The territory was cultivated wholly by the people. The lands belonging
to the Sun were first attended to. They next tilled the lands of the old, of
the sick, of the widow and the orphan, and of soldiers engaged in actual
service; in short, of all that part of the community who, from bodily
infirmity or any other cause, were unable to attend to their own concerns.
The people were then allowed to work on their own ground, each man
for himself, but with the general obligation to assist his neighbor, when
any circumstance--the burden of a young and numerous family, for
example--might demand it.16 Lastly, they cultivated the lands of the
Inca. This was done, with great ceremony, by the whole population in a
body. At break of day, they were summoned together by proclamation
from some neighboring tower or eminence, and all the inhabitants of the
district, men, women, and children, appeared dressed in their gayest
apparel, bedecked with their little store of finery and ornaments, as if for
some great jubilee. They went through the labors of the day with the
same joyous spirit, chanting their popular ballads which commemorated
the heroic deeds of the Incas, regulating their movements by the measure
of the chant, and all mingling in the chorus, of which the word hailli, or
"triumph," was usually the burden. These national airs had something
soft and pleasing in their character, that recommended them to the
Spaniards; and many a Peruvian song was set to music by them after the
Conquest, and was listened to by the unfortunate natives with
melancholy satisfaction, as it called up recollections of the past, when
their days glided peacefully away under the sceptre of the Incas.17

A similar arrangement prevailed with respect to the different
manufactures as to the agricultural products of the country. The flocks
of llamas, or Peruvian sheep, were appropriated exclusively to the Sun
and to the Inca.18 Their number was immense. They were scattered
over the different provinces, chiefly in the colder regions of the country,