Ebook: Tawantinsuyu. The Inca State and Its Political Organization

The aim of this study is to analyze, summarize and bring up to
date interpretations and knowledge concerning the main aspects
of Tawantinsuyu (the Inca State) especially relating to its political organization. The questions the investigators have to face
are numerous and therefore somewhat different methods and
approaches will be used relating to each problem. In fact, the
methods and approaches mainly depend on the amount and
quality of our primary sources since we do not have any other
choice than to accept the limitations of our primary material.
Nevertheless, we may say that in general, historical methods, as
well as anthropological models and theories will be used.
Furthermore, archaeological and linguistic information helps us
considerably to understand some spatial and administrative
principles and structures of Tawantinsuyu.
In general we may say that one must act like a historian when
dealing with chroniclers and other written documents. However,
after the investigator has evaluated, for example, a chronicler's
original sources, a chronicler's possibility to understand the
phenomenom they were describing, the validity of their
information and so on, he, the investigator, must act more like an
anthropologist to seek the structures Tawantinsuyu was composed
of. Of course, it is impossible to document all the details of the
analyzing processes which lie behind the final description, but
when an investigator uses terms like dualism, triadism, corvee,
sacred center and so on, one may be aware that he is referring to
theoretical models and constructions which, he hopes, may help
us in understanding the phenomena under analysis. However, in
more detailed parts of description scholars willingly use original
19Quechua and Aymara terms like suyu,1 saya, ayllu, hatha, curaca,
mallku, apo, hanan, chhulla, etc, because those terms have
meanings which cannot be translated by using only one or two
words. The same is true with Spanish terms like cacique principal,
segunda persona, cabecera, orejon and so on, which had specific
meanings in 16th century Spanish Peru.
In this study I especially try to seek those structures which
prevailed for a considerable time through all those changes that
occured during the Conquest period, since the fact is that although
the Spanish conquest in 1532 destroyed the upper level of
hierarchy in the Incaic political organization, the break did not
destroy everything equally. Especially those political structures
which were based on earlier "pre-existing" sociopolitical
principles in the middle and lower levels of hierarchy left their
traces many times up to Toledoan reductions realized in the 1570s
and sometimes (especially in the highlands) even up today
(depending on factors such as demography). In practice, more than
the history of events I am studying the history of structures and the
principles of organization which had a long duration (longue
duree) in the sense of Fernand BRAUDEL.