In the Inca society and its way of life, everyone knew his place. They had a very rigid caste system.
The Inca organized their 5 million subjects into "the Land of the 4 Quarters." They also divided their capital city of Cuzco, with its neatly gridded streets, into 4 quarters, and required visitors from the provinces to stay in their own appropriate sections. Each quarter was ruled by a noble.
From one end of the Andes to the other, the state ran factories for making all the cloths, ceramics, and gold ornaments required for ceremonial use and for the nobility. Every craftsmanship was organized in a way that everyone had what they needed. People were required to contribute either labor or goods to the state.
In every sizable town and at intervals along the main roads were large stone warehouses which the state required the population to keep stocked against a local shortage or an imperial requisition.
The Inca also exacted tribute from everybody they conquered, keeping track of their accounts by a system of tying knots in a set of coloring strings called 'quipu.'
Religious education was strictly for the young nobles who would command armies and govern provinces. They were mainly the members of the Inca royal clan, but sons of conquered rulers were also taken into the governing caste. These nobles wore rich fabrics, bright feathers and gold ornaments, that represented the nature of their power. By rigid rule the working class had to dress in a different and simple fashion.
The emperor himself wore clothes of the finest vicuna wool that were meticulously disposed of at the end of a single day's wear. He was lord over the priesthood, government, and army. He was considered the son of the divine sun god, "Inti", and, in order to keep the bloodline pure, he ususally married only his sister, though it was possible for the emperor to have as many as 700 concubines and any number of natural children.
The Inca were masters at shaping and fitting stones. They built their most spectacular monuments in places already fortified by nature. The main fortress protecting Cuzco, their imperial headquarters, were built out of rock and defended by a thick wall 1,600 feet long. The Inca city of Machu Picchu, another Inca stronghold with its mighty masonry, was constructed of blocks of granite. The Inca fashioned their blocks without metal tools of any kind, and their stone walls were put together without any cement or sealer. The city was modeled as if it were a condor's nest and its function was to protect the Eastern flank against Amazonian raiders, and so ingeniously adapted to the site that it seems a part of the mountains. Before beginning work on large buildings, Inca builders made detailed clay models.
As imperial organizers, these people took over the last of a 3,000-year-old series of cultures and reshaped the religion, government and roads they inherited.
The Inca excelled at engineering. They built roads 3,250 miles long, piped irrigation water through mountain tunnels, hung 200-foot suspension bridges across Andean canyons.
They were able to take an empire-wide census. For that purpose, they appointed subordinate officials right down to the precinct level: the highest level held responsibilities over 10,000 men, the next over 1,000 men, the next over 500 men, and the lowest over groups of 50 and 10 men. All except the last two ranks were rated as Inca nobles. Each reported to his superior by state couriers, who dashed in relays up and down the mountainsides on the emperor's paved roads.
The Incas, as imperial organizers, rate with the Romans, but the Inca ruled an empire in the clouds, with its headquarters at 11,000 feet.
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