Celebrating life events added joy to the heavy workloads borne by Inca people, whether they lived in heavily populated urban centers or in remote rural towns. The Inca love for order and organization extended to the farthest reaches of the empire.
Rural folk worked various jobs, such as farming, herding, and mining. Depending on the altitude and irrigation system, farmers grew corn, various types of potatoes, beans, squash, fruit, and dozens of other food plants and herbs. Men and women worked the fields together. The man turned the soil with a foot plow, called a taclla, while his wife moved along the plowed row, breaking soil clumps with a lampa, a wooden hoe.
Those who worked with livestock maintained herds of llamas that provided food, wool, leather, and pack animals. A llama could travel about 20 miles a day; greater distances were not possible, as llama handlers walked beside their animals.
Most mines were high in the Andes, where work was difficult because the high altitude meant reduced oxygen levels and colder temperatures. Most miners did not work a full Inca workday of sunrise to sunset. Instead, they usually worked only six to eight hours in the mines.
Men were responsible for doing their daily jobs, hunting under scrutiny of the local ca-mayoc, paying taxes, and working mandatory
Community service. They provided labor for repairing or building roads, irrigation canals, and bridges, and could be called on to serve in the military. Men also made their family’s sandals, either from woven plant fibers, wool, or leather, along with pottery, weapons, and wooden tools. Even the sapa inca knew how to make sandals-a skill required of every adult male.
Women worked the fields, cooked, raised the children, nursed the sick, and kept house. They spun fiber into yarn and wove cloth to provide clothing for the family and to pay taxes. There was no time wasted in a woman’s day, and idle time, including walking to and from the fields, was spent spinning.
Rural children received no formal schooling, learning their future jobs from their parents. Since there was no opportunity to move up in society, they needed no other education.
Families lived in one-room houses with stone walls and thatched roofs. Since there was little theft-and most people owned nothing of great value-houses did not have doors or windows, just open entryways. Houses offered protection from the elements at night, when families huddled together on straw pallets to sleep. Eating, cooking, general work, childcare, and all other daily chores were done outside, regardless of the weather.
World History
