1. Mosoc-aparic: baby, “newly begun,” “just born.”
2. Saya-huarma: child, “standing boy,” age 2-6.
3 Macta-puric: “child that can walk,” age 6-8.
4. Itanta-requisic: “bread-receiver,” boy about 8.
5. Pucllac-huarma: “playing boy,” age 8-16.
6. Cuca-pallac: “Coca pickers,” age 16-20.
7. Yma-huayna: “as a youth,” light service, age 20-25.
8. Puric: “able-bodied,” tribute and service, age 25-50.
9. Chaupi-rucca: elderly, light service, age 50-60.
10. Puñuc-rucca: dotage, no work, 60 upwards.[22]
Although for statistical purposes, exact registers of each of these groups were annually made by the recorders, it is evident that the purics or “able-bodied” men constituted the most important portion of the population. They naturally fell into two groups consisting of the nobility and commoners, but scattered evidence amply provides that they were strictly classified according to the special service or tribute they rendered to the government. The best produce of each province was brought to Cuzco.
The inhabitants of each region were specially trained to render certain services or to excel in particular industries—by this means each tribe gradually became identified with its special industry or aptitude. The necessity that the supply of their produce should be constant and regular, must have necessitated the permanent maintenance of a fixed number of workers at each branch of industry, a fact which would give rise to rigid laws controlling the liberty of the individual, forcing children to adopt their parents' avocations and forbidding intermarriages between persons of different provinces. As scattered mention is made of the following [pg 143] general classification of the male population, I venture to note them as follows, provisionally:
Nobility: Commoners.
1. lords: shepherds (of lamas),
2. priests: hunters,
3. warriors: farmers,
4. civil governors: artificers.
The female population was doubtlessly subdivided in an analogous manner, for it is expressly recorded that all marriageable girls were kept in four different houses. Those of the first class, qualified as “the white virgins,” were dedicated to the service of the Creator, the Sun and the Inca; the second were given in marriage to the nobility; the third class married the Curacas or civil governors, and the last were qualified as “black,” and pertained to the lower classes.
Caste division was never lost sight of—indeed one Inca went so far as to order that all the people of the Below “should flatten the heads of their children, so that they should be long and sloping from the front.” Thus they should ever be distinguishable from the nobility and “yield them obedience.” Although it is not expressly stated, it may be inferred from actual specimens of skulls which have been found that, in some localities, in order to differentiate the two classes still more, members of the nobility strove to mould the heads of their children in a high peak, so that they too should perpetually bear the mark of their rank. Whether such a procedure would exert a correspondingly elevating or abasing influence upon the intellectual development of the two classes is a problem for anthropologists.
A very simple explanation of the reason why artificial deformation of the skull was ever adopted, is obtainable when the all-powerful dominion of a certain set of ideas is recognized. Many other customs, still in practice amongst American tribes, are likewise explained by the arbitrary division of population into classes and categories. The Peruvian custom of bestowing one name upon a child when it was one year old and another when it attained maturity is the direct outcome of the classification of individuals by age. The ceremonial observances which accompanied the bestowal of these names were accompanied by a change of costume which constituted the official enrolment or advancement into another class. The existence of further systematic class-distinctions [pg 144] is proven by the description of the picturesque ceremony performed in the month of August at Cuzco and called “the driving out of sickness.” In the centre of the great square around the urn of gold which typified the “central fountain” (precisely the idea expressed by the name of Mexico), four hundred warriors assembled. One hundred, representing one of the four ayllus, faced towards each cardinal point and subsequently ran at full speed in its direction, crying “Go forth all evils!”
We have now traced the idea of the Above and Below, Centre and Four Quarters in Ancient Peru. It remains to be noted that the capital itself, which was to be the image of the whole empire, was primarily divided into two halves and four quarters, and subdivided into 4×3=12 wards the names of which doubtlessly corresponded with that of their inhabitants. When the sacred centre of the capital is added to these it is clear that the City of Cuzco was subdivided into as many parts as there were directions in space, i. e. 13. It exemplified, therefore, an association of 2×10=20 categories of people classified according to ages, with thirteen directions in space, and a general subdivision of all classes into four parts. The Inca with the four Capacs and the Coya with the four Camayocs formed two groups of five each, which could well have been represented by a large central figure surrounded by four smaller ones of equal size. By coloring these with red, yellow, black and white, their assignment to the cardinal point could have been expressed. The central figure could be painted in four colors, for only the Inca and his lineage could wear many-colored garments, these being indicative that they represented the centre or union of the four quarters.
Two important features of the system remain to be discussed: We have studied the minute and methodical classification of the entire population into distinct groups without touching upon the practical reasons why this was done. We have analyzed the great machinery of the Inca dominion as it lies broken and motionless. But endow the giant wheel with motion, introduce systematical rotation into its every part, regulate the occupations of the people by a fixed series of work-days and holidays. Send them forth to their work and collect the products of their labor at set intervals, institute a calendar, and you will have set the machinery of state in motion and realized how the classification of individuals according to rank, ages, and occupations was absolutely necessary in order to [pg 145] obtain a successful and harmonious result. It has already been shown that the institution of the calendar and establishment of twelve festival periods of thirty days each, in a year, succeeded the division of the people into groups and their assignment to fixed places of abode.
“They commenced to count the year in the middle of May, a few days more or less, on the first day of the Moon ... in this month they held the festivals of the Sun” (Molina ed. Hakluyt, p. 16). I direct particular attention to the fact that it was the new May moon which controlled the beginning of the religious calendar, although the Incas observed the equinoxes and solstices and the cult of the Sun was under their special care. The twelve divisions of the year accord with the twelve wards of Cuzco surrounding the central enclosure which was always the place where the festivals were held and the people congregated.