The birth of a child was a very welcome event in the Inca empire. There were rituals for both parents to perform to ensure the safe delivery of an infant. But pregnant mothers were expected to keep working right up to the day they gave birth, and they often gave birth without help. After giving birth, the mother either carried the baby around with her while she worked, tied in a pack across her chest, or she placed the baby in a cradle. The parents did not immediately name the baby; the naming occurred later, during a ceremony called rutichikoy, which accompanied the baby's weaning from breast-feeding. At the rutichikoy ceremony, the child received a haircut, a fingernail trim, and a name. A ceremony called huarachicoy marked a boy's puberty and passage into adulthood. In this ceremony the boy received a loincloth woven by his mother. For girls, small, family ceremonies called quichicoy marked the beginning of menstruation. At these puberty ceremonies, the boys and girls received new, adult names.

The Incas lived in large family units known as ayllu, which consisted of about 10-20 members. Each unit had a leader and he was called Mallcu. In a village every single person had to help in farming the land. Each ayllu lived on a plot of land because they spent their entire life outside. The homes of the common people had no windows and only one door. They would hang leather or cloth over the entrance to provide privacy. Many of the homes were small, made of mud, stone, and sun-baked brick. The homes of the royals and nobles were large, contained many rooms, windows, doorways, and sometimes even had wooden doors.

Marriage was important in the Inca society, because a man was not considered an adult until he was married. Just like many other societies monogamy was the norm for the lower classes, but concubine was allowed for the upper class. Women were only allowed to marry when they could reproduce. When a young woman was between the age of sixteen and twenty and a young man between twenty and twenty-five, they would be called together by an Inca official who would match them up. Marriage was considered a duty owed to the empire and remaining single was not an option. There were times when someone would have a disability and they then were paired with someone who also had a disability. Each couple knew each other because it was customary to be paired with someone from one’s own ayllu. The young man and his parents would walk to the bride’s home where her family would give their approval and then everyone would then travel to the groom’s home. The bride would hand her soon to be husband a wool tunic and a lluato, which is a headband. Then the marriage ceremony was celebrated by feasting, dancing, and drinking chicha. The government also provides all newlyweds with a plot of land and they were expected to reproduce. Rarely, would a commoner take more than one wife if he did only the first one would be considered the principle wife. If a man’s wife died, he would wear a black cloak and would not remarry for a year.

During those days a young man could not choose her girl himself. If he liked a young girl, he showed his interest to the girl. But he could not meet the girl openly. So he would meet her when she was getting her water from spring, or at some other place. If she also showed her interest, then usually that young man asked his parents to speak to the parents of the lady. Once a year the village governors lined up the young men and girls set by the parents for him. Sometime it could happen, same lady could be chosen by more than one person. In that case the governor would take the final decision. He would listen to the parents of the boys and the parents of the lady. After that he would decide which boy will marry the lady

After this program each pair of the family started to arrange their wedding ceremonies. It could begin with the parents of the young man visiting the young ladies house. After reaching the house of the bride, first groom knelt down before the bride and out a shoe on her right foot. This act would make everybody understand that the young man was ready to serve the lady for the rest of his life. Then both the families went to the groom's house. Someone old and knowledgeable of the village was invited to the groom’s house. He would speak on the marital behavior. But before he started, the bride would give some presents to the groom, which would include a metal pin for the cape, a headband and a woolen shirt. Once the groom put on the clothes, they sat together to listen to the old person. Sometime this man could be the relative of this family, or he could be just from the village. During the speech all the women present prepared the feast. So when the talk finished bride, groom and the guests joined the feast.

For purposes of administration the empire was divided into four parts, the lines of which met at Cuzco; the quarters were divided into provinces, usually on the basis of former independent divisions. These in turn were customarily split into an upper and a lower moiety; the moieties were subdivided into ayllus, or local communities. Much as it exists today as the basic unit of communal indigenous society, so the ancient ayllu was the political and social foundation of Inca government. When a territory was conquered, surveys, consisting of relief models of topographical and population features, and a census of the population were made. With these reports, recorded on quipus, of the material and human resources in each province, populations were reshuffled as needed. Thus transplanted, and dominated by Quechua colonists, the subject peoples had less chance to revolt, and the separate languages and cultures were molded to the Inca pattern.

1.   The Inca Empire existed in Peru. It ran along the Pacific coast and Andean highlands from the northern border of what is today called Ecuador to the Maule River in Chile. There were over a million people who were Inca. 2.   The man who established the Inca Empire was Manco Capac in 1438. Manco Capac declared himself Sapa Inca, divine son of the Sun. He was a skilled warrior and leader who exercised absolute power. Most historians agree there were thirteen emperors during the time when the Inca Empire existed. They were sometimes called, "The Inca". 3.   The Inca originated in the village of Paqari-tampu, about 15 miles south of Cuzco. 4.   The official language of the Inca was Quecha. The Inca had no written language. They kept their history and stories alive through stories that were passed from father to son.

5.   The Ancient Inca built aquaducts, cities, temples, fortresses, tunnels, suspension bridges, and 2, 250 miles of roads. The Inca had a great understanding of mathematics and agriculture. They also knew about hydraulics, astronomy, architecture and military strategy. 6.   The Inca had skills in music, textiles, wood and stone carving, art and poetry. The Inca were also highly skilled in working with all types of metals.  Their pottery was simple, practical and beautiful. The Ancient Inca grew corn, potatoes, coffee, and other grains.  They also created woven baskets and woodwind instruments. 7.   The Inca pyramids were built with mud bricks of clay that were mixed with dry straw from the corn plant.  When the Incas found a pyramid that had been built by another culture, they would build their own Inca temple on top of it. Inca gold was not inherited by a person's decendents, so when somebody died, the gold was placed inside the grave. 

8.   The Incas worshipped many gods and goddesses. The major Incan god was the god of nature, Viracocha, the creator. Another god was Inti, the sun god. Gold was the symbol of Inti. The sun god temple is the most important structure in Cuzco, the major city of the Incas. The Incas believed Inti was the father of Incan rulers. They worshipped the ruler as a living god. Major Incan goddesses included those of the earth and the sea. The Incas also worshipped many lesser gods and goddresses. These included the gods of the moon, thunder, rain, stars and rainbows. 9.   The Ancient Inca's developed important medical practices. They preformed surgery on human skulls and used anesthesia during surgery. Inca medicine included treating physical and emotional problems. 10.   In 1532 the Spanish arrived in Peru and by 1535 the Inca Empire was gone.

Page: 1Search Result: At its height in the early sixteenth century, the Inca Empire encompassed a population of at least six million people and a territory that stretched from modern-day Colombia to Chile (Map 1.1). The Inca ruled their empire, which they called Tahuantinsuyu (the four parts together), from the highland city of Cusco. Located at the northern end of a [Page 2]

Page: 252Search Result: In the Inca Empire, the number of a man's wives was an index of his wealth and prestige, and, because the women shared the agricultural work, extra wives also made life easier for the whole family. The ordinary taxpayer, however, was monogamous from necessity. The first wife became the principal one, with precedence over all subsequent ones; if she died, none of the secondary wives could take her place, although the husband was free to marry another principal wife. The Inca explained this as a means of preventing intrigue among the secondary wives. A widow could not remarry unless she were inherited by her husband's brother (the levirate). A son inherited his father's secondary wives who had not borne children. A man might also receive wives by gift from the Emperor or by capturing them in war. A man's foster-mother became his secondary wife when he married and remained so until he had paid off his obligation to her for rearing him (Cobo, 1890–95, bk. 14, ch. 7).

The name of the family unit for the Incas is "ayllu." The Incas lived in extended families, which is a group of clans living together. The leader of each clan was called the "Mallcu." The Mallcu was advised by a group of council elders. However, the Mallcu had to bow to the will of the INCA. (When you see INCA spelled in all capital letters, that is telling you that I am talking about the supreme leader of the Incas.) We will talk about the INCA later. Marriage was a necessity in Incan society because a man could not be considered an adult until he was married. Most men were not married until they were around 20. Just like any other society, monogamy was the norm for the lower classes, but concubines were permitted for the upper classes. Women were able to be married when they could reproduce.

Page: 6Search Result: The Inkan extended family as a unit was associated with others into the larger, generally patrilineal, AYLLU, a local kin grouping, frequently identified with the lineage. Service states, however, that "the AYLLU was not a clan of the sort possessed by so many American Indian tribes; it was not unilateral or exogamous or totemic. It was probably much like the genealogical, corporate kin group of the Polynesians, although specific and conclusive information is lacking" (Service 1958, 326).

Although displaying distinctly hierarchical and despotic features, Incan rule also exhibited an unusual measure of flexibility and paternalism. The basic local unit of society was the ayllu, which formed an endogamous nucleus of kinship groups who possessed collectively a specific, although often disconnected, territory. In the ayllu, grazing land was held in common (private property did not exist), whereas arable land was parceled out to families in proportion to their size. Since self-sufficiency was the ideal of Andean society, family units claimed parcels of land in different ecological niches in the rugged Andean terrain. In this way, they achieved 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 applied to Andean social relations, as each family head had the right to ask relations, allies, or neighbors for help in cultivating his plot. In return, he was obligated to offer them food and chicha (a fermented corn alcoholic beverage), and to help them on their own plots when asked. Mutual aid formed the ideological and material bedrock of all Andean social and productive relations. This system of reciprocal exchange existed 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 formed parts of larger dual organizations with upper and lower divisions called moieties, and then still larger units, until they comprised the entire ethnic group. As it expanded, the Inca state became, 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 established a system of indirect rule that enabled the incorporated ethnic groups to maintain their distinctiveness and self-awareness within a larger imperial system.

Inca kinship groups were the basis for the social hierarchy that eventually formed the political structure of the Empire. At the top of the hierarchy was the Sapa Inca, which meant “Unique Inca”

The kin group or ayullu, which an Andean person belonged to, determined the social position of the person in the Empire. The ayllus were separated into tow interdependent halves known as moieties. A moiety was the kinship term that told what ranking you belonged to. There were two main in Cuzco:Hurin (Lower Cuzco) and Hanan (Upper Cuzco) (Bauer and Covey 2002: 850-852). Stephen Wernke (2006:180) defined ayullu it as being "a central to the political, social and economic articulation of territorially discontinous communities in the Andes." Common ancestral deities were at the top of the hierarchy of the ayllus. A member traced his relation to an ayullu an ancestor by myth. The ayullu member performed labor and worship towards their ancestors in the form of feasting and other rituals in order to receive land and resources (Wernke 2006:180).

One of the major kinship traditions practiced was intermarriage. Oral history gives account of elite Inca officials marrying women from different ayullus in order to create alliances (Bauer and Covey 2002: 854). This also helped the pan-ethnic strategy the Inca emperors used. Ethnic groups provided secondary wives for the Inca nobles (Bauer and Covey 2002: 854). Unfortunately, it is practically impossible to find archaeological evidence to support this ethno-history.

Page: 181Search Result: Among the many wives a man could have, only one was the chief one and was called a legitimate wife, the one to whom he married by mutual consent and with some solemnity; and she was obeyed by the others and as a proper and legitimate wife had great preëminence and a name different from the rest of them, who were regarded as concubines.