Encyclopedia of the Incas

and the history invested in the land. The estate lands in the Urubamba valley
(e.g., Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Machu Picchu) were particularly well
developed and staffed, and were thus coveted by royal families (see Estates,
Royal). Individual estates boasted up to 6,000 families who worked at farming,
herding, providing household service, and fabricating the material goods used to
maintain an elegant existence. Based on significant land and water
modifications, the manors provided an opulent lifestyle for the rulers’ descendant
families. Coca leaf estates in the lowlands, and gold and silver mines, were also
highly valued.
Vast flocks of llamas and alpacas constituted a form of wealth on the hoof, for
their fiber, meat, transport, and ritual values (see Animals, Domesticated). A
tunic of fine tapestry weave, theoretically awarded only by the order of the Sapa
Inca (sole or unique ruler), was a mark of particular status. When the Incas
began to expand their domain, they focused early efforts on the altiplano, where
camelid herds formed the basis of wealth for the local populace. The scale of
herds was impressive, as individual lords could own tens of thousands of
animals, while the Incas’ Sun temple network was said to own over a million
animals, a number probably significantly surpassed by the state’s flocks.
In comparative context, discussions of primitive valuables, circuits of
exchange of status goods (e.g., in the Melanesian kula ring), and special-purpose
moneys (e.g., cowries; iron bars, raffia cloth) have considerable depth in
economic anthropology. Many of those objects are consumable currencies (e.g.,
tobacco, opium, salt, spices, sugar, rum, cloth, cotton, and coca leaf). Those
items generally carry some, but not all, of the features of money: medium of
exchange, standard of value, repository of value, and unit of accounting. They
are also imbued with cultural weight that extends beyond simple accounting
functionality. In this context, coca leaf may have been the closest thing to a
consumable or political currency that existed in the Inca economy. It was widely
exchanged, but it seems to have been sought mostly for use, ritual exchanges,
and offerings, so its role was more properly social and ceremonial than
monetary.
A number of the societies drawn under Inca rule possessed items that come
closer to a conventional, western economic view of wealth. Among the most
prominent were the beads called chaquira, of bone, shell, and gold, that
circulated among the peoples of the northern part of the empire, serving as media
of exchange and standards of value. They were employed by a class of traders
(mindaláes), who worked both independently and as the agents of regional lords.