In the Andean sphere there was great enthusiasm for oracles and the future was predicted in many different ways. No important act was carried out without consulting with the calpa beforehand. It was a question of extracting the palpitating heart of a camelid and reading the auguries in it.

Avila's informants recount one augury about the worship of the god Pariacaca, an imposing snow peak in the province of Huarochiri, coming to an end. To honor this huaca a group of priests from Hanan Yauyos was established, dedicated to his cult. One of them exclaimed "What a misfortune! The auguries are ominous. Brothers, our father Pariacaca will be abandoned!"

Furious, the rest of them insulted him but a few days later they learned of the events of Cajamarca and the priests scattered and returned to their ayllus.

Among the priests there were those who spoke with the huacas and those who spoke with the dead. Also there were ones who predicted the future with maize kernels, coca leaves and hairy black spiders enclosed in hollow human bones, in order to find out the future they would open the bone tubes and the way the arachnids fell out and whether or not their legs broke foretold the future.

The merchants In the Andes on the coast there was a social class dedicated to barter and exchange. These were called by the Spanish "Indian-style merchants" because they did not use money, although there were of different kinds of them.

In the señorío of Chincha, these "Indian-style merchants" formed a separate class composed of six thousand people. They maintained exchanges in two directions, a northern route with rafts to Puerto Viejo and Manta in what is now Ecuador, and an overland route with herds of camelids to the altiplano and to Cuzco.

These traders took copper for marine exchanges with the north and on their return they brought mullu, red seashells (Spondylus) from the lukewarm waters of the northern seas. The importance of Spondylus was in being the favorite offering of the huacas and gods; they were used for propitiatory rites to bring rain. Archaeologists have found Spondylus from the epoch of Chavin de Huantar, that is to say, in much earlier times than the Late Intermediate with which we are dealing here.

But "merchants" prospered not only in Chincha. In the north there were two social categories. On one hand there was a barter of salted dried fish carried out by groups of fishermen specialized in this work. They exchanged in their own valley and the surplus they took to the contiguous highlands. The second level of "merchants" corresponded to the "lords" that possessed neither lands nor water-they affirmed this-they concerned themselves with maintaining exchanges that consisted of camelid fiber clothes, beads, cotton, beans, fish and other things. The more modest chiefs exchange salt.

The popular classes

The craftspeople

On the coast, the craftspeople had a special situation since they worked only at their craft. In the highlands, on the contrary, they did not stop tending to agriculture. The yunga or costal characteristic was specialized labor.

With the passage of time, the government found it necessary to accede to a greater number of sumptuary objects, which required exclusive dedication of those who created them. For this reason, groups of ayllus of artisans began to be moved to Cuzco with the objective of satisfying state demands. The most sought after were the coastal silversmiths or goldsmiths and we find in Cuzco ayllus natives of Ica, Chincha, Pachacamac, Chimu and Huancavelica of Ecuador.

Other required artisans were the potters and the painters of coastal mantles. In 1566 we find them in the northern part of the country requesting authorization to go from town to town fulfilling their functions.

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