Encyclopedia of the Incas

apu (great lord), conducted regular inspections with the assistance of quipu
specialists who maintained records necessary for the process. Annual inspections
tallied people and herd animals, assigned households to tributary service, and
confirmed that service assignments had been completed. Other high officials
were charged with the maintenance of the road and bridge system that bound
the far-flung Inca provinces to the capital, as well as the management of royal
holdings and ritual installations found across the empire.
Decimal administration imposed a more regular administrative hierarchy
across the empire, in a way that distributed power unequally. Ideally, all curaca
appointments came from the Inca ruler, and appointees had to travel to Cuzco to
receive their office and the privileges that came with it (such as the right to sit on
a stool, or tiyana). The Inca ruler and a few other nobles made the most
important policy decisions, passing their commands on to high-ranking curacas,
many of whom enjoyed power and privileges beyond their status before the Inca
conquest. Administrators in charge of several hundred or thousand households
often oversaw people belonging to other kin networks or ethnic groups, and they
appear to have had some latitude in determining which households would carry
out tributary labor tasks, some of which were dangerous and required extensive
travel. Whereas upper-level curacas enjoyed some power in the implementation
of Inca demands, low-ranking curacas were expected to carry out their
assignments, and were held accountable for households that did not do as
ordered. The power to resolve disputes and punish wrongdoers had a
correspondingly unequal distribution—local curacas could mete out corporal
punishment, but only Inca officials could deliberate on serious offenses, and the
Inca ruler took sole responsibility for overseeing the moral and legal order of the
imperial capital and its noble occupants (see Crime and Punishment).
At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Inca Empire was governed by a
diverse set of administrative strategies. Royal Inca lineages dominated the
administration of the Cuzco region in a manner that was distinct from most
imperial provinces, using a series of palaces and rural estates to rule over
retainers, production specialists, and labor colonists drawn from the periphery
(see Estates, Royal; Labor Service). The central highlands between Quito and
La Paz display consistent evidence of direct rule, and documents from several
provinces provide proof of decimal administration.
The Incas built enclaves and way stations in the southern periphery of the
empire, but large administrative centers and key state institutions appear to be
absent across much of what is today northern Chile, northwest Argentina, and