9. The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand

9 The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand We now come to the essential problem that every socialist system must solve: How replace the mechanism of the pricing process and achieve by way of authority an equilibrium between supply and demand? The retrenchment of needs and the regula tion of production make it possible to simplify all computations and to proceed to calculate approximately the total demand and the total supply at a given moment and as anticipated throughout the year. Such calculations require statistical data. In the light of the figures obtained, the government will take the necessary measures to procure the quantity of products sufficient to meet those needs which are deemed to be the irreducible minimum and will have these products delivered to the places 'where they are to be con sumed. To keep its forecasts exact, it will forbid any change of residence on the part of anyone save in exceptional cases which it will be obliged to take into account. But as it is not infallible, and as chance may upset its calculations, it will create reserve stocks as a means of correcting any unanticipated imbalance. The transmis sion of the information it receives and the orders it sends out will require a network of communications and the establishment of a corps of messengers. In addition, since personal interest is to a 122 The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 123 great extent eliminated, severe penalties will be needed to take its place.

This rigid system, however, will of necessity allow for a certain amount of free play because of the retention of elements of earlier date that the monarchs do not believe it useful to suppress by force and becauseof the substructure,which still leavessome room for personal interest. Thus, a certain amount of trade will continue to be carried on at the periphery of the socialist regime. Such were the factors in the Incas' solution of the basic prob lem, and such are the different aspects of their economy that we must successively examine. 1. Statistics It is ridiculous for a man who knows nothing of the art of counting by means of knots to presume to reckon up the number of the stars. -A maxim of the Inca Pachacutec1 The slightest insufficiency, the smallest error, in the statistics of a planned empire runs the risk of entailing a catastrophic glut or famine. Fortunately, the Incas attained a rare degree of perfec tion in this field.

The decimal system of numeration was in use in the Inca em pire, which is remarkable when we recall that a vigesimal system was the rule among the Chibchas, as it was among the Mayas to the north. Statistics were compiled by means of a knotted cord called the quipu, of which an intensive use was made. Everything 'was counted, even to the wild animals captured in the hunts and the slingstones deposited in the public storehouses. 2 Before we examine in greater detail the manner in which the statistical tables were drawn up and preserved, a very puzzling preliminary question must first be raised: Did any system of writ ing exist in those days? Montesinos maintains that the ancient Peruvians used to write on banana leaves3 or on the foliage of trees4 and that the practice of this art had been forbidden by a sovereign at a period antedating that of the Incas. According to this chronicler, an amauta who had invented characters for 'writ124 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru ing was burned alive. Modern historians are in disagreement on this question. R. Porras Barranechea, considering the hieroglyphic inscriptions found on stones, the use of paintings in the temples to record historic events, and especially the existence, before the conquest, of a word in Quechua and Aymara that was equivalent to the word "writing" (quilca), concludes that a form of picture writing did once exist in Peru. 5 Finally, there is still some mystery in regard to the real nature of a certain rod of 'which Balboa speaks and on which Huayna Capac is said to have drawn stripes in different colors to mark his last wishes before his death. 6 The quipu was not peculiar to the Peruvians. The Colombians of Popayan, the Caribs of the Orinoco, the Mexicans before they used the codex, certain North American tribes, the Chinese, and the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands were all acquainted with it. On the other hand, some peoples quite close by, such as the Caras, were unfamiliar with it.7 The Caras brought together pieces of wood, in which they had cut notches, and in these notches they would set little stones of different shapes and colors according to the ideas they wished to express.'s The Caiiaris of Ecuador, who were not subdued by the Incas until rather late, also made use of little stones which they placed in the compartments of a special apparatus. Wiener, who found a stone object of this type, calls it a computer. 9 It consists of a rectangular slab of stone, into the upper surface of which are cut a number of square and rectangular compartments so as to leave a free octagonal space in the center. A prismatic projection, itself surmounted by a secondary projection, extends upward from each end. 10 According to Wiener, the accounts were kept by means of kernels of maize, beans, or pebbles. A pebble placed in a small compart ment would denote one unit. Its value would be doubled if it were put into a larger space and tripled in the central compartment. It would be multiplied by six if placed on the first of the upper levels and by twelve when put on one of the topmost platforms. The color of the pebble indicated the nature of the object that was being counted. ll In spite of what Suarez says,12 it is certain that the quipu 'with its cords and knots is immeasurably superior to the system of the The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 125 b Diagram of a Computer little stones. The pebbles arranged in the computer to denote some numerical result had to be moved if anyone wanted to make use of the computer for a new calculation. The apparatus was too valuable to permit the possession of a large number of them. The quipu, on the contrary, was simple to set up, and it could then be preserved as a record and used to form whole sets of figures. The computer was, properly speaking, an instrument for making cal culations, 'whereas the quipu was ideally suited for dealing with statistics. The one facilitated mathematical operations; the other registered the results.

Thus, the quipu was. neither a system of calculating nor a mode of writing; it was a numerical record and served a purely mnemonic function.l 3 It consisted of a thick cord from which a number of strings were suspended in the manner of a fringe. These strings were of different colors, according to the nature of the object each represented: for example, yellow stood for gold, red for the army, white for peace. The colors, being limited in number, had different meanings depending upon the general purpose and scope of the quipu. Objects not distinguishable by color or liable to confusion were ranked according to their quality. Thus, for a statistical table 126 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru of weapons, the first string would denote the number of lances, these being considered the noblest of all arms; then would come the arrows, bows, javelins, clubs, axes, and slings. Often the pen dent cords would themselves have smaller strings attached to them to represent subdivisions. Attached to a cord that recorded demo graphic statistics, for example, these subsidiary strings 'would refer to the year's widows or widowers.

Knots of various types and positions were tied in the cords to mark units, by tens or multiples of ten, according to where they were placed. The lower end of the cord would correspond to unity; the upper end, to ten thousand units. Every interval between the tens, the hundreds, and the thousands had to be long enough to provide room for nine simple intermediary knots or for a single large knot formed by passing the string two, three, four, or up to nine times through the loop of the simple knot. 14 Sometimes the principal cord would have knots at its two ends to indicate the total from the small strings; in other cases an extra thread would mark the sum reached on the others, forming, as Mead says, "a sort of double entry bookkeeping." 15 An example (which we have simplified) is provided by A. de la Calancha. 16 Let us suppose that an official wished to express the fact, 1320 . Totalizer cord 1562 27 201 Diagram of a Quipu The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 127 first, that before Manco Capac, the first Inca, there was neither king nor chief nor any form of worship or religion; and then that in the fourth year of his reign this emperor subdued ten provinces, the con quest of which cost him a certain number of men and in one of which he seized a thousand units of gold and three thousand units of silver; and finally that in thanksgiving for his victory he had a feast cele brated in honor of the Sun-god.

The quipucamayu (i.e., the keeper of the quipus) would take a blacl( cord-the color that denoted time. From it he would suspend a large number of uncolored strings, and in it make a quantity of little knots, Then, when he reached the center of the cord, he would make a thick knot and run it though with a crimson thread, the color denoting the Inca. The reader, seeing the quipu divided into two halves, the first strung with uncolored threads and dotted with a mass of knots, would say to himself: Before the first sovereign (scarlet thread), for a very long period (many threads and knots), the people had no king, since none of the threads is scarlet; no chief, since none is deep purple; no religion, since none is blue; and no administrative departments, since there are no variegated threads; and he would conclude that there was nothing at all. In the scarlet thread the quipucamayu would make four small knots to explain that the events he was recounting took place in the fourth year of the monarch's reign; and to the central knot he would attach a gray thread on which would be ranged ten small knots, indicating the conquered provinces. To each of these he would fasten a green thread, indicating, always by means of knots, the number of the enemy killed, and would add little strings of diverse colors to denote their native provinces, for every province was represented by a mixture of different shades. In the same way, he would attach a red thread-the color of the imperial army-to make known the number of warriors who had been· slain and the provinces from which they came.

To indicate the nature and amount of the booty taken, the quipuca mayu would suspend, from the knot of the province in question, a yellow thread, signifying gold, with a knot to indicate one thousand, and a white thread, for silver, with three of these knots. Finally, he would add a small twist of blue, white, and yellow to designate the god who lived in the sky (blue) and created silver (white) and gold (yellow) and to let it be understood that a celebration had been held in his honor. All told, the quipu was a very difficult rebus! 17 128 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru The use the Indians made of these quipus astonished the chron iclers, even those who were the most hostile to the natives and the most ready to disparage them. 18 But modern authors, comparing the quipu to systems in use among other peoples, are less enthu siastic than their predecessors. 19 In spite of the fact that the first Council of Lima in 1583 ordered the quipus to be burned because of the magic formulas and pre scriptions they contained, many have been preserved and are on exhibition in our museums today.2()But most of these, as they were found in tombs, were probably calendrical in nature and used in divination, for it is doubtful that administrative documents would have been buried with the dead.

To this day the shepherds in the Peruvian puna keep track of their flocks with the aid of strings, the first representing the bulls, the second the milch cows, the third the barren cows, the fourth the calves; and then the wool-bearing animals, the number of foxes killed, expenditures for salt, and so on.21 In the region of Casta, when the canals are being repaired, the officials in charge make use of small wooden boards on which the names of the workers are inscribed. Beside every name there is a hole with colored threads strung through it, which indicate the quantity and the quality of the work performed, the number of implements used, and even the zeal displayed by each worker. 22 The statistical reports in preColumbian Peru enabled the Inca and the higher officials to know exactly what the economic condi tion of the empire was and to act accordingly. The mass of the population, to be sure, had less interest than the upper class in keeping these records, since their subsistence minimum-a tupu and a pair 6f llamas-was assured in any case. Yet even this mini mum could disappear in the wake of some chance occurrence such as an abnormal drought or an invasion, in which case the govern ment would come to their aid, as we shall later see.

Of all the statistics the most important were undoubtedly the census figures. For this purpose the Indians were divided into ten age groups: those over sixty, who did no work and were sometimes called upon to give advice to the local chiefs; those between fifty The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 129 and sixty, who were assigned to light work, such as planting vege tables; those between twenty-five and fifty, the hatunruna) who were subject to compulsory labor service; those between twenty and twenty-five (those under twenty-five helped their parents), and then into groups from sixteen to twenty, eight to sixteen, six to eight four to six, two to four, and infants under two. This register was kept up to date each year. 23 The governmental service of statistics was in the hands of three different categories of officials: the ordinary administrative author ities collected the data, special accountants set up the tables, and others were charged with their preservation. At the base of the hierarchy the chiefs of ten households reported the number of births and deaths each year 24 and kept the complete record of their group. This information was passed on to the chiefs of fifty fam ilies, then to those of a hundred households, and so on up to the tucricuc. Accountants at these upper levels of the hierarchy would integrate the data supplied by subordinate officials and set up general quipus for each of the large administrative units. The tucricucs would take these statistical summaries to Cuzco when they went to make their annual report to the Inca and to celebrate the great festival of the Raymi. 25 Finally, in the capital, the keepers of the quipus 'would collect the statistical tables of the entire em pire and would make a point of preserving in their own memories what was only imperfectly indicated by the little cords. Each of these last-named record-keepers had his specialty. One took care of the war quipus, another of the statistics on festivals, a third was responsible for records of population figures, and so on. They were very highly esteemed, paid no taxes of any kind, and lived at the Inca's expense. This was the Bureau of General Statistics and, at the same time, the National Archives.

Accuracy in the statistical tables was assured by the imposition of severe penalties for any dereliction. The quipucamayu who did not know what it was his business to know or who falsified his reports received a sentence of death "without remission," says Calancha,26 and an Indian who hid to escape being counted was struck over the shoulders with a club. 27 The supervision of the 130 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru census was exercised by the Inca's special envoys, who would as semble all the Indians in the village to be counted, "even if they were on the point of death." 28 2. Population Movements For such a statistical system to serve an administrative func tion, its basis must remain unchanged. It 'was no idle fancy that moved the great founders of utopias to forbid the inhabitants of their ideal cities to travel about as they pleased. 29 Population move ments upset production and distribution quotas and throw the whole mechanism out of gear. The raw materials allocated to one province will exceed its actual needs, while its neighbor will suffer from a shortage. One granary will not receive the amount of maize that should have been provided for, while another will be glutted with cereals. The tax assessments imposed on each administrative unit will be too low or too high, depending upon the increase or decrease in population figures. No matter how carefully the sta tistical tables are compiled, they will never succeed in keeping up to date, and the administration of such a restless society will be continually plagued by unforeseen and inextricable complications.

Accordingly, the Inca in his wisdom took the only step compat ible 'with his system of government: He fore bade his subjects to move from one place to another without special authorization. No individual caprice must disturb the socialist order. Long after the conquest, Ondegardo and Santillan, struck by the difficulties the Spaniards were encountering in collecting the taxes imposed on communities whose composition was perpetually changing, de manded a return to the ancient rule.'so In the empire of the Incas, the Indian had to live and die in the place where he was born. s1 The enforcement of this legislation was assured in the simplest possible way. The natives of every province carried some distin guishing mark that they were not permitted to alter under pain of death. The ColIas, for example, wore the woolen cap that they have kept to this day, and the headdress of the Cafiaris was a slender circular band of wood. s2 Officials would take up positions at the entrances to the towns and note all the Indians 'who passed The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 131 by. Others would be stationed at the entrances to bridges to make sure that no one crossed without the necessary permit. 33 At Cuzco no one could enter or leave the city after sunset or before sunrise. 34 On the other hand, the Inca did not hesitate to move families or groups of families from one place to another when he deemed it necessary,and this had to be taken into account in the quipus.

These forcibly uprooted and resettled groups were called mitimaes by the Spaniards, from the Quechua word mitmac) which means "a man sent elsewhere." 35 This term was used with several differ ent meanings, however, and we feel that we should define it in all its senses here, even at the risk of encroaching upon the content of later chapters. There were four categories of mitimaes. First, there were the men sent to occupy the military posts that had been established on the frontiers to defend the empire against invasion. These detachments were chosen from the most depend able and most courageous tribes and were shown particular marks of favor. The Inca presented them with objects of value, with clothing, and with wives. Their military vocation by no means pre vented their cultivating the land and taking part in the construc tion of public works. The captain who commanded them 'was of the Inca race and was under the orders of the governor. 36 Secondly, there were the colonies of Indians sent from overpop ulated districts to sparsely inhabited areas with the object of adjusting population to the resources of each region. Even before the establishment of the Inca empire, Aymara colonists, driven from their homes by the scarcity of food, had settled on the coast, where they continued to carryon trade with their former com patriots. 37 These mitimaes would often be charged with the task of revictualing their places of origin. Before the period of the Incas, the Chinchas and the Chim us had the use of lands in the sierra where certain of their number would pasture flocks of llamas whose wool would be used to make clothes. 38 Later the sovereigns of Cuzco assigned domains in warm regions-sometimes very far away-to most of the districts where the climate was cold.s9 In order to facilitate their resettlement, such mitimaes were granted certain privileges. The most notable of these was the en132 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru joyment of a long period of tax exemption. Moreover, they re mained subject to their own chiefs and free from the domination of the chiefs of the districts to which they had been moved. 40 In dians from their native territory would come to help them in the ploughing and planting seasons.41 Ondegardo shows what a mis take the Spaniards made in disregarding this system. The Marquis of Caiiete, after an investigation, ordered the return to the prov ince of Chucuito of lands on the coast that it had formerly possessed and from which it had obtained its food supplies. 42 It is obvious that in such circumstances the Indians were forced to live in a climate different from that of the area in which they had been born. This was contrary to the Incas' general rule. But it is also evident that this was one of the sovereign's most effective means of preventin'g a deficit in production in certain parts of his realm.

We shall follow Ondegardo's terminology and refer to these colonies as suyus., to distinguish them from the others. 43 Thirdly, certain exchanges of population were made with the purpose of improving production. In these cases, what counted was the quality, not the quantity, of the individuals who were reset tled. The. central authority would send families of skilled farmers to the regions that needed them and would transfer families of artisans from areas where they were too plentifu1. 44 It is possible that individuals or groups from among the conquered peoples may have been sent to CUlCO and the provinces adjoining the capital to serve as instructors of one kind or another. 45 Finally, there were the cases of forcible deracination and re settlement of whole populations. The Inca effectuated exchanges of population not only for economic but also for political reasons, to insure order and to maintain peace within the empire. He would uproot loyal tribes and transplant them in newly conquered provinces, sending disaffected tribes from these areas to occupy the places thus vacated. In such cases, the mitimaes would be completely separated from their compatriots and brought under the domination of the tucricuc of the district to 'which they had been transferred. All ties with their native land were severed.

The newcomers thus settled in a conquered region, being alto gether reliable and capable of quelling revolt, served both as The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 133 teachers of the natives and as watchdogs and spies for the Inca. The latter was not sparing in his favors to them. He gave them clothing, jewels, and wives, and he always took care to send them to a region with a climate similar to that of their native province. 46 Nothing gives us a better idea of the power of the Inca and the astuteness of his policy than this barbarous, but effective, pro cedure. How painful it must have been for these farm folk to be compelled to leave their ancestral lands and go to live among hos tile peoples! Some grumbled; others rebelled. 47 But the Inca, un swerving in his determination to regulate everything strictly in accordance with the implacable dictates of reason, thought nothing of sacrificing the interests of the individual to the general welfare for the greater good of the empire. 48 There were a great number of these mitimaes. "There is hardly a valley or a village in all Peru where there is not an ayllu or a faction [partialiteJ." 49 For example, the Incas had loyal tribes transported into the kingdom of the Caras, 50 and this is the reason why at Zambiza, near Quito, there are Aymara Indians today whose ancestors were brought from the Bolivian frontier.

It is curious to note that, in spite of everything, the resettled Indians did not become as attached to their new territories as other Indians generally were to theirs. Ondegardo remarks that the mitimaes left their lands to serve the Spaniards more readily than did the other Peruvians. 51 Besides these wholesale transplantations of entire tribes, the Incas also undertook, in the same spirit, the resettlement of smaller groups, consisting of carefully chosen families entrusted with the mission of acting as guardians of law and order. These mitima,es were obliged to learn the language of the natives among whom they were sent and had the right to enter their homes by day or night in order to be able to warn the nearest official in authority of any attempt at revolt. 52 In a word, the Inca regulated all changes of residence. He settled good farmers where there was a shortage of them, gave teachers to Indians who lacked instruction, put restless and arrogant tribes close to those that were submissive, set down his subjects with a sovereign hand in the different parts of his territory as one moves 134 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru pawns on a chessboard, and shuffled people around as he wished in order to unify his empire. 53 3. Administrative Organization Every socialist system must rest upon a powerful bureaucratic administration. In the Inca empire, as soon as a province was conquered, its population \vould be organized on a hierarchical basis, and the officials would immediately set to work. 54 The table of organization listing the principal offices to be filled in the ad ministration of a collectivist regime covers almost two pages in P.

Bourguin's Les systemes socialistes et l' evolution economique. 5.5 Even recognizing that the society of ancient Peru was immeasur ably less complex than ours is today, we are still amazed that the Inca government should have succeeded in getting all these func tions performed. The empire was called Tawantinsuyu J i.e., "the four parts of the world," and its capital was named The CuzcoJ i.e., "the navel." These "four parts" were the North (Chinchasuyu), the South (Collasuyu), the 'East (Antisuyu), and the West (Contisuyu). Each was under the direction of an official, whom the Spaniards called the viceroy. The four viceroys perhaps constituted that upper council of the empire which we have already mentioned. The chroniclers always speak of provinces or valleys as the basic administrative districts, and by these words they denote the cen ters of population, the mountain hollows, and the little vales along the coast. They are purely geographical expressions, refer ring to natural groupings to which the Incas endeavored to apply, as well as they could, a rational decimal system.56 In each of the four sections of the empire, the heads of families, or purics J who were subject to compulsory personal service by way of taxation-that is, men between the ages of twenty-five and fifty, and in consequence either married or widowers-were divided into groups of ten. 57 One member of the group, the decurion (chunca camayu), held sway over the other nine. 58 Five decurions were un der the authority of a superior decurion (pichca-chunca-camayu), and two groups of five decuries formed a century (pachaca) under The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 135 the direction of a centurion (pachaca-camayu), who was assisted by a deputy. Five centuries (pichca-pachaca) were subject to a captain, to quote the term used by Garcilaso;59 and two groups of five centuries (waranca), that is, a thousand families, were under the command of a special chief (waranca-camayu). Above him, the hunu-camayu was in command of ten thousand families (hunu), and the governor (tucricuc) i.e., "'he who sees an") was the ruler of a group of four hunus. The governor, finally, was subject directly to the viceroy.6o The Inca appointed the viceroys and the tucricucs. These, in turn, would name the heads of the hunus and warancas; the heads of the warancas would choose the chiefs of the pachacas and the subordinate officials, subject to the customary local regulations in regard to inheritance or election, which continued to be applied to the curacas or local chiefs, at least so long as there was no risk of placing incompetent, immoral, or politically suspect persons in positions of power. 61 It is possible that in some regions a sort of election, as a survival of ancient custom, may have played a certain role in the nomination of subordinate officials, but this method of nomination tended more and more to disappear, if, in fact, it was even still in existence at the time of the Incas. We say a "sort of election" because probably there was no vote properly so called.

The chief himself took command by virtue of his natural supe riority.62 The curacas) however chosen, would find themselves placed in the hierarchy in the position befitting the numerical importance of their tribe. Sometimes they would be pachaca-camayu) some times waranca-camayu) but probably not tucricuc. 63 It is possible that in practice the title of curaca was extended to include all officials, as Zurkalowski contends,64 but to adhere to such a loose interpretation of the word would be to lay oneself open to con fusion. In order to qualify for these offices, one had to meet certain age requirements. Noone below the age of twenty-six could hold any of the lower positions, and one had to be at least fifty to be a tucricuc. 65 . The responsibilities of all these officials extended over an ex136 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru tremely broad field. They were in general charge of the prepara tion of the statistical tables, the requisitioning of the supplies and provisions needed by their group (seeds, staple foods, wool, etc.), the distribution of the products obtained, the solicitation of as sistance and relief in case of need, the supervision of the conduct of their inferiors, and the rendering of complete reports andac counts to their superiors. These operations were facilitated by the fact that those under their supervision were obliged to admit them to their houses at any moment, to allow them to inspect everything in their homes "down to the cooking utensils," and even to eat "with their doors open." 66 The decurion, the mainstay of the whole system, was called in Spanish procuradorand fiscalj that is, he not only had to oversee the work done and make sure that the workers received adequate maintenance, but was obliged to denounce delinquents and de mand their punishment. He worked like and with the men he was in charge of, assigned strips of land to the Indians for communal labor, distributed seeds, and saw to it that the crops were garnered in the granaries.

The particular responsibility of the higher officials was to super vise the collection of taxes. The governing tucricuc selected the men for the army and the women for the virgins' houses and 'was obliged from time to time to visit the Inca and report fully on conditions in his province. He was in command of the mitimaes) and he could even raise an army to quell a revolt. 67 , The whole system was kept under the watchful eyes of inspec tors, orejones) who made general tours of the empire every three years,68 and of the Inca's secret agents, called by the Spaniards veedores or pesquisidores J who made their way incognito into all the districts and were commissioned to observe, listen to com plaints, and report, but not to take any repressive measures on their own account. 69 Several brothers of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui were successively appointed inspectors of this sort. 70 Finally, the officials of all ranks were expected to gather vital statistics, arrange marriages, and punish delinquents. Those re sponsible for inflicting punishment were particularly dreaded-as we may 'well believe. 71 The task of ultimate review was reserved The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 137 to the Inca himself. He \vould travel throughout the empire in his golden litter, and during the whole period of his tour-which was very long, for he was sometimes absent from Cuzco for three or four years at a time-he would listen to complaints and render justice. 72 The total number of administrative officials,aside from viceroys, governors, inspectors, deputies, and special agents, is difficult to establish, and it is understandable that various authors should be in disagreement in this regard, but the figure was probably very high in proportion to the population. In any case, any strictly arithmetical expression of this ratio can have only a limited valid ity. Even s,upposing that it could have been accurately calculated for a given date, marriages and deaths would have been bound to destroy its accuracy in a short space of time. In the opinion of Cunow and Trimborn, all these administrative units were only the transposition of the earlier Indian classifications: the hunu corresponded to the tribe, the waranca to the phratry, the pachaca to the ayllu; and the figures given for these divisions recalled their ancient importance, but no longer had any connection with real ity by the time the Spaniards arrived. 73 However, this opinion seems to us to go too far. The vital statistics were undoubtedly kept up to date, and the officials could base their calculations on the actual figures thus established, not on outdated figures that, as the German authors 'would have it, served merely as labels for the administrative divisions.

Nevertheless, the distribution of jobs, services, raw materials, foodstuffs, and manufactured goods could not easily have been carried out in this vast empire if differences in the size of groups of the same name had not been held within narrow limits. Har monious organization demanded that this should be the case, and we have the testimony of two chroniclers, Santillan and De Castro, that it was. The first of these authors affirms that the century could not comprise more than one hundred taxable subjects and that if the number increased, the unit would be divided. 74 The second explains that the officer in charge of preparing the statistical tables would remove the yanacuna and the women destined for the Inca and the SUIl; from the groups in which the population was in138 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru creasing, and, if this subtraction still proved insufficient, would ask for the creation of a new unit. 7,5 The sovereign could also at tain the same end, that of adjusting the population to the neces sities of statistics, and not the statistics to the population, either by resettling mitimaes or by changing the boundaries of a district.

Better still, Otto von Buchwald tells us that in the province of Imbabura the Incas broke up the age-old communities and divided the population into pachacas and warancasJ adding families taken from other groups to fill up pachacas that were below the pre scribed n umber. 76 The agrarian community could sometimes receive new elements in this way or lose some of its own members. 77 The strictest adher ence to the decimal system of grouping was all the more necessary in dealing with recently conquered peoples with a high degree of civilization, such as the Chimus, 'where the former tribal organiza tion had disappeared. 78 It is curious to note that the Germanic pagus was a century, that is, originally a group of one hundred heads of families, like the pachaca. But the number was exactly one hundred only at the beginning, at the time of the initial organization, and it probably varied as time went on, although the unit continued to be called by the same name. On the other hand, we read in Sir Thomas More's Utopia that when families lacked the prescribed number of members, "this measure or number is easily observed and kept by putting them that in fuller families be above the number into families of smaller increase. But if chance be that in the whole city the store increase above the just number, therewith they fill up the lack of other cities." 79 The Incas seem to have avoided both of these extremes. They sought to lessen the discrepancy between the number of families actually counted in each unit and the number by which the unit was designated, but they did not succeed in making the 'two figures identical. They contented themselves with an approximation. It is thus an exaggeration to say that the numerical system existed only in the statistical tables. SO The most reasonable opinion seems to be that of D'Harcourt that the division into groups of families by tens and hundreds did not have to be strictly exact, but had to The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 139 serve merely as a convenient base for distribution and that an effort was made to make it fit existing conditions. 81 Another administrative division was superimposed on the one we have just examined, but it remains very obscure. All the in habitants of the empire, and the residents of Cuzco in particular, were divided into two strata (partialitl!s),the upper and the lower, hanan and hurin) those of hanan being considered the superiors of those of hurin. This division goes back, according to C. de Castro, to Tupac Yupanqui; according to Las Casas, to Pachacutec; ac cording to Montesinos, to a certain Inti Capac Yupanqui. 82 If one is to believe Sarmiento, its original purpose was to facilitate the tabulation of statistics. According to him, the Inca Roca, realizing that his ancestors had always lived in the lower part of Cuzco, de creed that his successors were to live in the upper quarter and thus created the hanancuzco segment of the population; and that is why the later Incas were all from this group.S3 This is hardly a satisfac tory explanation. Las Casas and Montesinos attribute the creation of these two strata of the popUlation to the desire both to facilitate computations and enumerations and to arouse a feeling of rivalry between the two quarters thus formed in CUZCO.84 Cobo adds to this aim the wish to set up opposing factions and thus prevent rebellions, since each side would have its eye on and be ready to de..

nounce the other. 85 Perhaps this duality should be viewed as a survival of the phra .. tries of which the primitive tribe was composed.s 6 It is possible also that the hanan may have consisted of the descendants of the original inhabitants of Cuzco, and the hurin of the descendants of immigrants who had entered at some distant period. This would explain the pre-eminence of the former over the latter. 87 Cuneo Vidal observes that the hanan were the first occupants, who took the best lands, and that the hurin were the latecomers, who re mained at the bottom of the valley.s8 If, nevertheless, it was the hurin who once held the pre-eminent position, as Sarmiento con tends, the passing of power from one party to the other must have been the result of a revolution rather than the consequence of an order from the Inca, the reason for which eludes us. As opposed to the authors cited above, H. Urteaga, following Latcham in this 140 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru respect, believes that the hurinwere the original inhabitants, who settled in the fertile lower quarters, and the hanan were the new comers, mitimaes J for example, who occupied the upper sections and were looked upon with disfavor. 89 4. The System of Compulsory Personal Service In a socialist regime the taxes paid or services exacted are not a contribution to the public expenditures that is levied according to the citizens' ability. They are an instrument for the distribution of wealth. Economic activity is centralized in the hands of govern ment officials.

It was an absolute principle under the Incas that all exactions consisted of personal services. No deduction was levied upon the personal property of the taxpayer, on the products of the tupu J or on the clothing made by the Indian from his llamas' wool.90 In the Inca empire it was the cultivation of the lands of the Sun and of the Inca that formed the chief service exacted of the citizens. The yield was never constant, since all the risks fell upon the bene ficiary. In addition, the Indian was obliged to perform some task, which generally consisted in manufacturing, out of raw materials furnished by the state, articles that would go to swell the stocks in the public storehouses, or he would sometimes be required to serve a certain term in the administration of the government. Theoretically, the Inca's power to fix the nature and the amount of this personal service was unlimited. 91 In fact, however, the sovereign did not proceed in an arbitrary way. He would send into each one of the four parts of the empire trustworthy in dividuals who would report to him on the possibilities of every province. He would then call the assembly of the orejones into session and base his decisions on the statistics concerning the popu lation and the wealth of each area. 92 He would also take into· ac count the skills of the inhabitants and their natural aptitudes. The Chumbivilcas were called upon to send dancers to Cuzco, while the Lucanas had to provide bearers for the imperial litter. 93 The craftsmen rendered the Inca his due by exercising their The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 141 crafts for the monarch's benefit during the season least favorable for work in the fields.

Every precaution was taken to equalize the burden of personal services exacted. If one province had just enough land to provide food for its inhabitants, the Inca did not reserve any of it for himself, but demanded men for public works or to manufacture certain articles. If one district had to provide the Indians for mak ing clothing in one year, another would be assessed for this labor in the following year, and so on in rotation. 94 The division of the population into tens and multiples of ten made the assessment easy. Thus, in order to supply a thousand men, the head of the hunu would simply demand one hundred from each chief of a waranca under his command; the latter, in turn, would requisition fifty from each head of a pichca-pachacaJ and so on down to the decurion, who would have no more than one man to provide. This decurion would then take an Indian to his immediate superior, the head of five decuries, who, in his turn, would go to the centuriqn with the five men he had thus received, and so on Up.95 Finally, these exactions 'were not imposed on uniform dates.96 The products were deposited in the storehouses and in great part were brought to Cuzco for the festival of the Raymi. 97 These exactions came to a considerable amount. Indians were needed for the service of the temples and the tombs, of the Inca, and of the courier system; for work in the mines, the guarding of the warehouses, the manufacture of rope, the quarrying and cut ting of stone, the construction of public buildings, and the trans portation of merchandise. But it should not be forgotten that the considerable resources thus obtained were not destined for the use of the Inca alone. They also served to maintain the entire im, perial family, the government, the army, and the Indians engaged in public works; in a 'word, they constituted the state revenues.

In addition, personal services were due to the curacas and the higher officials. They were sometimes paid by the members of the hanan division of the population to the principal chiefs, and by those of the hurin division to the subordinate officials.98 All these dignitaries had the right to a number of servitors, amounting to 142 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru one or two per cent of the population over which they ruled. Moreover, the communities built their houses, ploughed their fields, and tended their flocks,99 without there being, apparently, any precise regulations in this regard. loo In short, the exactions imposed by the Inca, the personal services furnished to the curacasJ and the work done on behalf of the in capacitated and the absent corresponded to the three forms of taxes that are to be found in all modern states: national, local, and public relief. lol Among the state taxes, there is one that is worthy of note. It was levied on very poor tribes, such as the people of the Pasto on what is now the frontier of Colombia and of Quillaco at Alausf in the center of Ecuador,lo2 and it consisted in the delivery of a certain number of live lice. Sinchi Roca demanded. the stem of a feather filled with lice from every taxpayer among the Uru. 103 This measure, which at first sight seems very odd, was in reality very wise. In the first place, it in volved an application-strange, to be sure, but definite-of the prin ciple, too often forgotten in our own day, that all the inhabitants of a country should be obliged to contribute their mite, however small, to the government. It was, besides, an excellent hygienic provision, and one that would still be entirely justified in these regions at the present time.lo4 Exemption from all tax burdens 'was granted to the elite (higher officials, curacasJ the Inca caste), to widows, sick people, cripples, and others who were incapacitated; to the yanacuna J who were obliged to work only for their masters; and to those Indians who, as a result of exceptional circumstances, found themselves without land. 105 The service of the tambos was the object of special arrangements of which we shall speak later on. 106 There were both ordinary and special inspectors to make sure that everything was properly checked. lo7 This whole fiscal system was destroyed by the conquest, and when the Spaniards tried to establish another in its place, they ran The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 143 into great difficulties and were guilty of all sorts of involuntary injustices. They did away with personal service and demanded from certain provinces products that could not be grown on their soil. Indians were thus obliged to acquire llamas by way of ex change in order to give them in payment of taxes, and those 'who had nothing else would 'barter their daughters for these animals. lOB Ondegardo in all his writings advocates a return to the principle of personal service and the maintenance of the system of assess ments. According to him, only the requirement of personal service was accepted without murmur by the Indians, who felt them selves to be more oppressed when a single bushel of potatoes was taken from them than when they were forced to work fifteen days for perfect strangers. This is an attitude still to be found among a number of the peasants of western Europe. 109 Unfortunately, the obligation of personal service could also give rise to abuses. The tasks imposed by the encomenderos were often excessive. The Spanish sovereigns, therefore, in spite of Onde gardo's protests, decreed that taxes be paid either in money or in kind. 110 The idea of establishing a fixed per capita assessment was allur ing, for this would have made it possible to do without the inter vention of the curacasJ who were only too ready to abuse their powers; but it was not practicable, since the curacasJ knowing the Indians perfectly, were the only persons capable of getting the taxes paid. Besides, once the principle of assessment had been

adopted, it would have been necessary to revise the quotas to keep pace with changes in population, so as to avoid lightening the burden in provinces where the number of inhabitants was increas ing, to the detriment of those in which the population was de creasing, and strict supervision as well as severe penalties would have been needed to prevent the curacas from oppressing their subjects. The exactions imposed by the Inca were undoubtedly crushing,' but they were so adroitly conceived and so ingeniously apportioned that the Indians endured them with greater ease than they did the Spanish taxes that followed. 1ll 144 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru 5. Economic Stabilization Through Stockpiling Under socialism everything is organized and regulated by authority, according to a reasoned plan. In the socialist state, "an occasional insufficiency or surplus of products relatively to needs would be compensated by reserves set aside in warehouses that would be veritable public stores." 112 This is precisely what took place in Peru. Since the interference of phenomena beyond man's control-such as an exceptional drought-would inevitably make it impossible to assure a perfect adjustment of production to consumption in spite of the statisti cal tables, the Inca set up a system of reserve stocks in public warehouses.

The supplies thus accumulated constituted not only a con sumers' reserve, but an actual fund of "national capital," since they included, besides food and clothing, raw materials intended for distribution in the same way as the products were. The storehouses (pirua) were situated either close to the towns and villages or at intervals along the highways. The first were established outside the centers of population, in cool and airy places, to avoid any danger of dampness, and consisted of a series of small square buildings, set in orderly rows, to the number of twenty, thirty, fifty, or more, sufficiently far apart from one an other to prevent the destruction of all of them by a fire breaking out in any one. 11S Some of them contained products destined for the Sun, others the supplies set apart for the Inca, and still others the surplus that was kept as a special reserve in case of famine. 114 This specialization was entirely relative, however, for one store house would be drawn upon to replenish another, and the products originally intended for the Sun might themselves be allotted to the Inca or to the populace. The only rule 'was the will of the sovereign.115 The monarch planned so far ahead that these storehouses would sometimes have food supplies for ten years.l16 Overseers and ac countants were detailed to look after them. Every three years the The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 145 governing tucricuc would inspect them, and, if necessary, have anything that had deteriorated thrown out or order the distribu tion of whatever was in too plentiful supply.117The warehouses of the large cities 'were literally overflowing with goods of all sorts.

"The Christians took away everything they wanted," F. de Jerez reports, "and still the houses remained so full that nothing seemed to have been taken at all." 118 The same chronicler goes on to tell of the astonishment of his compatriots at the sight of the store houses of Cajamarca filled with clothing "piled up to the roof" and arranged "as t~e merchants of Flanders and Medina del Campo know how to do." 119 Besides clothing, these buildings contained stores of maize, quinoa, charqui, chuiio) dried vegetables, fish, sisal hemp, rope, wool, cotton, sandals, weapons, cabuya, and even shells. 120 All these things 'were produced on the lands of the Sun and those of the Inca or were brought in by the Indians as tribute. 121 The sovereign then made such distribution as was necessary to supply deficiencies in the warehouses of provinces where the statistical reports showed that there were needs to be met. 122 Exchanges of this sort between warehouses also had the purpose of providing some variety in the supply of consumers' goods. Thus, the Inca would furnish the inhabitants of the coastal regions with the products of the sierra, and vice versa, and such articles were highly valued. 123 The state magazines thus served five distinct purposes. First, they constituted a war chest, especially those situated along the high ways, which made possible the revictualling of armies. Next, they supplied the Incas, their families, their servants and retainers, the priests, and all the Indians working for them with all the neces sary means of sustenance. Thirdly, they enabled the sovereign to make gifts, either by way of reward or as a means of securing some useful cooperation. In the fourth place, they served as a bureau of public assistance and relief, providing needed food for the Indians whose crops had failed because of frost or for any other reason. And finally, they established and maintained reserve stocks of raw materials and consumers' goods.

146 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru The raw materials were distributed in accordance with the statistical data. Seeds 'were taken from the magazines every year, wool and cotton every other year, and divided successively among the hunu., waranca., and so on, to be finally distributed among the families. It should be noted that each head of a family was as sumed to have the same needs, and no account was taken of what his actual necessities might be. Thus, when an Indian had re ceived llamas from the Inca with full property rights in them, his share in the distribution of wool was not diminished on that account. 124 This was a reasonable procedure, for otherwise merit would no longer have received its reward; but nothing demon strates the character of the Inca organization more clearly. The scheme of distribution remained abstract and mathematical. That an Indian might have three times as much wool as he could work with was of little consequence; he would still receive his share.

Here, indeed, was one source of exchange. Local trade became a prime necessity. Since every family received an equal share in the distribution, with no concern for the exact number of people in it and in complete disregard of the goods that some families might already possess, the primary purpose of private exchange was to correct what was artificial in this system of distribution. As for consumers' goods, they had to be produced in sufficient quantity to make up for the deficiencies of production in famine years. Thus, the provisions destined for the Inca and for the Sun would in great part return., after a long detour} to the hands of the Indians who had produced them. From the economic point of view, it was here, undoubtedly, that the state magazines played an essential part. If the balance between production and consumption was destroyed in one prov ince, the other provinces automatically came to its aid. If the entire territory suffered from a shortage, the surpluses of previous years would at once fill up the gap. Thus, the inhabitants of the empire were jointly and severally responsible for one another in space, and each generation was jointly and severally responsible for the next in time. With such measures of provisionment, no surprise was possible; the future was assured. l25 The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 147 6. Transportation and Communication If it is true, as has 'been asserted, that the nature of a society is determined by the kind of roads it has, then Peruvian society must have been highly civilized, for never did any nation before the nineteenth century have at its disposal such a network of routes of communication. The highways of the Incas surpassed the famous Roman roads both in length and in the solidity of their construc tion. 126 Contrary to what history teaches us of the Mediterranean peo ples, water routes played only an insignificant role along the Pacific coast of South America before the coming of the white man.

Whereas travelers, and especially traders, today make use of boats to go from one point on the coast to another, the ancient inhab itants followed roads laid out along the seaboard. And yet, what obstacles these roads had to surmount! One must have done some traveling in South America to 'be able to under stand the astonishment of the conquerors at the sight of these paved highways stretching their long lines across the trackless soli tudes of the punas~ up the damp and slippery slopes of the Andes, along the sands of the shore, and through the mud of the tropical forests. The Indians mastered all difficulties. They erected retain ing walls on the sides of hills, tunneled through rocks, canalized the flow of rivers, and constructed raised causeways where the soil was marshy. The roads they built were truly those "monuments to human obedience and industry" of which Voltaire speaks.127 Wher ever possible, they followed straight lines, going over obstacles rather than around them, scaling the mountains by means of great flights of steps-for what was the use of taxing their ingenuity to achieve an easy gradient when the wheel was unknown and the important thing for both soldiers and couriers was to move quickly? 128 The manner in which these roads were constructed was adapted to the nature of the terrain they traversed. In the sierra they were made of pirca.129 In the fertile regions they were bordered by low 148 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru walls so that the soldiers on the march would not inadvertently trample upon the planted fields. In flat country the highways were from sixteen to twenty-five feet wide, enough for "six horsemen,"

says Jerez, "to be able to gallop abreast," 130 but Cobo remarks that in the valleys the roads were much narrower, being wide enough for only two or three horsemen at a time. 131 Where the incline was precipitous, platforms with stone stairways offered the bearers of the royal litter a place to rest, "'while the sovereign enjoyed a marvelous view." 132 Sometimes mar kers were erected along the road to indicate distances. 133 On the coast the roads were bordered by trees, which offered the traveler shade and fruit, and by canals, which enabled him to quench his thirst. In regions where the roads were in danger of being covered by the shifting sands, the trail 'was marked by twin lines of posts fixed in the ground, posts which the Spaniards later pulled up to use as firewood. 134 The Incas insisted that all the roads should be absolutely level, without any unevenness whatsoever, without so much as a pebble to form an obstacle over which the traveler might stumble, for the Indian women often used to spin as they walked and could not look where they were going. 135 The highways were laid out according to a simple plan. There were two great routes, one on the plateau, the other along the coast; the conquerors called them, respectively, the road of the sierra and the road of the llanos. The first ran down from Ipiales (south of Pasto) by way of Quito, Latacunga, and Tomebamba, curved toward the seaboard in the region of Ayavaca, then pro ceeded on to Cajamarca, Huamachuco, Huanuco, Jauja, Vilcas, and Cuzco, crossed the knot of Vilcafiota, followed the west bank of Lake Titicaca, leftChuquiabo to the east, reached Chuquisaca, and came to an end near Tucuman, in present northwest Argen tina. The second started from Tumbez, served the coast cities of Chimu, Pachacamac, and Nazca, went down along the Pacific through Tacna, Arica, and Tarapaca, and extended to the desert of· Atacama. 136 A series of secondary roads connected these great highways by crossing the Cordillera, and still others branched out from them The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 149 to reach distant regions. Some of them made their way eastward to settlements that have now disappeared, covered over by the forest vegetation.

In certain populous areas a second highway would sometimes be built for a new Inca alongside the first when the sovereign de cided to undertake some important expedition, but this happened very rarely. Cieza de Leon cites one example near Vilcas, where there were three or four roads running virtually parallel to one another, each of them bearing the name of a sovereign. 137 In this way a vast network of routes was established,' a veritable spiderweb in which even the most distant tribes were held im prisoned, with its center at Cuzco. This was the visible link that held together the diverse parts of the immense empire; this was the chief's most powerful weapon, the surest instrument of unifica tion. Primarily strategic, like the Roman roads, the Peruvian high ways served both a political and economic purpose, for they made it easy for the Inca, his officials, and his couriers to move rapidly from one place to another and for commodities to be transported quickly to ·wherever they were needed.

The parallel routes traversed by the two main arteries over a large extent of territory made possible an ingenious arrangement. For every province on the sierra road there was a corresponding province on the llanos highways. Whenever the Inca traveled along the mountain route, the high officials of the province he was pass ing through and those of the corresponding province in the plain would meet in a place agreed upon as the sovereign went by; and, conversely, when the Inca took the llanos road, the dignitaries of the mountain provinces would come down to meet him. Las Casas remarks that this arrangement enabled the monarch to receive the products of the coast while on his journey in the mountains, and vice versa, and it also had the effect of forcing the inhabitants of different provinces to make contact with one another. 13s Each province was obliged to build and maintain the section of highway that traversed its territory. Highway maintenance pre sented a relatively insignificant problem-for the pedestrians and cattle that gave the roads their only wear could hardly do much damage to them-but their original construction must have been 150 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru a gigantic enterprise. It should not be forgotten that in everything they did the Indians depended on sheer muscle-power alone, aided only by ropes, stones, and levers, without the assistance of carts or of any animals except llamas.

Vestiges of roadway are to be seen in many places in Peru and Ecuador today: toward Huamachuco, near Huanuco and Caja bamba,139 between Cuenca and Loja,140 between Quito and Rio bamba,141 near Lima, between Chimu and Trujillo, and at other sites as well.142 But it was not enough to build a highway. Some facilities had to be provided to meet the travelers' needs for food along the way. For this purpose, the tampus (which the Spaniards called tambos) were erected at regularly spaced intervals. 143 They were spacious buildings, sometimes consisting of only a single large room "with out any division into apartments and with three doors on the same side at equal distances from one another," 144 and sometimes di vided into halls for men and enclosures for llamas, with small rooms, which were probably reserved for people of distinction, opening out from the larger ones.145 There are ruins of a tambo of this kind at Paredones, between the valleys of Aiausl and Cafiar, more than 13,000 feet above sea level, and there are others between Cuenca and Deleg, and still others between Cuenca and Pucara. 146 These tambos served a dual purpose. They contained stocks of foodstuffs that were often abundant, and at the same time they were places of shelter. This explains why vestiges of some size and importance should have been discovered in desert regions. 147 Troops in large number could find shelter within the tambo walls, along with food, clothing, and weapons. Montaigne scarcely exag gerates when he writes: "At the end of each day's journey there are fine palaces furnished with provisions, clothes, and arms, for travelers as well as for the armies that have to pass that way." 148 The Indian appointed to the service of the tambo) who was assigned by way of tax payment from the province where a given tambo was situated, had to procure food and drink for every official sent by the sovereign and for anyone engaged in work for him, but he was not oblige.d to feed other travelers free of charge. The The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 151 latter always had to carry their own provisions along with them or be prepared to engage in barter in the tambos for such supplies as they would need. 149 The Spaniards formed the habit in the early days of the conquest of demanding free hospitality for themselves, so that the tambos) from beinggenerallyempty,sooncame to be always well filled with guests.150 It was to put an end to such abuses that the ordenanzas de tambos of May 31, 1543, were proclaimed. By the terms of these decrees, the tambos were placed under the charge of over seers and had to be supplied with food, wood, water, and grass; no one could spend more than one night in them; prices for all goods sold were to be fixed by the corregidor; and inspectors were to assure the strict enforcement of these regulations. 15l The most remarkable feats of engineering necessitated by the construction of the roads were the bridges. It is true that most of the routes were laid out in such a way as to by-pass the sources of the streams by climbing along the Andean slopes and traversing the knots or the high cold plateaus. 152 But it was not always pos sible to avoid crossing rivers.

Streams were bridged in a variety of ways, .depending on condi tions. Where the current was swift and the banks of the river steep, the builders often resorted to ordinary wooden bridges, made with beams and branches joined together, which have disappeared in the course of time. 15S Or, if the bed of the river was extremely nar row, it would be spanned by great stone slabs, like the bridge of Chavin, made of three huge monoliths more than six yards long supported by masonry piers. 154 The most common method of crossing streams was by way of the oroya. A cable was thrown from one bank to the other and firmly anchored to some trees, rocks, or stone abutments. From this cable a large basket that could hold three or four persons was suspended by a wooden handle and was connected with the farther bank by a rope pulled by the Indian on duty there. On each side of the river, therefore, an attendant supplied by the province had to be stationed at all times. l55 However, a traveler could cross by 152 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru himself by standing upright in the basket and sliding it along the cable hand over hand. l56 Even more primitive was the procedure known at the present time under the name of tarabita. Here the traveler had no basket at his disposal. He was trussed up with cord like a fowl, suspended from the cable, and pulled by the Indian on duty; or else, with the aid of his own hands and feet, he made the crossing alone. l57 A passage by tarabita is no easy matter. The cable sags under the weight of the traveler, so that during the first part of the crossing he is going downhill and gets along easily, but the second half is Qften laborious, and, because of the slack in the cable, he often finds himself more or less immersed in the water by the time he is halfway across. The present writer saw a tarabita still in operation on one of the branches of the Pastaza in the eastern Cordillera of Ecuador.

These rather primitive methods of crossing rivers were retained in places where it was feared that if the bridges were too well made they might be used by invaders. Suspension bridges-or, to use the Spaniards' term, "hammock bridges" ----:wereless common. Garcilaso speaks of the one over the Apurimac; Cieza de Leon and Cabo refer to the one at Vilcas; and Calancha and Humboldt mention the suspension bridge at Pe nipe. 158 They were constructed of two strong parallel cables made of Agave fiber, which were thrown across the stream and fastened at both ends to rocks or masonry abutments. Along the length of these cables hung vertical ropes that supported the platform of the roadway, made of branches covered over with a matting of wattles. These bridges had to be repaired every year. Some of them were almost two hundred feet long/ 59 and they were obviously very sturdy, since the Spaniards' horses crossed on them, though not without some difficulty;160 but the sagging of the roadway under the weight of the burden it had to bear and its constant swaying did not fail to give rise to some apprehensions even on the part of the dauntless conquerors. "It is not without anxiety that one crosses one of these bridges for the first time," Estete acknowledges, "even though there is no danger." 161 The oscillation could at least be diminished by attaching ropes to the middle of the bridge, stretching them tight, and fixing them diagonally to the shore.

The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 153 The mere sight of the suspension bridge that the Inca flung across the Apurimac filled the tribes of the vicinity with such terror that they surrendered to the master of Cuzco without putting up any resistance. 162 A few bridges were built on piers. The remains of one of them are still to be seen near Ollantaytambo over the Urubamba. Three blocks rolled into position upstream kept the water from under mining the masonry of the piers. Finally, there were all sorts of rustic bridges, more or less re liable, made of ropes and lianas.l 63 Accidents were frequent on bridges of this type during the colonial period. Pontoon bridges resting on floating rafts were used to ford quiet streams. The roadway was supported on floats made of rush and thatch and had to be rebuilt every six months to keep it from rotting away.164 The Peruvians also made use either of a raft composed of several tree trunks lashed togethed with ropes and pulled across the water by a cable or of a little reed boat which held only one person and which the passenger, lying flat on his stomach, would propel by using his arms as oars or by sitting astride it with his legs dangling in the water and paddling with them.

The chroniclers also make mention of rafts consisting of gourds fastened together to accommodate passengers and freight and either pulled through the water by swimming Indians 'while others pushed from behind, or punted. 165 Indians on guard at the entrances to the bridges had the duty, as we have seen, not only of collecting the tolls, but also of making sure that everyone who crossed was authorized to do so and that no one was transporting any stolen goods. These Indians always kept a supply of wood and rope on hand to make minor repairs. So strong was the sense of hierarchy that in several places the bridge was double, one section being reserved for the Inca alone or for the elite or for the army and the elite. Opinions differ on this poin 1.166 In addition to being used by the Inca and his armies, officials, and agents, the highways were traversed by couriers. Their organ154 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru ization, though remarkable, is not to be compared to our postal service, since it was established for the benefit of the Inca alone. 167 The couriers (chasquis) 'were fed on roasted maize from their early youth and trained to drink only once a day. They were em ployed by turns for a month's continuous service. 168 They lived in shelters which the Spaniards called chozas or also tambos) set up along the highways at distances that varied with the topography, and placed on high ground, so that from anyone of them it was possible to see the immediate surroundings of the shelter just pre ceding and of the one next ahead, if not the actual shelters them selves.169 On the important highways these primitive habitations were grouped in pairs, one on either side of the road, and in each one of them lived two Indians. Each pair of couriers .would be re sponsible for the service in one direction. On the subsidiary roads there was probably only one shelter, with two Indians at each post, and it is possible too that on certain segments of the great high ways there were as many as three such shelters with six runners. 170 The messages were transmitted in relay fashion. A courier would set out on the highway, running as fast as possible. At the next shelter one of the couriers had to bean constant watch in front of his post, his eyes on the road, looking for an approaching runner.

As soon as one came into view, he would run to meet him. On reaching the newcomer, he would turn and keep pace with him, receiving the message from him as they ran together, and then would continue on the course alone to the next post, where the same scene would be re-enacted. These couriers were called chasquis because when two of them met, one would call out, "Chasquit" (i.e., "Receive [the mes sage]!"). Everything was so contrived as not to lose a single instant. As there were two Indians at every shelter, a second message could arrive immediately after the first and be sent on at once.171 This system made it possible for ordinary messages from Quito to reach Cuzco in fifteen days, according to Morua, or in ten, ac cording to Ondegardo. 172 The latter himself, in his day, saw orders transmitted from Lima to Cuzco in four days by a particularly diffi cult route.

The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 155 If we take the average distance between the tambos as five kilometers (slightly over three miles), and assume a highway of which two-thirds or three-fourths was level, we can estimate the speed of a trained runner at eighteen minutes for this stretch. Nurmi, the world champion, cov ered the same distance in fourteen minutes, thirty seconds; and Guillemot, the champion of France, in fifteen minutes, eight seconds. The road between Quito and Cuzco must have measured about fifteen hundred miles, taking account of the fact that it made detours. Using as the basis of our calculations the average speed estimated above, we find that a message could go from one to the other of these cities in six days. If we note, on the one hand, that the road crossed the spurs and knots of the Cordillera, and, on the other, that the runners' speed must be less at night than during the day, we see that the figure of six days is a minimum and that Ondegardo's figure of ten days is a likely one.17S The messages were either oral or conveyed by means of quipus, sometimes accompanied by a symbol of identification such as a red thread from the borla or fringe worn around the temples of the Inca or a stick bearing certain marks. 174 The couriers, like our post-office officials, were bound to secrecy.175 Near every shelter a pile of wood was kept ready to be set on fire so as to be visible from the next post. In case of rebellion, this signal would make the news known 'with incredible rapidity, and the Inca would immediately prepare an expedition to suppress the outbreak, even before he had received detailed information.

Sometimes the mail route would be used to carry goods: stones or precious metals, textiles, vessels for various uses, tropical fruit, and even fish, which was brought fresh from the coast in two or three days to the emperor in CUZCO. 176 One of the drawings in Poma de Ayala's manuscript shows a chasqui carrying a basket of fish for the Inca and blowing on a trumpet. 177 It is difficult to form an accurate idea of the amount of traffic on the Peruvian highways. No doubt there was a good deal of bustling about on the outskirts of the local markets, but on the vast and far-flung roads that stretched across the 'wilderness travel ers must have been few and far between: couriers, traders, some 156 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru pilgrims authorized to absent themselves from their community when their labor was no longer necessary, mitimaes on the way to their new homes, armies on the march, government officials, either going to Cuzco for an audience with the sovereign or making tours of inspection in the provinces, and finally the Inca himself with his entourage. The monarch, always remaining curtained off from the eyes of the vulgar, traveled in a litter of solid gold. He pro ceeded on his way slowly and majestically, covering no more than four leagues a day.178 The litter-bearers-selected from certain Indian tribes and especially trained for this work-had to be espe cially careful to avoid stumbling or falling, for this was a bad omen, and the punishment for a fall was death. Hence, the gov ernors of the provinces through which the imperial procession had to pass would take the greatest pains to have the road made per fectly level. 179 Only a few great lords received the Inca's permission to use the litter or hammock as a means of transportation. 180 After the conquest, traffic on the highways increased enor mously. The Spaniards always had a great number of men and women in their train to carry their baggage. The ordenanzas de tambos specified that a horseman could demand the services of only five Indians in each tambo} and a pedestrian was limited to three.

These porters were not allowed to pass the boundary of the next tambo's territory. No one's burden was to exceed thirty pounds in weight, and everyone had to be paid. Noone was permitted to travel in a hammock unless he was known to be ill.181 In spite of all legislative measures, the roads suffered greatly in the colonial era. Some of them were destroyed during the civil wars;182 others, damaged from constant use, could not be kept in sufficient repair, the Indians of the neighborhood having run away to avoid work that they considered excessive.183 It was in vain that the viceroys issued orders for the reconstruction of the bridges, the highways, and the tambos. The white men were quite unable to maintain what the red men had built. Even today there are few highways in many of the South Amer ican countries that border the Pacific.184 Toward the end of the last century Squier declared that "the means of communication 'were The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 157 immeasurably better in the empire of the Incas than they are today." 185 Of course, railroads now serve certain districts of the interior, but they have been built in just a few places, and it is only recently that engineers have been able to conquer the Cordillera. It is the airplane that in our day, is becomingthe instrument for the uni· fication of the economy of South America.

But it should not be forgotten that the condition of the roads in Spain at the time when the conquistadors were discovering Peru's great highways left much to be desired. "Truly," writes Fernando Pizarro, apropos of the latter, "there are no such fine roads to be found in all Christendom." 186 Nothing can be more melancholy than the avowal of Cieza de Leon, so proud, nevertheless, of his Spanish origin: "I believe that if the Emperor [the great Charles V] 'wanted to build another royal road equal to the one that goes from Quito to Cuzco or the one that goes from Cuzco to Chile, he would not, in spite of all his power, be able to do it." 187 In fact, at that time, for a good part of the year it was only with difficulty that the highway linking Madrid and lrun could be traversed at all, and it was not until the end of the eighteenth century that roads worthy of the name could be found in Spain. 188 Although transportation by river and sea occupied a distinctly subordinate position, it nevertheless exercised a certain influence on the economic development of the empire. Here again the Indians accomplished miracles with the most primitive means.

They used dugout canoes in the forest areas and boats properly so called, made of bundles of totora reeds, on Lake Titicaca. Else where they relied almost exclusively upon rafts. These were made of a number of logs of light balsa wood lashed together with ropes and laid out so that the longest log was in the center and the others, in graded sizes, diminished in length on either side of it, like the fingers of an open hand. 189 These logs were covered with a light platform of split canes, sometimes surmounted by a reed shelter for the crew. The craft was equipped with a mast and a cotton sail, and sometimes there would be a second deck to keep the cargo from getting wet. A heavy stone on the end of a cable served as an 158 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru anchor. Large rafts of this kind could carry from 400 to 500 quin tals (about 450 to 550 pounds).190 Pizarro used such craft as trans ports for the Spaniards, and the clemency of the Pacific enabled the Indians to venture out in them to great distances from the coast. I t was a fleet of these rafts that, under the direction of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, discovered the two islands of Avachumbi and Ninachumbi, which no one has yet succeeded in identifying. 191 The most expert Peruvian navigators were undoubtedly the Indians who lived on the banks of the Guayas estuary. A large number of rafts used in commerce, fishing, and war plied the waters of this wide bay, and veritable naval battles took place on several occasions between the islanders of Puna and the inhabi tants of Tumbez. To maintain his independence, the tyrant of Puna set an ingenious trap for the foreign conquerors (i.e., the forces of the Inca) who reached the coast. He overwhelmed them with demonstrations of friendship and suggested giving their armies passage on his own rafts. In the middle of the estuary the Puna sailors untied the ropes that held the logs of the rafts to gether, and everybody aboard fell into the water. The islanders, being good swimmers, saved themselves, while their adversaries drowned. The first time the Inca tried to subdue Puna, his armies fell victim to this piece of treachery, and a great many of his troops were lost, but he was not discouraged. With admirable patience he trained his Indians as navigators, and, when the time came, he crossed over to the island and avenged his defeat. The Spaniards in their tum would have met the fate of the first conquerors if Pizarro, warned in advance, had not given his soldiers orders to keep a strict watch over the Indians to prevent them from untying the ropes.

The light craft to which the Spaniards gave the designation "little reed horse" (caballito de totora) was reserved exclusively for fishing. It was made of a bundle of reeds fastened together in the form of a cigar and raised up at one end. The fisherman would bestride it as if it were a horse, his legs dangling in the water, and steer it 'with a paddle. 192 The Changos, finally, made use of inflated skins overlaid with wooden planks. Frezier and Durret at the beginning of the The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 159 eighteenth century and Stevenson and Lesson at the beginning of the nineteenth century describe little boats which they saw along the coast of Chile and which were made of two inflated sealskins sewn together. The pilot sat astride the stern and propelled it with an oar which was very broad at either end and which he held in the middle.193 7. Sanctions On the rule of custom, which varied from one clan to another, the Incas grafted their own strict and uniform law. The. common law continued to be respected, especially in regard to private rights, as was natural; the second constituted a far-reaching civil and penal code.

The Inca himself acted as arbiter in all cases of conflicts over boundaries arising between provinces and assumed direct juris diction over certain crimes and misdemeanors against the state. He would also sit in judgment on the orejones and the higher officials up to and including the heads of the hunus and would make them appear before his council. 194 The higher officials, in turn, would pass judgment on the holders of subordinate offices and would settle disputes of a serious character. Finally, the minor officials would look into the other cases and have the centurions issue a verdict on the majority of the disputes and inflict most of the punishments. No distinction was made between the respective domains of civil and of penal law. The curacas) who in former days had been accustomed to laying down the law in their respective ayllus) saw their judicial power confirmed once they were brought within the administrative hierarchy. Yet this change could not be said to have either dimin ished or increased that power. For although the most important cases were no longer entrusted to them, neither were they, on the other hand, obliged any longer to take counsel with the old men of the community, as they had often had to do before.

In cases of violation of the Inca's law, the judge had to inflict the prescribed penalty and had no power to modify it. He enjoyed 160 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru a certain latitude, however, in the interpretation of local custom, which was a matter of little concern to the public authorities. 195 We have very little information regarding legal procedures in the Inca empire. Judgments had to be handed down within five days, and there was no appeal from them. The Inca, however, had the power to grant pardon, as is shown by the denouement· of the drama OllantaYJ of which 'we shall speak later on. 196 Soothsayers and exorcists could be called in to pronounce on the innocence or guilt of the accused, and torture was employed to force confes· sions.197 The administration of justice was under the supervision of a corps of special, inspectors, who 'went about the empire gathering information on the offenses committed and the penalties imposed and made a detailed report to the sovereign. The statistics were sent to the tucricuc) who, in turn, transmitted them to the central authority.

Penalties differed according to whether they were inflicted upon the mass of the people or the elite. They were generally milder for the latter than for the former. The same offense that carried the penalty of death if committed by an ordinary Indian was punish· able by imprisonment if committed by an orej6n. This privilege accorded the upper class, although shocking at first sight, is not to be explained solely by the brute fact of conquest and the "right of the stronger." It was based on the psychological fact that suffer ing is relative, and a punishment that seems insignificant to a coarse and insensitive man will be very painful indeed to one of cultivated mind. The former, for example, will be little moved by reproof, whereas the second will be extremely mortified. Cobo says, in terms that are perhaps excessive, that for a member of the Inca class, of the blood royal, a public reprimand would be a more terrible punishment than death for a common Indian. 198 Punishments were generally very severe. 199 The death penalty was inflicted more often than not, and almost always for a sec· ond offense. This should occasion no surprise, since the people must have viewed the violation of the Inca's law as veritable sacrilege, and even in the eyes of the elite crime had a social char· acter that made the criminal an offender against the state. Certain The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 161 authors speak of a prison in Cuzco, "the very name of which would make a man tremble with fear," where wild beasts were kept to which the criminals were thrown. 2OO Others mention penal servi tude in the unhealthy coca plantations to the east of the Andes, the public exhibition of a convict carrying a burden on his back, stoning and scourging, reproof, dismissal from office, and con fiscation of property.201 The practice of holding an entire community collectively re sponsible for the offense committed by any of its members, which still survives in many European countries, was limited in Peru to cases in which the crime was considered particularly heinous, such as having sexual relations 'with a "bride of the Sun." In such cases, the law required that the guilty man's village be destroyed and leveled to the ground, but it seems that this penalty was never im posed, because such a crime was never committed. 202 A father was held completely responsible for the delinquencies of his children and received the same punishment as they did. He therefore watched over them 'with the greatest care. Children, on the other hand, were not made to suffer for the offenses committed by their parents. 203 If a curaca was removed from office, his son would take his place when local custom accepted the principle of hereditary power.

The owner of an animal was responsible for any damage it caused. 204 Generally speaking, redress for injury was the responsibility of the person who had caused it. If a man through carelessness set fire to a house, he was obliged to rebuild it.205 A few authors have believed it possible to sum up the penal law in five basic prohibitions: Do not lie. Do not be lazy. Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not live a dissolute life. 206 Particularly noteworthy is the recognized rule in case of theft. If the crime 'was committed for reasons of malice or through lazi ness, the thief was punished, no matter what social class he be longed to; but if a man had stolen under pressure of want, it was the official responsible for looking after his maintenance who re ceived the punishment. 207 Because of these provisions, crimes and misdemeanors were very 162 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru rare in the Inca empire. 208 The astonishingly high standard of morality which 'was maintained in Peru at that time was undoubt edly achieved more through fear of punishment than love of righteousness. Although this may be regrettable from the moral point of view, it must be acknowledged that in our own day fear is still the chief means of raising the standard of ethical conduct, even in the domain of religion, where the punishment is merely deferred until some indeterminate date. Man is not an angel; and if the tree is to be judged by its fruit, the society of that time seems to us indeed superior to that of today, when measures of clemency are so numerous. Benevolence cannot be substituted for justice without danger.

"Fear made everyone walk the straight path, and there was neither thief nor vagabond." 209 Things changed completely when the Spaniards arrived. The swift and inexorable justice of the Inca disappeared. Judicial pro ceedings became interminable. Judges were inclined to be indul gent toward the criminal and the profligate, and the markets of the large cities were thronged with Indians who made their living as witnesses. The litigious spirit developed with great rapidity among the Indians as a consequence of the Spaniards' deplorable habit, when they considered a case to be of minor importance and could not succeed in disentangling the complexities of Inca law, of dividing the object at issue among the parties to the suit. The result was that an Indian always had an interest in bringing suit against his neighbor even if he had no right whatever, because he could hope to get something out of it for himself. 210 8. The Survival of Trade We have already seen that the Peruvian system of socialism was not a rigid one. It had a certain amount of elasticity, as was evidenced by the arithmetical division of the population. We shall find the same elasticity in the field of exchange.

In a socialist state exchange does not occur between private in dividuals. Sale, purchase, and money are things unknown. The only way goods can possibly be circulated is through their transThe Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 163 portation and storage in warehouses under the regulation of the central government. There are products, not commodities; there are storehouses, not markets. 211 Hence, we should have to assume, as Nicholson does, that no system of exchange existed in Peru, and end this chapter right here. 212 Yet the reading of the chroniclers discloses the existence of markets and fairs. A. THE FIRST FORMS OF TRADE Let us first revert to the era preceding that of the Incas. The earliest form of exchange seems to have been that "silent trade" of which sociologists speak. The man who 'wishes to barter his mer chandise sets it out in an open place, in full view of a group of strangers, and withdraws. An individual in this foreign group goes up to the merchandise displayed and, if it suits him, lays beside it a product of his own labor. The first party to the transaction re turns and carries away this product if it is to his liking, leaving his own piece of merchandise on the ground. A survival of this system is to be seen in a curious description given by Cobo of a Peruvian market in his day.213 The Indian woman who wanted to sell some thing would crouch on the ground and set her merchandise-let us say it was fruit-down in front of her in little piles of equal and minimal value. The Indian woman who wanted to buy this mer chandise would sit down, in her turn, before the seller and build up a little heap of some product of current consumption-say ears of maize-that she had brought to market in her sack. If the seller of fruit found the pile of maize not large enough, she would once again fall into a revery 'without paying any further attention to the woman who was sitting opposite her. Then the latter would add more maize, little by little to her heap, until, at the end of her resources, she withdrew or until the seller, deeming the pile now high enough, would reach out her hand and take it. Then the buyer, in turn, would carry away the pile of fruit-all this without a word. It was "silent trade" to perfection.

The approach to real trade began, it seems, by being vertical. Exchange sprang up along the inter-Andean corridor between the farming and the cattle-raising regions and involved the two essen164 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru tials of subsistence, maize and llamas. Then it became horizontal~ and its development doubtless must have proceeded much more rapidly, in spite of the difficulties presented by the passage of the Cordillera, because the peoples of the plateau, having for the most part like needs and similar means of supplying them, would seek above all to procure the products of areas with a different climate from their own. A traffic in complementary goods was thus estab lished between the coast, the sierra, and the forests of the Amazon. The first gave cotton, fruit, fish, and shells; the second could offer metals, wool, maize, potatoes, and maguey fiber; the third con tributed wood, feathers, and coca. There seems to have been a very active exchange, for example, between the fishermen of the Chilean coast and the farmers of the interior. All sorts of metal articles and 'woolen fabrics of Argentine origin have been found between Arica and Valparaiso. 214 As for long-distance trade, it was-as always in ancient times-J of necessity a commerce in luxuries: fine textiles, precious stones, metals, and obsidian. Copper was an instrument of exchange be tween the sierra and the most distant Amazonian forests,215 and also between the sierra, northwest Argentina, and the Gran Chaco. 216 The plateau came to serve as a passageway through which the products of the Brazilian forests reached the shores of the Pacific.217 Later on there was a further development of trade by raft along the coast. Shells from certain regions of Central America have been found in Peruvian tombs,218 and articles from Mexico have been discovered as far away as Argentina. 219 Conversely, products of the metallurgical industry of the coast were transported by sea to Mexico. 220 Darien was even then what its geographical position makes it, a great mart where the products of the two Americas were exchanged.

During the Tiahuanaco period there was a general exchange of goods. Pottery from Bolivia used to travel as far as what is now Ecuador. The coast received quantities of ornaments made of the feathers of tropical birds, bows of chonta from the eastern forests,221 and stones-obsidian, flint, rock crystal-from the plateau, and The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 165 textiles and fine pottery, of which the forms and designs were in the so-called Tiahuanaco style.222 This movement of goods does not necessarily imply a movement of men. In many cases the product must have passed from hand to hand and so traversed great distances without being accom panied by a stream of traders, commerce being limited to neighbor ing tribes. 223 This is often the case in our own day. The llama herdsman takes his goods to the nearest valley and waits there for other merchandise to take back with him to the valley where he lives.224 Nevertheless, it is certain that some tribes specialized in carrying on trade, such as the nomadic people living in the then fertile region between the H uasca and the Loa in northern Chile.

A rapid worsening of the climate scattered these traders, who be came fishermen on the coast or farmers in the valleys. Numerous wooden loading hooks found in tombs show how considerable this commerce once was.225 Farther south, the "Pehuenches," who in habited the Cordillera of Mendoza, traveled over the territory be tween the two oceans and carried on a trade in salt, shells, hides, dried fish, and arrowheads. 226 Lastly, the Chibchas of Colombia took precious stones and especially salt to the Caras of distant Quito. 227 According to Friederici, traders from the plateau reached the banks of the Rio de la Plata and descended into the valley of the Amazon as far as its confluence with the Yapura. These exchanges were effected by way of barter, but already cer tain products in wide demand-like maize and coca-played an intermediary role and were accepted in payment. 228 , Not only did the peoples of South America use merchandise as money; some of them even had a monetary token. It is certain that among the Chibchas discs of gold were used to make· purchases or to pay tribute. However, these were not used for anything but domestic trade. 229 Shells and axes, on the contrary, seem to have constituted a truly international currency. The axes that have been found in places extremely far apart-in the province of Sao Paulo in Brazil, in Manabi province and on the island of Puna in Ecua dor, and in the city of Oaxaca in Mexico-are plaques of copper in the shape of a T, much too thin for ordinary use as axes, and per166 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru haps originally serving as gongs in the temples. 230 Shells had a sacred character, and, as often happens, played a religious role before performing any economic function. They served as offerings to the deity because of their rarity and beauty.231 All these shells were naturally selected to become media of exchange because of their great value and their small size. Those colored shells, spondi Ius pictorum and conus fergusoni} of which great quantities have been discovered at Copan in Central America, come from tropical seas and are not to be found in the waters that wash the coast of Peru; yet a certain number of them have been discovered at Ancon and Trujillo, at Chordeleg in Ecuador, and even on the Andean plateau. Suarez thinks that they were threaded together to form necklaces. 232 Finally, in Peru, and particularly in Chile, certain rare stones obsidian, chalcedony, and rock crystal-likewise performed the functions of money. To be sure, these had no religious character, but they were used for making arrowheads and lance-points and were consequently in constant demand and thus retained a stable value. 233 We are thus forced to the same conclusion in regard to South America that has come to be accepted today in regard to the Old World, namely, that goods and sometimes men moved about with incredible facility in spite of the lack of avenues of communication.

Just as the jade of Tibet, the silk of China, the amber of the Baltic, and the tin of Great Britain went from Asia to Europe or from Europe to Asia, so metals, shells, and feathers crossed the vast South American continent from north to south and from east to west. Now goods have always carried ideas along with them. ·Trade establishes a link between peoples and forms the most efficacious means for the propagation of thought. Perhaps, after all, this has been its most important role. It is thus that we can explain how news was disseminated with amazing rapidity across plains and mountains and why it was that the peoples of South America were not without knowledge of one another, as one would have expected them to be. The Inca empire was known in Darien, where the Spaniards heard tell of it,284 and, conversely, the Peruvians could not have been ignorant of the countries of Central America.

The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 167 Prescott assumes that Huayna Capac knew of the first expedition led by Pizarro and Almagro in 1517, when the latter reached the Rio de San Juan about four degrees north of the equator. 235 And Nordenskiold has studied a migration of Guarani Indians who, coming from the lands watered by the Paraguay and Parana rivers, made their way up to the plateau in 1526 and entered the Inca empire to the east of the present town of Sucre (Chuquisaca). All the Spanish chroniclers men tion this invasion, which was repulsed by the imperial armies. With the Guaranis there was a white man, a Portuguese named Alejo Garcia. It was he who, even before Pizarro, discovered the empire of the Incas.236 It is highly possible that certain prophecies, which the Spanish chroniclers attribute to the last Incas, concerning the arrival of strangers may simply have been scraps of information received by the sovereigns of Cuzco and communicated only to the elite in order to allow nothing to disturb the tranquility of the populace. This may account for the prediction attributed to Huayna Capac at the time of his death in 1525.237 Nevertheless, the knowledge that the South American countries had of one another remained rather vague, as is evidenced by the fact that the first conquerors called the deceased Inca "old Cuzco" and the reigning monarch "young Cuzco." They mistook one thing for another. It is quite clear, moreover, that if the Peruvians had known of the behavior of the Spaniards in the conquest of Central America, they would have been more suspicious of them. 238 Let us then picture the South America of the preColumbian era as a network of juxtaposed centers of culture not completely iso lated from one another nor yet in constant communication, but traversed in all directions by infrequent migrations of men and by intermittent currents of commodities and ideas.

It was to these societies that the Inca applied his scheme of socialism, which, though destructive of private commerce, was always careful to respect local institutions. We shall see how the establishment of the Peruvian system led to a progressive decrease in trade. Commercial currents continued to flow in the provinces recently conquered and disappeared in the others. B. LOCAL TRADE After asserting that production and distribution were regu lated by the state, some of the chroniclers go on to speak of fairs.

168 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru Estete tells how he found a bustling market on the main square of Jauja. 239 According to Sarmiento, Pachacutec had decreed that they be held on holidays, that is, every nine days, in certain towns. 240 In view of what we know of the Peruvian regime, 'we may find ourselves wondering what could have been exchanged at such markets. We must realize, in the first place, that although the pos sessions distributed by the Inca were inalienable, the commodities they produced-maize, for instance, and 'wool-were not. Trade was maintained to the extent that private ownership continued to exist. Moreover, we know that every family had the exclusive right to the crops harvested from its tupu. Inequalities were occasioned by the sex of the different members of the family,241 their zeal as workers, and their skill; and as the tupus were apportioned in such a way as to provide enough food for everybody, there would some times be a surplus that could be disposed of. Under a regime of agrarian communism there can be no trade, but in a system of agrarian collectivism, only the means of production are socialized, and the products can be exchanged.

Variations in the yield of crops in different areas occasioned by climatic conditions gave rise to further inequalities and conse quently provided new sources of exchange between communities; but since, as we have already seen, the surplus from the tupus was extremely small and needs continued to be held down to the mini mum, all these exchanges had to be on a limited scale.242 The fairs, the frequency of which must not delude us, were occasions, above all, of festivity. They often assumed the character of pilgrimages, and the sovereign saw in them a means of bringing his subjects together at fixed dates to acquaint them with his will. The fair ground often served at once as a place of festival, a center of devo tion, and a forum. 243 The principal articles exchanged were naturally foodstuffs maize, vegetables, dried meats-and also llamas, since the increase from each pair allotted to a family was its own property, and here too chance might bring about inequalities or a surplus. 244 In brief, in a country where everyone had his allotted parcel of land, received his share of raw materials, and manufactured 'with, his own hands the articles indispensable to his subsistence, such The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 169 commerce as was carried on could be no more than the exchange of .

surplus goods and could have only a remote connection with trade as carried on in countries of private ownership, where the division of labor prevailed. c. FOREIGN TRADE The principal document of which 'we are making use here is the narrative of Juan de Samanos, which is very brief, but contains the description of a sailing-raft coming from the Tumbez region that was encountered to the south of Panama by the Spaniard Ruiz, who was exploring the Pacific on orders from Pizarro. The raft car ried a quantity of merchandise-gold, silver, mirrors, vases, tex tiles, precious stones, and shells-and was obviously a freighter. As Tumbez was under the rule of the Incas at this period, one must coneIude that these sovereigns maintained commercial relations with foreign countries. 245 Two explanations are possible, and both are quite probable. In a socialist state all foreign trade is a state enterprise, directed by special officials, as it is in the Soviet Union. So it must have been in Peru. In this way the Inca procured by exchange certain articles, such as the shells from Central America, as is proved by the abundance of these on the aforementioned raft. This hypothesis is confirmed by Dorsey's discovery of Quechua vases, unaccom panied by Chimu products, on the island of La Plata, a fact which shows that the sovereigns of CUlCO traded with the peoples in the north of the empire independently of the Chimus of the Peruvian coast. This was an imperial, not merely a regional, commerce. 246 But besides such exchanges, which were of necessity very limited, there were others, not centralized, but private, which took place on the periphery of the socialist system. The Incas' conquest of the provinces of the Peruvian coast and of Ecuador was recent, and earlier commercial currents continued to flow. The chroniclers make mention of Hmerchants" who used to visit different regions of the empire-a fact that cannot be explained either on the hypothesis of purely local transactions or on that of a state mo nopoly of trade with its center at CUlCO. 247 This sort of trade flourished best where the system of centraliza170 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru tion was least strictly applied. Hence it was most extensive in the provinces that the Inca had attached to his crown only a short time before the arrival of the Spaniards. Sancho de Paz and Ponce de Leon speak of the traders of the province of Otavalo in the north of Ecuador as a truly privileged social class.248 Cieza de Leon re counts that the sovereign sent orejones disguised as merchants to explore the territory beyond the river Maule, to the extreme south of the empire. 249 And according to Suarez, the inhabitants of the island of Puna, across from Tumbez, carried on a thriving trade in salt.250 Prescott and Payne exaggerate when they declare that foreign trade was nonexistent in Peru. 251 A. de Beauchamp is more cau tious: "The Peruvians had no commerce in the strict sense of the word," he writes. 252 The truth is that the number and importance of commercial transactions decreased as the system of state social ism came to be more firmly entrenched in a province or district.

The inhabitants gradually lost the spirit of initiative so essential in this field, and trade fell into decline. 253 The extent to which shells were used as money provides some evidence in this regard. "They were much more common during the period of the Tiahu anaco civilization, and the number of them in the tombs increased steadily until the time of the Incas, which shows that commerce with Central America continued and grew" only until the time of the Incas. 254 Such a retrogression was by no means intended by the Incas. Indeed, Tupac Yupanqui gave the merchants permission to circu late everywhere and threatened severe punishment for anyone who dared to molest them. 255 But the decline in trade was a necessary consequence of the plan the monarch was seeking to put into effect. This plan was not incompatible with every system of exchange, but it was incompatible with any great expansion of commerce.

We are now in a position to examine two perplexing ques tions: that of the relations between Peru and Mexico, and that of the tolls. The first has often been discussed; the second is always passed over in silence. Prescott and Friederici maintain that the Aztecs and the Incas were ignorant of each other's existence. 256 They offer as evidence The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 171 the fact that the potato, cultivated by the latter, was unkno'w"n to the former; that the hieroglyphic 'writing of the Mexicans had not penetrated into South America; that Mexico had a currency, while Peru had not; and, conversely, that Peru employed a system of weights of which Mexico was unaware. Certainly there were great difficulties in the way of communication between the two coun· tries because of the ocean currents and the primitive character of the little craft in use. But the facts are beyond question, and the existence of trade between Darien and Peru, on the one hand, and between Darien and Mexico, on the other, is indisputable. The arguments of Prescott and Friederici have not, moreover, remained unanswered. The Mexican system of writing was much too com plicated for easy importation; and money certainly existed, but was rarely used. 257 The presence of toll bridges is certified by the Spaniards who saw them. Jerez states that a guard was stationed in a booth at the entrance to a bridge at Cajas to collect the toll (portazgo) , which consisted in a duty on the goods transported ("en la mesma cosa que llevan"). This was, the same writer goes on to declare, a very ancient custom, and Ataliba (Atahualpa) suppressed it in so far as it applied to articles carried by his troops. No individual with a load of goods could enter or leave the town, on pain of death, by any other route than that on which the guard was sta tioned. 258 Estete, on the way to Pachacamac, likewise encountered suspension bridges guarded by Indians who demanded payment of a toll,259 and near Huanuco he crossed a wooden bridge where he found a toll-collector, "as is the custom." 260 These statements would be incomprehensible if Peru had ac tually been, as so many writers have declared, a communist state.

Who would have crossed the bridges except officials of the govern ment? Upon what would duty have been levied, since nothing would have been privately owned? In reality, the man thus sub ject to tax was the one who was going to barter the surplus of his production at the neighboring market, and perhaps also, but rarely, a real merchant coming from some distant lands. The corollary to the thesis we are maintaining here is that only in exceptional cases could the Peruvians obtain permission to move 172 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru about. The general rule we have mentioned remained in force. Noone could change his residence or even make a temporary move, but permits authorizing such movements could be issued for fairly short periods without fear of disturbing the statistics, since the Indian would be carrying his food with him. Thus, the general equilibrium between production and consumption would not be destroyed. But the same would not be true for long jour neys, and so commerce continued to decline.

D. MONEY Currency follows the vicissitudes of trade. In a purely socialist country it disappears entirely. Under a regime of state socialism it plays an insignificant role. In Peru the methods of exchange that antedated the Incas were perpetuated. Barter was the one most frequently used. Commodity-money consisted of pimento, dried fish, copper, cotton, maize, chufio} feathers, salt, and coca.261 That money tokens were also in use is attested by the many shells car ried on the raft encountered by the pilot Ruiz whom we have mentioned. Nor should it be supposed that the Spanish conquest brought this system of exchange to an abrupt end, for at the time when Cobo wrote his Historia} barter was still common and the commodity-money most in use was maize. 262 Even today, among the Indians of the plateau sales are still rare and exchanges frequent. 263 Gold and silver were not used as money.264The Peruvians sought them for their beauty alone. As Montaigne says, these precious metals had "no other use than for show and parade." 265 The sov ereign would bestow them upon friendly chiefs 'whose loyalty he wished to assure and on enemy captains whom he was seeking to bribe.

The accumulation of these metals in Cuzco is easily explained. First, the sources of such riches were known as a result of the obligation imposed upon those who brought precious stones or metals to the market to declare where they had found them. 266 N ext, all objects of value found their way to the capital, either as gifts or as taxes, since no one had a right to keep them without specific authorization from the Inca. Finally, gold that had once entered Cuzco was not permitted to leave it.261 The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 173 These precious metals could be weighed. The Indians, in fact, made use of a veritable Roman balance, which was noted by Cieza de Leon, Estete, and Samanos. A scale of which Nordenskiold made a study is so sensitive that it registers a weight as little as seven tenths of a gram (Troy weight).268 9. Characteristics of the Socialism of the Incas Thus, in spite of its superficial resemblance to a beehive or an anthill, the Peruvian system did not have the rigidity of a formal, theoretical scheme. Some room was left for personal interest. Not only did it continue to manifest itself in the form of family interest in the cultivation of the soil and the manufacture of articles for domestic consumption, but the Inca also endeavored to give it scope by distributing gifts, by publicly bestowing praise or blame, by granting special permits authorizing the favored individuals to possess a chair or to be carried in a litter, and, lastly, in exceptional cases, by allowing ordinary Indians to assume rank among the Incas "by prerogative," to cut their hair in a particular way and have their ears pierced-privileges which Wiener picturesquely calls "decorations." 269 The monarch manifested no hostility toward private property as such. On the contrary. It is thanks to his gifts that such property entered history, in Peru at least, not as the fruit of spoliation or of conquest, but under the eminently moral form of a reward for merit. Nor did the Inca seek to limit the exchange of goods among the people. Although wealth circulated by way of tribute, allot ments, and gifts more than by way of barter, at least the empire was not sealed off from all contact with the rest of the world, for foreigners, whether traders or pilgrims, traveled through it in all directions. Places were assigned to them in the towns,270and special officials were made responsible for looking after their security, getting doctors for them in case they fell ill, and assuring them burial if they died. 271 As we have already seen, the sovereigns were so far from being intolerant that they respected local custom to the greatest extent.

But it should not therefore be inferred, as so many authors have 174 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru mistakenly done, that they originated nothing and merely confined themselves to the general extension of the systems that had existed before them-though this in itself would be sufficient to earn them a fine title to glory. They themselves actually originated and in stituted a plan of production, distribution, and consumption and organized the population into a hierarchy that concentrated all power and all responsibility in the hands of the leaders. In such a system each farmer was acquainted only with his decurion and his centurion, scarcely ever left his own valley, received no education, and had to obey his superiors blindly, under threat of severe punishment. The centurion, in his turn, was familiar with several valleys and had a modicum of learning; and the higher one was in the social scale, the greater was one's power, the broader one's knowledge, the more refined one's sense of duty. Material, intel lectual, and moral forces were marvelously co-ordinated.

This social hierarchy rested upon an econolnic "superorganiza tion." With the aid of the statistical tables, production and con sumption seemed bound to remain in equilibrium, and the reserve stocks served to stabilize the whole mechanism. But this harmony was not quite so perfect as it appeared. In newly conquered regions the plan was not immediately put into effect. Its outlines, left vague for a long while, would become clear and precise as time went on. Consequently, a 'whole gamut of con ditions could be found within the empire, from regions that were completely unified to those where the power of the Inca was dem onstrated only by their being constituted as a domain of the state. It is even possible that a small number of tribes, such as the Ata camas, were not actually subjects of the Peruvians, but merely paid tribute to them. 272 It is also possible that on certain distant fron tiers a few territories enjoyed actual autonomy under governing orejones J who must occasionally have caused the monarch some anxiety.273 In Ecuador, where the Incas ruled for a generation, the rational plan was applied \vith less rigor than in Bolivia, which had been under the domination of Cuzco for more than two cen turies. The strength of the Inca's legislation lay in its flexibility.

The mass of the people were not abruptly made to conform to a socialistic pattern of existence; the process of socialization was a The Equilibrium Between Supply and Demand 175 gradual one. The elite, on the other hand, was not individualized; it was in the process of individualization. These two divergent tendencies emphasized, with increasing rigor, the fundamental dualism of Peruvian society. All the limbs had not yet been allowed to atrophy for the sake of the head. Even in provinces that had been under the rule of the Incas for a long time, their system remained to some degree artificial. It never adapted itself completely to reality, since the consistency of the administrative divisions changed slightly as the population varied. Besides, as the distribution of goods was made without any knowledge of what the recipients already possessed, provisions and raw materials were allotted blindly, in reliance on later exchanges to bring about the necessary rectifications. The plan remained, to a certain extent, theoretical and abstract. It was, in some sort, an ideal to be approached without cessation of effort, but with no hope of its eventual attainment. But could it have been otherwise?

A completely rational social system, however perfect in plan, can not take account of all the manifestations of life, and it would be a waste of time for even the most accomplished thinker to under take to put it into effect. Every rigid frame,vork will break if one tries to adapt it exactly to a society, even to one that is simplified to excess, and the all-powerful lord of Cuzco himself could not have succeeded in imposing such a Procrustean system on the people of his empire.