One of the ayllu ’s main functions was to redistribute agricultural land as families grew larger or smaller, to ensure none grew richer than any other – indeed, to be a ‘rich’ household meant, in practice, to have a large number of unmarried children, hence much land, since there was no other basis for comparing wealth.125 Ayllu also helped families avoid seasonal labour crunches and kept track of the number of able-bodied young men and women in each household, so as to ensure not only that none were short-handed at critical moments, but also that the aged or infirm, widows, orphans or
...more
