8. Supply

1. Obligatory Lab(}r Labor was obligatory, but the term "labor" was understood in its broadest sense, and it differed according to one's social rank. Each class had its several role to play in the empire. The upper classes were obliged to perform intellectual labor, in management, organization, or supervision. All the Incas worked, for they all held posts in the government service, the priesthood, or the army. No one could live in idleness. The only persons exempt from labor were those who were aged, disabled, ill, or for some other reason incapacitated. This principle was so extensive in its application that children from the age of five were required to perform some task in keeping with their strength, and women on their visits to one another would take their distaffs along with them and go on with their spinning as they walked and chatted. The princesses too would have their distaffs with them when they went to see one another. 2 100 Supply 101 Even the blind were employed in stripping the kernels of maize off the cob.

Obligatory labor obviously made possible the intensification of production, but this was not its only purpose. It aimed above all at combatting idleness. This point of view, diametrically opposed to our own, gave the Inca regime the characterof what we should call today a "non-Euclidian economic system." 3 Work was re garded more as an end than as' a means. Its essential function was to assure, above all, the physical and moral health of the worker. 4 According to Father Acosta, it was a maxim of the Incas that the Indians "must always be kept busy." 5 Whereas today's lawmaker seeks to add to the hours of leisure of the mass of the population, even to the detriment of production, the Peruvian monarch would go so far as to have useless labor performed rather than leave his subjects in idleness. 6 He knew that it is not a good thing to bestow leisure upon those who are not capable of making intel ligent use of it. He himself used to set the example. When the orejones went to the palace, Betanzos tells us, they would find the sovereign engaged in painting or drawing. 7 The first beggars who made their appearance in the colonial era were treated with con tempt and derision.

That it was one of the principal concerns of the monarchs of Cuzco to eliminate every occasion for laziness is altogether under standable in a country whose inhabitants, as the Spaniards soon learned to their despair, have a natural inclination to that vice.8 But though work was required of the Indians, we must not think of it as having been uninterrupted and toilsome. In the first place, it was broken up by periods of repose, and a great many holidays were celebrated throughout the year. "They used to join hands with one another," charmingly reports Suarez. 9 Tschudi counted one hundred and fifty-eight in a year, not including those given in honor of the conopas and the celebration of family events. 10 There was thus a great deal of leisure, but its enjoyment was re moved from the sphere of individual initiative. A holiday did not mean a day that could be passed in freedom or idleness. The In dians had to take part in public celebrations-banquets, songs, and dances.

102 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru On the other hand, the sovereigns of Cuzco took care to prevent the workers from exceeding the limits of their strength and always kept in view the age, sex, and physical constitution of the laborer and the nature of the work to be done. No chief of state was ever more concerned with the health of his subjects or took greater precautions to accommodate the distribution of labor to the capac ities of the workers. Labor as injurious to health as the mining of mercury, whose noxious vapors produce "tremors and nervous spasms," was forbidden,ll and so was pearl-fishing. 12 Only a small number of Indians were sent to the coca plantations in the hot and unhealthful regions, and they always had to be men who themselves came from a warm climate and were accustomed to tropical conditions. l3 For tasks that were toilsome but necessary, a system of rotation was established so that no one should be overburdened. Garcilaso calls this "alternating labor," 14 and it later became the principle of the Spanish mita.

Two classes of work were obligatory for all able-bodied men between the ages of twenty-five and fifty: agricultural labor and military service. From eighteen to twenty-five they helped their parents; from ten to eighteen, they led the llamas; children be tween the ages of five and ten chased the birds away from the fields; and before they were five they would be set to catching lice, in order, says one author, that no one should be without some occupa tion. 1,5 Work to 1?e done for the benefit of the state was allocated by the chiefs and had to be scrupulously performed with the raw ma terials supplied by the government. No one had a right to do less or more than the amount of work assigned to him; for in the first case he himself would have remained idle, and in the second, he would have been the cause of someone else's idleness. 16 On the other hand, the custom of mutual aid, which, as we have already seen, prevailed in regard to all work done on the land, was given the status of a law, which Garcilaso calls the "law of fraternity." 17 When a worker was unable to attend to his allotted task, his neigh bors were obliged to help him, and he was expected to do the like for them if the need arose.

Supply 103 The provinces of the empire were grouped in pairs, each mem ber of 'which was bound to come to the aid of the other in case of necessity. Thus it was that the European conquerors saw Indians rushing to the assistance of their compatriots in certain places in rebuilding the villages that had been destroyed by the war. Later, the Spanish kings, noting the tendency of the Indians to lapse into idleness whenever they were granted a certain amount of freedom, recommended that the viceroys establish a system of compulsory labor. They seem to have been very hesitant to give such instructions, for they were well aware that coercion, if it was not exercised by encomenderos who were conscientious in the per formance of their duties, would serve as a pretext for tyranny and the reduction of the Indians to slavery. They specified, therefore, that the rule of compulsory labor should be enforced by "the gentlest means." 18 2. The Division of Labor Plutarch is mistaken when he says that there is no one who is not de pendent on the knowledge and skill of his neighbor.

-Cobo, H istoria, Vol. III, Bk. XIV, ch. xv A household economy prevailed among the Quechuas, and the Incas preserved it. The empire presented the curious spectacle of a civilization that remained hostile to the division of labor. That division existed, to be sure, between the sexes, since women special ized in spinning and household tasks; but the general rule 'was that everyone had to provide for his own necessities-food, lodg ing, clothing, weapons. So far was this rule of self-sufficiency car ried that even the sons of the most highly placed dignitaries and of the Inca himself, though they would later be called upon to perform specialized managerial tasks, also had to master the arts of agriculture and industry. Teachers would make sure that young men possessed this knowledge before admitting them to the upper class. To this end, the candidates, at the time of the great initiation tests (huaracu), would be asked, as 'we have seen, to make weapons -at least those that did not require the assistance of a smelter104 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru and sandals made of a piece of llama's skin or braided fibers.19 There was no tailor or shoemaker or armorer in the empire. 2Q There were, however, a small number of artisans who were en trusted with 'work that required some special knowledge or skill.

Only the arts and crafts that were not indispensable-jewelry, painting, pottery, the weaving of fine fabrics-were practiced by professional workers. 21 Their products were the luxuries of the period, and they therefore 'worked exclusively for the Inca. 22 How were these craftsmen recruited? Probably, as Garcilaso de clares, theirs were hereditary occupations. The child served his apprenticeship by helping his father, in accordance with Inca law, and so became skillful enough to replace him later. 23 Pachacutec seems to have taken steps to have particular tribes specialize in the arts or crafts for which they had a particular apti tude, so that certain regions acquired a great reputation through out the empire. 24 3. Measures of Provisionment and Conservation Few monarchs have had so keen a sense of the continuity of the generations as the Incas. 25 Living in a country of meager re sources, they sought to assure the future of their people, whose very existence was perpetually menaced. Unlike the Spaniards, who killed cattle for pleasure and emptied the magazines without need, or those modern nations that exhaust their natural wealth and themselves undermine the, foundations of their strength, the Incas were always thinking of the future and curbed present appe tites in the interests of perpetuity.

We have seen how solicitous the Peruvian monarchs were of the health of their subjects. We shall now see that they were no less concerned with the conservation of natural resources. 26 In regions where there were few trees, the use of 'wood was regu lated and supervised-a wise provision to prevent the deforestation from which so many ancient and modern peoples have suffered. 27 Domestic animals were protected. To promote the increase of livestock, the killing of females was prohibited. Even wild animals were the object of measures of protection. No one might hunt Supply 105 without a permit or kill game outside the territory of his own comm uni ty.28 The hunts organized by the Incas were conducted in the following way:29 Several thousand Indians, arranged in a circle around a vast extent of land, would drive the game before them, with loud cries, to ward the center. 30 The animals enclosed in this infernal and ever narrowing circle would finally be caught by hand or in nets. The dangerous beasts were killed. A great many vicunas and guanacos, leap ing at the hunters and spitting in their faces, were captured, counted, shorn, and then allowed to go free, except for a small number of males, which were also slaughtered. These, as well as the animals that had been wounded, were used as food. Females, as in the case of domestic animals, were spared. They were not even offered in sacrifice.3 !

At a considerably more recent· date these battues were still taking place on the high plateau in accordance with ancient custom. The only difference was that the circles were narrower and that, to make up for the smaller number of beaters, a rope of a hundred yards or so, hung with red streamers, would be stretched across a defile. The vicunas, bewildered by the yells of the beaters, would hurl themselves against the rope in panic; but it was important that there should not be a guanaco among them, for this creature, being bolder, would jump over the rope and all the vicunas would follow it to freedom. 32 Thanks to the foresighted regulations of the Incas, Peru teemed with game under their rule. If Garcilaso is to be believed, stags were so numerous that they came into villages, and a soldier of the conquering army could kill six or seven a day with his harque bus.B3 When we think of the animals our contemporaries have exter minated, such as buffaloes, elephants, birds of paradise, beavers, whales, and seals, and when we consider how much game is de stroyed by shameless poaching in modern France, we must acknowl edge that the Incas had a high conception of their mission. It is very difficult today to counter the trend by the regulation of hunt ing or by the establishment of national parks and game preserves.

Fishing under the Incas was not controlled by any provisions like those that governed the hunting of game. Special officials kept 106 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru account of the fish taken, reserved a certain number for the Inca, and claimed some for themselves as remuneration for their work. 34 4. Industrial Techniques I believe that the most skillful artisan in Europe would be at a loss if he were commissioned to produce such works with a piece of copper or a few stones, without being permitted to employ any other tool. -A. de Ulloa, Relaci6n hist6rica del viaje d la America meridional, 1748 Let us look first at the general stock of tools. It staggers the imagination to consider the results the Peruvians obtained with the primitive means at their disposal. Even Ulloa, who was always ready to disparage the American natives, did not conceal his aston ishment. The Indians had no knowledge of the saw, the center bit, the screw, the gimlet, the file, or the plane, of scissors, bellows, tongs, nails, glue, glass, or even the wheel. Their only implements were the stone hammer, the bronze chisel, the copper ax, and the feather brush. The hammer, indeed, hardly deserved the name.

It was a rather bulky stone or a lump of bronze with rounded corners, elongated and polished, without any handle, which the Indian would grip firmly and use for striking and pounding. 35 For the rest, copper pipes did the work of bellows, string was used in place of nails, and thorns or splinters of hard wood served as needles, although metallic needles were also in use. To this day the natives of the region around Lake Titicaca prefer to use a stone instead of a hammer, some Bolivian Indians cut their hair with a flint,36 and the Colorados of the virgin forests of western Ecuador fasten together the soft timbers that form the framework of their huts with pieces of hard wood (chonta) instead of nails. 37 Tools were not then as specialized as they are today, and some times served several different functions. They were gradually trans formed in order to be better adapted to the end in view. This evolution proceeded more rapidly in the southern part of the empire than in the north. 3s Such were the implements with which the Indians built palSupply 107 aces, laid out roads, and bridged torrential streams. It was man power alone that accomplished this prodigy, for even animals could not be of much assistance in performing tasks like these. Abbe Raynal has correctly stated that "labor, time, and patience took the place of the tools that the Peruvians lacked." 39 The Indi:ln of the time of the Incas seems to have had little inventive ability, but a great deal of skill. He never devised cer tain very simple tools that would have greatly facilitated his work, but he made excellent use of those he did have. He also took full advantage of some of the resources that Nature had placed at his disposal. Certain plants provided not only food and drink, but also the raw materials for building houses and making clothes.

Maize, for example, was at once bread, vegetable, and beverage, and did not the maguey-of which the juice was used to heal wounds, the leaves to brew a liquor, the fiber to make thread and rope, the roots to wash the skin and make the hair grow, and the trunk to form the framework of houses-indeed deserve the name that Acosta gives it, the "tree of marvels"? 40 And Las Casas hardly exaggerates when he says that from this plant is to be obtained bread, wine, vinegar, honey, sugar, clothing, sandals, needles, fuel, and wood for the building and roofing of houses. 41 The skill of the Peruvians was fully recognized in the colonial era. In 1533, the Licentiate Espinosa wrote to Commander Fran cisco de Los Cobos, the Emperor's secretary, asking that two thou sand Indians be sent from Peru to Panama to construct roads and public buildings there. 42 Let us next turn to mining and metallurgy. The Peruvians were acquainted with lead, tin, copper, silver, and gold. They were either ignorant of iron or did not wish to mine it. Suarez maintains that the Incas were acquainted with iron, because there is a word for it in the Quechua language, but that the sovereigns did not have it mined because of the excessive labor it involved. 43 Platinum was known to the inhabitants of the coast of Ecuador and was '\lorked by sintering. It was contained in gold-bearing ores, and the presence of the gold, which perceptibly lowered the melting 108 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru temperature of these ores, probably enabled the Indians to separate the metal. 44 Geographically, there is a sharp division between the countries where copper 'was prevalent-Ecuador and the Peruvian coast and those where bronze predominated-upper Peru and Bolivia. 45 The center of bronze production would naturally be located where tin is abundant, i.e., in Bolivia. This metal must have made its ap pearance after the Tiahuanaco era, probably in the intermediate period, since the cramp irons on the walls of the great Aymara city are of pure copper,46 and it was the Incas who spread its use in the coastal regions and in Ecuador. 47 The goldsmith's art, which originated on the Peruvian plateau, was likewise taught to the people on the coast by the Quechua con querors, but the conquered tribes were already working this metal by processes brought from Guiana. Thanks to this superposition of techniques and to their discovery of silver, the people of the coastal regions became the greatest metallurgists in South Amer ica.48 There were gold mines at Carabaya, Zamora, and Parinacocha,49 and in the Curimayo valley near Cajamarca; and there were silver mines at Porco and Andacaba. But gold was chiefly secured by placer mining. 50 It was the Spaniards who discovered the famous mine of Potosi. Ac cording to a Peruvian legend, the Inca knew about Potosi, but he did not want to exploit this mine because the first Indians sent to begin work there heard a voice which said to them, "Do not take the silver from this hill; it is destined for other masters." 51 In Ecuador, gold was used principally in three regions: among the Cafiaris to the south, the Pastos to the north, and the Esmeraldas on the northwest coast.52 Wolf, speaking of the panning of gold in the province of Azuay in Ecuador, remarks that the ore was just as abundant there in former times as it is now, but that the manual labor at the disposal of the Incas was more plentiful and more patient than that of the present day.53 To explain the abundant wealth of the temples and palaces of ancient Peru, there is no need to have recourse to legends of hidden mines. It is man that has changed, not Nature. The only secrets of the Incas were discipline and work, and these are indeed not to be found today.

Supply 109 Ore was extracted by hewing out low, narrow, dark galleries with a hammer, a chisel, and a wooden bar with a copper tip.54 Copper ore was smelted by being placed in terra-cotta crucibles over a flame that 'was fanned by from eight to a dozen Indians blowing through tubes. 55 This process could not be employed for silver, which does not melt when it is heated. However, the Indians discovered that this metal could be made to flow if one took pains to add a certain quantity of lead to it, whence the latter metal re ceived the name garuchec) "that which causes flowing." 56 The smelting was done in the following way: The ores were crushed with a stone and placed in kilns (huaira) shaped like flowerpots and perforated at the base. Charcoal was put on top of the are in the kiln, and the metal, on reaching the point of fluid ity, would drop into earthenware receptacles beneath. These kilns were set up on hilltops where there was a strong wind; and, if we are to believe the chroniclers, when the Spaniards began to exploit the mines of Potosi, it was an enchanting experience to see twelve or fifteen thousand fires lighting up the evening skies over the mountains. 57 T a separate the lead from the silver, this first operation had to be followed by a series of further smeltings, but these took place in the houses. The silver was put in little vault-shaped terra-cotta kilns, a perforated muffle would be inserted, and the free space between the muffle and the inner side of the dome would be filled with charcoa1.58 So that the metal could be pulled out of the fire without tongs, it was taken up on rods of wood or copper and thrown on the damp ground or else stirred until cool, when it could be picked up with bare hands.

As a general rule, the mines belonged to the Inca, who would determine the amount of metal to be extracted each year. A few of them, however, had been given to the curacas. The labor was performed in rotation, each assignment lasting for a period of about three months, and engaged the services of one per cent of the population in the mining provinces. The miners always had to be married men, so that their wives could look after their food. 59 Mercury was also known to the Peruvians, but, as we have seen, 110 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru because of its noxious exhalations, it was not mined. However, the Inca did permit the extraction of vermilion (prepared from cinna bar), which was obtained by crushing the ore and then washing it. oo The princesses used this as rouge, 61 and it was employed in the same way by the Indian women in the prpvinces adjoining the places where it was mined. 62 The principal mercury mine in Peru was that of H uancavelica. Since the Indians had kept its existence a secret from the invaders, the Spaniards did not discover it until 1564.63 We shall next consider work in wood, bone, and stone.

White wood, or deal, was rare, and the Indians made use of chonta) a very hard timber, in the manufacture of weapons and household utensils. They worked it, as they still do, with great skill, making spindles, cups, throwing sticks, litters, and looms.64 Unfortunately, most of the things placed in the tombs on the plateau have been destroyed by dampness. Bone was employed in the manufacture of musical instruments, spoons, and certain kinds of pins. Work in stone required particular patience. The Indian would choose, by preference, rocks of fine grain that were resistant and would take a high polish. 65 He would then carve them with a silver wire and hammer them with a flint. He polished them by rubbing them with a stone and water mixed with emery. He would pierce them by rapidly twirling a piece of cane or bone coated with fine, hard, wet sand. To obtain a mortar, he 'would bore a series of holes close together, then break the intervening walls and level the bot tom of the shallow basin thus formed by rubbing it with a hard pebble. 66 He would also split stones by heating them and then plunging them into cold water, a procedure that is still followed in our own day.67 Let us next turn to the art of building. In this field different techniques were employed in the various regions of the empire.

On the coast the natives built walls of adobe, that is, of brick made from an argillaceous marl mixed with reeds or tough grass and dried in the sun. Sometimes, instead of making bricks, they would Supply III set up a framework of reeds held together with ropes and would pour the clayey substance into the mold thus formed. The larger and more important dwellings had foundations of pirca) which was clay mixed with uncut field stones and husks of maize, sunk to a depth of between two and three feet below ground and projectingabout two feet above.68 The superstructurewould then be built of adobe. On the plateau, adobe and pirca were used for ordinary dwell ings, but important edifices were constructed of stone. Sometimes the walls were made of ashlars of hard rock-granite, porphyry, diorite-mortised together so exactly that it was impossible to introduce even the blade of a knife between them. "All the stones seem to be one, so well are they joined," says Las Casas.69 This fine adjustment was achieved by rubbing the newly placed stone against its neighbor after a thin layer of wet sand had been laid between the surfaces. Few spectacles have evoked greater admiration on the part of the Europeans. "It is," observes. Monnier, "veritable lapi dary work." 70 It should not be forgotten that Peruvian architects were acquainted with neither T square nor compass. A huge stone in the wall of the palace of the Inca Roca at Cuzco, fitted in between its neighbors at twelve different angles by means of indentations or projections, is called by the natives "the stone with twelve corners." At Machu Picchu houses have been built on the rock by simply placing one block on top of another, without cement, even where the rock has a gradient of forty degrees. 71 Often the stones of these Inca buildings, slightly convex at the center of the outer surface and cut straight toward the lines of juncture, recall those of certain Florentine palaces. 72 The re-entering angles of the fortress ramparts are "generally right angles, so continued that every part is seen, and as perfectly flanked as in the best European fortifications of the present day," and Ferguson adds enthusiastically: "It is not a little singular that this perfection should have been reached by a rude people in South America while it escaped the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Mediaeval engineers." 73 Sometimes the blocks of stone would be held together with pirca;which thus played the role of cement, as in the walls that are 112 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru still standing at Curampa, near Abancay, and at Viracochabamba.

Finally, the retaining walls that held up the terraces were often made of flat stones laid one on top of the other, sometimes reach ing to an imposing height. 74 It may be wondered how the Indians succeeded in transporting the heavy blocks of stone of which their walls are made. Probably each block was dragged by cables and pushed by hand. Sometimes one of them, resisting all efforts, would oscillate precariously, fall upon the workers, and crush them under its weight. Often a block would have to be abandoned on a slope up which it could not be dragged. Then it would become one of those "tired stones" (pie dras canzadas) that are shown to travelers today. In spite of every thing, the transportation of these enormous masses, remains a mystery, and we ask ourselves whether the Indians may not have made use of some procedure-for example, a hydraulic system which has since been lost. Perhaps we may accept the hypothesis-advanced by Dcchelette in explanation of the manner in which the dolmens were set up-that these blocks of stone were first raised to a considerable height by means of crowbars and levers, then underpinned by tiers of embankments, and slid up ramps, and that progress was effected by repeating this operation several times at successively higher levels.7.5 The discovery of wooden rollers under an abandoned block of stone at Ollantay be tween the quarry and the fortress suggests an explanation along these lines. 76 G. de Santa Clara also asserts that the slabs of stone were put into place by being raised on successive platforms to the height desired and then pushed over on the other blocks that were already in posi tion. 77 Garcilaso tells us that when one of these blocks for the fortress of Saxahuaman at CUlCO was being transported by twenty thousand In dians, it tipped over and crushed two or three thousand of them. It was after this catastrophe, according to Morua, that the Indians re volted and killed prince Urco, the son of Viracocha, who had ordered the transportation of the rock. 78 How did they even get these blocks out of the mountain quarries?

We may accept the assumption of Joyce that the Indians made holes Supply 113 in the rock into which they inserted bits of wood and then filled them with water so that the expansion of the wood would break the stone.79 Earth and gravel were carried in pieces of cabuya cloth dis tributed for this purpose by the Inca, one end of which was knotted around the neck. This method is still in use in the villages of Bolivia. SO The outside surfaces of some of the 'walls so constructed were faced with clay mixed with wool and cactus juice, and the inner walls were frequently plastered over with a sort of red stucco. S1 The buildings were very low, generally of only one story, but, in rare instances, as at Viracochabamba, Huamachuco, and Machu Picchu, with a small number of upper floors.S2 They offered the maximum of resistance to earthquakes and stood up better than the houses subsequently built by the Spaniards,83 but a certain number of them were destroyed by the hand of man himself. Thus, the great city of Tomebamba, where the Inca Huayna Capac was born, was razed by Atahualpa before the coming of the white man.

It is generally agreed that the Indians were unacquainted with the arch, and Acosta speaks of their astonishment at the sight of the first arched bridge constructed by the Spaniards. They all ex pected it to collapse. 84 Windows were very rare. The Indians of Ecuador knew nothing of them,85 and neither did the inhabitants of the coastal regions,86 but some windows have been found in the interior, at Huama chuco, Tarmatambo, Vileabamba, Viracochabamba, and Machu Picchu. s7 Doors were generally narrow-but very high in the pal aces in order to permit the passage of the royal litter-and always in trapezoid form like those of the Egyptians; that is, the lintel was appreciably shorter than the sill and might be made from either a single slab of stone or two slabs out of the perpendicular. The same arrangement was followed in windows, where there were any, and in wall recesses. The door itself was sometimes made of wooden beams attached to the wall by ropes strung through holes made in the stones,88 but in a number of public buildings and in all private houses the door was closed merely by a rush 114 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru mat or curtain that covered the entrance and could be held in place, if need be, with a few stones. 89 Most of the roofs of the public buildings of ancient days have disappeared. 90 From designs on pottery we know that they were constructed with a double slope and supported by wooden beams, and Jerez tells us that they were made of straw and of wood. 91 No doubt they differed in the various regions of the empire, and sometimes must have been of thatch (grass, straw, and reeds) and sometimes of maguey leaves, 'which are as impermeable as, stone.

On the coast, where there was no rain, the houses would often be open to the sky.92 Generally simple and conceived on a uniform plan, buildings nevertheless differed from one another in accordance with their purpose and importance. First place was naturally occupied by the temples. The most famous were those of the island of Titicaca, of Cuzco, and of Pachacamac, but there were many others, at Vilcafiota, Cacha, Vilcas, Coropuna, Tomebamba, and elsewhere. What the chroniclers say of the great temple at Cuzco erected by Pachacutec is so prodigious that we would be tempted not to believe them if they were not all in .agreement. The principal building was "literally a mine of gold." 93 Its walls were paneled with plates of gold and silver, and a frieze of gold encompassed the 'whole interior and exterior of the building. A golden egg, sig nifying the initial essence of everything, gleamed above the altar, between two discs (a golden sun and a silver moon). All around them were drawn plain images representing the cosmological ideas of the Indians-stars, men, llamas, mountains, rivers, lightning.

Along the walls, like a guard of honor, were ranged the mummies of dead kings. Outside there were two stone benches encrusted with gold and emeralds. 94 By the side of this edifice rose five buildings of smaller dimen sions. In the first, the Moon was represented by a silver disc; the mummies of the queens formed his entourage, and plates of silver covered the walls. The same precious metal adorned the surface of the second chapel, which housed the planet Venus and the stars, the servants of the Moon; while gold made its appearance once again in the third and the fourth, dedicated respectively to Supply 115 lightning, servitor of the Sun, and to the rainbow. The fifth of these buildings contained the audience chamber of the priests. Niches in the form of tabernacles 'were cut in the outer walls of these chapels, and they too were bespangled with gold and en crusted with precious stones.

The garden that stretched out beyond the buildings offered an even more astonishing spectacle. Everything here was of gold. The trees and their fruits, the birds perched on the branches, the ears of maize, the shrubs, the reptiles, the insects, a flock of llamas with their shepherd-all were of gold. Gold was everywhere, as if Nature itself, by some magical enchantment, had been suddenly transformed into that metal. How could the conquerors not be bewitched by such a vision? 95 In no way less magnificent than the temples were the palaces, but they were more imposing than beautiful, and more spacious than comfortable. The absence of columns, cornices, and those other architectural embellishments whose happy variety contrib utes so much to the beauty of European buildings must have given these Peruvian structures a bleak and monotonous quality altogether in keeping with the landscape of the puna.96 The only notable features relieving the plainness of the walls were some niches and projecting stones. The niches in the interior, which were decorated with figurines of animals made of precious metals, were generally used as closets.97 Those on the outside, often rather large, may have served as sentry boxes.98 The projecting stones were probably used as clothes pegs.

F. de Jerez has described one of these palaces situated at Caja marca. Four rooms surrounded an inner court or patio, adorned with a pool fed by two conduits, of which one brought in cold water and the other water naturally warm from a spring in the sierra. The Inca would spend the day in one of these rooms, which looked out on a garden; he slept in an adjoining room, which was lighted through a window opening on the patio. The walls were covered with a lustrous red glaze, and the framework of the roof was painted the same color. Near this dwelling was another pool, surrounded by stone steps, in which the Inca was accustomed to bathe ..99 116 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru In the palace at Tomebamba the inner walls 'were adorned with marquetry in mullu} a kind of shell with a color resembling that of coral. lOO These palaces were exceedingly numerous, for the Inca had one in every important city, and none was ever inherited from his predecessor. wl Yet some travelers seem to have exaggerated their number. They saw "palaces" in all the notably spacious con structions of which they discovered the ruins, but these buildings may often have been merely collective dwellings such as we have already mentioned.

They were generally designed according to the following plan: An entrance cut in the encircling wall opened into a corridor, which led to a quadrangular court surrounded by square rooms without windows. These rooms did not communicate with one another, and each had its private roof. From the first court another corridor would sometimes lead to a second court, again sur rounded by rooms, and so on. All these dwellings had only one means of entrance and egress, the door in the outer wall. lo2 Such houses were rarely to be found anywhere but in the towns. Elsewhere the homes of the Indian families were generally small isolated houses made of earth or brick, as we have already indi cated, these materials being strongly resistant to bad weather even in rainy areas.lOS The villages were irregular in their general form and had no public sqtiare. 104 The important towns, on the contrary, were constructed according to a definite plan. Like everything in the empire, the palaces, temples, dwellings, warehouses, monumental stairways, and terraces were designed with an eye to symmetry.

Cajamarca had a large public square,105a temple to the Sun, reser voirs, and two fortresses. The public square of Vilcas was spacious enough to hold several thousand men. 106 Huanuco, in a pre-emi nently strategic position between north and south, served as the base of operations against the people of Quito and the Chimus and had squares, baths, and paddocks for llamas. loT Incatambo or Coyor, a short distance from Cajamarca, situated on a granite rock for fear of floods, was built in the shape of a circle and divided Supply 117 into four practically equal parts by walls radiating from the cen ter. On the outer rim of the rocky platform of Coyor the houses were arranged in a circle, and in the vacant area thus enclosed mausoleums were erected. Then, as the population continued to increase and the cemetery becallle cOlllpletely RUed with IllausoleuIlls that rose to the height of the houses, no more space was left in the middle of the town, whereupon new houses were erected upon this singular platform, with new mausoleums in their midst; and so the dwellings of the liv ing were superposed on those of the dead until the time came when, the circles having gradually contracted in area, there was nothing left but a narrow platform, the apex of an almost perfect pyramid. lOB Here was the finest possible example of economy in the use of land being pushed to its furthest extreme, and of a logical plan of construction being followed generation after generation, its ordered regularity com pletely undisturbed by the intrusion of any touch of fancy.

Several of these cities served at the same time as fortresses, and we shall come back to them when we discuss the organization of the empire's defenses. They 'were naturally situated in places that were difficult of access and confined within narrow surrounding walls. We have mentioned only the towns of the plateau, but the large cities conquered by the Incas on the coast were no less prosperous: Tumbez, the mercantile center, whose rafts plied the estuary of the Guayas; Chimu, renowned for its artists; and Pachacamac, which attracted throngs of pilgrims to its famous idol. But none of these cities could be compared to Cuzco, which fifty thousand workers had toiled for twenty years to rebuild. 109 Its dark and gloomy little houses of brick and pise were grouped around palaces of stone and temples with friezes of silver and gold. Through it ran a well-canalized stream, the Huatanay, crossed by bridges constructed of heavy slabs of stone. 110 The streets were narrow, but regularly laid out, crossing at right angles, and gen erally paved. There were five public squares, two of them adorned with fountains. Hl The principal one was in front of the palaces of 118 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru the Inca Roca and of Pachacutec and of the schools where the amautas taught. It was very large and was used for ceremonies, as its name, aucaypata) "place of rejoicing," indicates. The stream traversed its center but 'was entirely covered over. The city was surrounded by a great wall consisting of a terreplein between two ramparts and was dominated by the somber and imposing strong hold of Saxahuaman with its gigantic masses of stone. In the valley beyond the city were the country houses of the chief dignitaries of the government, placed at some distance from one another, and the granaries or storehouses belonging to the state. 112 Cuzco was the point of departure for the great highways of the empire. The east-west road cut the city into two parts, hurin and hanan) the high and the low. Every Indian who came into Cuzco was obliged to lodge in the quarter that corresponded to the posi tion of his province in the empire. For example, if he lived in a distant northwestern province, he 'would have to choose his domi cile at the northwestern extremity of the city. Cuzco was a micro cosm.1l3 The chroniclers assert that in ordinary times two hundred thou sand Indians lived in the capital, but this figure must be taken with considerable reservation. 114 Let us say merely that Cuzco gave the chroniclers the impression of being a very large city. Certainly the concourse must have been enormous on the day when the high officials entered the capital with their retinues to celebrate the fes tival of the Sun.

But 'what a strange spectacle it must have been for Europeans-a city of low houses where granite and porphyry stood side by side with beaten earth, and where vast riches were sheltered under thatched roofs! Let us next look at the arts of spinning and weaving. On the plateau the women spun and wove wool, and on the coast, cotton, which was of good quality.115 The spindle consisted of a wooden needle "from eight to twelve inches long, with a cylindrical wooden weight or whorl a third of the way up from the bottom." 116 The spinner would draw out and twist the strands of raw fiber so as to convert them into yarn and would wind the finished thread on Supply 119 the spindle, which, held in her hand by one end, also served as a simple bobbin. u7 There existed in Peru a loom made of parallel staves fixed in the ground to stretch the threads to the necessary tension, but the 'weaver could make only very short pieces of cloth on this apparatus; the strips thus woven had to be sewed together to make a complete fabric.

In spite of the primitive character of these implements, the In dians succeeded in producing marvels. US One has only to look at the pieces on exhibition in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris* to be convinced of the really prodigious skill of the Peruvian weavers. Cieza de Leon writes that the native tapestries from the province of Cajamarca are as good as those of Flanders and so well made that they would seem to be of silk, and he several times calls atten tion to towns whose textiles are especially remarkable-for ex ample, Chachapoyas and Pomatambo, near Cuzco. U9 Although the tools were simple, the technique was very expert. One finds on certain textiles perforated lozenges that are like drawn work. 12'O Ordinarily the fabric was woven by the raising of alternate 'warp threads-which were always of cotton-by means of a "long flat knife" that the Indian would insert between them, "taking up every second one. This knife would thus lift up half of the warp and make it possible to throw the shuttle with the weft through the shed thus formed." 121 Sometimes, as Capitan and Lorin explain, two warps would be used of a color and quality different from those of the weft, and often the latter too would be multiple and in a variety of colors. With incredible dexterity the weaver would pass his weft threads, in markedly diverse ways, around the threads of the warp, frequently, moreover, changing his threads. This method obviously lends itself to a wide variety of effects in both texture and coloring.

It is, in fact, the high-warp method employed at the Gobelin factory and at Beauvais. Indeed, certain Peruvian textiles which we have shown to artists at the Gobelin factory have been acknowledged by them as equal to theirs and sometimes even finer. . . . Often the * [The Brooklyn Museum in New York also contains a remarkable collection of Peruvian textiles.-EDITOR.] 120 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru fabrics have been embroidered in places with such great skill that, according to specialists, it could not be surpassed today.l22 In certain fabrics it is possible, 'with the aid of a micros<;:ope,to count as many as one hundred and twelve weft threads to a square centimeter (0.155 square inches).123 Separate mention must also be made of the feather fabrics that are among the most remarkable of the craftsmen's achievements. Each feather, flattened and twisted into a curl, would be caught in a loop of cotton thread and laid over a backing, also of cotton, in such a way that the successive rows overlapped and partly covered one another like the plumage of a bird. 124 We conclude this chapter with some brief notes on other crafts. First among them we may mention the dyeing of fabrics.

The Peruvians attained a high degree of perfection in this field also. The color was fixed by immersion, cold or hot, or on an alumine mordant. "If we except the last few years, during which chemical research has provided us with very stable new pigments, it may be said that the preColumbian peoples pushed the processes of dyeing as far as was practicably possible." 125 The colors of the fabrics shown in the museums are still very vivid. The red came from cochineal, the yellow from ochre, and the blue from indigo. Mention must also be made of the work in leather, in which, on the contrary, the Peruvians never went beyond extremely primitive processes. They would stretch the skins on the ground, allow them to dry, and cut them up to make sandals. Sometimes they would leave them to soak in vessels or pits filled 'with earth and urine and then would beat them. 126 There was also, of necessity, a rope industry. Rope was used to make suspension bridges, hammocks, and nets, to join together the framework of houses, and to drag blocks of stones. It was thus of very great importance in the lives of the Peruvians. The In dians made it from the fiber of the maguey or henequen (Agave Americanum), which they saturated in the water of the streams, beat, and left to dry. By braiding several strands together, they could make very thick cables. In several regions of the plateau Supply 121 one may still encounter Indians, especially women, preparing fibers for rope-making in this way.127 Finally, let us glance briefly at the ceramic arts. Since the Indians were unacquainted with the potter's wheel, their vessels of baked clay were cast in a mold, generally in several sections, which were then assembled. When the molds were in two parts, they were joined like the valves of a casting, and on many pieces of pottery one can still see the ridge made by the settling of the clay at the line of junction. 128 To keep the clay from cracking while being baked or dried, the potter would mix it with graphite ash or with maize straw chopped to the fineness of powder. 129 Pots would often have rounded bases so that they could be sunk into the ground.

These vessels are known as aryballuses.