While the core settlements of these Aymara polities were located in the cold lands of the high plateau, the territories they controlled included a series of “islands” at different altitudes descending into the western and eastern valleys, thus forming “vertical archipelagos.”⁴ As described by Larson, “the ‘archipelago’ pattern of territoriality (…) required kinsmen to trek many days through diverse landscape and ‘foreign’ territory to their outlying colonies.”⁵ This economy of vertical control and reciprocal exchanges across different ecological tiers was rooted in a socio-political structure governed by kinship bonds. This framework of kinship provided the language that legitimated a complex amalgam of both communal and stratified social structures, which in turn ensured the cohesion and unity of kin groups scattered across the polities’ discontinuous territories.

Aymara polities were formed by “confederated lineages” or, more precisely, sets of nested kin groupings called ayllus. In both Qhishwa (the language of the Incas) and Aymara, the word ayllu can be translated as “grouping” or “lineage” and refers to kinship-based social structures of varying sizes and complexities. At its smallest scale, a “minimal” ayllu consisted of an extended network of households, forming the basic unit of pre-colonial Andean societies. A variable number of minimal ayllus would combine to form a “minor” ayllu, multiple minor ayllus together formed a “major” ayllu or moiety, and two major ayllus constituted a “maximal” ayllu.⁶

The nested structure of the ayllus was also reflected in their spatial organization. Thus, the territory of the maximal ayllus was divided into an upper and lower half, corresponding to the upper and lower moieties, and this same principle applied to the organization of space in major, minor, and minimal ayllus. Furthermore, each moiety held land across different ecological tiers, as did the minor and minimal ayllus. Although the terms “kingdom” and “lordship” are frequently used to describe these pre-Columbian Aymara polities, the term “diarchy” might be more accurate, as there is no clear evidence of a single higher authority governing both moieties in pre-colonial times.⁷

Ayllu membership conferred common rights to land, which probably implied a collective form of land tenure. However, there is also evidence that chiefs, nobles, and elders held land independently of the ayllus and were able to mobilize labor and extract surplus from the ayllu members they governed, suggesting an “incipient class structure.”⁸ This complex socio-political and economic system also involved sending ayllu members to farm in the lower-altitude “islands” located in temperate and sub-tropical valleys. “Called mitmaqkuna, these highland colonists were the vital link binding the interregional and multi-ecological economy that was so crucial in maintaining highland population.”⁹ The principle of shared descent that underpinned ayllu membership provided cohesion to this vertical economy across the discontinuous territories of “vertical archipelagos.”¹⁰

Within the complex, nested structure of the ayllus, authority was vested in an elaborate hierarchy of chieftains, lords of moieties, and regional chiefs who represented the unity, common interests, and identity of the group. These leaders were expected to uphold certain standards of justice and equity but also had the power to mobilize ayllu members for various purposes, including personal services, collective works, and warfare. The social stratification of Aymara society meant that reciprocal exchanges between ayllu members were often asymmetrical in nature; however, their socio-political organization was nevertheless governed by the ideals and idioms of reciprocity. Thus, “while Andean societies may have been marred by social differentiation and accumulative processes, the normative order mandated a degree of social control that placed structural limits on the exploitation of the poorer peasants. The dominant ideology thus blunted the cutting edge of class formation based on property relations.”¹¹

Despite controversial debates concerning the origins of the Aymara people, archaeological and linguistic research suggests that different waves of Aymara speakers from central-south Peru migrated further south from 200 AD onwards and consolidated their core settlements on the high plateau between the 1000s and 1400s AD.¹² Little is known about the kinds of relations they established with other ethnic groups that inhabited the high plateau. What we do know is that during the process of Inca expansion southwards, Aymara polities were major rivals to the Incas and were only subdued after prolonged struggles. Once integrated into the Inca State (in the late 1400s) as respected allies and warriors, they made substantial contributions to the expansion of the Inca State’s eastern and southern borders (see THE EASTERN BORDERS OF THE QULLASUYU - SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF THE INCA STATE - 16th CENTURY ). In return, Aymara polities were granted tracts of valley farmland for maize cultivation, exemptions from certain tribute obligations, and, most importantly, the ability to retain a significant degree of autonomy under indirect Inca rule. In these ways the Inca State consolidated and solidified the hegemony of Aymara polities and their authority over the territories they shared with the Urus, Pukinas, and other ethnic groups.

By the time Spanish conquerors arrived in the Qullasuyu in the 1530s, many Urukilla and Pukina speakers lived as minority groups in territories controlled by powerful Aymara authorities. According to a general census from the 1570s, Aymara speakers constituted 70% of the Indigenous population of the high plateau.¹³ It was with these powerful authorities that the colonial state “negotiated” the organization of colonial tributary units, imposing on them the responsibility of recruiting the required number of draft laborers for Potosí’s silver mines. This information, along with a list of tributary units registered in 16th-century colonial documents, allowed 20th-century ethnohistorians to roughly estimate the location of the Aymara polities shown on the map.

The organizational structure of these large Aymara diarchies and the shape and composition of their discontinuous territories were dramatically altered under Spanish colonial rule. Through massive forced resettlement policies, the populations of scattered hamlets were congregated into centralized, nucleated towns called reducciones COLONIAL LEGISLATIONS AS FRAMEWORK FOR DISPOSSESSIONS IN THE CENTRAL ANDES: THE “REDUCCIONES” OR “PUEBLOS REALES DE INDIOS” , under the watchful gaze of colonial administrators. This reducción congregation process led to a radical transformation of Aymara society, which involved a complete reconfiguration of traditional spatial organization, the disruption of macro-vertical control of ecological niches, the dismantling and fragmentation of the large Aymara diarchies into a multiplicity of smaller “Indian communities.” Although these “Indian communities” on the high plateau were given access to land and were able to reconstruct elements of the ayllu structure and vertical control on a much smaller scale, they were ultimately integrated into colonial society as a source of labor and surplus extraction.

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Larson, Brooke. Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia: Cochabamba, 1550–1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

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