politicized affair, with contests among the dead king’s kinfolk, wives, and their
children. The successor to the Inca ruler assumed the throne, but he did not
inherit the property or wealth acquired by the king during his life; rather, the
king’s estate was inherited by another of his sons along with his descendants,
with the exception of his successor-son. That is, one son inherited the kingship;
another son became the head of a corporate-like body that inherited the king’s
wealth. In short, the two resources that made up a king’s inheritance: (1) kingly
power, authority, and the presumption of divine descent from the Sun, and (2)
the king’s earthly resources and wealth—were split between two of his
descendants upon his death.
At the time of the European invasion, the social, political, and ritual
organization of the capital, Cuzco, was structured around 10 panacas (i.e., royal
ayllus) and 10 nonroyal ayllus. The former are generally referred to by the
chroniclers as panacas (although in a few cases they are, confusingly, referred to
as ayllus, while the latter are only referred to as ayllus). The members of each
panaca resided in the king’s old residence within the city and managed not only
that property, but also any other estates outside the city built and maintained by
the sovereign before his death. Each panaca was also associated with a
particular ceque of Cuzco’s ceque system, and the members of the panaca were
responsible for making sacrifices at the several huacas that defined that ceque.
Each of the 10 nonroyal ayllus were also responsible for a ceque and its
constituent huacas. These links between royal and nonroyal kin groups
(respectively, panacas and ayllus) and their relations to each other and to the
living Inca lay at the heart of the core structures and relations that made up the
social, political, and ritual organization of the capital, Cuzco, in the time of
Tahuantinsuyu.
Further Reading
D’Altroy, Terence N. The Incas. 2nd ed. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Pärssinen, Martti. Tawantinsuyu: The Inca State and Its Political Organization. Studia Historica 43.
Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1992.
Rowe, John H. “La constitución inca del Cuzco.” Histórica 9, no. 1: 35–73, 1985.
Zuidema, R. Tom. The Ceque System of Cuzco: The Social Organization of the Capital of the Inca. Leiden,
Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1964.
■GARY URTON
PEASE, FRANKLIN