Incas Society

The incas society had only nobles and citizens, the nobles were divided in different classes that where define by the blood lineage, it really did not matter the economic power of the different families, in this society it only matter your blood lineage.

The inca king was at the top of the pyramid of power, he had power over authorities on the city and other main territories, the leaders of this territories were call Curacas, the curacas had power over other smaller territories and so on until the boss of the Ayllu; The ayllu is a group of indians that are related by birth place or family ties, they were the basic cell of the incas society.

The ayllu was based on the community work, where all the benefits from each ayllu was gather together and split up in three parts; First part was going to the inca temples for the sustain of the religion class, second part was going strait to the inca king and the third part stay with the ayllu.

All food produce by the ayllu was divide it in withing all the community, giving equal amounts of each product for each family; The community work was the essence of the development of the incas society, since the days when they were only a simple inca tribe.

At the highest point, the inca empire had 3,000,000 Km2, from the land that now is Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and part of Argentina; The inca civilization was the biggest and greatest culture, ever exist in south America and one of the biggest of the world.

The inca government assign to each man approximately 2700 mt2 of fertile ground, to each women about 1400 mt2 and your kids will get the same amount of land, like a grown man or woman, so if you have more kids, you will have more land; When is about agriculture work, the incas society give the men and women equal responsibilities, because all the incas economy was based on the agriculture, but at the end all the land belong to the inca king.

To divide each piece of land, the incas order to grow a plant call Yacon, the roots of this plant contains 98% of water and it taste a bit sweet, the reason of this special obligatory crop was for common use of the community, so all the inca people from all the community with any incas society class, could eat the roots in instead of drinking water, for free at any time.

The incas did not drink fresh water for two reasons: First, they believe that the earth was a divinity and the water was his sister, so if you drink fresh water you could be punish by the gods, the solution was the yacon plant, you can eat as many roots as you want until satisfy your thirst; The second reason was, because in those days who drink fresh water had infections and some of them die, so the inca religion justify the death of this people, by saying that the gods had punish them for the offense of drinking water.

The incas society did not understand the concept of money, even that they posses large amounts of inca gold, they did not treat the gold as money, they base all their economy on the exchange of work for work or products for products, the attitude of community assistance and helping to each other in any situation, still alive among the descendants of the incas until today.

The incas society has three types of workers, first the Ayni that is how they call the common worker in any Ayllu community, the second is the Minka, this kind of worker was taken out from his community for some time, to do obligatory inca agriculture work in the lands of the inca king, in exchange for his work he was given food and water.

And finally the Minta, this kind of worker was taken from his community for some time and traveling around the kingdom building roads, aqueducts, temples and all infrastructure for the empire; The inca women that never come back to her ayllu, were the ones chosen to serve at the temples.

At the bottom of the incas society were the Runas, that were considered vulgar, drunk and low class people; The incas did not practice the slavery, but in some occasions when the enemy had been merciless against the inca warriors, the incas took war prisoners and transform them into slaves for the royal family, this men, women and children were call Yanaconas.

The inca rulers were aloud to have as many concubines as they want, with the result of dozens or even hundreds of kids, a good example of this is the last inca king Atahualpa, who had over 200 children; The incas society stipulate that, the only inca king descendants that could fight for the throne, were the children born from the inca king and his sisters, because it was believe that in that way the royal blood will stay clean.

The history of the incas is a wonderful example of greatness and mystery, but at the same time they were a merciless example of cruelty; For example if you steal, the inca authorities will cut your hands and if it was something serious, they will cut you feed as well, then the inca authorities will put you at the doors of the main cities to beg for food as a example for the others.

The punishments of the inca authorities were trigger, if do not follow the incas society laws of do not be lazy, do not lie or do not steal; The punishments for broken the laws were from cutting off your eyes, cutting parts of your body or push you from high cliffs, leaving your body without a proper burial.

The amazing complexity of the incas society, the wonderful examples of order, respect for each other and at the same time the oppression, brain wash and unbreakable merciless rules that this society had, were the perfect cocktail to build one of the most interesting cultures or the world.

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