain the royal family and bureaucracy, centered in Cusco.

In return for these services, the Inca allocates land and redistributes part of the tribute received—such as food, cloth, and clothes—to the communities, often in the form of welfare.

Tribute is stored in centrally located warehouses to be dispensed during periods of shortages caused by famine, war, or natural disaster.

In the absence of a market economy, Inca redistribution of tribute serves as the primary means of exchange.

The principles of reciprocity and redistribution, then, form the organizing ideas that govern all relations in the Inca empire from community to state.

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South America (1396 - 1539)
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South America Major (1396 - 1539)

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