VIRACOCHA and the AYLLUS

The house of a typical family, their "WASI" as they called it, was much like all the others. It was a large rectangular room built of field stones and the roof was pitched by tying gnarled branches together.
Houses did not have doors; a woolen tapestry, called "kumpi,"took the place of a door. Nor there were any windows. At an altitude of over 9,000 feet (3,500 meters above sea level) it was too cold, and Incas had no glass for windows. On the floors were woven rush mats. Over these, they laid llama-skin rugs. In niches in the wall were clay images of strange forms to help them to identify the spirit of their gods.
Their "WASI" and the house of five other families, all of them related to each other, formed a sort of square. It had a common yard where the families dried their maize and froze potatoes into CHUNU (dried potatoes).
The houses had been built with the aid of other people of the AYLLU, the basic social unit of the land. Everyone belonged to one. Everyone was born into one and everyone would die in it. All worked together. All helped one another. The AYLLU owned the land; it also owned the Llama herds.
No individual owned land. People were allowed the use of the land to grow crops on it, but they could not sell the land because it belonged to the community. Even the INCA, exalted as he was, belonged to such a community; it was a royal one but an AYLLU just the same.
The Indian People belonging to a given society believed themselves to be of the same kin. So it was a CELL, a social cell. The whole INCA EMPIRE was made up of hundreds of such social cells, some large, some small. Each elected a leader (MACLLU) and was aided by a council, usually old men who had seen life and knew some of its problems.
The structure of INCA society was pyramidal, like a SUN TEMPLE. The broad base was the able-bodied worker (PURIC). Ten workers were controlled by a STRAW BOSS, and ten of these straw bosses had a FOREMAN (being in charge of 100 men). Ten foremen had  a CHIEFTAIN (the leader of a 1000 men). Ten of these chieftains were lorded over by a HOMO-CURACA (chieftain of 10,000 men), and finally, there was an IMPERIAL GOVERNOR (the APO) of each district, who was always a relative of the INCA. At the very summit of the social pyramid was the INCA himself. He was the representative of VIRACOCHA; his mere word could order death.
Coca, which the Incas called the DIVINE LEAF, grew as a high bush in the "yungas," the moist, hot lands East of the Mountains. When it was chewed, the leaf gave relief from cold and hunger. Not everyone was allowed to use it. Only the very old, the priests, the shamans and the Incas were allowed to chew coca. The appropriate vibration level of the neurons was obtained through a very specific rituals involving the use of the leaf in order to communicate with the different entities living in the three different planes in which, according to their beliefs, they existed.
When VIRACOCHA made the World of earth and sky and left it in darkness, he made people to live in it, so he carved stones in the shape of giants and gave them life. The giants displeased him greatly and he had to destroyed them by turning some to stone and overwhelming the rest with a great flood from which there were only two survivors. Then he made a new race his own size to replace the ones he had destroyed.
First, he gave the world light by causing the sun and the moon to emerge from the island of Titicaca. He then modeled each species of animal and tribe. Then he gave men their customs, food, language, and songs and ordered them to descend to the earth to settle. Later Viracocha himself went to the earth to see if people were obeying his commands. Viracocha took the route of the Inca highway.
Because he appeared only as an old man with a staff, many people along the way did not recognized him. Some stone him because they did not like strangers. He called down a fire from heaven which began to burn rocks and so frightened the people that they begged him to forgive them. He took pity, and put out the fire with a blow of his staff. They built a shrine in his honor.
Then Viracocha went to Cuzco where he summoned the inhabitants to come out of a mountain. They honored him. Then he went northward from there toward Ecuador. Here, he said farewell to his people and set out across the Pacific, walking on water.