Andean social order

One of the things I found most interesting about the introduction and beginning chapter of the Stern book was the similar theme that there was a tremendous amount of ethnic diversity in the Andean region. Like the Aztecs, the Inca Empire became a conglomerate of smaller de-centralized tribes and communities.  It is fascinating to see how the various aspects of Andean and later Inca life, was so overlapping and how each facet of the societies and kinship networks affected one another. The family kinship social networks of the Andean people heavily influenced their own local economies which were fairly autonomous. “Wealth in Andean society came from access to labor based on building such a web of kinship and mutual obligation. The reciprocal exchange of services mobilized by kin groups within their ayllus became the ideal model extended outward to ties between ayllus of the larger community or ethnic group”. (Stern 8). Andean religious ideology was also closely connected with their economic, political and social lives. Andean religious leaders were called kurakas and they also held political authority within local communities. “In Andean society, from the division of the larger community or ethnic into two related halves, to further subdivision into four or more large lineages or peoples, down to the proliferation of smaller, more intimate ayllus—at each level of social organization, and for the community as a whole, a kuraka lord symbolized the unity of identity and interest of ‘his’ people. A kuraka---almost invariably a male—inherited his position by virtue of a close kin relationship to the previous lord” (Stern 10). The breakdown of these social structures and the power of kurakas when the Inca Empire dominated the Andean region became a problem for the new Inca state.