Ayllu

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Ayllu were the basic political unit of pre-Inca and Inca life. These were essentially extended family groups but they could adopt non-related members, giving individual families more variation and security of the land that they farmed. They would often have their own huaca, or minor god, usually embodied in a physical object such as a mountain or rock. They were usually led by a chief but could have other political arrangements. Ayllu were self sustaining units and would educate their own offspring and farm or trade for all the food they ate, except in cases of disaster such as El Niño years when they relied on the Inca storehouse system.

In marriages, the woman would generally join the class and ayllu of her partner as would her children, but would inherit her land from her parents and retain her membership in her birth ayllu. This is how most movements of people between ayllu occurred. But a person could also join an ayllu by assuming the responsibility of membership. This included ayni, or work in kind for other members of the allyu, and Mita, a form of taxation levied by the Inca government.

The above is a partial understanding of the ayllu. Ayllu are not just a system of social organization, they are also a poitical, religious, and ritual organization.

“Ayllu solidarity is a combination of kinship and territorial ties, as well as symbolism. (Albo 1972; Duviols 1974; Tshopik 1951; and Urioste 1975). These studies, however, do not explain how the ayllu is a corporate whole, which includes social principles, verticality, and metaphor... Ayllu also refers to people who live in the same territory (llahta) and who feed the earth shrines of that territory”^[1]