Encyclopedia of the Incas

resettled to increase maize production. The domestic economy, nevertheless,
witnessed increasing social differences between native elites and their subjects.
The former spent less time farming and weaving, while the latter continued these
activities or intensified them. These changes apparently reflect the incorporation
of native Huanca elites into the state bureaucracy.
Along the coast, most villages practiced irrigation agriculture. On the central
coast, entire villages specialized in particular crafts. Villages exchanged their
products for those of other villages; fishing and farming had become mutually
exclusive activities that involved multiple social groups. These specialized
domestic economies were the result of long-standing differences among the
economic activities of coastal groups.
The Chimú of the north coast represent a special case of coastal household
economy (see Chronology, Pre-Inca). The Chimú were among the most
complex Andean society to contest Inca expansion. During Chimú times, from
the extensive compounds that housed the Chimú kings and their families, the
ruling elite controlled craft production at their capital, Chan Chan. An
intermediate-level elite occupied smaller compounds that shared administrative
features of the ruler’s compounds. Low-status craft workers lived in simple
structures scattered among the larger compounds, where they produced textiles
and metal goods.
A complex system of irrigation canals sustained the crops produced by
specialized villages in the Chan Chan hinterland. These rural sites consumed
more marine resources while the city’s urban lower class had access to camelid
meat. When the Incas conquered the Chimú, they curtailed the power of the
ruling elites and placed their own personnel in the highest administrative offices,
though they left many of the Chimú lords in charge of the activities they had
previously overseen.
The household economies of societies that existed prior to the Inca conquest
varied considerably, from the highly specialized Chimú to the humble Uru of
Lake Titicaca. The Incas, however, transformed the household economies of
their subjects to accommodate their own imperial needs. While the object was to
leave conquered groups as unchanged as possible and extract their labor, this
ultimately led to many transformations, especially among local elite households
forced to serve the empire. Although such households gained access to more
elite goods, especially Inca-produced ones, commoners often continued their
pre-Inca way of life, with the added burden of their mit’a obligations.