CHAPTER XI
CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE
The history of the people who formed the empire of the Incas, in their earlier development, is well worthy of careful study. Sarmiento's version of what he was told by the Amautas was that the people were broken up into small tribes, living in what the Spaniards call behetria, without any government except in time of war, when a temporary chief, called Sinchi, was elected. But this is a very inadequate and misleading account of what must have been told him. The mountainous nature of the Andean region, cut up by such gorges as those of the Apurimac and the Pampas, led to the formation of numerous separate communities, and this would equally be the state of affairs in the valleys on the coast, which are separated from each other by sandy deserts.
These communities were not without government, as Sarmiento supposed. From remote antiquity they consisted of families, all being related, like the Roman gens. A single community, occupying part of a valley or a limited area, was called an ayllu. It was an organised family something on the lines of the village communities in India. The necessity for agricultural and pastoral industries led inevitably to a life of social intercourse, and to a patriarchal system under which the land belonged to the ayllu. The arable land was assigned annually to the heads of families, while the pasture and woodland continued to be the common property of the ayllu. There were doubtless frequent wars respecting boundaries and rights of pasturage with neighbouring ayllus, but there were also confederations of ayllus for defence, and for the construction of works for the common good, which would be beyond the powers of a single ayllu—such as works of irrigation, and terraced cultivation. The unit was the head of a family, called puric, the united purics formed the ayllu, which occupied the cultivable land called marca.
There is abundant evidence that this patriarchal system, with rules established by long custom, had existed from remote antiquity. The development of agriculture and the domestication of animals could not have been continued for centuries without the existence of an ordered social life, pointing to a head or heads to rule and direct. Moreover, the traditions and ancestral descents of the ayllus were most carefully preserved down to the very last, and this no doubt led to the worship of ancestors, and to all the ceremonial services which it involved.
In course of time the neighbouring ayllus, in many instances, united not only for purposes of defence, but also for social and industrial objects, thus forming a clan composed of several ayllus or families. Then several clans united and became a powerful tribe with an hereditary chief. Finally there arose great confederations like those of the Incas, the Chancas, and the Collas; ending, after fierce and prolonged wars, in the supremacy of the Incas.
The Incas respected the organisations they found among the people who came under their rule, and did not disturb or alter the social institutions of the numerous tribes they conquered. Their statesmanship consisted in systematising the institutions which had existed from remote antiquity, and in adapting them to the requirements of a great empire.
Under the Incas the ayllu became a pachaca (100 families), over which was placed a Llacta-camayoc or village officer, whose duty it was to divide the marca annually into topus, three being assigned to each puric or head of a family, sufficient for the maintenance of himself and his people, and for the payment of tribute to the state and to religion; one third to each.
The puric was responsible for the maintenance of his family connections, who were divided into ten classes, with their women:
1. Puñuc rucu (old man sleeping), sixty years and upwards.
2. Chaupi rucu ('half old'), fifty to sixty years. Doing light work.
3. Puric (able-bodied), twenty-five to fifty. Tribute payer and head of the family.
4. Yma huayna (almost a youth), twenty to twenty-five. Worker.
5. Coca palla (coca picker), sixteen to twenty. Worker.
6. Pucllac huamra, eight to sixteen. Light work.
7. Ttanta raquizic (bread receiver), six to eight.
8. Macta puric, under six.
9. Saya huamrac, able to stand.
10. Mosoc caparic, baby in arms.
From all the classes younger than the puric, male and female, a certain number were taken annually for the service of the state and of religion. The population appears to have increased rapidly. In the pachaca, or old ayllu, there were a hundred purics. The Llacta-camayoc or head of the pachaca had to see that all were properly nourished and to register births and deaths.
Ten pachacas formed a huaranca (1000 families), with a chief selected from among the llacta-camayocs. The whole valley or district comprised a varying number of huarancas which was called a hunu, and the old hereditary native chiefs, with the name of curacas, retained some judicial power and were free from tribute. But over every four hunus there was an imperial officer called a Tucuyricoc, the literal meaning of which is 'He who sees all.' His duty as overseer was to see that the whole complicated system of administration worked with regularity, and that all the responsible officials under him performed their duties efficiently. The later Incas had a Viceroy of the blood-royal, called Ccapac Apu, for each of the four great provinces.
There was also a system of periodical visitors to overlook the census and the tribute, and to examine minutely and report upon the state of affairs in each district. Other visitors, in consultation with the local officials, selected young people of both sexes from the households of the purics for employments in the service of the State and of religion, according to their several aptitudes. Marriages were also arranged by the visiting officials.
From the ranks of the people, men and women were needed for many purposes of state, each chosen from out of a puric household. First there were the shepherds. A census was taken of all the llamas and alpacas in each district and they were divided into flocks for the state, for religion and sacrifices, and for the curacas. They were sent to the best pastures in charge of the shepherds, and each puric received two couples for breeding purposes. Other youths were required as hunters, soldiers, chasquis or messengers, road-makers, builders, miners, artificers, and for the service of religion. Maidens were taken for the special service of the sun, selected by an official called Apu-panaca. Servants, called yana-cuna, were latterly chosen in a different way. It appears that a small tribe, living on the banks of a stream called Yana-mayu (black river), had been guilty of some shocking treason to Tupac Inca, and was to be annihilated. But the queen interceded for them, and the sentence was commuted to servitude for themselves and their descendants. They were called yana-mayu cuna, which was soon corrupted into yana-cuna; and yana became the word for a domestic servant, as well as for the colour black. This institution of yana-cuna as domestic servants was quite exceptional, and no part of the regular Incarial system.
Not the least important part of that system was the policy of planting colonists, called mitimaes, especially in provinces recently conquered or supposed to be disaffected. Married young men from the yma huayna class, with their wives, were collected from a particular district and conveyed to a distant part of the empire, where their loyalty and industry would leaven a disaffected region. Vast numbers from recently conquered provinces were transported to localities where they would be surrounded by a loyal population, or to the eastern forests and unoccupied coast valleys. This was especially the case with the Collas, many of whom were sent as mitimaes or colonists as far as the borders of Quito. The Lupacas, on the western shores of Lake Titicaca, were exiled in great numbers to the southern coast valleys of Moquegua and Tacna. Their places were filled by loyal colonists from the Inca districts of Aymara, Cotapampa, and Chumpivilca.
This colonising policy served more than one purpose. Its most obvious effect was to secure the quiet and prosperity of recently annexed provinces. It also led to the increased well-being and comfort of the whole people, by the exchange of products. Mitimaes in the coast valleys sent up cotton, aji,[1] and fruits to their former homes, and received maize, potatoes, or wool in exchange. The mitimaes in the eastern forests sent up supplies of coca, and of bamboos and chonta wood for making weapons, and received provisions of all kinds. This system of exchanges was carried on by means of chasquis or couriers, constantly running over excellent roads. A third important end secured by the system of mitimaes was the introduction of one language to be used throughout the whole empire, a result which followed slowly and surely. The Runa-simi, or one general language, was an immense help in facilitating the efficient working of a rather complicated system of government.
The Inca organisation was not a creation by a succession of able princes. Such a result would be impossible in the course of only a few generations. The Incas found the system of village communities prevailing among the tribes they conquered, and made as little alteration as was compatible with the requirements of a great empire. Their merit as statesmen is that they saw the wisdom of avoiding great changes, and of adapting existing institutions to the new requirements. They did this with a skill and ability which has seldom been approached, and with a success which has never been equalled. Their system was necessarily complicated, but it was adjusted with such skill and ingenuity that it worked without friction and almost automatically, even when the guiding head was gone. An instance of this is recorded by Cieza de Leon, a soldier of the Spanish conquest. One of the details of the system was that when any calamity overtook a particular district, there was another neighbouring district told off to bring succour and supply its proportion of new inhabitants. Cieza de Leon testified that he saw this arrangement actually at work. When the Spaniards massacred inhabitants, burnt dwellings, and destroyed crops in one district of the Jauja valley, he saw the right people come from the right district to succour the sufferers, and help to rebuild the dwellings and re-sow the crops.
The Incarial system of government bears some general resemblance to a very beneficent form of Eastern despotism such as may have prevailed when Jamshid ruled over Iran. There was the same scheme of dividing the crops between the cultivator and the State, the same patriarchal care for the general welfare; but while the rule of Jamshid was a legend, that of the Incas was an historical fact. The Incarial government finds a closer affinity in the theories of modern socialists; and it seems certain that, under the very peculiar condition of Peru when the Incas ruled, the dreams of Utopians and socialists became realities for a time, being the single instance of such realisation in the world's history.
The condition of the people under the Incas, though one of tutelage and dependence, at the same time secured a large amount of material comfort and happiness. The inhabitants of the Andean region of Peru and of the southern half of the coast valleys were practically one people. Slightly built, with oval faces, aquiline, but not prominent noses, dark eyes, and straight black hair, the Inca Indian had a well-proportioned figure, well-developed muscular limbs, and was capable of enduring great fatigue. He was very industrious, intelligent, and affectionate among his own relations; at the same time he was fond of festivity, and of indulgence in drinking bouts. The puric, with his family about him, went joyfully to his field work. Idleness was unknown, but labour was enlivened by sowing and harvest songs, while the shepherd-boys played on their pincullu, or flutes, as they tended the flocks on the lofty pastures. Wool was supplied to the people for their clothing, and hides for their usutas, or sandals, and even some luxuries, such as coca, reached them through the continuous ebb and flow of commercial exchanges by the mitimaes. Periodical festivities broke the monotony of work, some of a religious character, others in celebration of family events. The rutu-chicu was a festival when a child attained the age of one year and received a name. Others came round when a boy or girl ceased to be nursed. This event was called huarachicu for a boy, and quicuchicu for a girl. The greatest festival of the year was at harvest time, when the puric hung the fertile stalks of maize on the branches of trees, and his family sang and danced the ayrihua beneath them. The people were taught to worship the sun and the heavenly bodies, but the chief trust of the labouring classes was in their conopas or household gods, representing, as they believed, the essential essences of all that they depended upon for their well-being—their llamas, their maize, or their potatoes. These they prayed to fervently, not forgetting the huacas or idols of which there were some in every district, and above all never neglecting the ceremonial burial of llama idols, with small offerings, in the fields, to propitiate the good earth deity.
A proof of the general well-being of the people is the large and increasing population. The andeneria or steps of terraced cultivation extending up the sides of the mountains in all parts of Peru, and now abandoned, are silent witnesses of the former prosperity of the country. The people were nourished and well cared for, and they multiplied exceedingly. In the wildest and most inaccessible valleys, in the lofty punas surrounded by snowy heights, in the dense forests, and in the sand-girt valleys of the coast, the eye of the central power was ever upon them, and the never-failing brain, beneficent though inexorable, provided for all their wants, gathered in their tribute, and selected their children for the various occupations required by the State, according to their several aptitudes.
This was indeed socialism such as dreamers in past ages have conceived, and unpractical theorists now talk about. It existed once because the essential conditions were combined in a way which is never likely to occur again. These are an inexorable despotism, absolute exemption from outside interference of any kind, a very peculiar and remarkable people in an early stage of civilisation, and an extraordinary combination of skilful statesmanship.
It was destroyed by the Spanish conquest, and the world will never see its like again. A few of the destroyers, only a very few, could appreciate the fabric they had pulled down, its beauty and symmetry, and its perfect adaptation to its environment. But no one could rebuild it. The most enlightened among the destroyers were the lawyers who were sent out to attempt some sort of reconstruction—men like Ondegardo, Matienza, and Santillan. But they could only think hopelessly what Santillan wrote: 'There was much in their rule which was so good as to deserve praise and be even worthy of imitation.' There were even some faint attempts at imitation, but they failed utterly, and the unequalled fabric disappeared for ever.
NOTE TO THE CHAPTER ON THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE
Writers on Peruvian civilisation from the time of Robertson and Prescott have assumed that the whole fabric was originated and matured by the Incas, constructed, as it were, out of chaos. But a more recent school of thinkers has seen the impossibility of such a creation, and holds that the Incas systematised tribal and social organisations which had existed from remote antiquity, and did not create them.
A very able review of the works of those writers who have adopted the opinion that the Incas did not create a system, but adapted one which had long been in existence, was published at Lima in 1908—'El Peru antiguo y los modernos sociologos.' The author, Victor Andres Belaunde, is thoroughly master of his subject. He first explains the conclusions of the German sociologist Cunow, in his 'Organisation of the Empire of the Incas—Investigations into their Ancient Agrarian Communism.' According to Cunow there had existed, from remote antiquity, separate groups organised on the same base as the village communities of India, and the German mark. These were the ayllus. He holds that the ayllus, as village communities, existed before the empire of the Incas. The Incas respected this ayllu organisation, and all they did was to systematise it. Belaunde holds that this hypothesis has caused a complete revolution in the manner of considering the rule of the Incas. The communistic organisation did not originate in the constitution of the Inca monarchy, but was anterior to it. Communism was not here the result of a special political organisation, nor the realisation of a plan of state socialism. It was simply the result of the union of the numerous ayllus, who thus collectively held the land under the domination of the most powerful among them. So that Peru is not the prototype of a paternal monarchy. Communism was not imposed by the Incas. It was not a system conceived by them, and brought into practice by means of conquests and clever alliances. Ancient Peru was not the archetype of socialism, but a vast agglomeration of village communities. After the publication of Cunow's work there appeared 'The Evolution of Political Doctrines and Beliefs' by the Belgian sociologist William de Greef, who devotes an interesting chapter to Peru. His view is practically the same as that of Cunow.
Belaunde then explains the views of two eminent South American writers, Don Bautista Saavedra, a Bolivian, and Don José de la Riva Aguero, a Peruvian.
Saavedra in his work 'El Ayllu' also holds that the ayllus, as communities, existed before the rise of the Inca empire. Riva Aguero describes the gradual aggregation of the constituent tribes.
Belaunde proceeds to discuss the views of Prescott, Lorente, Letourneau, Wiener, D'Orbigny, Desjardins, Spencer, and Bandelier, and of the present writer in his essay written for Winsor's narrative and critical history of America. The earlier writers have not attempted to discuss the condition of things previous to the rise of the Incas, and Spencer's theories respecting Peruvian civilisation, in his great work on sociology, are based on misconceptions and inaccurate information.
The present writer, in the course of his studies, was gradually approaching the discovery that Peruvian socialism was not a conception of the Incas, but the result of much more ancient organisations recognised and adopted by the Incas. As will be seen from the present chapter, he has practically come to the same conclusions as Cunow and others who are in agreement with him, which are so admirably summed up by Belaunde in his extremely interesting and able review. But at the same time he does not consider that this pre-existence of communities holding land in common at all detracts from the admiration that is due to the government of the Incas. The wisdom which led the Incas to respect the institutions of the various tribes brought under their rule, and the skill with which they adapted those institutions to the requirements of a great empire, are evidences of no ordinary statesmanship. Their wise policy explains the rapidity of the rise of their empire, and the slight resistance to it.
- ↑ Capsicum.