The American Society for Ethnohistory

How Inca Decimal Administration Worked

Author(s): Catherine J. Julien
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Ethnohistory, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Summer, 1988), pp. 257-279
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/481802 .
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How Inca Decimal Administration Worked

Catherine J. Julien, Institute of Andean Studies

Abstract. UnderstandingInca decimaladministrationhas been elusive because

Spanish administratorsrecordedonly partialdescriptionsof Inca practiceand
failed to graspthe logic and principleswhich guidedit. Decimaladministration
can be reconstructedin broadoutlinefrom two nativeaccountingrecords,pre-
servedon knotteddevicesknown as quipos.Once an overviewof the systemis
gained,the logic andprincipleswhichinformedIncapracticebecomeperceptible.
This in turn enablesan assessmentof the impactof Incaauthorityon the politi-
cal organizationof the Andeanarea.The Incasdid not simplyreorientexisting
politicalorganizationto meet theirown ends, but reorganizedit to be the struc-
turalequivalentof local authorityelsewhereand, in the process,authoreda new
territorialconfigurationin the Andes.

The Incas conquered and held a large territory during the century before
the Spanish arrival in the Andes. That they organized the diverse An-
dean population into decimal units for administrative purposes was not
doubted by sixteenth-century Spanish writers, all of whom were aware of
the magnitude of the task of running an empire in the Andes. Yet these
writers, our nearest witnesses to Inca administration, say almost nothing
about the operation of decimal administration. Four centuries later, and
more than a century after the beginnings of ethnohistorical inquiry, we
still have no workable idea about how the Incas organized their empire
(Pease I982: I74; Murra 1984: 78-82).
When Inca administration is described, our standard historical ac-
counts give a list of decimal units from io to o1,000, often with inter-
mediate divisions (Table i) (Falc6n 1867 [1567]: 463-64; Polo de Onde-
gardo I917 [I571]: 5I; Cobo 1964 [I653], [92]: II4; Bandera I968 [1557]:
505; Santillan 1879 [1563]: 17-I8; Rowe I958: 499). The list is always
presented as a nested hierarchy,leaving latter-day students of Inca admin-

Ethnohistory35:3 (Summer1988). Copyright? by the AmericanSociety for

Ethnohistory. ccc ooI4-I8o0/88/$I.5o.
 Catherine J. Julien

Table i. Decimalunits from io to Io,ooo

Unit name Numberof tributaries

Huno 10,000
Piscaguaranga 5,000
Guaranga 1,000
Piscapachaca 500
Pachaca 100
Piscachunga 50
Chunga 10

istration to wonder how such an idealized and seemingly utopian system

could have had any practical value in the administration of the large and
politically heterogeneous population shaped by the Incas into a single
body politic (Salomon I986: 7). One richly detailed yet brief account of
Inca administration provides some detail about how decimal units were
adjusted and about the practice of census taking (Castro and Ortega
Morej6n 1974 [I558]: 98). Perhaps its authors could have described the
system in more detail, but unfortunately for us, they did not do so.
Inca administration was fundamentally foreign to the Spaniards who
came to the Andes with Pizarro and during the formative decades which
followed. These men observed and recorded native practice, but they ap-
pear not to have grasped the logic and principles which governed it and
hence did not provide a convincing picture of decimal administration in
their accounts. Native practice was framed within a foreign system of
thought, yet how are we to reconstruct either the body of practice or the
belief system at its foundations if our best informants have not phrased
some approximation of the totality for us?
Inca decimal structuring of the Andean population persisted in some
areas of the Andes as late as the eighteenth century, in spite of the fact
that the decimal units were far below the numerical strength implied by
their names.1 Some years ago, I reconstructed the decimal ordering of the
Lupaca province in the Lake Titicaca region (Figure i). An administrative
survey, or visita, for this province had been published and was appre-
ciated by many Andean ethnohistorians for the information it contains
about local people (Murra 1968). The same document contains a body of
information about Inca administration as well, and even though the Span-
ish administrator who conducted the visita appeared not to be aware of
the decimal structure of the Lupaca province, the testimony he gathered
included a native Andean knot record, or quipo, which when analyzed
reveals that the Lupacas were indeed organized along decimal lines (Julien
I98z: I29-33). But these decimal units need not have had any practical
value in the ongoing administration of a province; they may have served
 Qolla Province of Urc
Cuzco \ wvince o
Cab.f

\V,
Qolla Province of Urcosuyc lla Prov
La Paz La Paz

Lupaca Province of Urcos

Pacajes Province of Ur(

s Provin

0 __________ 100
100_______
km
iInca
in
the
Lake
Titicaca
mFigure
provinces
region

Figure I. Inca provinces in the Lake Titicaca region

z60 Catherine J. Julien

as a census vocabulary only (Murra 1984: 8i). An appreciation of the

decimal structuring of the Andean population simply does not tell us how
the system operated.
What is really at issue is not just the particular form taken by Inca
administration, but whether the Incas imposed a bureaucratic order of
their own design, thus reshaping the political organization of the Andes,
or simply reoriented existing political organization to meet their own
demands. The latter hypothesis has guided much recent ethnohistorical
scholarship in the Andes, largely, I believe, because it has been accepted
by default. After considerable familiaritywith the body of source material
having some bearing on the matter, no working model of Inca decimal
administration has emerged (Pease I986: 9-Io; Murra 1984: 72, 78-82;
Morris 1985: 477-79).
This issue still requires deliberated resolution. How we resolve it has
some important consequences, both for ethnohistorians and for anthro-
pologists and archaeologists who would project ethnohistorical findings
onto Andean peoples of both later and earlier time periods (Murra 1984:
68; Morris 1985: 483). If we assume that Inca rule was just a veneer
over the autonomous polities of earlier times, then when this veneer is
removed, a form of political organization resembling what preceded it
should emerge once more. Operating under this assumption, the docu-
mentary record for the decades after the European arrival could be used
to model the political economy of Andean peoples when they were free
of central rule. The model of the vertical archipelago proposed by John
Murra, and indeed much of our ethnohistorical effort, has been built on
the idea that the Incas preserved the status quo (Murra 1984: 65-67;
Morris I985: 483; Pease 1978: 64).
On the other hand, if we find that the Incas did reorganize local
political authority, we could not model Andean political economy on the
decades following the Pizarro invasion. Rather, we would need to deci-
pher the Inca order first and then question, for each specific locale, the
degree to which the Incas altered the refractorypolities they encountered
on the road to empire.
But can we reconstruct Inca administration, hampered as we are by
the rigidly hierarchical and seemingly utopian view of it found in the
standard historical accounts (Pease 1985: I42)? The bulk of the written
materials created in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries consists
of administrative documents, although a few chronicles were also writ-
ten about the political events witnessed by the Spaniards in those years.
Administrative documents were generated in response to official ques-
tionnaires; they detailed tribute obligations or encomienda awards; they
recorded disputes of all kinds; they argued for or against a particular ad-
ministrative practice; but all had a specific purpose within the context of
Spanish colonial administration.
IncaDecimalAdministration z6i

At times, when these documents probed particular aspects of native

practice, some well-informed administrators provided us with great in-
sights into the operation of a foreign order. Juan Polo de Ondegardo, one
of the best-informed administrators during the first decades of Spanish
rule, wrote repeatedly that no one under the Incas was forced to con-
tribute anything from their own personal estate, that subjects contributed
only their labor (Polo de Ondegardo 1917 [1571]: 6o, 66-67, 88; 1940
[1561]: I36-37, I65). Polo was redressing a particular disjuncture between
the Spanish colonial and the Inca systems of exactions. No administra-
tor provided a similarly insightful description of decimal administration,
although one able administrator, Fernando de Santillan (1879 [1563]: 47),
did recommend that the decimal order be revived.
Native record-keeping practice generated a much better potential
source of information about the operation of decimal administration.
Both the assessment and distribution of an obligation owed to the Inca
state can be broadly reconstructed from native records kept by particu-
lar individuals who had either served in Inca decimal office or were de-
scended from those who had. Such individuals were often referred to in
Spanish documentation as curacas, a term associated with a rank in the
decimal hierarchy (Julien I982: 124-25). They had access to accounting
records kept on quipos and held by quipocamayos (accountants), who
were trained to make and interpret them (Cieza de Le6n 1967 [I553]: 36;
Diez de San Miguel I964: 74). Although general knowledge about how to
record information was transmitted among these professionals, the system
required that a quipo be read by a person who knew what that particular
quipo recorded (Ascher and Ascher 1981: I3-21, 78). They were mne-
monic devices. To prevent changing interpretations of the records, dupli-
cate quipos were kept in the hands of a second party.2Quipos were some-
times brought forward to be read into Spanish administrative records,
and so a number of accounting records that reflect native administrative
practice have been preserved.
Quipos from the Lupaca province provide information about the
distribution of an obligation under the Incas. One quipo was a record of
the last Inca census and was brought forward by native officials in response
to a question about the number of people in the province under the Incas.
Several days after the question was asked, native leaders produced this
quipo and it was read into the text of the visita. Accompanying it was
another quipo that accounted the tribute obligation the Lupacas were
under in 1567, some three decades after the interruption of Inca rule by
Pizarro and his small invasionary force. No apparent reason was given
in the text of the visita for the inclusion of this document with the Inca
census quipo (Diez de San Miguel 1964: 64-70).
A close examination of the two quipos reveals a significant corre-
spondence between them. In my earlier study of decimal administration I
z6z Catherine J. Julien

Table 2. Quipo of the last Inca census of the Lupaca province

Category Aymara Uru Other Total

Chucuito/Hanansaya 1,233 500 1,733

Chucuito/Hurinsaya 1,384 347 1,731
Acora/Hanansaya 1,221 440 1,661
Acora/Hurinsaya 1,207 378 1,585
Ilave 1,470 1,070 2,540
Juli/Hanansaya-Chanbilla 1,438 158 153 1,749
Juli/Hurinsaya 1,804 256 2,060
Pomata!Hanansaya 1,663 110 20 1,793
Pomata/Hurinsaya 1,341 183 1,524
Yunguyo 1,039 381 1,420
Zepita/Hanansaya 1,112 186 1,298
Zepita/Hurinsaya 866 120 986
Sama 200 200
Totals 15,778 4,129 373 20,280

had observed that the seven towns of the Lupaca province had been differ-
entially divided into accounting units in the quipo (Table z) (Julien 1982:
127-35). In most cases, the accounting unit was one of the moiety divi-
sions of the town; for example, Hanansaya of Chucuito formed one ac-
counting unit, and Hurinsaya the other. In two cases, Ilave and Yunguyo,
the moiety divisions had been lumped together. The lumping or splitting
appears to be related to the number of households classified as Aymara in
the Inca census. Where the moiety division included nearly one thousand
households (a guaranga in decimal terms) classified as Aymara, they were
accounted together in the quipo (Julien I982: I3I; 1987: 62).
At the time, I did not examine the relationship between the census
quipo and the quipo recorded with it that documents the 1567 tribute
obligation of the Lupaca province. When I did, it was immediately ap-
parent that the 1567 tribute obligation was distributed among the same
accounting units as defined in the last Inca census.
Another correspondence was also discovered, though it was less easy
to detect. The percentage of tribute owed by each accounting unit in
1567 was the same as the percentage of households classified as Aymara
relative to the total number of Aymara households in the Inca census. For
example, in 1567, Hurinsaya of Acora was required to send 38 miners
to the mines at Potosi to extract silver to pay the silver tribute owed
by the Lupaca province (Table 3). This number was 7.6 percent of the
total obligation of 500 miners. Hurinsaya of Acora was also required to
provide 76 of the i,ooo tribute textiles assessed by the current Spanish
administration in the province, for a 7.6 percent share of the obligation.
Inca Decimal Administration z63

Table 3. The 1567 tributeobligationand its relationto the last Inca census of
the Lupacaprovince

Miners Clothing
Category (1567) % (1567) % Aymaraa %
Chucuito/Hanansaya 41 8.2 83 8.3 1,233 7.81
Chucuito/Hurinsaya 41 8.2 83 8.3 1,384 8.77
Acora/Hanansaya 39 7.8 77 7.7 1,221 7.74
Acora/Hurinsaya 38 7.6 76 7.6 1,207 7.65
Ilave 46 9.2 93 9.3 1,470 9.32
Juli/Hanansaya-Chanbilla 48 9.6 92 9.2 1,438 9.11
Juli/Hurinsaya 57 11.4 114 11.4 1,804 11.43
Pomata/Hanansaya 53 10.6 106 10.6 1,663 10.54
Pomata/Hurinsaya 42 8.4 85 8.5 1,341 8.50
Yunguyo 33 6.6 66 6.6 1,039 6.59
Zepita/Hanansaya 35 7.0 71 7.1 1,112 7.05
Zepita/Hurinsaya 27 5.4 54 5.4 866 5.49
Totals 500 100.0 1,000 100.0 15,778 100.00
aFromTablez.

The number of households classified as Aymara in the last Inca census

was I,z07, or 7.65 percent of the total of 15,778 Aymara households in
the province. When the percentage shares of the 1567 tribute owed by
the other accounting units are calculated, they closely approximate the
percentage of Aymara households relative to the total number of Aymara
households accounted in the last Inca census. The distribution of the I567
tribute burden was based on the last Inca census, long out of date.
Some exceptions can be noted. Based on the principle outlined above,
Ilave should have provided 47 miners and not 46. Hanansaya of Juli owed
46 miners and not 45. If each had sent the number closest to its percent-
age share, as calculated from the Inca census, a total of 502 and not 500
miners would have been the result. A similar situation prevails in the as-
signment of tribute clothing. Juli of Hanansaya should have contributed
9I and not 92 pieces of clothing. Their tribute amount may have been
increased slightly as a remedy for the imbalance evident in the assignment
of miners. Again, if Hanansaya of Juli had contributed the number of tex-
tiles resulting from strict adherence to their percentage share, calculated
from the last Inca census, a total of 999 garments would have been the
result. The rounding just noted was necessary because the obligation was
fixed at an amount that did not concord with the structure of the Lupaca
population.3
Continuing use of the Inca census to distribute an obligation in the
Lupaca province is a specific instance of a practice that was widespread
z64 Catherine J. Julien

in the Andean area until at least the early I570s. General statements
were made by Francisco de Toledo and Fernando de Santillan that native
leaders were still using the Inca method of distributing an obligation even
though it was grossly unfair because of changes in the population count.4
In fact, one of the reasons Toledo gave for his reorganization of the tribute
structure was to correct this abuse (Romero 1924: 203).
After realizing that I had in effect documented how an obligation was
distributed under the Incas, I began to ask what was left of the process to
document. Another important part of the equation was assessment. What
was distributed? The Inca system of exactions was unlike the Spanish
system in that all that was assessed from local people was their labor.
Although property might be expropriated when a group was annexed
to the empire, the ongoing obligation to the state theoretically required
no commitment of household resources except labor (Murra I985b: I5).
Products might be elaborated with this labor donation, but the resources
that were converted into product were held by the state (Polo de On-
degardo 1917 [I571]: 6o-6i; 1940 [I56I]: 133, I35-36, 165; Cobo 1964
[I653], [92]: 120; Falc6n 1867 [1567]: 461, 471-72; Guaman Poma de
Ayala 1936 [I6I5]: 338). Inca administration was therefore basically a
labor recruitment system (Julien 1982: izo).
In my earlier study of decimal administration, I examined a docu-
ment from Huanuco in the north-central Andean highlands. A 1549 visita
had preserved a quipo which recorded the last standing labor obligation
of the Chupachos, a group of 4,108 households, under the Incas (Table 4).5
Some kind of assessment procedure produced this assignment. You will
note in the table that the percentages of people assigned to a particular
type of labor service have been calculated from the ideal total of 4,000
households or 4 guarangas (Table 4). Only when the ideal total is used do
such even percentages result. For purposes of assessment, then, an ideal
decimal total was important.
Let us now examine the assessment procedure. We know from a I56z
visita of the Chupachos of Huanuco that the population was structured
into 4 guarangas and 40 pachacas (units of Ioo) (Ortiz de Zufiga I967).
To compose the service units in the labor assignment-for example, to
compose a group of 40 hunters to go on royal deer hunts-the 40 pachacas
were each assessed one household or one percent of the total. By applying
a percentage figure for each type of labor service to the 40 pachacas, a
total of 4,000 households could be readily assigned.
Several bits of evidence can be used to argue that distributing an
assignment across all units of population was a common practice. The
use of multiples of 40 in the Chupacho assessment suggests this practice.
Martin Carcay, who headed the pachaca of Uchec, gave direct testimony
that such was the case under the Incas (Ortiz de Znifiga 1967: 239-40).
Inca Decimal Administration 265

Table 4. Chupacho labor assignment

Percentage
Assignment Total of 4,000
Gold miners 120 3
Silver miners 60 1.5
Masons in Cuzco 400 10
Cultivators in Cuzco 400 10
Retainers (yanaconas) of Huayna Capac 150 3.75
Guards for the body of Thupa Inca 150 3.75
Guards (yanaconas) for the weapons of Thupa Inca 10 0.25
Garrison in Chachapoyas 200 5
Garrison in Quito 200 5
Guards for the body of Huayna Capac 20 0.5
Feather workers 120 3
Honey gatherers 60 1.5
Weavers of tapestry (cumpi) cloth 400 10
Dye makers 40 1
Herders of Inca herds 240 6
Guards for corn fields 40 1
Cultivators of aji fields 40 1
Salt miners (variable) 60/50/40 1.5/1.25/1
Cultivators of coca 60 1.5
Hunters for royal deer hunts 40 1
Sole makers 40 1
Woodworkers 40 1
Potters 40 1
Guards for the tambo of Huanuco 68 1.7
Carriers between local tambos 80 2
Guards for the women of the Inka 40 1
Soldiers and carriers 500 12.5
Cultivators of Inca lands 500 12.5
Totals 4,108 112.7

Of course, the distribution of the 1567 tribute obligation in the Lupaca

province followed these lines.
Although 40 appears to have been the common denominator of many
units, a number of assignments were not divisible by 40. These assign-
ments include silver workers; all of the retainers specifically designated
as retainers (yanaconas), guards associated with particular mummies,
honey gatherers, salt miners, coca cultivators, and guards for the Huanuco
tambo. The total number of households assigned to these types of service
was 628, taking the middle value for the salt miner assignment. Removing
the 68 households assigned to guard service at the Huanuco tambo, the
z66 Catherine J. Julien

remainder, 560 households, is evenly divisible by 40. These tasks must

have been distributed among the accounting units in a different manner,
such as taking silver miners from certain pachacas, coca cultivators from
others, and using the salt miner assignment to take up the slack.
While the assignment of households may have been predicated on
the ideal decimal total of 4,000, a total of 4,108 households was actually
assigned. What of the 108 households above the ideal decimal total? The
process of assessment could be repeated to form another unit or two of
40 households, but an amount that is not divisible by a decimal unit will
always be the remainder. Looking at the assignment, one type of labor
service stands out, and that is the assessment of guards for the Huanuco
tambo, for a total of 68 households. This is exactly the remainder after
assessing a group of 40 households from the remaining io8; guard ser-
vice for the Huanuco tambo appears to have been the assignment that
accommodated the remainder.
The process of assessment and distribution involved a few simple
steps. First, a population count was needed. Then an assessment was
carried out, resulting in a standing labor assignment covering all subject
households. The standing labor assignment was no more than the numbers
of households assigned to a particular type of labor service. Given this
list, the obligation could be distributed equitably among the various units
of population specified in the census.
Even this rudimentary knowledge of the operation of decimal ad-
ministration allows us to define the parametersof a number of important
questions. We can now ask, At what point was Cuzco involved in decision
making? What kind of information retrieval would have been necessary
to support the system? What does the system tell us about some of the
population policies and settlement patterns we know characterized the
Inca state? And finally, Can we detect the logic or underlying principles
which guided Inca administrative practice?
The central administration was involved at two points: (i) when
the population was structured into accounting units or when adjustment
in these units was required and (z) when assessment was carried out.
The first point required the physical presence of an Inca official in the
provinces, and here we do have information from our traditional sources:
The order that was maintained in counting the Indians is that he who
was sent by the Inka, who they called runaquipo, on entering the
valley assembled all of the lords and Indians in it by their guarangas
and pachacas and chungas [units of io] and had all of the quipos
brought there in the order of the last visita,.. . and if the population
was increasing so that another lord of a guaranga, a pachaca or a
chunga could be made, he made a report and made all of his quipos
for the Inka account all of this, so that as the population kept mul-
IncaDecimalAdministration z67

tiplying, lords were made. (Castro and Ortega Morej6n 1974 [I558]:
99; author's translation)6
This same official was mentioned by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1936
[I615]: 343, 358, 360-61), who drew pictures of three different Inca offi-
cials with quipos in their hands and mentioned yet others. The runaquipo,
however, was specifically charged with the population count:
The Inka ordered [him] to count, enumerate, and adjust the Indians
of this realm-with the wool of the deer, taruga-he matched the
Indians with the wool-and he matched [them] with a grain called
quinua-he counted the quinua and the Indians-his ability was very
great, and he was better than with paper and ink. (Ibid.: 361; author's
translation) 7
This Inca official may have been charged with more than keeping an
accurate population count; he was said to have punished anyone who hid
from the census (Castro and Ortega Morej6n 1974 [1558]: 98).8
The other point when the centralized administration was involved
was when a standing labor service assignment was drafted. This step could
be effected anywhere, locally or in Cuzco, and required only a knowledge
of the current census.
To the degree that the labor service assignment concorded with the
decimal structure of the population, distribution followed a standardized
procedure with little room for real decision making. Many of the Chu-
pacho assignments were divisible by 40, thereby simplifying distribution
across 40 pachacas. Some sort of decision making was necessitated by as-
signments that were not divisible by 40, but whether their distribution was
specified by Cuzco or left in the lands of the curacas cannot be discerned
from the organization of the Chupacho labor assignment.
Households assigned to perform some types of labor service were
resettled to be nearer productive resources or storage centers, so that
assessing all of the decimal population units evenly to compose these labor
service units would have resulted in a distinctive settlement pattern. The
Chupacho visita of 1549 recorded a number of communities composed
of households "from all over the province," all of which were identified
by some type of labor service designation. For example, the community
of Payna was composed of ceramic producers "from all over the prov-
ince," and the community of Gangor was composed of honey and feather
gatherers "from all over the province" (Helmer 1957: 31, 33). Statements
made about the composition of other Andean communities make sense
when this practice is taken into account. People resettled in this fashion
were still accounted as part of the productive force of their province of
origin whether they were settled within or outside its boundaries.9
Some households were no longer accounted with the productive force
z68 Catherine J. Julien

of their province of origin,10 and here, too, the Chupacho assessment

suggests a possible mechanism for such alienation. What happened to the
households in excess of the ideal decimal total may seem to be a minor
matter, but this excess may well have formed a pool destined for some
other type of assignment or to fill a vacancy.
The structure of decimal administration itself suggests that some
mechanism operated to keep the total number of households at or near
a specific decimal total. The assessment procedure relied on an ideal deci-
mal total, but the distribution apparatushad to take the actual number of
households into account.
The distribution apparatus could also be worked around a preexist-
ing population structure. A comparison of the decimal structure of the
Chupacho unit with that of the Lupaca reveals that, while the decimal
structure of the former was a straightforwardhierarchy of decimal units,
the structure of the latter was worked around seven population nuclei
already in existence. Probably to create guaranga officers, the Incas sub-
divided some of these units, but their application of the decimal order
preserved a feature of a preexisting political order in the territory that
became the Lupaca province (Julien I982: I33-34). Each accounting unit
in the quipo census included not only a guaranga, but a number of mis-
cellaneous pachacas grouped with it. The distribution, quite naturally, did
not follow decimal lines but relied on the actual number of households in
the accounting unit.
Despite the differences between the decimal structure of the Chupa-
cho unit and that of the Lupacas, the native records preserved in these
two widely separated Inca provinces allow us to reconstruct an idealized
version of Inca decimal administration. Such a reconstruction is possible
because the system was fairly standardized, in design if not always in exe-
cution. The same types of labor service were required all over the empire.
Two lists were recorded in the accounts of Francisco Falc6n and Martin
de Moria, one a list of labor services to be provided by coastal provinces
and the other a list to be provided by highland provinces (Falc6n 1867
[1567]: 466-68; Morua 1946 [c. i605]: 332-34). These lists do not agree
in a number of details, but the existence of such lists and the similarity in
what local people told Spanish administrators about what they provided
to the Inca state suggest that the Incas were interested in creating a similar
productive mechanism in each province.1l
These services may have been assessed using a standard set of per-
centages. In the Chupacho assessment, quite a few labor service units were
composed of i percent of the ideal decimal total of 4,000 households,
for a total of 40 households. We have some information suggesting that
the standard size of Inca provinces was usually a huno or a multiple of
that amount (Santillan I879 [I563]: I7; Pizarro 1844: 364-65). To cite
IncaDecimalAdministration 269

a specific example, the Lupaca province had a population of just over

zo,ooo subject households. The province was organized administratively
in halves, each half including very close to io,ooo subject households.
Applying the percentages found in the Chupacho assessment to one of the
hunos of the Lupaca province, we would assign I,ooo households to tap-
estry production and Ioo households to ceramic production. While we
do know that the Incas assigned households to both tapestry and ceramic
production, and that these people were settled in communities near each
other and fairly near the town of Chucuito, we do not know the relative
numbers of people so assigned (Julien 1983: 75; Diez de San Miguel 1964:
I4, 27; Murra 1978: 417). For the Qolla province of Umasuyo (Map i) on
the other side of Lake Titicaca, we do have information about the relative
proportion between these types of labor service. Near Huancane, a com-
munity of I,ooo tapestry-producing households lived in close proximity
to a community of Ioo ceramic-producinghouseholds. Both communities
had been resettled there under the Incas (Murra I978: 418). I would sug-
gest that we are seeing the results of applying a standardset of percentages
to a huno unit.
The following reconstruction of an ideal Inca province is therefore
indicated: An ideal province would have been a huno or perhaps a multi-
ple of that amount, subdivided into huno subunits. Its labor service units
would have tended to be pachacas or their multiples, up to a guaranga in
size. Finally, these units would have been a reflection of the labor service
units in other provinces.
What was the conceivable advantage to such standardization? First
of all, standardization was a prevalent theme of Inca material culture;
where the Incas had an opportunity to impose a design of their own
choosing, we might expect a highly standardized form (Rowe 1979: 239;
Montell I9z9: I94-95). A practical reason for the standardization in the
size of labor service units suggests itself, however. Since the amount of
product was not fixed under the Incas, standardization in the size of pro-
ducing units might yield a scale by which output could be judged. The
output of ioo ceramic producers over a given period might readily be
judged against the output of a similar unit in a neighboring province, since
other variables would tend to be equal.
Competition between accounting units is not unexpected; in fact, we
have evidence that it was incorporated into the design of Inca adminis-
tration. The concept of pairing provinces was said to have been instituted
to put provinces in competition with each other (Santillan I879 [I563]:
43). We have a specific case of how such competition may have been
institutionalized. When Spanish administrators wished to enquire about
the activities of labor service units resettled near Huancane in the Qolla
province of Umasuyo, they called in the former overseers of these units.
z70 Catherine J. Julien

Both of the men they interviewed resided in the neighboring Qolla prov-
ince of Urcosuyo.12Such built-in mechanisms of control would have facili-
tated Inca administration in the provinces and kept the bureaucracy to a
minimum, particularly the number of officials from Cuzco itself.
Another motive for the standardization of labor service requirements
was fairness. The concept of fairness, often noted by sixteenth-century
writers, can now be understood in context (Santillan 1879 [I563]: 46, 50).
When the assessment adhered to the ideal decimal total of households,
fairness between provinces was the result. When the distribution adhered
to the actual household total, fairness within a province was the result.
If the system had an ideal form, it was very certainly true that it
operated under less than ideal circumstances. Population may tend to re-
main nearly the same, or it may increase or decrease at varying rates, but
it does change, and on a daily basis when units of Io,ooo households are
involved. Increases or decreases brought about by changes in the birthrate
could have been accommodated by the system over a period of time, be-
cause those individuals were not part of the class subject to the standing
labor assignment until they had formed their own households.13The sys-
tem appears to have been designed to function optimally under conditions
of zero or incremental population growth.
But how was a major population contraction handled over the long
or short run? The Incas were involved in continuous military campaigns
staffed with provincial armies, and some sharp reverses in population
certainly occurred, affecting the class subject to the labor assignment. An
example was given by Francisco Vilcacutipa of the Lupaca province, who
had been an adult at the time of the campaigns of Huayna Capac, the
eleventh Inka, in Ecuador. He stated that the Lupacas lost five thousand
soldiers in Ecuador during those campaigns (Diez de San Miguel 1964:
Io5-6). The Incas were known to be intolerant of such failures, and the
design of decimal administration suggests that they expected only success.
Reality, however, must have dictated a fairly thorough restructuring of
the population after any steep decline.
Inca decimal administration was vulnerable to sudden population
loss, and we can now suggest that this vulnerability contributed to its
collapse. The system was meant to be self-regulatory, and assessment and
adjustment were carried out from above and outside, by officials from the
central administration who appeared on occasion. There was no stand-
ing bureaucracy in the provinces involved with the operation of decimal
administration except the local decimal officers charged with the distribu-
tion of an obligation. The fact that the Lupacas were still operating with
the last Inca census in the i56os suggests that the mechanism which ad-
justed the system was highly centralized, and so was vulnerable to abrupt
changes in the central administration. Both the Inca Civil War and the
IncaDecimalAdministration z7I

Pizarro invasion could have brought about a crisis in the system. More-
over, the Inca Civil War, the Pizarro invasion, and introduced European
diseases would have wrought another kind of havoc on the Inca system of
exactions at precisely the same moment: sudden and serious population
loss in the sector affected by assessment.
We can now explain why the role of the central administration would
have been almost imperceptible to the Europeanswho generated the docu-
mentary record. Under normal circumstances, a representativeof the cen-
tral administration appeared only on occasion, when a census count was
taken. If this practice had been interrupted, what did our Spanish infor-
mants have to observe?
They observed the distribution apparatuswhich, staffed by provincial
elites, remained in place through this period. Quite naturally, the bargain
that was made between the European invaders and native Andean peoples
was worked out through these individuals.
Quite naturally as well, the Incas had made a similar bargain in the
years before the Spanish arrival. The Incas respected local claims to elite
status in accordance with their own beliefs about nobility and rank and
appear to have promoted inheritance of position in keeping with their
own dynastic practice (Julien I982: 15). But even if the Incas worked
everywhere with local individuals who had claim to some type of political
domain at the time of the Inca conquest, the bargains struck between the
Incas and these local lords may have greatly altered the shape of Andean
political economy.
The requirements of decimal administration alone would have cre-
ated a new territorial configuration. The emphasis on huno organization
resulted in dividing large polities, while other political entities, not as large
as a huno, were merged. A case of the former can be found in the Lake
Titicaca region, where the Incas appear to have divided a larger Qolla
polity into provinces (Julien I983: zi6-zo). The Lupaca province itself
may have been carved out of this larger polity, either by a local challenger
to Qolla authority on the eve of the Inca conquest or by the Incas as part of
a political bargain made with this challenger.14In any event, the antiquity
of claims made by Lupaca lords in the i56os is suspect. Even if the rights
they enjoyed in the I56os reflect an earlier prerogative of Lake Titicaca
region elites, those rights were authorized under a political framework
that we have yet to document ethnohistorically or archaeologically.
Elsewhere in the Andes, the creation of provinces resulted in larger
political units than those operating on the eve of the Inca conquest. Cha-
chapoyas, in northeastern Peru, provides a case in point. For Chachapoyas
we have detailed information about the holders of high decimal office
under the Incas, and we can examine Inca penetration of the local au-
thority structure in some detail.
272 Catherine J. Julien

Prior to the Inca conquest, no single lord had governed all of the
Chachapoyas (Espinoza Soriano I969a: 3z1). The Incas conquered and
organized southern Chachapoyas territory some years before they were
able to campaign in northern Chachapoyas (Cabello Valboa I95I [I586]:
399-400), but even in the portion they had organized as a province, no
single lord had been paramount.
During the relatively brief period of Inca rule, five different men were
given the highest position in the decimal hierarchy: huno officer of one
of two huno units with ascribed authority over the other. Of the five men
who were elevated to high position by the Inca dynasty, only two had
validated claims to local prominence at the time they took office. Two, and
perhaps all three, of those remaining had ascended to prominence through
service to the Inca state. One had been a hereditary retainer (yanacona),
and the other, the man who occupied the position when Pizarro arrived
in Cajamarca, had been head of the group assigned to cultivate maize
to fulfill their labor-service obligation (Espinoza Soriano I969a: 294,
305-6).
This man, named Guaman, was placed in office by Atahualpa, a son
of Huayna Capac whose bid for succession resulted in the Inca Civil War,
because the Chachapoyas elite had sided with his brother Huascar (ibid.:
3I8). The Chachapoyas lost seven thousand troops in a battle near Ca-
jamarca, where they had joined Guascar's forces in fighting Atahualpa's
army (Sarmiento de Gamboa I906 [I572]: II5). Atahualpa had very clear
reasons for displacing the holders of provincial office in Chachapoyas and
may have effected a severe retribution on the province. He visited Chacha-
poyas, traveling the length of the province with Guaman, and may have
reorganized the huno structure at this time.
Pizarro also favored Guaman, and Guaman was instrumental in guid-
ing the award of encomiendas in the Chachapoyas region. Encomiendas
were assigned on the basis of quipos that Guaman assembled, quipos that
were probably the equivalent of the Inca census quipo found in the Lu-
paca province (Espinoza Soriano I969a: 299). The partitioning of the Inca
province of Chachapoyas into Spanish encomiendas was almost certainly
based on its decimal structure.
The degree of Inca involvement in shaping local political authority in
Chachapoyas might be extreme, but the events chronicled above suggest
that, even after the organization of a province, substantial change in its
decimal structure might still be effected. Distance from Cuzco or length
of time the area had been incorporated into the empire may not be as
important in determining the degree of formal change in the structure
of local political authority as the relationship which developed between
Cuzco and a particular local population.
A study of these relationships is logically prior to the reconstruction
IncaDecimalAdministration 273

of the pre-Inca past by ethnohistorical means. Given the difficulties of re-

constructing Inca administration, despite the nearness of Spanish admin-
istrators to eyewitnesses and what would seem to be a compelling need to
understand a fundamentally foreign order, extending our ethnohistorical
analysis to even earlier rounds of political organization will be an arduous
task. Our administrative sources only reflect the political organization of
the period in which they were written. We will require more power-
ful ethnohistorical tools if our goal is to write an Andean history and
not simply look for broad cultural continuities (Murra I985a: Io; Pease
1978: 65).
The Incas did impose an administrative structure of their own de-
sign on the Andean area. Governed by a logic and principles that we can
only begin to detect, Inca decimal administration relied on local political
authority and, at the same time, transformed it into the structural equiva-
lent of provincial authority elsewhere. Far from the rigid and seemingly
utopian hierarchy described in the traditional historical sources, decimal
administration was the flexible instrument of Inca control. Native record-
keeping practice, as documented at the hands of local elites far from
Cuzco, is our best witness to Andean centralism before its usurpation by
Spanish forces.

Notes

I owe a debt of gratitudeto John Rowe for encouragingme to write this paper.
The problemof decimaladministration had occupiedmy thinkingfor some time,
and I was unableto be certainwherethe evidenceleft off and my thinkingbegan
until he told me I had enoughevidenceto make a case. The time had come to
attempta reconstructionof decimaladministrationin broad outline form. My
thanksalso go to PatriciaLyonfor editorialassistance.
All Quechuaspellingshave been hispanicized.The term Inka refersto the
Incaemperor;the spellingInca refersto the group.
i As late as the eighteenthcentury,the assessmentof Huarochiriwas basedon
the guarangaorganizationimposedby the Incas,thoughno single guaranga
contained more than 300 tributaries(ANP I751: 45-I34, 98v-oo00). Ica parish
records were also organizedby guarangaas late as the eighteenthcentury
(Zambrano I970 [1732]: i).
2 An examplemay be found in the Lupacaprovince.There,duplicatequipos
recordingthe last Inca censusof the province,to be discussedin this study,
were kept. The provincewas dividedadministratively in halves (hanansaya
and hurinsaya).The officialin chargeof eachhalf had a copy of the complete
Inca census (Diez de San Miguel I964: 64, 74).
3 With two exceptions,all other amountsdistributedare the round number
closestto the amountwhichresultsfrommultiplyingthetotal 1,567obligation
by the percentageof Aymarahouseholdsrelativeto thetotalnumberof Aymara
householdsin the last Incacensus.
Juli/Hanansayaowed 45 miners and the Chinchaysuyumitimas, ac-
274 Catherine J. Julien

counted with that unit in the last Inca census, owed 3, for a total of 48 (Diez
de San Miguel I964: 69). No such separation was noted in the distribution of
the tribute clothing obligation. When the percentage share of the obligation to
send miners is calculated using 45 and not 48, the result is 9.o, a figure closer
to the 9.11 percentage of households classified as Aymara relative to the total
number of Aymara households in the Inca census (Table 3).
The handling of Chucuito provides the other exception. For the 1567 dis-
tribution, both Chucuito/Hanansaya and Chucuito/Hurinsaya appear to have
been lumped together. The average number of Aymara households is I308.5,
yielding a percentage of 8.29 of the total number of Aymarahouseholds in the
last Inca census. This percentage was apparently used to distribute the 1567
tribute obligation (Table 3).
The Pacific coastal valley of Sama does not figure in the distribution of
mine labor service or the textile obligation, though a specific amount of silver
was required from that group in 1567 (ibid.).
Also, in the Lupaca province, tributarieswere classified as either Aymara
or Uru in the Inca census. Evidently the Lupacas ignored the Uru in the 1567
distribution, but whether the matter was simply never in their hands or they
were pursuing a new course cannot be judged with the evidence at hand.
Polo noted that the Uru group had been completely subjugated to the Aymara
curacas, a situation which may have come about after the end of Inca rule
(Julien 1987: 6z).
4 Several Spanish administrators who had reason to know commented that the
Inca method of distribution was still in use. Fernando de Santillan specifically
noted that the method of distribution involved decimal units (Santillan 1879
[1563]: 46-47; Romero 19z4: 203; Polo de Ondegardo 1940 [156i]: I44, 147-
50; 19I7 [1571]: 134-37). Francisco de Toledo tried, by ordinance, to end the
use of the Inca census in effecting distributions (Lorente I867: z15).
5 John Rowe brought to my attention that this visita was carried out in the
Spanish province of Le6n de Huanuco, a province which did not include Inca
Huanuco, the present archaeological site of Huanuco Pampa. The visitas of
1549 and i56z dealt exclusively with two groups: the Chupachos and another,
smaller group called the Yachas. These people were lumped together in an
Inca administrative unit, as evidenced by verbal testimony in the visita and the
quipo under discussion here. For these reasons, I am referring to the quipo
as the Chupacho quipo and to the group of Chupachos and Yachas recorded
in it as the Chupacho unit. I am assuming here that the labor assignment
was recorded on a quipo, as the text does not state specifically that a quipo
was being read into the record. It almost certainly was, and John Murra also
accepts this document as the reading of a quipo (Murra i98z: 240-44). There
is no way to determine how long the Chupacho labor assignment had been in
effect. References in the quipo to Thupa Inca and Huayna Capac, the tenth and
eleventh Inkas, indicate that the assessment was either made after the death
of Huayna Capac or was an older assignment that had been modified at that
time. The latter possibility is suggested by the entry for guards for the body of
Huayna Capac, which is clearly out of order and may have been tacked onto
an existing record.
6 The text is as follows:
La orden que se tenia en el contar de los indios es esta que el que era
enbiado de el inga que llamavan runa quipo era que en entrando en un
Inca Decimal Administration 275

valle hazia juntar todos los sefiores e yndios del por sus guarangas y
pachacas y chungas y mandava traer alli los quipos por su orden de la
visita pasada haziendoles traer y asintar anquestuviesen a la muerte y
dibidianlos en doze edades ... y sy via que la jente yva en abmento de
que se pudiese hazer otro senor de guaranga o de pachaca o chunga dava
aviso y hazia todos sus quipos para el inga de todo esto de manera que
como yva multiplicando la jente yvan haziendo senores.
Santillan (1879 [1563]: 23) describes this same official, referring to him with
the term runaypachac.
7 The text is as follows:
el ynga mando contar y numirarajustarcon los yn[di]os deste rreyno con
la lana del cierbo. taruga enparexaua con una comida llamado quinua
contaua la quinua y los yn[di]os fue muy grande su avilidad mejor fuera
[que] en papel y tinta.
8 The runaquipo should not be confused with the provincial governor or tocrico,
a member of the Inca nobility who resided in the provinces and was charged
with the care of Inca property held locally, with keeping the local elites in
line, and perhaps with other tasks (Castro and Ortega Morej6n I974 [I558]:
96, ioz; Cieza de Le6n I967 [1553]: 65-67; Guaman Poma de Ayala 1936
[I615]: 307, 346; Santillan I879 [1563]: 17-19; Cobo 1964 [I653], [92]: II4).
The runaquipo was only one of several officials who were sent by the central
administration to carry out some task in the provinces (Castro and Ortega
Morej6n I974 [I558]: 97-oo00; Guaman Poma de Ayala 1936 [I615]: 340-63).
9 Helmer 1957: 27-38; Diez de San Miguel 1964: 89; Murra 1978: 4I8-20;
Espinoza Soriano 1967: 33-39; Cieza de Le6n 1924 [I550]: 232; Julien 1983:
74-77. This pattern of dispersion may also account for the mixing of deci-
mal units noted by Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco (1985: 402) for
Cajamarca.
o0 Cobo (1964 [1653], [92]: I09) notes that people resettled in newly conquered
provinces were no longer subject to their provinces of origin. A specific case
may be found in Cajamarca.There, a guaranga of people from other highland
provinces was subject to local authority and, presumably,labored on behalf of
Cajamarca, while smaller units of people from the coast, including a pachaca
of potters from Collique, were still subject to their coastal provinces (Espinoza
Soriano 1970: I4-15).
11 Julien I98z: I35-4I. Statements like those of the Charcas and others that they
provided only one type of labor service suggest that the imposition of the
standard list of labor services may have been suspended in particular cases
(Espinoza Soriano i969b: 24).
12 A man from Lampa had been overseer of the textile
unit, and a man from
Juliaca divided clay among the ceramic producers (Murra 1978: 420-21).
13 Of the age grades the Incas used for classifying the population, only households
headed by a male-female adult pair were subject to assessment (Castro and
Ortega Morej6n I974 [I558]: 94; Santillan 1879 [I563]: 20-21; Rowe 1958:
507).
14 Cieza de Leon 1924 [i55o]: 290; 1967 [I553]: 6-7, I38-4I; Julien 1983: 38-
4I. Cieza gathered his information from local sources in the Qolla and Lupaca
provinces. Curiously, an Inca account of their own conquests makes no men-
tion of the challenger, named Qari, suggesting that the Incas believed or came
176 Catherine J. Julien

to believe that Qari was purely incidental to their defeat of the Qolla, and not
as important as many other local lords they singled out for mention in their
account (Sarmiento de Gamboa I906 [157z]: 76; Julien 1985: zi6-zo).

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Submitted 13 June 1986

Accepted 25 November 1986
Final revisions received 6 January 1988