The Role of Kurakas During the 16th to 18th Centuries

The Role of Kurakas During the 16th to 18th Centuries

The Inca empire came into power in Latin America during the 15th century. Starting from the city-state of Cuzco, they expanded to cover the Andes mountains and basically the entire west coast including Peru and Ecuador. Because of the rapid expansion, the Inca empire was comprised of many different cultural groups, each living in the diverse regions of Latin America. From rocky mountainous areas to humid rainforests and tropical coasts, the Incas were able to harvest a myriad of resources from each of the regions. Even though the Inca empire was made up of different groups that spoke different languages and had different cultures, the ability to unite each of them in order to become a productive and prosperous conglomerate was the sole reason for the success of the empire. They adopted an ayllu lifestyle, meaning that each group, or ayllu, was specialized in regards to the product or resources they could produce, and then they would give a portion of their goods as tributes to the centralized government to be redistributed to the other city states. Management of each of the ayllus was done by the kurakas. “Kurakas were part of a privileged elite, hierarchically organized, whose members enjoyed special access to the goods and resources of their society by virtue of their position.” (Spalding 33) The role of the kurakas were controversial, albeit they played an important part in the social hierarchy of the ayllu structure as well as in keeping control over the many diverse groups that the Inca empire was comprised of.

The kurakas were put in place primarily to be in charge of the Indians. They were to inspect the Indians annually and to make sure that the Indians stayed within their respective regions. (Spalding 32) In this way, the central government could keep control over its empire similar to how North Korea suppresses and controls its provinces. By preventing people from crossing over to another region, the North Korean government limits the amount of communication between each of the regions. This is also an effective way of preventing people from forming organized rebellions between provinces. The kurakas ultimately lived off of the labor of others; they assigned jobs and labor to their ayllus, then obtained tributes from their ayllus without having to produce anything in return. They were instead responsible for keeping count of the resources they receive using quipus, a “mnemonic counting device of knotted cords”. (Spalding 34)

Kurakas earned their title through inheritance and with it comes their responsibilities and privileges. (Spalding 33) They would continue their family’s role in the Andean society. For example, Llacsamisa, a founder of an ayllu responsible for regulating irrigation waters, told his heir the instructions for taking care of the reservoirs and the rules for water distribution. (Spalding 36) These rules and responsibilities were passed down unchanged for many generations. It was believed that religion and the kuraka’s power were directly related; a kuraka was given their status by God and was responsible for blessing their ayllus in return for their tribute and labor. This meant that the kurakas were held accountable for when natural disasters such as storms or earthquakes struck their ayllus, but they were also praised when their ayllus experienced good luck. The relationship between kurakas and priests in this culture was quite close, considering they both held more power than the average laborer.

When the Spanish conquered the Inca empire in 1532, kurakas suffered directly. Although they still had power over their ayllus, they lacked centralization due to the loss of their central government, which meant that they could not redistribute goods or establish infrastructure in the Andes. Over time, kurakas continued to lose their privileges as well as their impact in Andean society. Encomenderos were set in place by the Spanish in order to collect tribute from the ayllus. They did this by communicating with the kurakas and having them be the bridge between the encomenderos and their ayllus. (Spalding 134)

In 1780, Tupac Amaru II led an Indian rebellion against the Spanish for