4. The Social Basis of the Empire

One is that axiom according to which the lower classes, the masses, are the elite of the nation, that they constitute the People itself, and that the common man, with all his inexperience and imperfections, has the same right to pronounce judgment, to direct, and to govern as the few men of truly noble mind. -Ibsen, An Enemy of the People, Act IV Even before the Incas consolidated their power, the pressure of population had obliged the Indians to improve their methods of agriculture by joint labor, irrigation, and the building of ter races. This was a task that had demanded constant and concerted toil and had favored the development of a centralization of which we find examples in Chimu and Tiahuanaco. A chief was needed •for the tribes that lacked land and had to unite their efforts to draw sustenance from an unproductive soil, and their lives came to be governed by passive obedience.

When the sinchi~ at first a temporary leader, achieved perma nent status, he found men ready to submit to his rule. Breaking through geographical boundaries, he subdued the neighboring peoples by fair means or foul. Uprooting some of his subjects from the soil, he made them government officials and thus formed the nucleus of the class that was to be his mainstay.l It may thus be 33 34 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru assumed that the principle of hierarchy was, to a certain extent, a corollary of the principle of population. The hierarchical arrangement of Inca society was carried to astonishing lengths, and this in itself is enough to· distinguish it from all the modern socialist systems built upon egalitarian prin ciples. Equality, in Peru, existed only between individuals of the same social rank; it was the military system of equality among soldiers. 1. Religion and Law The supreme chief, the Inca, assumed a divine title that in creased his prestige and facilitated his conquests, "which all the nations of the world have done, however barbarous they may have been." 2 He was the Child of the Sun. Even before the Incas there had been kings on the Peruvian coast who had had their subjects worship them. s That is why all historians have insisted on the theocratic character of the Peruvian state. This is certainly true if we take the view of the common man, the hatunruna} but it should not be forgotten that in Peru there were different conceptions of the Inca that corresponded to the differences in social status.

Let us consider first thishatunruna} the humble denizen of a village on the plateau. For him the Inca was an infallible being worthy of divine honors; his mandates were absolute; the conflicts in which he engaged were holy wars. "The Incas," says Velasco, "built their throne on ideological forces, and not on the blood of their vassals." 4 Here, then, alongside the economic basis of the empire, is its religious foundation. It is certainly true that the social organiza tion of the Inca empire was the "parallel" of the currently accepted religious ideology and manifests an essential unity, natural events being considered as expressions of divine power;·5 but it is an exaggeration to compare the Quechuas to the disciples of Moham med,6 or, as Prescott does, to the Crusaders who went forth to fight the infidel,7 or to write that "the Incas were a sort of cross between missionaries and conquerors: they preached with sword in hand and fought with the catechism under their arm." 8 The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 35 So far was the feeling for hierarchy carried that we discover it even in matters of religion. Popular cults existed side by side with the beliefs of the elite; and if writers have often hesitated to char acterize the Quechua religion, it is perhaps because they have not always made this distinction. 9 Yet it is natural to adapt knowledge to the understanding of those who receive it.

First, let us consider popular worship. The mass of the people practiced a variety of cults, the most widespread being the worship of the Sun. It is certainly under standable that after a long, freezing night in the puna) the Indian should prostrate himself before this celestial body, which suffuses him with such an abundance of light, warmth, hope, and good cheer. The sun was the beginning and the end of the world; the moon 'was at once its sister and its consort; the stars, its servitors; the Inca, its offspring; the thunderbolt, its malediction. However, these external manifestations give only a very incom plete idea of the popular religion. The latter, in fact, permeated and continues to permeate the whole mentality of the Indian. It pervades his entire life. Our categories of thought do not exist for him. His thinking is essentially monistic: the heavens and the earth are for him the two faces of the same homogeneous universe.

The limitations apparently imposed by Nature, space, and time can be overcome if one has the will and the power. Stones and plants are living things like animals and men. There is nothing surpris ing about the phenomena of ubiquity and prescience. The entire world forms one delicate and vaporous whole, peopled with beings whose forms and positions are never definitive. The in dividual himself is not a cohesive entity; whatever belongs to his person (hair, fingernails, etc.), if possessed by another, makes that other his vassal. Even his head can be temporarily detached from his body and lead an autonomous existence for a certain time. 10 The person is thus imprecise, provisional, fugitive, and fragile. Thrust into such an unstable universe, the Indian is understand ably hesitant about venturing on any action that might risk un loosing a thousand unforeseen reactions. The wisest thing is to repeat those acts whose effects he already knows. Conformity and 36 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru routine are measures of prudence. The abnormal, the rare, the unique are disquieting and become objects of veneration: a high mountain peak, a grotesquely shaped rock, a strange flower. Each of these was called a huaca. There were three hundred and forty huacas to be counted in the city of Cuzco alone. ll The only constant acknowledged by the Indian was the principle of all things, the prototype; the little llama made of terra cotta, for example, was the material representation of the essence of the llama, to which one made offerings of grains of maize.

The popular religion assumed different forms in different re~ gions. The Inca had tried to unify it to some extent by superimpos~ ing on it the cult of the Sun, of which 'we have just spoken, in places where it had not sprung up spontaneously. In addition, he had ordained the belief in his own divinity, thereby adroitly put ting religion at the service of politics. Next, let us consider the beliefs of the elite. Although we possess many sources of information about the popular -cults-representations in art, chronicles, folklore-the beliefs of the upper class remain mysterious, for they were kept secret. We thus know very little of the religious ideas of these initiates of ancient Peru. According to the chroniclers, the mem bers of the elite believed in a single Supreme Being, Pachacamac, abstract, ineffable, unknowable, and inconceivable. They had gone .so far in this direction that only two temples were dedicated to this divinity, whereas temples to the Sun were set up in all the towns and cities. For this god was a superior spiritual being that did not have to be localized; and no offering was made to him, since no one could offer him anything that he did not already pos sess. "The Indians worshipped this god in their hearts; that is to say, in spirit," says Garcilaso,12 and he is right in insisting at length upon translating the word "God" 'by the name of Pachacamac. "If I were asked, I, who, by the infinite mercy of God, am a Catholic Christian, what God is called in my language, I should reply, Pachacamac, because in the current speech of Peru there is no other name than that to denote God." 13 The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 37 On this religious foundation was based the power of the law.14 '-The law was the will of the Inca. It thus had no element of stabil ity within itself, but the remarkable spirit of continuity of which the sovereigns gave proof made up for the absence of a written con stitution. So perfectly did each successive ruler follow the policy of his predecessor that one and the same man living for two cen· turies would not have acted otherwise. The decisions of the sovereign were, so to speak, codified by the keepers of the quipus, who preserved the record by means of their mnemonic knotted cords, and the amautas or scholars were made responsible for their interpretation. 15 Wiener professes to be able to "reconstruct" the Quechua code according to BIas Valera and Garcilaso; and Brehm, faithfully copied by Hanstein, enumerates twenty-four laws laid down by the Inca,16 but such lists are purely hypothetical.

Local customs continued to exist side by side with the laws de creed by the Inca. "There was nothing so fixed," remarks Onde gardo, "that the will of the Inca could not change it, but he never altered custom to give to the one what belonged to the other." 17 We touch here upon an important principle of Peruvian policy -respect for established institutions. The sovereigns always en deavored to introduce the least possible modification in the mode of existence of the tribes they subdued, although at the same time they imposed upon them certain common regulations designed for the unification of the empire. In this way they demonstrated that they were great chiefs of state. Their task was facilitated, moreover, by the cultural homogeneity of all the Andean peoples, itself the result of their identical origin, i.e., by that ethnic substratum to which we have already referred. The regulations established by the Peruvian conquerors were grafted upon ancestral customs that constituted a kind of common law, and the adjustment of the one to the other was carried out with a great deal of prudence and moderation by letting time do its work.

The religious tolerance of the Incas was a consequence of this principle. The gods of the conquerors did not replace the local gods, but were superimposed upon them. The idols of the con quered provinces were sent to the Temple of the Sun at euzco, a 38 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru sort of "Roman pantheon," 18 where, at the same time, they served as hostages, and their worshippers were free to continue to venerate them on condition that they venerated the Sun as well. The law, being divine, had to be obeyed. Herbert Spencer, rely ing on the authority of Prescott and Garcilaso,19 rightly pointed out that every violation of law was treated as a sacrilege, and the penal code built upon this idea was one of implacable severity. As for the general promulgation of the laws, this was assured by officials who proclaimed the sovereign's decisions in the markets where it was the Indians' custom to go.

2. The Ruler And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. -Emerson, Self-Reliance At the summit of the hierarchy was the chief, the Inca. Many accounts have helped to popularize the figure of this man god, who sums up in himself the entire Inca empire. 20 The sov ereign's clothing was of the finest wool of the vicuna: a loose sleeve less tunic that came down to his knees and a large mantle. His feet were clad in white woolen sandals; a pouch full of coca hung by his side; a many-colored braid was wound five or six times around his head; the insignia of his power-the Iautu) or boria as the Span iards called it-stood out on his forehead, held by a narrow scarlet ribbon at both temples;21 enormous jewels were suspended from his ears; and above his hair, which was cut very short, rose two feathers from the curinquingue bird. 22 He never wore the same garment twice. He never drank twice from the same vessel. His wife and his sisters 'were the only ones considered worthy of wait ing upon him. His dishes were of gold, his massive golden throne rested upon a great square board of gold, and the litter in which he was carried was covered with sheets of precious metal.

To form some idea of the court of Cuzco, one must read the accounts in the ancient chronicles of the arrival of Atahualpa and The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 39 his suite at Cajamarca, where Pizarro was awaiting them: warriors in costumes of blue and gold; nobles clad in gorgeous array and decked in gold and silver ornaments; and finally the Inca upon his golden throne, with a collar of emeralds around his neck and the feathers of the sacred bird on his head: a veritable scene from fairyland.23 No one dared to look the Inca in the face. -No one could ap proach him without removing his sandals or without carrying a light burden on his head in token of submission. What spectacle could be more touching than that of the Indian general seeing his sovereign again for the first time as a prisoner of the white men? Barefooted, his shoulders bowed by his burden, he fell upon his knees and was unable to hold back his tears, while the Inca re mained dignified and impassive, as befitted a monarch. 24 The Spaniards on many occasions paid tribute to the character of those Incas whom they had the opportunity of knowing. Ata hualpa, though of illegitimate birth and scarcely worthy of being taken as the type of the sovereign, nevertheless won the admira tion of his executioners by his valor, his discretion, and his maj esty.25 Later the Inca Manco showed himself to be courageous and intelligent in his struggle against the invaders.

Magnificent and awe-inspiring-thus it 'was that the Inca ap peared to the people. His vast power rested less upon the material strength of his armies than upon the moral force of knowledge and religion. He was not only the ruler; he was also a scholar, for he had followed the course of instruction given by the amautas who taught at Cuzco, he liked to converse 'with them, and some times he himself did the teaching. 26 He was the spiritual father of his subjects, by whom he was bound to be both feared and loved. His authority, says Prescott, extended to the most secret action, to the very thoughts, of his vassals.27 No doubt the Inca regarded his people with "feelings of com miseration like those a kind master might feel for the poor animals committed to his charge," Prescott adds.28 But bad masters have been known to mistreat the animals entrusted to their care, and the Inca was not one of those. He deserves great credit, for the chiefs of most of the neighboring tribes 'were bloody tyrants who 40 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru set him a bad example. There was sodomy on the coast, and can nibalism was prevalent in the eastern forests and even on the plateau. 29 Garcilaso reports that the Caranquis revolted against the Inca because they could no longer eat human flesh and that they slaughtered the Peruvians and devoured them. so According to other chroniclers, the tyrant of the island of Puna reduced his enemies to slavery, had his women guarded by eunuchs, and gave himself over to acts of cannibalism. 3! The Chibcha chiefs in Co lombia kept slaves and used to hang their subjects en masse.32 In Peru, on the contrary, murder, theft, and adultery were so severely punished that they were, so to speak, nonexistent in the empire.

When Cabet described a society where crime was unknown, he did not suspect that his dream had been a reality.33 The Inca cannot be said to have given his people an .ethical code. What he gave them was a penal law. He was concerned not with the individual conscience, but with a general system of legal regulations. And, of course, he himself 'was not obliged to conform to the laws he decreed, since he was, by virtue of his position, be yond good and evil.34 What higher praise could be given to the empire than that con tained in the testament of a soldier who was seized with remorse for his part in the conquest: "The Incas ruled their people in such a way that there was among them neither a thief nor a vicious man nor a sluggard nor an adulterous or dissolute ·woman.... " 35 It is evident that the Inca was by no means the tyrant that some have thought him. There are many indications of the greatness of his character and the nobility of his mind. In the midst of the most bloody wars he was always ready to listen to proposals of peace.

He respected the customs of the local inhabitants and kept their chiefs in power. He heaped gifts upon his former enemies to bind them to him. He required the Indian communities to cultivate the lands of widows, the elderly, and the infirm. Above all, he 'was just: no guilty person, great or small, could hope to escape his punishment. He wished his laws to be respected. He knew that any weakness toward the guilty is a danger for the innocent and that it is often more meritorious to punish than to pardon. It would be an error, nevertheless, to look upon the Inca as The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 41 fatherly. He was often cruel. The slaughter of those who revolted against him, the merciless punishments meted out for the slightest shortcoming, the system of mitimaes-the forcible uprooting and transplantation of multitudes of people-which we shall study later, all indicate that life under the empire was hardly idyllic. Yet in the eyes of the people the Inca was, as the novelist has said of Pharaoh, "God minus eternity."

But did the people form a sound judgment of their master? Nothing is more dubious. Was the Inca not concealing a boundless ambition beneath a clever policy? Very probably. Did he even have absolute power? Brehm, Lorente, Buschan, Martens, and others have insisted on the "unlimited power" of the Inca. H. Trimborn has prudently qualified this power as "almost abso lute." 36 There were, in fact, limits to the power of the sovereign, but these were not apparent to the mass of the people. The elite of the nation ratified the acts of the ruler. C. de Castro tells how Huayna Capac convoked the cortes (tuba cortes) when he was about to leave CUlCO on a distant expedition, explained the neces sity and the purpose of the 'war he was undertaking, and designated his successor. 37 Cieza de Leon speaks of a council that the Inca consulted before important decisions and relates, moreover, how the Inca Ureo, having fled before the Chancas, was deposed and replaced by Pachacutec. 38 All this testimony accords with that of Anello Oliva, who says that the oldest and most capable of the chiefs formed a sort of Senate that Huayna Capac used to consult in difficult situations. 39 Morua refers to a "council of orejones"

made up of the leading caciques-that is, no doubt, of the most important men in the empire-which directed public affairs dur ing the time before the Inca received the borZa. Farther on in his book he speaks of a council of four orejones-probably the four viceroys-which must not be confused with the one just men tioned. The latter remained close to the Inca, as Cobo says, and one of its members had more power than the others and was like what we should call the "president" of the counci1. 40 It is certain, therefore, that the monarch was not absolutely free to act alto gether arbitrarily. Traditional rules imposed themselves even upon 42 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru the man-god. The position taken by Fidel Lopez in regard to this question is perhaps the correct one: "The will of the sovereign was limited by a court ritual and by a sort of quasi-masonic initia tion whose rules and sacramental formulas guaranteed the rights of diverse state bodies and of private individuals." 41 This initia tion was an integral part of the very complete education which the monarch received; for this ruler, far from being brought up in luxury and idleness, was more harshly treated during his youth than any of the other children of royal blood.

This check on the imperial power was not unnecessary; for the Inca, though the Child of the Sun, was also a man, and he could be stupid or wicked, like the cowardly and vicious Inca Urco, whom we have already mentioned. 42 Divine in the sight of the multitude, the sovereign was not so in the eyes of those nearest him;43 and if he found himself outside the common moral code, appearing to the people as the very symbol of goodness, he was nevertheless not above all morallaw. 44 The power thus defined was hereditary, but this statement too requires precise qualification. The Inca had several wives, who, like all the other inhabitants of the empire, were themselves ar ranged in hierarchical order: first, the eldest sister, the KoyaJ whom the Inca, like the Pharaohs of Egypt, married in order to preserve the purity of the royal blood;45 next, the concubines of the blood royal; and finally, the concubines from outside the circle of the family.46 The legitimate heir had to be a son of the legitimate wife, i.e., the Inca's sister, but it was not always the eldest son who ascended the throne. The reigning sovereign chose the son who seemed to him the most capable. Thus, a certain place was always left for merit. 47 If there was no son by the KoyaJ one of the illegiti mate sons would be designated as heir. 48 Las Casas describes the predicament of Pachacutec on finding that he could not teach the arts of government and war to the son whom he had chosen as his heir. The sovereign replaced him by another. And Garcilaso tells how the Inca Yahuar Huacac, dis tressed by the cruelty of his eldest son, who took pleasure in tor menting the other children of his age, shut up the young ruffian in The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 43 a paddock, where he was condemned to keep watch over the herds of the Sun, and chose another heir. 49 The only example we know of violation of the rule of legitimate succession is that of Huayna Capac, who espoused the daughter of the vanquished king of Quito and placed the son of this union on the throne of that kingdom, leaving the rest of the empire to his legitimate heir. This violation did not have a happy outcome for the Peruvians, for from it sprang the civil wars that facilitated the Spanish conquest.

When the Inca died, great demonstrations would take place in all the towns, and his wives and retainers would immolate them selves voluntarily in order to follow him into the hereafter. At such a time, in order to prevent a usurper's taking advantage of the disorder, several hundred warriors would mount guard before the royal palace. 50 Then the body of the deceased monarch, mum mified as in Egypt, would be placed in the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and a new Inca would come to preside. over the destinies of the empire. 51 3. The Elite The advance of civilization is the work of superior men, not of the masses. -v. Duruy, Histoire des Romains J VI, 392 From the preceding account one can already gain some idea of the gulf that separated the elite from the mass of the Peruvian people. Without a strongly constituted upper class, no civilization could have been brought into being, no empire could have existed.

In the methodical way that was characteristic of them, the Incas therefore took the greatest pains with the physical, intellectual, and moral education of those who were to be the mainstay of their throne. We cannot here set forth the modern theory of the elite, but we give to this ·word, in contrast to the word "mass," a very precise meaning that must not be lost sight of. It is a characteristic of the mass to form a unit by reason of the strict interdependence of those who compose it. It is not an entity 44 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru distinct from its members, but gathers together the traits they have in common, that is, instinctive and passional elements, which it unifies and renders homogeneous. Its great law is that which governs mob psychology, viz., conformity. Thus, it distrusts all forms of personal superiority and practices a violent intolerance. All the movements that animate it originate from without. The mass itself remains inert, first opposing them altogether and then aggravating them. The motive force is represented by a chief or an agitator, a demagogue who acts through suggestion by means of slogans.

The elite, on the contrary, is individual. It has three distinctive characteristics. First, the member of the elite asserts himself by virtue of his superiori ty. This is the expression of his personal quali ties and not the result of external conditions of which good luck has made him the beneficiary. He must not be confused, therefore, with the rich or the well-born. Fortune and birth create a privileged class, not an elite. The prestige that "people of note" enjoy among their compatriots does not in itself imply any valid superiority. In brief, the results of action are not, as such, the criterion. The member of the elite is of worth for what he is in himself, not for the opinion others have of him or for the success he may have been able to attain. Secondly, the elite attracts to itself all men of good will. It is a group that is open to membership. All those who show that they possess the requisite qualities are part of it. The possibility of this accession does not stand in the way of either specialization (an elite of employers, of laborers, of agricultural workers, of artisans) or the formation of a hierarchy (from the ordinary member of the elite to the hero and the saint).

Thirdly, the member of the elite helps others. He does not re main inert. He acts for the common good. His action thus takes on a moral value. Not only does he form his own individual char acter in detaching himself from his group by an effort of will, but he also seeks to help others to do likewise. He is first obedient to his own vocation and then becomes aware that he has a mission to fulfil.

The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 45 The mass admits of no elite. It is hostile to it by nature. Hence, the elite can never be chosen or elected by the mass. It recruits itself, and the mass has no rights over it.52 In Peru education was a privilege reserved for the elite. "The common people," said the Inca Roca, "should not be taught what only great personagesmust know."53 Herein we see the significance of the Inca policy. No one can command if he is not instructed, but what is the use of instructing those who must merely obey? Why launch upon the world an army of the half-learned, of whom Europe has seen so many, and whose arrogance reduces the true thinkers to silence and keeps them in obscurity? The schools of Cuzco 'were built on the principal public square near the royal palaces of Roca and Pachacutec. The teachers were those famous amautas~ jealous guardians of knowledge, who in former days, according to Montesinos, held power and kept in their hands the lighted torch of civilization in Tampu Toco, the mysterious city hidden in the midst of inaccessible mountains, while foreign invasions were devastating the land. 54 The learning inculcated by the amautas was both religious and secular. None of the accumulated knowledge of their time was alien to them: mathe matics, astronomy, statistics, theology, history, politics, poetry, music, medicine, and surgery-they taught them all. They com posed tragedies and comedies in which they themselves acted, and they were charged with the responsibility of interpreting the law.55 They may also have performed the functions of engineers, direct ing the construction of canals, roads, fortresses, and cities, and manufactured certain ornaments of ritual use and certain articles of value intended for the great dignitaries.

According to Morua, the first year of instruction was devoted chiefly to the study of the language, the second to that of the re ligion and its rites, the third to the mastery of the quipus, the fourth to the study of history. 56 The whole course of instruction culminated in an examination of a military nature, called huaracu J which took place every year or every two years at Cuzco, and which made it possible for the Inca to assure himself that the future members of the elite were competent to be army leaders. The can46 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru didates were first put on a diet of pure water and raw maize, without pimento or salt, for six days. Then they were properly fed and took part in a race at the gates of the city under the eyes of the various families, who encouraged them by their shouts, ex tolled the winners, and flung reproaches at the laggards. 57 After this, the youths, divided now into two camps, would fight against each other with such zeal that occasionally some of them would be wounded or· even killed. The physical exercises were concluded with bouts of wrestling and with archery and slingshot matches.

These were followed by the moral tests. The candidate had to stand watch ten nights in succession, receive hard blows without uttering any cry of pain, and remain impassive even when a chief made a feint of smashing his skull with a club or running his face through with the point of a lance. Finally, he had only to prove his technical know ledge· by making a bow, a sling, and a pair of sandals.,58 The candidate who at any moment whatever evinced fear or fatigue was eliminated in disgrace. On the other hand, the youth who had been judged well-trained, skillful, courageous, and en.. dowed with sufficient resistance to pain, was received by the Inca, 'who, in the course of a magnificent ceremony, himself pierced the lobes of his ears. The young man had the right, from that time on, to wear enormous earrings, the dimensions of which were pro portioned to his social rank. That is why the Spaniards called the Peruvian nobles orejones J which means, literally, lop-eared. 59 The character formed by this course of training was the common possession of all members of the elite and was shared by the Inca himself. Its essential traits emerge clearly in the only preColum bian drama that has come down to us: pride of birth, chivalry, filial devotion, compassion for the vanquished, royal magna nimity.GO The elite of the Peruvian empire comprised several categories.

First, there were the Incas properly so called, descendants of the original conquerors. There were a great many of them, since under the system of polygamy the sovereign had sometimes several hun dred wives.61 Next came the Incas by privilege) to whom Garcilaso refers. 62 Femandez de Palencia speaks of them in very specific The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 47 terms: "There were, besides, a great number of persons in the kingdom who were held to be Incas and had their ears pierced, but 'who were not held in the same regard as the others. They were retainers, henchmen, and friends of the lords, captains and ser vitors of the Inca, whose ears were perforated." 63 All these orejonesJ except those who held high posts in the provinces, lived in Cuzco or in its immediate environs and thus conferred still more lustre upon the capital. 64 It was from among them that the principal civil and military officials were recruited.

The governors and generals had privileges of the same order, each of them, under the Inca's express authorization, being sur rounded by a suite of servitors and artisans. Calicuchima, an army commander, had at his disposal stewards responsible for the pro visioning of his household, skilled laborers for working in 'wood, three or four doorkeepers, and a great number of other Indians to wait upon him. 65 We shall return to the higher officials when we come to examine the administrative organization of Peru at the time of the Incas. The religious hierarchy was entirely distinct from that of civil society, although the two were combined at the summit in the person of the Inca. The head of the religion, the high priest whose origin remains obscure-was an amauta who lived in eternal contemplation, eating no meat and drinking only water. On fes tival days this pontiff would wear upon his head a tiara adorned with a golden sun, covered with gold plate and jewels and sur mounted with plumes; a silver half-moon 'was fastened beneath his chin; precious stones and golden ornaments sparkled on his red bordered robe of white wool; and golden bracelets encircled his arms. A large number of priests were under his jurisdiction, many of whom lived in the provinces and took turns officiating for a certain number of days. Finally, in the lower reaches of the hier archy, there were the soothsayers, who would stay in the vestibules of the temples, and the guardians of the holy places.66 Likewise arranged in hierarchical order, as we have seen, were the Inca's wives. The titular consort of the Inca, the Koya~ wore a garment at official ceremonies that was almost as magnificent as that of her spouse. She was draped in a large cloak of many colors 48 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru made of the finest cloth and fastened with a large pin of chased gold, and her head was adorned with a diadem of gold and of flowers. Everyone who approached her had to prostrate himself, and no one might look into her face. She was surrounded by a great number of retainers, who, in order that she might avoid all contact with the earth, would lay fabrics on the ground before her feet and take them up again when she had passed.67 We should mention here two institutions that seem greatly to have astonished the Spaniards: that of the "Chosen Women" and that of the "Virgins of the Sun." The first were young girls who were selected for their beauty by the governors in all the provinces and brought together in community houses where they spent a certain number of years. They were divided into six categories according to their social rank. The first was made up of the daugh ters of the great men of the empire. The second comprised the daughters of the less important dignitaries, and their task was to spin and weave for the Inca. The daughters of the orejones were grouped together in the third category. The fourth was composed of singers. The fifth consisted of the most beautiful Indian girls, and in the sixth were the foreign girls in Cuzco, whose task was to work in the fields of the Inca. 68 These maidens lived in palaces surrounded by gardens, where they received practical instruction in sewing and cooking, and religious training in the care of the temples and the ritual. These institutions served a definitely util itarian function. As L. E. Valcarcel says, they were centers of industry for the young girls of the elite who would later become the Inca's concubines or be given in marriage to the great dig nitaries. 69 The "Virgins of the Sun" were never allowed to see a man, not even the Inca. They were waited upon by girls of high rank and spent their time offering sacrifices to the Sun, spinning garments for the monarch, and preparing the food and drink set apart for the religious services of the great festival days. The chroniclers describe them as nuns and their house as a convent. 70 There were, then, two different kinds of community houses for women, which have often been confused by the Spaniards as well

as by many contemporary authors. 71 On the one hand, there were The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 49 the houses of the "Chosen Women," serving both a religious and a secular function; and, on the other, the houses of the virgins, which 'were purely religious establishments. 72 The first could be considered as "storehouses of women," as Bandelier somewhat contemptuously calls them. 73 And finally, a distinction must be made between the cloistered nuns of whom we have just been speaking and the women who had taken vows of chastity but lived in their own homes, greatly re spected by all. Such vows were not to be taken lightly; for the least dereliction the guilty woman would be burned at the stake. As for the Virgin of the Sun who lost her honor, she was buried alive, her companion in sin was hanged, and the very town where the guilty man lived was destroyed. 74 Another social category that must be included among the elite, but was not of Inca stock, was that of the local rulers or curacas) whom the Spaniards incorrectly called caciques) a word borrowed from the vocabulary of San Domingo. The Incas, with the defer ence they habitually showed to established institutions, used to allow the chiefs who had accepted their suzerainty to remain in their positions even after long wars.75 Thus, there were in all the provinces two classes of higher local agents: on the one hand, those appointed by the central power, and, on the other, the curacas) many of whom held hereditary office, as we shall see later. The latter differed from the former only in their origin. They were integrated into the same administrative hierarchy so completely that identical functions would be performed, in the various dis tricts, sometimes by Indians who came from the capital and some times by Indians native to the region. Only in the provinces adjoin ing Cuzco, which formed the nucleus of the empire, had the curacas disappeared. 76 Some of the Spanish writers-Cobo, for example, and even San tillan 77-:have confused these two groups of officeholders. The Viceroy Francisco de Toledo carried this confusion to its greatest extreme when he sought to prove that the Inca appointed and dismissed the curacas at will. Considering the King of Spain as having taken the place of the vanished monarch, Don Francisco counted on taking advantage of this principle by replacing the 50 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru Indian chiefs with Spaniards and thus destroying every vestige of regional autonomy.78 On the other hand, the local rulers appointed by the Inca attempted, when the empire was crumbling, to pass as curacas so that their position might become one of hereditary right, and the curacasJ for their part, tried to do away with these governing officials and regain the power they had had before their submission to the Incas. The difficulty encountered first by the Spanish investigators and later by the modern historians in orient ing themselves in this chaos is easily understandable.

The information about the curacas provided by the earliest chroniclers, although clear as to their office, is vague and contra dictory on the subject of their prerogatives. This is not surpris ing. The powers possessed by these chiefs would naturally differ in accordance 'with the rank they occupied in the administrative hierarchy . Yet there were certain regulations that referred to them in particular. Every year or every two years, depending upon their distance from Cuzco, they were obliged to betake themselves to the capital, and their sons had to live there in order to receive their special education. 79 In addition, the Inca would give every curaca a wife of his race. All these were very shrewd measures of assimila tion that seem to have met 'with general success. The laws of succession in regard to the curacas differed in the different regions of the empire. Cobo writes that the office passed to the eldest son, or, if he was incapable, to the second son, or, in default of a son, to a brother. Herrera places the brother first in the order of succession, and the eldest son second; or else the eldest son and then the younger. In the region of La Paz, the first in line of succession was a brother, or, if not a brother, a nephew. 80 Some times the subjects of the curaca would themselves select the son whom they preferred-one of the very rare instances in which the choice was left to the people. 81 Garcilaso writes that Pachacutec confirmed the system of succession "in accordance with the ancient custom of each province." Likewise in the northern part of the empire, according to Gayoso, "the order of the caciques' succes sion varied from one province to another: in one place a son, in another a brother, in still another a nephew." 82 It should be noted, however, that the Inca himself used to intervene frequently.

The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 51 In the province of Huamanca he 'would choose one of the sons, or, if there was no son, a near relative. 83 Betanzos reports that the successor was named from among the children of the wife whom the Inca had given to the deceased curaca.84 It is even possible that in certain provinces the Inca deemed it necessary, in complete disregard of local custom, to deprive public office of its hereditary character altogether. 85 On the whole, it seems that the Inca gen erally appointed the successor to the curacaJ but with respect for local custom. 86 4. The People In the course of this work 'we shall study the condition of the common people, the hatunruna. Some of them occupied a place in the social hierarchy a little above that of the mass of the taxpayers. The small officeholders formed an embryo middle class, and per haps also the smelters, the silversmiths, the gem-cutters, and other craftsmen, whom Velasco calls "honored citizens." 87 But the great majority of the population worked on the land.

Here we shall confine ourselves to a few specific details about the private individuals who were known as the yanacuna. This class of Indians stood on the fringes of Inca society. It in cluded persons who were actual slaves and others who had become great dignitaries. Theirs was an altogether anomalous status in the highly stratified society of ancient Peru. The earliest meaning of the word yanacuna was certainly pejo rative. At a time when there was a conspiracy against Tupac Yu panqui, led by one of his brothers, six thousand Indians who were convicted of having manufactured weapons for the rebels were assembled in the town of Yanayacu to be punished in a way that would make an example of them. The sister and consort of the monarch asked that they be granted mercy, and they were pardoned by the Inca; but he condemned the guilty men and their descendants to serve the conquerors. 88 The yanacuna were, as Cieza de Leon puts it, "hereditary servants" (criados per petuos).89 This is the only case in Peru in which a tribe was reduced to 52 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru slavery; and even so, it was a humane action, because the conspir ators and their accomplices had incurred the death penalty.

Though the sovereigns had abundant forbearance for their van quished enemies, they had no pity for those of their subjects who revolted. To be sure, it will perhaps be said that if slavery did not exist in Peru it was because the entire popUlation was enslaved. It must be acknowledged that under a quasi-socialist system the line be tween the free man and the slave is sometimes hard to' draw. Now it happened that these Indians were mixed with other servants with whom the monarch was supplied by way of tribute, as we shall later see, and from whom they seem to have been dis.. tinguished only by the hereditary character of their service. They were all known as yanacuna. As time went on, their number nat urally increased, the more so as every new Inca had a right to a domestic staff of his own, and the same term was likewise applied to the servants of the curacas and of the high officials. The sover eign distributed yanacuna as gifts to his subjects in the same way as he did wives and chattels. 90 The yanacuna were not under the jurisdiction of the ordinary magistrates and were not attached to any local organization. They were not counted in statistical reports, their labor belonging ex clusively to their masters. 91 In the army they accompanied the troops as baggage porters. 92 Several of them were employed in the service of the temples. 93 But the evolution of the yanacuna did not stop here. A little of the Inca's glory was reflected upon those who surrounded him, and the service of the man-god was considered an honor. The provinces used to send him the best of their young men as tribute to be yanacuna. Moreover, the retainers attached to the person of a high official or a royal prince ended by becoming part of the household, winning the master's confidence, obtaining favors, and receiving prerogatives. Some of them became, in this way, considerable per sonages in their own right. The Inca appointed them as local rulers and gave them wives.94 Thus, by a singular paradox, those who performed the most menial services sometimes succeeded in The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 53 breaking through the barriers that separated the social classes and raising themselves to the highest positions.

During the time of the Incas the number of yanacuna (even in the most extended sense of the term) was relatively small as com pared with the mass of agricultural workers. But during the period of the Spanishdomination they becameextremelynumerous.It is true that the meaning of the word was still further broadened after the conquest. The conquerors applied it to the natives who were "voluntarily," so to speak, attached to the Spaniard's person or estate, in contrast to the mitayos) or those held in forced labor; and from this usage they came in time to designate all servants as yanaconas. A royal order of August 16, 1569, speaks of "the Indians in service called anaconas";95 and Balboa writes, "All the Indians employed in domestic service who are neither per diem workers nor mitayos are called yanaconas." 96 According to the anonymous author of the Relaci6n sobre el servicio personal de las Indias) the yanaconas were servants who worked in the fields, received a piece of land, food, and clothing, but could not leave the estate. 97 Ma tienzo distinguishes among four classes of yanaconas: those who waited upon the Spaniards in their homes; those who worked in the mines of Potosi and Porco; those who cultivated the coca plant; and those who worked the land on their own account. 98 In Paraguay the word was used anew to designate men vanquished in war who merited punishment and were constituted as a hereditary class of servants. Thus, by a long detour, the word reverted to its original meaning. 99 The situation of the yanacuna became much worse after the Spanish conquest. The bishops often denounced the veritable slavery that was imposed upon these poor folk. 100 In fact, the Spaniards did as they pleased with the yanacuna) and "as they did not hold them of any account, they would gamble for them, so that everybody came to have yanaconas) even the Negroes." 101 This behavior on the part of the conquerors brought its own punish ment upon them, for it created a vicious class of domestic servants ready for any crime and expert in the practice of espionage, which was the plague of Peru, and which the Spaniards could not manage 54 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru to get rid of. A large number of these servants who had deserted their masters and were making their living in disreputable ways, even going "so far as to steal the lamps from the churches," formed a kind of circle of the outcast and the destitute. 102 In preColumbian society the yanacuna provide an example of Indians who succeeded in passing from one social class to the other. It seems that their case was not unique. Velasco states that several persons "with small ears"-to quote his amusing expres sion-were appointed by Huayna Capac to high civil office in Ecuador, and he mentions a Caiiari named Chapera who became a provincial governor, although he was not an orejon. 103 The mil itary hierarchy also held out certain possibilities for individuals to rise in the social scale. Calicuchima, a military commander who was a native of the province of Puruha, was not an orejon. 104 Thus, the sovereign would sometimes permit Indians from among the common people who distinguished themselves by their outstanding ability to raise themselves to the level of the elite.

But these cases were and continued to be exceptional. The prin ciple 'was one of separation, not between victors and vanquished -since the chiefs of the conquered nations belonged to the upper class-but between the rulers and the ruled. The outward mark of class status consisted in one's clothing. The hatunruna were obliged to wear identical garments, only the headdress being different in the different provinces. This was truly an Inca innovation, for the designs on the pottery found along the coast indicate that in earlier days the inhabitants of these regions were allowed a ~wide latitude in their choice of cloth ing and headdress. 105 The elite, for their part, displayed the in signia of their higher status in the way they cut their hair, the bands across their foreheads, and their special garments. The common people could obtain the right to wear earrings provided they were made of very ordinary material-wood, wool, cane-and did not exceed certain dimensions. The hole pierced in the ears of a common man always had to be less than half the size of that in the ears of the Incas. 106 Within the class of the elite itself, the Incas occupied a place The Social Basis: The Rulers and the Ruled 55 apart. They may have had a special language, distinct from the Quechua imposed upon the people-at least so Garcilaso main tains. It is extremely regrettable that we should be reduced to mere conjectures on this point, for knowledge of the language of the Peruvian conquerors would throw much light upon their origin.107 What is certain is that the Incas alone could wear orna ments of gold and silver, precious stones, the plumes of birds, and garments of vicufia wool; yet the sovereign would often grant some of these rights byway of reward to the great men of his empire. los In general, as we have seen, the categories of the population were kept clearly separated, and differences in education and mode of life corresponded to differences in social rank. In all do mains of existence a precisely defined hierarchy held parallel sway. Power always came from above, and the members of the ruling class were educated to exercise it for the greatest good of all. It was on these fruitful principles that the fortunes of the empire 'were built. 109 In the ancient Quechua drama 0 llantayJ the Inca makes the following reply to a general who has been so presumptuous as to ask him for the hand of a princess: "Remember that you are merely a subject. Everyone to his place! You have wanted to climb too high."