Inca Market

Inca craftmen turned out small articles of wood, which they exchanged for pieces of IIama hide or some produce their family needed. Good potters, both men and women, traded their wares for the gourds that Indians raised.

Highland women traded IIama and alpaca wool for cotton grown in the valleys, and the fishermen in the coastal towns dried their catch and carried it in baskets to the highlanders. A family with a few extra ducks carried them alive to market to exchange for cloth or fish, sandals or copper pin.

When ducks were brought to market, the Inca woman of the household did the trading, and her husband went with her to make sure that she was well treated.

Since the ducks really belonged  to the little daughter, who, with her mother’s help, had raised them, fed them, and watched over them, she came along to watch the trading and learn how it was done.

The son went to market too, to watch and learn. And so, at down, entire families set out along the village paths and made their way to the highway.