Ayllu were the basic political unit of pre-Inca and Inca life. These were at their core extended family groups, but they could adopt non-related members. They would often have their own huaca, or minor god, usually embodied in a physical object such as a mountain or rock. They were usually led by a chief, but could have other political arrangements. Ayllu were self sustaining units and would educate their own offspring and farm or trade for all the food they ate, except in cases of disaster such as El Niņo years when they relied on the Inca storehouse system.
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 ayni, or work in kind for other members of the allyu, and mita a form of taxation levied by the Inca government.
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[Inca model (http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/archy/aymara/inca_model.html)]
Central to his strategy is the empowerment of the ayllus, as the traditional government structures of indigenous communities are known in Bolivia, as elsewhere in the high Andes.
Of the original nine ayllus in the Quila Quila region, only four have survived, and they have lost more than 90 percent of their land to outsiders.
Ayllus in Coroma have asked for his assistance in establishing their own program of resource management.
Ayllu festivals would have provided the setting both for the veneration of these ancestral mummies, and for the retelling of the origin myths of the ayllus.
In the Inca empire 'tribute' was assessed in the form of public labour, the local ayllus having the obligation to work the lands, or herd the flocks of camelids, of the king and the gods in their local communities, as well as to perform 'turns of service' (mit'a) at state installations.
The Incas also employed a strategy of population control and economic organization whereby certain ayllus, or segments of them, were moved from their home territories, at the will of the Inca, for purposes such as working on state projects or serving as guards at frontier outposts.
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