The commoners of the Inca Empire experienced a life of toil. They supplied all the labor that was needed by the empire, and since the Incas had no machines, all that work was done by hand. The Andean region, as was true for the entire Western Hemisphere at the time, did not have large work animals. The llama, the largest domestic animal of the area, was able to carry only small burdens. It could not drag heavy loads or pull plows. Human muscle made up for the lack.

As for the aristocratic Incas, few of them, men or women, did much manual work. Servants attended to their fields and their houses.

A Harsh Land

The commoners' major task was farming, which for the Incas was a challenge. In the Andean highlands, many of the plateaus, such as the altiplano of Bolivia, are more than two miles...