Agricultural taxation extracted work from both men and women. Commoners did not own land - it belonged to the ayllu. It was Inca practice to divide conquered agricultural land into three categories, ideally of equal size, all of which the peasantry was obliged to farm. The first category was dedicated to the support of the gods, including the imperial pantheon and huacas of local importance. These lands were cultivated first, before other categories of fields. Yields went to support religious functionaries, priests, and shrine attendants. Stores were also held to provide food and drink on holidays when particular gods, huacas, or ancestors received public veneration.
The second category belonged to the Emperor, as head of state, who seems to have viewed ownership as his by divine right. Imperial fields were tended after religious ones, and yields went to support the royal court and the needs of government. Because the Emperor was the head of both state and the state religion, the majority of agrarian tax yields were under Cuzco's control. This was commemorated with a dramatic display of warehousing facilities, the most impressive of which comprised individual, one-room, masonry structures known as qollqa: circular ones were used for maize storage, and square ones for potatoes and other tubers. Both forms had ingenious ventilation systems that allowed air to enter through an underground channel in the floor and then escape through an opening at roof level. Designed for display, long rows of finely built qollqa were erected on hills and high places where they could be seen from great distances.
The third category of land was assigned to the local community for its support, redistributed annually to village members by the local karaka. This allotment was not in equal parts, but proportional to the size of a family and the number of dependents under each head-of- household. As households grew or shrank, their share of land changed. When an individual was absent working on a government project or attending official business, other members of the ayllu tilled his lands and fulfilled his agricultural tax obligations. Puna pasture lands, and llama and alpaca resources were organized in a similar three-fold manner. Systematic administration of pasture was critical because it encompassed more terrain than was under cultivation, and highland polities controlled immense herds for the production of wool and food. Thus, just as the highlanders were agropastoralists, so too was the tax system.