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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Inca Empire |
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| Inca society |
| Inca history |
The ayllu, a family clan, is the traditional form of a community in the Andes, especially among Quechuas and Aymaras. They are an indigenous local government model across the Andes region of South America, particularly in Bolivia and Peru.
Ayllus functioned prior to Inca conquest, during the Inca and Spanish colonial period, and continue to exist to the present day – such as the Andean community Ocra.[1] Membership gave individual families more variation and security on the land that they farmed.[2] Ayllus had defined territories and were essentially extended family or kin groups, but could include non-related members. Their primary function was to solve subsistence issues, and issues of how to get along in family, and the larger community. Ayllus descended from stars in the Inca cosmogony, and just like stars had unique celestial locations, each ayllu had a terrestrial location defined by the paqarina, the mythical point of emergence of the lineage huaca.[3]
Ayllu is a word in both the Quechua and Aymara languages referring to a network of families in a given area, often with a putative or fictive common ancestor.[1] The male head of an ayllu is called a mallku which means, literally, “condor”, but is a title which can be more freely translated as “prince”.[4]
Ayllus are distinguished by comparative self-sufficiency, commonly held territory, and relations of reciprocity.[1] Members engage in shared collective labor for outside institutions (mit'a), in reciprocal exchanges of assistance (Quechua: ayni) as well as community labor tribute (mink'a, Spanish: faena).[5]
“Ayllu solidarity is a combination of kinship and territorial ties, as well as symbolism. (Albo 1972; Duviols 1974; Tshopik 1951; and Urioste 1975). These studies, however, do not explain how the ayllu is a corporate whole, which includes social principles, verticality, and metaphor ...
Ayllu also refers to people who live in [a shared] territory (llahta) and who feed the earth shrines of that territory.”[6]
In Bolivia, representatives from the ayllus are sent to the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (Conamaq). This body chooses an Apu Mallku as its head.
How the ancient and current organizational form correspond is unclear, since Spanish chronicles do not give a precise definition of the term.[4]
Ayllu were self-sustaining social units that would educate their own children and farm or trade for all the food they ate, except in cases of disaster such as El Niño years when they relied on the Inca storehouse system.[7] Each ayllu owned a parcel of land, and the members had reciprocal obligations to each other.[8] The ayllu would often have their own wak'a, or minor god, usually embodied in a physical object such as a mountain or rock. "Ayullus were named for a particular person or place."[4]: 248
In marriages, the woman would generally join the class and ayllu of her partner as would her children, but would inherit her land from her parents and retain her membership in her birth ayllu. This is how most movements of people between ayllu occurred. But a person could also join an ayllu by assuming the responsibility of membership. This included mink'a, communal work for common purposes, ayni, or work in kind for other members of the ayllu, and mit'a, a form of taxation levied by the Inca government and the Spanish Viceroyalties.[7][9]
The 2025 film Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado highlights the importance of ayllu, and gives the message to be selfless and not selfish.[10]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The ayllu, a family clan, is the traditional form of a community in the Andes, especially among Quechuas and Aymaras. They are an indigenous local government model across the Andes region of South America, particularly in Bolivia and Peru. Ayllus functioned prior to Inca conquest, during the Inca and Spanish colonial period, and continue to exist to the present day – such as the Andean community Ocra. Membership gave individual families more variation and security on the land that they farmed. Ayllus had defined territories and were essentially extended family or kin groups, but could include non-related members. Their primary function was to solve subsistence issues, and issues of how to get along in family, and the larger community. Ayllus descended from stars in the Inca cosmogony, and just like stars had unique celestial locations, each ayllu had a terrestrial location defined by the paqarina, the mythical point of emergence of the lineage huaca.
The National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (Quechua: Qullasuyu Ayllukunap Markakunap Mamallaqta Kunaqnin; Spanish: Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu; CONAMAQ) is a confederation of traditional governing bodies of Quechua-, Aymara- and Uru-speaking highland indigenous communities in the Bolivian departments of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Tarija. Specifically, it represents the following 16 suyus: Jacha Carangas, Jatun Quillacas, Asamajaquis, Charcas Qara Qara, Council of Ayllus of Potosí, Qara Qara Suyu, Sora, Kallawaya, Leco, Larecaja, Colla, Chui, Paca Jake, Ayllus of Cochabamba, Kapaj Omasuyus and Yapacaní. CONAMAQ was founded on March 22, 1997, with the purpose of restoring the self-governance of "original nations" including "collective rights to land and natural resources, re-definition of administrative units and self-determination exercised through indigenous autonomies and direct representation in state institutions." CONAMAQ is a member of the National Coordination for Change, and of the Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organizations. It was a member of the Pact of Unity in Bolivia from its founding until December 2011.
A panaca or panaqa, or panaka (Classical Quechua: panaqa, [paˈnaqa], lit. 'manager of a royal ayllu') was a family clan of the Sapa Inca, the kuraka or emperor of the Inca Empire. The panakas were formed by the descendants of a Sapa Inca or his wife. The basic social institution of the Incas is the ayllu. An ayllu is a group of families that descended from a common ancestor, united by culture and religion, in addition to the agricultural work, livestock and fishing of the same territory. The ayllu concept transcended into nobility, so that the royal kinship could establish a lineage, called panaca or royal house. The panaca excluded the auqui (in Quechua awki), the crown prince, who would succeed him. When the designated successor became emperor, he would leave his original panaca and form his own one. The panakas made up the Inca's court and formed the aristocracy of Cusco. They maintained multiple sacred shrines, performing ceremonies in the name of the ruler-founder emperor of the panaka, and maintaining the memory of the deceased emperor and his mallki (mummy), through songs, quipus and paintings that were transmitted from generation to generation. In the spatio-temporal ceque system, in which each region, both Hanan (high), Anti Suyu and Chinchay Suyu, and Hurin (low), Cunti Suyu and Colla Suyu, had groups of three ceques, symbolic lines or pathways, the panakas were represented by the Payan ceque.
A kuraka (Quechua for the principal governor of a province or a communal authority in the Tawantinsuyu), or curaca (Hispanicized spelling), was an official of the Andean civilizations, unified by the Inca Empire in 1438, who held the role of magistrate, on several hierarchical levels, from the Sapa Inca at the head of the Empire to local family units. The kurakas were the heads of the ayllus (clan-like family units) and of federations of ayllus, called chiefdoms or curacazgos. During the Inca Empire, the Sapa Inca governed with the help of the existing local hierarchies. They served as tax collector, and held religious authority, in that they mediated between the supernatural sphere and the mortal realm. They were responsible for making sure the spirit world blessed the mortal one with prosperity, and were held accountable should disaster strike, such as a drought. Kurakas enjoyed privileges such as being exempt from taxation, the right to polygamy and to ride in a litter. The kuraka was an aristocrat who frequently, but not always, descended from the previous generation. Kuraka means 'superior' or 'principal', and his authority was granted by the Inca. Each ayllu and chiefdom had four kurakas: two of them ruled the upper and lower (hanan and hurin) parts, and each of these had an assistant. However, of the four, one kuraka was superior to the rest. With the conquest of Peru by the Spanish, the Spanish system of rule utilized indigenous leaders as mediators to mobilize labor and tribute from their communities for delivery to Spaniards awarded those benefits in encomienda. The system was implemented first in the Caribbean islands, where such leaders were called caciques, then Mexico, where the Arawak term cacique was extended, and then in the Andean region, where the term kuraka persisted. Indigenous elites maintained their positions so long as they played their assigned role. In the late eighteenth century, the increased taxation of indigenous put pressure on kurakas' allegiances to their own communities and their desire to maintain their status in the colonial order. The 1781 Tupac Amaru rebellion, led by a kuraka, José Gabriel Condorcanqui, known as Tupac Amaru II, was the most serious challenge to the Spanish colonial order in the Andes since the Spanish conquest.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.
