major labor requirement. The rotation period lasted weeks or months and
disrupted the normal lives of conquered villagers (see Labor Service).
For the Incas of Cuzco, different social groups were in charge of rituals at the
shrines of the ceque system. Most of these shrines were in the vicinity of Cuzco.
Worship involved collecting the sacrificial objects, going to the shrines,
conducting the proper rituals, and returning home. As a social group could be
responsible for more than one shrine, this added to the yearly work of the
residents. The magistrate Juan Polo Ondegardo wrote that many villages had
similar networks of shrines, suggesting such networks were pan-Andean.
In summary, village life varied with the seasons. For conquered villagers, daily
work involved farming, herding, or making crafts as well as cleaning canals or
conducting rituals to common ancestors. When villagers were dispatched as
mit’a laborers they were often accompanied by their families. If the person did
not return, as many did not, due to mortality in the Inca conflicts, this would
have added a burden to the family. Preparing and working the fields of the Inca
and the deities would have further added to the labor burden of local people
during the year. Goods used by conquered people would have been locally
produced and made primarily of locally available materials, such as stone, wood,
or ceramic. Village leaders, however, as symbols of their affiliation with the
empire, might have had access to goods produced by the Incas at their
administrative centers.
No doubt, the lives of Cuzco’s nonroyal social groups were similar to those of
conquered people, though without the mit’a obligation. Certainly, royal lineages
were somewhat better off, enjoying the labor of mit’a workers or yanacuna
awarded to them. Finally, the material culture of the Cuzco Incas included goods
produced by craft specialists and, if they were produced for members of the
nobility, were commonly made of bronze, gold, or silver.
Further Reading
Bauer, Brian S. The Sacred Landscape of the Incas: The Cusco Ceque System. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1998.
D’Altroy, Terence. The Incas. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
■MICHAEL A. MALPASSVISITAS
This term, which translates as “visit,” was used in the Colonial Andes for a range
of different kinds of administrative as well as ecclesiastical investigations, or
inquests, carried out by officials designated as visitadores (visitors). The vast