12 D'Altroy - Inca Political Organization

Inca Political Organization, Economic Institutions, and Infrastructure
Oxford Handbooks Online

Inca Political Organization, Economic Institutions, and
Infrastructure
Terence N. D'Altroy
The Oxford Handbook of the Incas
Edited by Sonia Alconini and Alan Covey
Print Publication Date: Jun 2018 Subject: History, History of the Americas
Online Publication Date: Apr 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190219352.013.15
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter describes Inca political and economic organization and the infrastructure
established to support imperial administration. Inca conceptualizations of politics and
economics differed from those of the West, and the organization of power in the imperial
capital relied heavily on the ruler’s person. Provincial areas were conceived as four
distinct regions bound to the ruler by a hierarchy of Inca governors, record-keepers, and
local officials. Inca rule modified local labor practices to increase economic production,
using resettlement and special labor statuses to ensure the production of specific
products across their diverse empire. Royal estates sustained royal households in the
Cuzco region, and in the provinces, a road network connected administrative centers and
storage facilities to the capital.
Keywords: Inca, Cuzco, political organization, economy, infrastructure, resettlement
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THIS chapter is intended to explain the nature of Inca political and economic
organization, as well as to describe the infrastructure that was created to advance the
imperial project. The Incas are widely recognized for having instituted the most well-
ordered rule ever seen in the Andes, but the character of Cuzco’s dominion emerged from
more than a thousand years of prior statecraft (see Chapter 1.2 by Moore in this volume).
The Incas took some of those ideas—such as intensifying production, resettling sectors of
the populace, building a network of roads, provincial facilities, and storehouses, and
implementing accounting practices—and then modified and intensified them to their own
interests.
While their goals and strategies surely evolved, we can suggest that Inca policies sought
to fulfill three main ambitions, with both pragmatic and intellectual dimensions. The first,
most practical, end was to dominate the peoples and resources of the Andes so that they
could be exploited to the benefit of the overarching polity and its institutions. Second, the
Inca royal kin sought to enhance their holdings, both to venerate their ancestors and to
enjoy a life of privileged wealth and status. Third, Inca royals positioned themselves as
the legitimate and irreplaceable intermediaries between humans and the world around
them. That last objective justified imposing their own notions of order—and thus
civilization—on a world they saw as chaotic and dangerous without them in charge. Those
mutually reinforcing goals meant that the Incas aspired to instill order not just in human
space, but in the world at large. As a result, their political, economic, and ideological
interests regularly overlapped.
In outline, the Inca political order was a monarchy, in which succession passed through
the male line. The divine ruler, known as the Sapa Inca (Unique Lord), was (p. 206)
sustained in the upper echelons of government by an aristocracy of ethnic Incas (see
Chapter 1.3 by Covey). Below them was a provincial administration that was largely
formed by elites from subject societies, who were assigned to state offices and charged
with specific duties. Although the Inca government was more formalized than any
predecessor, it was not really a bureaucracy, since Cuzco’s regime blended traditional
ethnic order with an array of borrowed and innovative approaches. It may be better
thought of as reshuffling a deck of existing societies than inventing a new form of
government from scratch (Morris 1982). The economic organization employed resources
that the Incas sequestered for their exclusive use. The rulers extracted taxes from about
two million heads of household, largely in the form of rotating labor duties. Over time,
they also moved about a third of the populace of 12 million to new locations, for military,
political, and economic ends. The resultant services and goods provided the means to
support the state, a network of temples, and the aristocracy.
A grand infrastructure was created to extend Inca dominion into the provinces and to
connect Cuzco to its holdings. Its lifeline was the road system, which passed through
mountains, high plains, coastal deserts, and eastern jungles and plains. Based on two
main highways that ran from southern Colombia to central Chile, it may have ultimately
spanned 40,000–60,000 kilometers of paved and improved surfaces. Along it, the Incas
erected more than 2,000 installations that ranged from small roadside way-stations to
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forts, supply facilities, and grand provincial centers. The rulers also undertook massive
land modification programs, most notably by terracing mountain hillsides and harnessing
the water flowing off the highest glaciers in the Americas (see Chapter 3.2 by Kosiba).
And they built vast storage facilities, to make every conceivable kind of material good
available where and when it was needed.
Before examining governance in more detail, we should pause to consider how the Incas
envisioned their world, and how to be successful within it. To begin, we need to
acknowledge that what we call politics (e.g., decision-making, administration, mediation,
and adjudication) and economics (e.g., property, labor, exchange, natural resources and
products, specie) were not concepts through which the Incas organized their lives. They
thought that people inhabited an integrated, social cosmos that encompassed both the
human and the natural, and the physical and the spiritual. The living, the dead, numerous
deities, and animate beings of the landscape all interacted with one another, in a
complicated network of mutual dependencies and possible conflicts. Elements of the land
that Western thought treats as natural resources or the environment were, for the Incas,
living entities who had social lives paralleling those of humanity. Many features of the
earth were powerful beings (tiracona), just as much alive as humans (runacona) (Allen
2002). Mountain peaks (apu), springs, meadows, or rock outcrops could be conscious and
gendered actors. They could be siblings or marital partners, and had will, agency, rights
of ownership, sentiments, and histories. Certain mountain peaks overlooking Cuzco and
the Sacred Valley, such as Ausangate, Salkantay, Waqaywillka (Verónica), and Sahuasiray,
were especially powerful inhabitants of the heartland. The peaks were the creators of the
weather and owners of the flocks; their glacial melt was the semen that impregnated the
earth, which was a living female (Pachamama). Because (p. 207) water that flowed had a
kind of agency, humans had to negotiate with it to get it to go where they wanted.
When a person died, he or she moved to a permanent, purified state, still alive as a
mummy or skeleton, while a form of spirit returned to the origin place, a specific fixed
location on the landscape (Salomon 1991, 1995; Gose 1996). The living people sustained
their ancestors through offerings, rituals, prayers, and pilgrimages. In turn, the ancestors
cared for their posterity by ensuring their continued viability and the productivity of the
fields and herds. Thus, the people, resources, and the land formed a joint social world, in
which none could manage successfully without the others.
How did this way of thinking affect Inca governance? Among other things, it meant that
the living and the dead (or their icons) participated actively in politics and economics;
that situation held as much for the Inca rulers as it did for their subjects. It meant that
the intensification of agricultural production involved accommodations between
humanity, the mountains, water, and the earth. It meant that moving people away from
their ancestral lands for imperial activities was both a strategy of production and an
existential threat to the well-being of people after death. And finally, it meant that the
Incas devised their system of governance within a conceptual framework in which land,
property, and its products could not be bought, sold, or alienated; some places, resources,
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and their products were animate; and labor was as much a social relationship as a
disposable resource. How, then, did they set out to organize their rule?
The Core Political Formation

The political organization that existed in Cuzco when the Spaniards arrived was a
monarchy ruled by a king (Sapa Inca, “Unique Lord”) who was thought to be the son of
the sun (Inti). He was joined in rule by his principal wife (Coya, “Queen”), to whom he
was supposed to be married at the time of enthronement (Diez de Betanzos 1996:72). In
the early colonial era, the Incas explained to the Spaniards that they were descended in
an unbroken line from an ancestral pair—Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo—who were
called forth from a cave (Pacarictambo, “Inn of Dawn”) by the Creator deity Viracocha.
From that couple, the Incas recounted, they had descended through only 10 more rulers
(Table 3.1.1). According to the most widely told narrative, the political formation was a
localized affair with limited expansionist aspirations until the reign of Viracocha Inca, the
eighth ruler. Inca power erupted on the Andean landscape when his son, Pachacuti Inca
Yupanqui, usurped the throne and transformed the modest Cuzqueñan polity into a full-
fledged empire. His son, Tupa Inca Yupanqui, and grandson, Huayna Capac, filled out
most of the brief imperial period. The subsequent four-year civil war between Atahualpa
and Huascar came to an end just as the Spaniards invaded.
Inca thought did not distinguish neatly among political, economic, ideological, and
military roles at the top of the hierarchy, so that the ruler embodied all of those roles. In
order to take office, a potential ruler was supposed to be the most able son of the
immediately past king and his principal wife. In practice, however, sons of
(p. 208)
multiple wives staged political, sometime bloody, personal competitions; on occasion, they
were represented by their adult kin if they were still too young to assume power. The
contention built into successions almost guaranteed the royalty’s palace intrigues,
successful and attempted coups, intra-familial murders that may have included a sitting
ruler (Tupa Inca Yupanqui), and even all-out war, as in the final dynastic conflict between
Huascar and Atahualpa.
Table 3.1.1 Conventional List of Inca Kings from the founder Manco Capac through the
Feuding Huascar and Atahualpa
Name as Ruler Gloss Given Name
1 Manco Capac Powerful [Ancestor] -
2 Sinchi Roca Warlord Roca -
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3 Lloque Yupanqui Honored Left-handed -
4 Mayta Capac Royal Mayta -
5 Capac Yupanqui Powerful Honored -
6 Inca Roca Inca Roca -
7 Yahuar Huaccac He Who Cries Bloody Inca Yupanqui, Mayta

Tears Yupanqui
8 Viracocha Inca Creator God Inca Hatun Tupa Inca
9 Pachacuti Inca Cataclysm Honored Inca Inca Yupanqui, Cusi

Yupanqui Yupanqui
10 Tupa Inca Yupanqui Royal Honored Inca -
11 Huayna Capac Powerful Youth Titu Cusi Hualpa
12 Huascar Inca Golden Chain Ruler Tupa Cusi Hualpa
13 Atahualpa - -
Once an aspirant had taken office, he was revered as a divine being with unparalleled
powers on earth. After death, his body was mummified and he (and his queen) continued
to participate in affairs of state and lead his descendant kin. His internal organs were
incinerated and then placed in the distended belly of the golden icon of the sun
(Punchao), a seated boy figure kept in the most sacred temple, the Golden Enclosure
(Coricancha). The ruler thus came full circle, descending from the sun to rule the earth,
and rejoining him after death via his icon.
Although royal doctrine held that the king was an absolute ruler, he was probably
regularly enmeshed in political intrigues with the contentious royal kin groups (panaca)
who formed the Inca aristocracy. The panaca were created through a succession practice
known as split inheritance. In this custom, the ruler passed the throne to one son, while
his estates, service personnel, and other resources (e.g., mines) were kept by the panaca.
The group was usually founded by a brother of the recently deceased ruler. (p. 209) The
panaca used the holdings to maintain themselves and to revere the past king’s mummy in
perpetuity. In 1532, 10 royal panaca formed the core political structure in Cuzco; in
addition, there were 10 non-royal ayllu among the capital’s elite. The first five panaca
(sequentially) formed the moiety known as Lower Cuzco (Hurin Cuzco), while the second
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five were grouped into Upper Cuzco (Hanan Cuzco; Figure 3.1.1). The highest-ranking
panaca were the kin closest to the current emperor, not to the most ancient.
The most widely accepted

view today is that a new
panaca was added to Inca
society every royal
generation, so that the
political order changed
over time. We cannot be
sure that things actually
worked that way, however,
since some Inca accounts
said that Pachacuti Inca
Yupanqui organized
Cuzco’s existing kin
Click to view larger
groups into a new dual
Figure 3.1.1 The conventional list of Inca kings,
organized into Lower and Upper Cuzco. design when he invented
Illustrations from Guamán Poma de Ayala (1980).
the imperial order. Another
tradition said that the
order of 10 panaca had
existed since time immemorial; a new panaca simply took the place of an old one with
every succession. Other sources named several panaca that might have fallen out of
power or favor, and thus disappeared from the hierarchy. Finally, some sources suggest
(p. 210) that the Incas always had two kings, one each of Upper and Lower Cuzco, in a
kind of government termed a diarchy. Given the conflicting information, there is some
uncertainty about what the political order of Cuzco would have been more than a
generation or so before the imperial collapse.
From Cuzco into the Provinces

In order to rule their expanding domain, the Incas devised a system of provincial
governance. At the broadest level, that included establishing the four parts (suyu) of the
empire (Tahuantinsuyu: the four parts united), which generally corresponded to major
eco-geographic regions (Figure 3.1.2). The most populous, and prestigious, was
Chinchaysuyu, which took in the north coast and highlands to the northwest of the
capital. Moving clockwise in descending order of prestige was Antisuyu, which included
the warm lands to the north and northeast of Cuzco. It incorporated many of the royal
estates in the Sacred Valley, but was mostly constituted by the warm upper tropical forest
and montaña. Then came Collasuyu, which was spatially the largest of the parts, and
included everything southeast of Cuzco through Lake Titicaca, the altiplano, and all of the
Chilean and Argentine territory. Condesuyu, which lay to the southwest of the capital,
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was the smallest, least populous, and least prestigious of the four parts. Together, the
first two parts formed the upper part of the empire, while the latter two formed the lower
part. Hatun Xauxa was named symbolically as the highest-ranking center in the north,
while Tiwanaku held a similar position in the south (Sarmiento 2007:166).
Each of the four parts was headed by a lord (apu), who reported directly to Cuzco. Within
each suyu, the Incas recognized numerous provinces, totaling something in excess of 80
overall. Many provinces corresponded to preexisting societies’ territories, in keeping with
the Inca policy of using each region’s ethnic elites to govern on the state’s behalf. There
was a further ordering of the provinces into two or three parts (saya), which, at least in
theory, were supposed to contain about 10,000 taxpaying households. To approach the
ideal order, societies could be partitioned or grouped administratively. Because the actual
numbers of taxpayers could not be expected to conform to neat, rounded numbers, the
Incas maintained both real head counts and the concept of the generalized ideal.
The provincial governor (tocricoc) was most often an ethnic Inca, who was supported by
an array of assistants and technical personnel. Among the latter were the knot-record
masters (quipucamayoc), who kept census tabs on the local populace, as well as
registering taxpaying obligations, supplies, and the contents of storage facilities (see
Chapter 6.2 by Urton). The governor had a broad mandate, which included mobilizing
labor for state tasks, such as military, agricultural, and craft service. In addition, he
supervised the colonists, along with the lands of the state and maybe the sun. It was his
responsibility to make sure that the infrastructure in his region was in good working
order, including the roads, bridges, and support facilities, and that the storehouses were
well-stocked and accounted for. He also judged legal matters related to state interests
and could pass sentences up to and including the death penalty (Cobo 1979:194–202).
(p. 211) (p. 212)
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Figure 3.1.2 Map of the Inca Empire as it existed in

1532, showing the main Inca installations and the
road system that linked them; the four parts of the
realm are shown in the inset.
After Hyslop (1984: frontispiece).

Figure 3.1.3 The Inca decimal administrative
hierarchy, with ordered taxpaying household units.
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Decimal Administration
The most renowned component of provincial governance was the decimal hierarchy
(Figure 3.1.3). Its creation was likely closely linked to the census system, which the
chroniclers Cieza de León and Polo de Ondegardo both said was installed under Tupa
(p. 213) Inca Yupanqui (Rowe 1958:100). In this system, the Incas grouped taxpayers into
units ranging from 10 to 10,000, with multiples of 5 and 10. Thus, in ascending order, the
groupings contained 10, 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000 taxpayers. The highest-
ranking official below the provincial governor was called an hunu curaca. He would
normally have been a regional lord who accepted his role as administrator working on
behalf of the Inca overlords, while the leaders of the lower echelons would have been
individuals of standing within their communities.
Each official held a title that corresponded to the number of households under his
direction. Both the duties and perquisites of office were proportional to the status of the
position. Officials who directed 100 or more households were called curaca (lord),
whereas those responsible for 50 or 10 were called camayoc (master). In principle, each
official was appointed by the Inca or his governor, but those who supervised 100
taxpayers or fewer might have been appointed by their lords of 1,000 (Cobo 1979:201).
Individuals in line for positions under local customs filled many state offices, so that
power stayed within elite families across the generations. Any recalcitrant or incompetent
official was reportedly replaced with a more able individual. By drafting local elites into
the state hierarchy, the Incas could rule without interfering unduly in community life, but
it also meant that they extended their reach deep into the existing social order.
Lords were entitled to have their lands worked and herds tended; they also received
servants at a rate of one for every 100 taxpayers supervised, and were granted extra
wives. An especially desirable privilege was a grant of a personal estate on which maize,
coca, peppers, and other socially valued crops were grown. In some cases, the lords had
their own mines, from which they were expected to make gifts to the Inca on a periodic
basis. Status goods, such as fine cloth (cumbi) tunics, drinking cups of metal and ceramic,
and wooden sets, also marked ranking in the hierarchy (see Chapters 3.5, 6.4, and 6.5 by
Costin, Phipps, and Ziółkowski, respectively). In the status-conscious world of the Incas,
such differences were assiduously maintained.
Despite its renown, the decimal hierarchy has been identified principally in the central
part of the empire, not in the far north or south or on the coast. South of the altiplano,
where documentary sources are scarce, decimal officials are not mentioned; instead,
colonists (see later discussion) are described as holding positions of state power. On the
north coast, they dismantled the upper level of leadership in the Chimú Empire, and took
the ruler Minchançaman to Cuzco as a royal hostage. Mention of decimal officials is rare,
and the Incas appear to have ruled indirectly through native elites. In Ecuador, decimal
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officials were present only among the state colonists, and the Incas attempted to recruit
local lords to work on their behalf by giving them concessions in trade and estates.
Complementary Means of Asserting Inca Rule
Although the Incas were often flexible in allowing their subjects’ customs to persist, they
also promoted their dominion by enacting rules that specified which practices were
considered appropriate to one’s station in life. The census itself forced people to
(p. 214)
present themselves annually to be classified and counted in a structure that may have
only partly meshed with their own notions of social identity. Quite a few codes protected
the interests of the upper strata of society. Behavior that was considered scandalous,
such as sexual misconduct, theft, or murder, was punished more severely for the lower
rungs of society than for the upper. A set of sumptuary and behavioral restrictions was
also applied. For example, rules regarding where one could or could not walk (the roads,
see later discussion), what spaces were restricted in their access (Cuzco, provincial
installations, temples), and what clothing one could or could not wear (e.g., certain tunics
were allowed only as a grant by the Inca) reinforced the social hierarchy. One of the most
telling rules concerned headgear. Andean peoples typically wore hats, tasseled
headbands, and other items that identified them as members of their ethnic group. The
Incas took advantage of this custom by requiring subject peoples to wear their own
headgear, thus rendering them instantly identifiable whether at home or thousands of
kilometers away on state assignment. Overall, the intent of such rules seems to have been
to apply pressure to conform to the Inca sense of order, through latent or actual
punishment, and through self-policing.
Economic Organization
In the classic version of the imperial economy, described by chroniclers such as Polo de
Ondegardo, Garcilaso de la Vega, and Cobo, the Incas set up a system to sustain their
activities by claiming a relationship of mutual obligation between themselves and their
subjects. When they took control of a new people or territory, they declared that all of the
farmlands, pastures, flocks, and wild and mineral resources became their own. The
resources were then partitioned into those belonging to the state, to the religion, and to
the subject communities; the state’s resources were apparently more extensive than
those of the religion. The intent seems to have been to create discrete sets of productive
resources that belonged entirely to the state, the temples, and the aristocracy. In some
cases, that meant sequestering productive lands from subject peoples (e.g., Cochabamba,
Abancay); in others, the Inca appear to have claimed lands that were underused prior to
conquest (e.g., northern Mantaro Valley).
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Herds could not simply be created out of thin air, however, so the Incas took possession of
large numbers of llamas and alpacas (Polo 1916:61–62), many of them from the peoples of
the Lake Titicaca region (Murra 1980:52). Given that the pre-Hispanic scale of the Andes’
herds might have reached 30–50 million (Bonavía 2008), the state’s flocks may have
ultimately contained many millions by themselves. The herds were used heavily for
military purposes. Army trains could count in the tens of thousands of llamas, stretched
out along the road, to pack supplies and then to be eaten. Llamas and alpacas also
provided the wool and leather for state personnel, especially soldiers. The camelids were
also prime sacrifices and formed a main course at state-sponsored commensal feasts.
As was often the case under traditional practice, subject peoples were compelled
(p. 215)
to meet their obligations to the leadership through rotating labor service (mit’a). To
support themselves, they were allowed to keep most of their traditional lands and
pastures, whose products would remain untouched by state demands. The Incas,
reciprocally, owed military, political, and ideological leadership, while guaranteeing the
peace. As self-proclaimed benevolent lords, they were also supposed to provide largess, in
the form of status gifts to the elites, for example, and sandals and an annual shirt to
people on military duty. They also provided all of the food and drink that people required
during their labor service, and threw great festivals at provincial centers annually, at the
end of which people’s future obligations were set out.
That model of economic structure, as Murra (1980) has pointed out, was an adroit
extension of the highland economic order from which the Incas themselves arose. In
much of the empire, a corporate kindred called the ayllu, which could number into the
thousands, formed the basic resource-holding unit. Through membership, people gained
access rights to pastures, agricultural lands, water, and other key resources, such as salt,
clay for making pottery, and stone quarries. The group’s collectively held pastures or
fields could not be bought or sold; neither could its labor. Despite the principles of shared
access, elite families enjoyed access to more and a greater variety of productive spaces
than did lower echelon families. The origin point for an ayllu lay in a particular place
within its space—a peak, a cave, a spring—to which the dead returned after the end of
their fleshy life. That way of thinking meant that people, resources, and the landscape
constituted an inseparable social whole.
The environmental and socioeconomic conditions of the Andes presented many

challenges, as the Incas put their economic house in order. The Andean populace was
largely rural, with few settlements that could be called cities; about two-thirds of the
people lived at elevations above 3,000 meters. The technology that they had at hand was
limited, in the sense that they had no draft animals that could be mounted or harnessed
to pull vehicles or break the soil; neither did they have effective waterborne or wheeled
transport. The vast llama caravans that the state marshaled could carry only a portion of
the state’s supplies, so human portage provided a major source of transportation. The
Andean landscape itself is highly dissected and often vertically compressed. Those
conditions placed a variety of potentially productive ecozones in close proximity to one
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another, but they also meant that areas of large-scale productivity were few and
dispersed. Areas conducive to maize, tuber, and coca agriculture, or to camelid herding,
were often separated by a considerable walk, perhaps counted in days.
The Incas’ economic options were also shaped by the conceptual foundations of Andean
economic practice. For example, most Andean societies worked without money, markets,
or commerce, and had no notions of capital, investment, return, or profit. Although many
highland peoples were organized at the level of community or regional polity, the class-
based societies of Peru’s north coast had more specialized production and exchange
systems. In the far north, both coastal and highland societies used some kinds of money
(beads, bronze axes), and highland Ecuador apparently even had limited marketing
networks. In the far south and along the eastern slopes, the societies (p. 216) were
generally smaller and less complex than those elsewhere. Combined, the ecological and
technological conditions meant that the Incas had to constitute their economic support
system region by region, and to adapt constantly to local circumstances.
Labor Service as Tax
The Inca economy was largely supported by a rotating tax applied to households. The
amount of tax to be paid was apparently assessed on the basis of projected needs for the
next year, and the taxpayers were informed of what their obligations would be. Generally
speaking, the taxpayers were expected to work two to three months per year, but the
nature of the work, its location, and its duration varied. Chroniclers such as Francisco
Falcón (1946 [1567]), Fray Martín de Murúa (1987), and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala
(1980:183) provided lists of the kinds of service expected, naming between 30 and 40
distinct kinds of labor (Table 3.1.2). The two heaviest obligations were for agriculture and
military service. The former was often conducted nearby for a season, whereas the latter
could require service for a seasonal or multi-year campaign or even permanent
resettlement. Other kinds of services included mining; manufacture of textiles, ceramic,
wood products, and feathered items; construction of architecture and infrastructure;
guarding the living and dead kings and lords, as well as the women of the sun
(mamacona), the flocks, and the storehouses; and portage. Because the raw materials
came from state resources, the people provided labor and expertise, while the state
received services and products. In return for their labors, the taxpayers were supposed to
be supported with sustenance during their period of service.
Intensified Production: Resettlement
One of the most potent tools that the Incas had at their disposal, for consolidating their
control, was the resettlement of large swaths of the populace. By 1532, as many as 3–5
million people had moved from their pre-Inca homes to new locations. In the highlands,
the peace afforded by imperial rule had opened up desirable mountain valley lands that
had been off limits during the last couple of fractious centuries before Cuzco’s
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ascendance. Many people simply opted to relocate to lower elevations nearby. A very
large number, however, were forcibly moved by the state for its own purposes—about a
third of the residents of every province, by the estimate of the Jesuit chronicler Bernabé
Cobo. Those who were resettled were called mitmacona, which translates roughly as
“colonists.” While we cannot be sure of the precise numbers involved across the Andes,
some provinces were apparently vacated (e.g., Ayaviri), while others suffered oppressive
levies (e.g., Colla), and even others saw a massive influx for state projects (e.g.,
Cochabamba). A frequent practice seems to have been to exchange communities of
people from two places, one for the other. (p. 217)
Table 3.1.2 Labor Services Owed the Incas
Murúa Falcón: Coast Falcón: Highlands
Miners: gold, silver, Human sacrifice Human sacrifice

pigments administrators administrators
Smiths: gold, silver Gold miners Guardians of the sun (?)
Feathered-cloth Lapidary workers Servants of dead Incas
weavers: fine, Pigment workers Gold specialists
ordinary Guardians of Silver specialists
Weavers: fine, sacred objects or Copper (?) specialists
ordinary locations Pigment (?) specialists
Dyers Feathered-cloth Guardians of sacred
Sandal-makers weavers: fine, objects/locations
Sacrificial llama ordinary Feathered-cloth weavers:
keepers Weavers: fine, fine, ordinary
Gardeners ordinary Weavers: four classes
Field workers Dyers Sandal-makers: fine,
Coca farmers Sandal-makers: ordinary
Salt miners fine, ordinary Hunting noose specialists
Aji farmers Guards: women of Guards for women of the Sun
Maize sprout workers the sun and Oca farmers
Orchard workers services Potato farmers
Granary guards and Llama keepers Coca farmers
their supervisors Storehouse Llama keepers: two kinds
Guards: landmarks, guardians Ash/lime loaf makers
rivers, fords, Coca farmers Aji specialists
bridges, basket Ash/lime loaf Salt specialists
bridges makers Maize sprout specialists
Town accountants for Aji farmers Early maize specialists:
state resources Salt miners two kinds
Fishers Potters: fine, ordinary
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Gate-keepers: Potters Orchard keepers

palaces, houses of Carpenters River (?) specialists
retreat of Inca and Masons: three Bridge keepers
daughters of the sun kinds Masons
Record-keepers Shell messengers Messengers
Mitmaq: guards for Feather specialists Ear spool makers
forts, Farmers Porters Lead cord makers (bolas?)
Masons Colonists Colonists
Fishers General farmers, Agricultural workers for Inca
Hunters: guanaco, porters Agricultural workers for lords
vicuña, deer Other public Laborers on other public
hunters: cuyes, workers works: temples, roads, bad
viscachas, small passes, bridges, houses,
animals corrals, buildings
Hunters: birds and Porters
fowl
Carpenters: fine,
ordinary
Potters: fine, ordinary
Spies
Anti-insurgency
specialists
Sources: Murúa (1987:402–404) and Falcón (1946:137–140).
A principal rationale for moving people about was to defuse the potential for
(p. 218)
coordinated resistance to Inca rule. The aforementioned Colla, the Cañari of Ecuador, and
the Chachapoyas of northeast Peru were among those both renowned for their military
prowess and penalized for it through forcible resettlement. Many were put into service as
military personnel in locations where the Incas were meeting resistance, particularly
along the northern and southern fringes of imperial rule. Quite a few mitmacona were
pressed into duty in the forts along the Ecuadorian, Bolivian, and Argentinean frontiers.
Another major reason for resettlement was to establish enclaves of specialized artisans
(see Chapter 3.5 by Costin). For example, a community of 1,000 weavers and 300 potters
was set up at Milliraya, on the northeast side of Lake Titicaca, where the available
natural resources favored production of cloth and pots for state use (Spurling 1992). The
renowned metalsmiths of the coastal Yschma polity, who lived just south of modern Lima,
were moved en masse to Cuzco, where they were given lands on which to support
themselves, while producing metal objects to the Incas’ order (Espinoza Soriano 1983).
Other enclaves of featherworkers, potters, weavers, wood workers, and many other kinds
of artisans were set up throughout the empire at places where desirable resources could
be exploited. Colonies of miners were also installed, especially along the eastern slopes,
where gold could be procured. In a number of cases, the mitmacona were in service to
Page 14 of 23

particular rulers, rather than to the state institutions. An especially large gold mining
operation was found in the lowlands of eastern Bolivia, where 1,000 mining families were
reportedly set to work for Tupa Inca Yupanqui and 5,000 more were installed to support
them.
Many agricultural workers were also moved into places that were favorable for
intensified production. The most famous was probably the colony established in the
western part of the warm Cochabamba Valley, Bolivia (Wachtel 1982). There, the Incas
moved in 14,000 workers, some on a temporary and some on a permanent basis, to grow
maize for Huayna Capac’s armies. The colonists moved there came from across the
southern half of the empire. Similarly, a large farm was established in the warm Abancay
Valley west of Cuzco, where crops such as cotton and chiles were grown, again at Huayna
Capac’s behest; those colonists came from the northern part of the domain (Figure 3.1.4).
Transplanted Chachapoyas were also used to tend the royal coca estates established to
the north of the capital (Wilkinson 2013).
Other Specialized Labor Statuses
In addition to the colonists just described, the Incas set up several institutions with
tightly defined roles (see Chapter 3.4 by Turner and Hewitt). Among them were the
acllacona, who were girls separated from their families and sent to live in sequestered
quarters at state installations. Selected for their beauty, the girls were taught to weave
fine cloth, brew beer, serve dignitaries, and generally become cultivated young ladies,
before most were assigned in marriage to high-status males. The yanacona were
individuals separated from their home communities and assigned permanently to state or
(p. 219) aristocratic service. Their status, which was not inherited, may have been used
as a punishment for resistance to Inca rule, since social separation threatened one’s
reconnection to the homeland in the afterlife. Among the most celebrated people who
held this status were tens of thousands of Chachapoyas, whose martial abilities had
allowed them to fend off Inca rule for decades; they were ultimately turned wholesale into
soldiers (see Chapter 4.6 by Schjellerup). Yanacona could attain other positions of high
responsibility as well, for instance as government functionaries.
Page 15 of 23

Certain groups (p. 220)
were assigned to tasks

because of a perceived
special skill. For military
roles, besides the
Chachapoyas, the Charkas
and Chuis claimed
exemptions from all other
duties because of their
service. Some groups were
assigned as the ruler’s
personal guard: for Tupa
Inca Yupanqui, it was the
Karakaras, Chuis, and
Chichas; Huayna Capac
preferred the Cañaris and
Figure 3.1.4 Ethnic staffing of major Inca state
farms at Abancay and Cochabamba. Cayambes from Ecuador,
along with the
Chachapoyas; and Huascar employed Cañaris, Chachapoyas, and Wankas (Espinoza
Soriano 1980). In contrast, the Chumbivilcas were renowned for their dancing skills and
the Rucanas for their even gait as litter bearers.
Royal Estates
A considerable fraction of the human and natural resources claimed or developed by the
Incas was dedicated to the landed estates of the ruler and the aristocracy. As described
by Quave (Chapter 2.1), the Sacred Valley region (Vilcanota-Urubamba drainage) just
north of Cuzco was home to the most elaborate of those manors. The living and dead
rulers, their descendant kin, and provincial lords all developed estates, sustained by
thousands of dedicated personnel. The network of estates was elaborated throughout the
empire, however, as each ruler at least theoretically had his own holding in every
province. Some of those holdings could be quite extensive, such as the five altiplano
communities claimed by Tupa Inca Yupanqui after a campaign to suppress a rebellion.
Similarly, Huascar was said to have claimed some 4,000 Chupachos, from the Huánuco
region of northern Peru, as his personal servants near the end of his brief reign.
The Infrastructure
The Road Network
Page 16 of 23

The Inca system of highways and subsidiary routes was one of the great engineering and
construction endeavors of the pre-industrial world (Hyslop 1984; Matos and Barreiro
2015; Chacaltana et al. 2017). While it is hard to pin down when the greatest construction
occurred, it seems most likely that it happened under the rule of Tupa Inca Yupanqui or
Huayna Capac, who were said to have been most concerned with putting Inca rule into
practice. The latter ruler was especially concerned with affairs in the northern reaches.
With tools made largely of stone, bronze, wood, and textile (e.g., ropes), the Inca
designed or improved a network of 40,000–60,000 kilometers of roads. While much of the
system took advantage of existing routes of transit, and even some roads that the Wari or
other predecessors had established, the Inca system was unparalleled in the Americas.
Four main routes extended outward from Cuzco to each of the four parts of the empire.
The system was conceived at a macro-scale, to join Cuzco to the far reaches of (p. 221)
the domain along the paths often judged to be most convenient for long-distance transit.
It was only incidentally designed to facilitate movements within or between subordinate
areas. Thus the main highway from Cuzco to the north through the highlands often
bypassed existing concentrations of population in the interest of seeking a favorable
route. Support facilities (e.g., way-stations with supplies) were erected about every 20
kilometers along the road, to sustain personnel traveling on state business. In principle,
individuals could use the state roads or bridges only with permission. Since the Incas
appropriated many of the most favorable existing routes for themselves, the subject
populace may well have found themselves disadvantaged by the creation of the new
network.
There were two main longitudinal roads: one through the mountains, and one to the west
of the mountains through the piedmont and coastal valleys. Lateral routes, across
mountain passes through both Andean ranges, and through east-west trending valleys,
allowed effective transit between the highlands and the lowlands on either side. The most
intensively engineered sector of road ran between Paria, on the Bolivian altiplano, past
Cuzco, through the central highlands of Peru, and northward to Quito, Ecuador. This
stretch of road boasted a wide array of engineering improvements, such as causeways,
bridges, drainage canals, and sustaining walls. The grandest roads were paved with
stones, and were as much as 20 meters wide, such as the renowned stretch approaching
Huánuco Pampa from the south. Even so, much of the network, especially in southern
Collasuyu, consisted of marked or improved surfaces, without the major investment of
labor that paving requires. In some places, there were two or three parallel roads,
perhaps for people of different statuses. Overall, the road system seems to have been
designed not simply as a ready means of transit and communication, but also as a cultural
stamp of power on the landscape. No Inca ever needed to be physically present to remind
the populace of Cuzco’s might.
Administrative Facilities
Page 17 of 23

As their rule took shape, the Incas erected a network of state installations (tambo)
throughout the land, joined by the roads. Several of the centers are described in Part 2 of
this volume. Overall, the network of tambo minimally boasted at least 2,000 facilities
(Hyslop 1984), but work conducted by the recent Qhapaq Ñan project suggests that the
total might be as high as 3,000 (Gaceta Cultural del Perú 2009). In a somewhat idealized
formula, the chronicler Guaman Poma (1980) illustrated five ranks of facilities: cities with
royal installations, large towns with royal lodgings, smaller towns with royal lodgings,
royal lodgings, and small lodgings. In retrospect, the installations can be seen as a unified
system, but different kinds of activities and facilities were likely emphasized at one point
or another. For example, although the idea of an integrated system may have its roots
early in the imperial era, major upgrades of the road and support system probably
occurred to support Tupa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac’s ventures in the north.
Similarly, many of the forts that line the southeastern, far southern, and (p. 222) northern
frontiers were probably built in the empire’s last couple of decades, a time for which
active hostilities were reported (Figure 3.1.5). Similarly, some of the great storage
facilities were probably erected in tandem with Huayna Capac’s creation of vast farms
designed to intensify imperial agricultural production. It therefore might be best to
envision the facilities as a set of overlapping networks, which only partially coincided in
space (Hyslop 1984).
(p. 223)
The major provincial

centers were designed to
serve a range of mutually
reinforcing goals. A
principal purpose was to
administer state directives
for the region. Second, the
centers provided lodging
and supplies for several
kinds of travelers and
statuses: for example, a
royal residential sector,
permanent housing for
resident staff, sectors for
Figure 3.1.5 Distribution of the principal known Inca
religious personnel such as
fortresses.
the acllacona and
mamacona, and temporary
quarters for travelers on state business and workers paying off their tax obligations.
Third, the centers enclosed large public spaces for the performance of state rituals,
ranging from religious ceremonies to grand feasts. Those plazas typically featured an
usnu platform in the center or to one side, which was the focal point for ceremonies that,
Page 18 of 23

in the largest facilities, could include 10,000 or more people at a time. A fourth purpose
was to provide architecture in which the business of the state could be conducted, such
as the great halls commonly known as callanca. Large military forces passing through or
stationed nearby typically bivouacked in tents, not in permanent structures.
Only a few of the tambo were top-rank provincial centers, and most of them lay on the
main highway joining the altiplano to Ecuador. Counted among the more northerly
centers were Vilcashuamán, Hatun Xauxa, Pumpú, Huánuco Pampa, Cajamarca,
Tomebamba, and Quito. To the south of Cuzco lay Hatunqolla and Chucuito, Chuquiabo
(La Paz), Paria, and Charcas. The coastal facilities were generally smaller in scale than
those of the highlands. Incawasi and Tambo Colorado stand out as planned installations
on Peru’s south-central coast. No important new tambo were built on Peru’s populous
north coast, but the Incas took over the important Chimu provincial installation at Farfán
for their own interests (Mackey 2010). In the far south, the Incas appear to have erected
constellations of facilities at advantageous positions, such as those around Shinkal and in
the northern Calchaquí Valley (D’Altroy, Williams, and Lorandi 2007).
Below those large sites were smaller provincial centers, such as Tarmatampu,
Tunsucancha, and Acostambo in Peru’s central highlands, and the main installations at
provinces of lesser importance, such as Conchucos and Guaylas. At least a third and
fourth level of smaller Inca settlements and way-stations also lined the road system.
Among the most important of the subsidiary facilities were the postal stations, said to
have been positioned about 4 kilometers apart. Youths were stationed as messenger-
runners (chasqui) to carry messages and small objects, such as quipu registers, in a relay
system that could cover the distance from Quito to Cuzco in a matter of days. Despite its
renown, archaeological evidence for the message posts has been well documented only
along the main axis from Cuzco north and a few important lateral routes to the coast
(Hyslop 1984).
Two features of the centers illustrate that the provincial installations were a product of
the empire’s making, and had essentially no local reason for existing (Morris 1972). The
first is that even the grandest centers lack a cemetery remotely commensurate with their
scale; people fully expected to go home after discharging their duties at the facilities.
Second, the entire network was abandoned within just a few years of the empire’s fall.
Only the Spanish insistence on maintaining the road and support network for their own
purposes kept some facilities operating.
(p. 224) Storage Facilities
The last key component of the infrastructure was the system of storage facilities that
bridged the gap between production and use throughout the empire. As noted earlier, the
physical constraints on Andean logistics meant that the Incas needed to stockpile vast
quantities of supplies regionally to meet their needs, both predictable and unforeseen.
Most of the storehouses (collca), were built in three contexts: at Cuzco, at provincial
Page 19 of 23

facilities on the roads, and adjacent to state farms. The storehouses at Cuzco were used
to provision the residents of Cuzco, perhaps as often as every four days, and to sustain
institutional activities in the capital. In the provinces, the idea was to make sure that
stores were available whenever needed for military, administrative, and religious
personnel, as well as for workers discharging their duties to the state. The collca also
held the supplies used to underwrite state ceremonies, hospitality, and generosity.
Different institutions, such as the temples and the state, apparently had control of their
own facilities. Some chroniclers wrote that the state supplies could be relied upon in time
of dire need by local peoples, but there is no indication that they served as a public dole,
as in ancient Rome.
As they did with other elements of their statecraft, the Incas drew from past Andean
practice, especially in the Wari polity, to devise their storage system. Pachacuti Inca
Yupanqui is often credited with creating depots in the heartland, to help in the
construction of Cuzco (Diez de Betanzos 1996:51). As part of their provincial rule, the
Incas took the idea to an unprecedented scale (LeVine 1992). The largest facilities, with
collca counting in the thousands, were built next to areas of intensified agricultural
production: for example, in the Mantaro Valley, Peru (2,753), the Cochabamba Valley,
Bolivia (2,400), and the Lerma Valley, Argentina (1,700). Individual provincial centers,
which were points of anticipated consumption, could contain hundreds of structures: for
example, Huánuco Pampa (496), Hatun Xauxa (1,092 <1 kilometer of center), and Pumpú
(325). The total volume of the Mantaro facilities, perhaps the largest in the provinces,
came to about 124,000 cubic meters. Collca were usually arrayed in rows of circular or
rectangular design, perhaps to expedite accounting. They were often situated on exposed
hill slopes, which promoted drainage and air circulation, as well as vigilance.
The Spaniards commented that the supplies were so vast and varied that they thought
that they could never be exhausted. In 1534, Pedro Sancho de la Hoz (1917:194–195)
wrote that the collca contained “. . . blankets, wool, weapons, metals and clothing—
and . . . everything that is grown and made in this kingdom . . . and there is a house in
which more than 100,000 dried birds are kept, for from their feathers articles of clothing
are made . . .. There are shields, beams for supporting tents, knives, and other tools;
sandals and armor . . ..” The early written sources emphasize food, especially maize, as
the principal stored good, but archaeological studies in the provinces typically recover
the kinds of foods that are locally productive.
Bibliography
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Inca Political Organization, Economic Institutions, and Infrastructure

Oxford Handbooks Online

Abstract and Keywords

Keywords: Inca, Cuzco, political organization, economy, infrastructure, resettlement

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

The Core Political Formation

Name as Ruler Gloss Given Name

1 Manco Capac Powerful [Ancestor] -

2 Sinchi Roca Warlord Roca -

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3 Lloque Yupanqui Honored Left-handed -

4 Mayta Capac Royal Mayta -

5 Capac Yupanqui Powerful Honored -

6 Inca Roca Inca Roca -

7 Yahuar Huaccac He Who Cries Bloody Inca Yupanqui, Mayta

8 Viracocha Inca Creator God Inca Hatun Tupa Inca

9 Pachacuti Inca Cataclysm Honored Inca Inca Yupanqui, Cusi

10 Tupa Inca Yupanqui Royal Honored Inca -

11 Huayna Capac Powerful Youth Titu Cusi Hualpa

12 Huascar Inca Golden Chain Ruler Tupa Cusi Hualpa

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The most widely accepted

From Cuzco into the Provinces

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Click to view larger

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Figure 3.1.2 Map of the Inca Empire as it existed in

After Hyslop (1984: frontispiece).

Click to view larger

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Complementary Means of Asserting Inca Rule

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The environmental and socioeconomic conditions of the Andes presented many

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Labor Service as Tax

Intensified Production: Resettlement

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Table 3.1.2 Labor Services Owed the Incas

Murúa Falcón: Coast Falcón: Highlands

Miners: gold, silver, Human sacrifice Human sacrifice

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Gate-keepers: Potters Orchard keepers

Sources: Murúa (1987:402–404) and Falcón (1946:137–140).

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

Other Specialized Labor Statuses

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

Certain groups (p. 220)

were assigned to tasks

The Road Network

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

The major provincial

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

(p. 224) Storage Facilities

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

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Espinoza Soriano, Waldemar. 1980. “Acerca de la historia militar inca.” Allpanchis

Falcón, Francisco. 1946 [1567]. “Representación hecha por el Licenciado Falcón en

Subscriber: York University; date: 06 June 2018

Morris, Craig. 1972. “State Settlements in Tawantinsuyu: A Strategy of Compulsory

CT: JAI Press.

12 D'Altroy - Inca Political Organization

12 D'Altroy - Inca Political Organization