The Inca Empire
Daily Life of the Common People
Work Groups: The common people were organized into groups.
Each group was like a family unit. There were 10-20 people in each unit. Each unit was
called an ayllu. Within each ayllu, each person had a specific job to do.
Common people had no freedom. They could not own or run a business. They could not own
luxury goods. The only items common people could have in their homes were things they
needed to do their job. They could not travel on the roads.
Still, life was not all work. A small amount of time was allotted for bathing and eating.
They had lots of religious holidays. But they could not be idle. That was the law. Either
they were celebrating a state approved holiday, working in the fields, or sleeping.
There were many laws that kept a family (an ayllu) in its place. Laws dictated who should
work, when, where, and at what time. Inspectors stopped by frequently to check on things.
Breaking a law usually meant the death penalty. Very few people broke the law.
Most commoners were farmers: The emperor owned all the land. He controlled the use of
the land through administrators. Administrators divided the land into plots large enough
for a family to manage. Each ayllu planted enough food to feed themselves and others.
Family groups helped each other when they could.
Each fall, the administrators gave a family unit a little more or a little less land to farm
based on how many people they had in their family unit. Farmers could only keep about onethird of their harvest. The rest went to support other people.
Service Tax: Farmers had to pay taxes on the land they worked. The Incas loved gold and
silver. But they had no use for money. Tax was paid in labor - in billions of man-hours. That
is how the Incas were able to build so much so rapidly.
Education: The Incan people were very smart. The children of the common people were not
generally educated. When they were old enough, each child would be assigned a job to do.
That was their job for life. The only training they received would be related to their job.
Food: People did not go hungry. The common people ate two or three meals a day. Their
breakfast was typically a food called chicha, which was a kind of thick beer made from
fermented corn. Their main meal was eaten at night. It was hearty. They ate corn with
chili peppers seasoned with herbs, thick vegetable soups, and hot bread made from
cornmeal and water.
Marriage: Everyone was required to marry. If an Incan man had not married by the time
he was twenty, a wife would be chosen for him. Although the Inca royals had many wives,
commoners could only have one wife.
Babies: When a baby was born, his or her arms were tightly bound to their body for three
months. The Incas believed this binding made the baby stronger. Babies were rarely held.
The Incas believed that if you held a baby, it would cry more. Crying exhausted the family.
That interfered with farming. So, babies were not held. They were touched only to clean
or feed them. They were left in cradles all day, alone.
Children, including babies, were left alone most of the day: Children were fed three times
a day, but they also were not hugged. Again, they were only touched to clean or feed them.
Many Incan children died young from neglect.
Homes: Common homes were made of sun-baked brick with thatched roofs. There were no
doors and no windows. The doorway was covered with a strip of hanging leather or woven
cloth. Goods were stored in baskets. On cold nights, people slept on mats, near the stone
stove. In the morning, the family left to work the fields.
Crime and Punishment: There was almost no crime in the Inca Empire. Inca laws were very
harsh. Punishment was swift.
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If you insulted the Inca, cursed the gods, or committed a murder, you were thrown
off a cliff.
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If you were caught stealing or cheating, you either had your hands and feet cut off.
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There were lesser punishments. You could be stoned. You could be tied to a wall and
left to freeze.
If you lived through your punishment, you were classified as a criminal, and you became a
ward of the state. The state took care of you. They clothed and fed you. In the Inca
Empire, everybody had a job. Your job as a criminal was to tell others about your crime.
That was your job for the rest of your life.
Every day, criminals were taken to the city gates and assigned a begging bowl. As people
passed by, criminals had to announce their crimes. If their stories were interesting, people
would toss food or small trinkets into the begging bowls. That way, each criminal could
prove how many people had stopped to listen as they confessed their crimes. And the
people had daily reminders of what would happen to them if they broke the law.
You might wonder why the criminals did not run away. Run away where? The common people
were not allowed on the roads. But even if they were, the military guarded the gates to
the cities. They kept an eye on the criminals begging by the gate. Any criminal who tried to
run away was captured and killed.