The ancient Inca ruled the largest native empire ever assembled in the Americas. Its agricultural economy was based not on trade or exchange, but on tribute. The fruits of harvests from Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru flowed to the capital city of Cusco (“Jusk’u� meaning “hole� i.e. navel, center of the universe).

The Bolivian valley of Cochabamba is unparalleled in the Andes, and it was a key part of the empire. In this largely vertical landscape of mountain cliffs and canyons, Cochabamba is an immense, flat, fertile valley, gently curving in a boomerang shape 60 km long. The valley is an ideal habitat for humans and crops. The tricky part is getting things in and out over the mountains.

Years ago in a mountain village I sat in a tiny home made of stone and straw while a woman toasted maize grains on the fire and an old man explained how he used to herd his llamas loaded with goods down to the valley bottom. He and the other llameros would camp by a shallow lake outside of the city of Cochabamba. But that world is gone now. The lake has been drained and the municipal stadium has been built on the site where llamas once camped.

An agricultural tribute economy has to have a way to store some of the harvest, hence the massive stone granaries around Cusco. The ancient ones knew that food could be a weapon, that stored maize could feed a marching army, or resupply a restless province after a crop failure.

Near Cochabamba there is an Incan site called Inka Raqay (or Incaracay). “Raqay� means “to store� in Quechua. The Cochabambinos had told me that the place was an Incan granary site and I had no reason to doubt them.

Then this week we went to see it. The site is a long way up the side of the mountain. Ana and I had tried to find it years before, with archaeologist Wayne Howell, when we were all younger and fitter. Back then we had hiked all day without finding the site. But now there is a cobblestone road leading to the site and beyond. So this time we cheated. We took a taxi from the small town of Sipe Sipe.

A shiny new chain-link fence has just been built around the site, and the gate was locked. We climbed around the fence on the cliff side, and walked down to the site.

I was filled with wonder, because I could see immediately that the site was not designed for storing grain. There was not a granary in sight. Instead, it was a typical imperial Inca city, only in miniature. There was a little cluster of buildings made of stone, not cut stone like in Cusco, because after all, these were the provinces, but the walls were lined with the mysterious niches, typical Incan. The center of the site was a large, irregularly shaped plaza, just like in old Cusco or Machu Picchu or any other Incan town.

The view of the valley bottom was spectacular, like an aerial photograph. I began to wonder, if they weren’t storing grain here, what were they doing?

The phrase “a commanding view� suddenly came to mind, and took on new meaning. Cochabamba is one of the biggest and best spots for growing maize in all of the Andes. The Inca loved maize, and the alcoholic drink they made from it, called chicha, or aqha, in Quechua.

From Inca Raqay you can see the fields of modern Cochabamba, or a lot of them. Five hundred years ago you would also have been able to see a rebellious army moving against you, or you would have advance notice of a llama train bringing little bags of maize up the trail from the valley bottom on the Inca road. We know from historical accounts that the llama trains loaded with maize came through this end of the valley on their way to Tapacarí, then up to the Altiplano, skirting the shores of Lake Titicaca, and then down to Cusco, the imperial capital.

Risky business demands magico-religious sources of divination and comfort, whether the job is farming or imposing a tribute economy on resentful subjects. Inka Raqay is sited in a small cluster of exposed, giant boulders. As archaeologists Brian Bauer and Alan Covey point out, some Andean peoples erected structures like this for military defense, places to hide troops, or ambush enemies. At Inka Raqay, the little cluster of conglomerate rock was a gift from nature. A clear spring below the site provided the people with water on an otherwise steep, dry slope. The boulders also gave Inka Raqay a place of worship. The Inca people loved cave entrances or grottos in high places, where the sky, earth and underworld all came together. It was the ancient Andean trinity of sky (condor), earth (puma) and the underworld (snake). There was a natural niche in front of the grotto and I imagined it had room enough for a sacrificial mummy or two.

It took far less imagination to notice all of the beer bottle caps covering the little plaza in front of the grotto, the door to the underworld. In recent years, neo-traditionalists have taken to celebrating the June solstice here, Aymara New Year, as some call it. These rituals involve, among other things, burning offerings and pouring drinks onto the ground to honor the Mother Earth (Pacha Mama). Hence the beer bottle caps. Mother Earth likes a drink now and then.

Ancient people would have said their prayers here, or nearby, anxiously watching the valley below, hoping the rains would come, that the maize would grow, and that the sullen peasants would bring their tribute share here, past the first control post on their way to the imperial heartland.

Although we humans are busily heating up the planet and killing off its creatures, some things have improved since the old days. Now rituals involve drinking beer instead of sacrificing humans, you can fly from Cochabamba to Cusco, and farmers who raise a surplus can sell it instead of having it commandeered away from them. That rewards them to produce more, and to be creative.

A note on names

“Inca� should probably be spelled “Inka,� but colonial orthography dies hard. For readability I have used “Inca� to refer to a whole society, but actually the Inca himself was just one person, the king or absolute ruler of an Empire called “Tawantinsuyu� which means “all four places� or “all four provinces� in Quechua, the official language of the empire. Another name for the language was Runa Simi (the mouth of the people).

For further reading

Bauer, Brian S. & R. Alan Covey 2002 “Processes of State Formation in the Inca Heartland (Cusco, Peru).� American Anthropologist 104(3):846-864.