COMMON LANDS 5 



and political, as well as the agricultural, organization was built, 

 both among the Quechuas and the Aymaras. 



This communal system had as its base the ayllu, or clan, of the 

 Aymara and Quechua tribes. Originating probably as a purely 

 social organization the ayllu took on an agrarian character as the 

 people became more sedentary in their life, the land replacing 

 the family as the bond of union. As a result the communities 

 usually contained several ayllus banded together by the common 

 possession of the land. The village or vicinity occupied by this 

 group of closely related families was known as a marca, a term 

 said to be of purely Aymara origin and preserved in many of the 

 place names of the Andes, but curiously enough almost the 

 identical word used among the ancient Teutons (with a different 

 original significance) to designate their community, the mark. 



A peculiar feature of the ancient community organization, 

 surviving in many places today, was the division of each clan 

 into two groups, the aransaya and the nrinsaya. This division 

 of the people is said to have originated at the time of the founding 

 of Cuzco as the capital of the nascent Inca Empire. In that city 

 the inhabitants were separated into these two groups, the terms 

 meaning upper and lower divisions. Just what significance this 

 distinction carried with it is uncertain, but the aransaya people 

 were in some way considered superior. Whatever the significance, 

 this division w^as preserved throughout the history of the Inca 

 dynasty, survived the reconstruction attendant upon the Spanish 

 conquest, and marks many of the communities in Bolivia and 

 Peru even yet, with but slightly modified name. 



Common Lands 



The lands held by the ayllus were of at least two, probably 

 three, kinds. There was the grazing land which was free to all 

 members of the clan, and upon which the giiaccliaUama, or 

 common flocks of llamas and alpacas, were herded by a designated 

 representative of the community. There was also the agricul- 

 tural land, which was distributed annually among the heads of 

 particular families. In addition to these two kinds of common 



