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Inca are perhaps the most famous people of prehistoric South America. They created an empire that stretched from one end of the Andes virtually to the other. They created a state that was based on worship of ancestors - something that was taken from earlier cultures and elevated so as to create a base of power for the Inca rulers. The ruler who created the Inca state is Pachacuti. He literally invented the concept of the Inka ruler and aligned his ancestors to the Sun God. This direct relationship elevated his ancestry above all others.

In the Andes the autonomous unit of production and reproduction is a group of related individuals and couples who exchange labor and cooperate in the management of land and herds. These kin collectives are called ayllus, and the well-being of a couple is proportional to the size and holdings of their collective.

An ayllu has a founding ancestor and contains a number of lineages divided among two "moieties". Membership is determined by kinship that men tend to trace through male lines and women trace through female lines. Marriage partners are generally exchanged between sets of moiety lineages. This makes the ayllu an endogamous corporation that is reproductively autonomous. At birth a person inherits a set of relationships - responsibilities to others and claims upon them - that determine access to labor, land, water, and other resources. In selecting marriage partners individuals held in high esteem are those with the most kin, because relatives bring with them commitments to share work, resources, and their returns.

Common ancestors gave ayllus their ethnic identity, and karakas ruled by claiming close blood-ties to founding forefathers. Ayllus were often named after their founders, who were heroic figures, if not mythical ones, and could turn into stone or some special object. They secured lands for their people, established codes of behavior, and were models for proper life. Their corpses were worshiped, and were ranked among the ayllu's most sacred of holdings. If outsiders captured these vital relics, the ayllu could be held hostage.

For commoner and karaka alike, ancestor veneration was a fundamental institution of Andean society. Native concepts did not maintain a sharp division between the living and dead, and the deceased actively influenced the health and well-being of their descendants. People consulted and propitiated their progenitors on a regular basis. Forbears defined the lineage, moiety, and ayllu to which an individual belonged, and position within the hierarchy of life's relationships. With this went the practice of keeping ancestors close at hand, and of using graves or bodies to document rights and responsibilities among heirs. Employing the deceased as documents was accompanied by the notion that corpses should be conserved intact, and led to the development of artificial mummification of the dead more than 6,000 years ago. The tradition culminated with the potentates of Chimor and Tahuantinsuyu, whose mummies were richly clothed and carefully attended at special shrines. Inca royal mummies, regarded as quasi-alive, were regularly paraded about, and formally seated at important council meetings so that they might be consulted and guide the living.