ABSTRACT
The conquest of the Indian empires and their absorption into the Spanish colonial regime affected every aspect of the native cultures. When the Spanish incorporated Andean society into their empire, the patterns of social rank and stratification among the Indians were extensively reshuffled. A special group in pre-Conquest Indian society was the kurakas, or ethnic chieftains, who ranged from the leaders of substantial states down to the heads of small kin-groups. The social hierarchies just described, however, are not the only standpoint for examining the problem of social mobility among the Indians of colonial Peru. Analysis of these changes is complicated by our incomplete understanding of Indian social structure prior to the Spanish Conquest. The kin groups were ranked within the larger society on a recognized scale of prestige that determined the order of participation in activities such as land distribution or work parties, and ceremonial functions such as cleaning the irrigation ditches or joining in dances or worship.
