Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the
Lupaca
and
Colla
were probably the largest and most powerful. Though centred over-
whelmingly on the Altiplano, the Aymara maintained colonies in different ecological regions
to ensure access to a wide range of produce. As well as major livestock herders, the Aymara
were also important producers of gold and silver, which were found in abundance on the Al-
tiplano, making it one of the wealthiest Andean regions.
AYMARA SOCIETY
Aymara society was radically different from that of Tiwanaku: Aymaras lived in fortified
settlements (
pucaras
), relied on large-scale llama and alpaca herding rather than intensive
cultivation
, and followed a much more localized religion, building few ceremonial sites
other than the stone tombs (
chulpas
) where important individuals were buried. The basic
unit of Aymara society was the
ayllu
- an extended kinship group - above which were
powerful regional nobles, or
kurakas
, who held land independently from the
ayllus
over
which they ruled; the
kurakas
were in turn subject to a warrior chief or king.
The Incas
By the mid-fifteenth century the Aymara kingdoms found themselves in growing competition
with the
Incas
, an expansionist, Quechua-speaking people with their capital at Cusco in
southern Peru. Despite their military power, the Aymara kingdoms proved incapable of unit-
ing against this common threat and were gradually incorporated into the Inca empire. Ini-
tially, the Incas did little to alter Aymara society, contenting themselves with extracting trib-
ute. In 1470, however, the main Aymara kingdoms around Lago Titicaca rose in revolt,
prompting the Incas to dispatch a great army from Cusco to crush the rebellion.
Thereafter, the Incas reinforced their control of the Altiplano, building roads, storehouses
and fortresses, and incorporating the region into their domains as the
Collasuyo
, one of the
richest and most populous of the empire's four quarters, or
suyus
. The Aymara rulers were
permitted to remain in place, though with limited autonomy; they were also required to send
their young nobles to Cusco both to serve as hostages and be indoctrinated. A different sys-
tem of government was used in the fertile inter-Andean valleys east of the Altiplano, where
theIncasestablishedmilitary-agricultural coloniesofloyalQuechua-speakers,knownas
mit-
amaqs
. These guaranteed Inca control of this rich, temperate region and protected the south-
eastern frontier of the empire against raids by semi-nomadic peoples from the Eastern Low-
lands.
With the conquest of the
Collasuyo
the Incas confirmed their status as the most powerful
Andean empire since Tiwanaku, with which they consciously sought to associate themselves,
claiming that their founding ancestor, Manco Capac, had been brought into being on the Isla
del Sol in Lago Titicaca, the Andean world's sacred centre where it was believed the sun it-
