A Socialist Empire

We should mention here two institutions that seem greatly to have astonished the Spaniards: that of the "Chosen Women" and that of the "Virgins of the Sun." The first were young girls who were selected for their beauty by the governors in all the provinces and brought together in community houses where they spent a certain number of years. They were divided into six categories according to their social rank. The first was made up of the daughters of the great men of the empire. The second comprised the daughters of the less important dignitaries, and their task was to spin and weave for the Inca. The daughters of the orejones were grouped together in the third category. The fourth was composed of singers. The fifth consisted of the most beautiful Indian girls, and in the sixth were the foreign girls in Cuzco, whose task was to work in the fields of the Inca. 68 These maidens lived in palaces surrounded by gardens, where they received practical instruction in sewing and cooking, and religious training in the care of the temples and the ritual. These institutions served a definitely utilitarian function. As L. E. Valcarcel says, they were centers of industry for the young girls of the elite who would later become the Inca's concubines or be given in marriage to the great dignitaries. 69 The "Virgins of the Sun" were never allowed to see a man, not even the Inca. They were waited upon by girls of high rank and spent their time offering sacrifices to the Sun, spinning garments for the monarch, and preparing the food and drink set apart for the religious services of the great festival days. The chroniclers describe them as nuns and their house as a convent. 70 There were, then, two different kinds of community houses for women, which have often been confused by the Spaniards as well as by many contemporary authors. 71 On the one hand, there were the houses of the "Chosen Women," serving both a religious and a secular function; and, on the other, the houses of the virgins, which 'were purely religious establishments. 72 The first could be considered as "storehouses of women," as Bandelier somewhat contemptuously calls them. 73 And finally, a distinction must be made between the cloistered nuns ofwhom we have just been speaking and the women who had taken vows of chastity but lived in their own homes, greatly respected by all. Such vows were not to be taken lightly; for the least dereliction the guilty woman would be burned at the stake. As for the Virgin of the Sun who lost her honor, she was buried alive, her companion in sin was hanged, and the very town where the guilty man lived was destroyed.