Familias y ayllus: alianzas, riqueza y prestigio. Belén 1787 (Altos de Arica)

Abstract

The list of paying tithes from 1787 identifies 72 heads of families in the village of Belén, located in Altos de Arica, part of the chiefdom of Codpa. Reconstitution of families made from the records of the parish of Belén allows us to identify the status of different nuclear families, which some of them show mix characteristics, and to observe their distribution among Mancasaya and Aransaya ayllus. The analysis of these families suggests some strategies related to marriage, inheritance mechanisms and access to community lands where male inbreeding and patrilineal inheritance hypothesis predominates. However, it has also been observed a dynamic system that, in its ideal model, tries to protect the access to land to the original families, as well as a slight predominance of the Mancasaya, but that adapts to the contingency for the survival and perpetuation of the community.