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Reconstructing the past |
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Inca society |
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Dressed in fine clothes woven of gold and fine wool, which clothes were held together at the upper part at the neck with four gold pins of some two palms in length, each one of which used to weigh two pounds of gold and on her head was placed a ribbon of gold as wide as a thumb which almost looked like a crown and she also wore belted at her waist a belt woven from fine wool on gold on which belt went many and diverse paintings. she wore another small manta as covering also woven of gold and fine wool and of various kinds of needlework, according to her custom she wore footwear on her feet, gold shoes she was very clean and groomed and adorned [at the moment of getting married] gave her and offered her one hundred mamaconas, women for her service [...] and the steward [of the house of the Sun] gave her another fifty and the lords they gave her gold and silver |
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vessels, small ones and large ones, plates and wide bowls and cups and more than 250 yanaconas.
Betanzos, in Chapter 14, says that in the ceremony of investiture of the "orejones" in Cuzco "all the lords of Cuzco had to be found dressed in some long red undershirts which reached their feet, those which had over their shoulders preserved hides of lions and the heads of these lions they had over their own heads and the faces of these lions they had in front of their faces which heads of lions likewise had some earplugs of gold."
The same chronicler, in Chapter 21, indicates that "no cacique in the whole land no matter how much of a lord he was could wear or use fine clothing nor feathers nor valuable litters nor wool fastenings in his shoes but rather those of aloe fiber if it were not that the Inga had given such clothing or plumage or litters to him for his services".
Feathers and earplugs, gold and fine fabrics, headdresses and personal adornments were signs of lineage and ethnic identification. Social differences were a function of ethnic belonging and the use of force at the service of securing them. So there were not any vertical struggles in social relations, however much the differences between the various social actors were in some manner vertical; wars were between ethnicities and not between classes.
Inca economic privileges were shared by the rest of the members of his lineage or panaca and consisted mainly of having available very well endowed lands for their benefit. The Incas chose lands in the sacred valley of the Urubamba, many of them, like those of Machu Picchu and others of the same valley, destined for the worship of their dead heroes.
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