ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses elite-directed storage in the Inka Empire. It discusses colonial Quechua vocabulary for risk, food insecurity, and storage. The chapter reviews ethnohistoric descriptions of Inka storage systems in provincial regions and the area surrounding Cuzco. It presents an overview of architectural and archaeological evidence for Inka storehouses in the Cuzco region and implications for reconstructing Inka noble and political economies. Storage in the Inka imperial heartland differed from highland provinces in at least one respect: the capital received precious metals, shell, tropical bird feathers, and other raw materials that were worked into fine craft goods. As nobles and representatives of state institutions provides pools of labor for maintaining elite and state projects, peasant households also work to manage the risks that they perceive in their own domestic economies. From a risk-management perspective, peasant economies buffer against more proximate and predictable risks, whereas noble and political economies protects society against large-scale catastrophes direct uneven flows of goods and labor.
