Yanakuna were originally individuals in the Inca Empire who left the ayllu system and worked full-time at a variety of tasks for the Inca, the quya or the religious establishment. A few members of this serving class enjoyed high social status and were appointed officials by the Sapa Inca. They could own property and sometimes had their own farms, before and after the conquest. The Spanish continued the yanakuna tradition developing it further as yanakuna entered Spanish service as Indian auxiliaries or encomienda indians. In modern times the Mapuche of Chile use "yanacona" as an insult for Mapuches considered to have betrayed their people. Use of the word "yanacona" to describe people in the press have led to legal action in Chile.
Etymology and spelling
The wordyana in Quechua, the main Inca language, means black, servant, and is possibly derived from the verb yanapa to help, Qosqo Quechua, yana, black, servant, partner, spouse, and paramour. The -kunasuffix in yanakuna indicates the plural, thus if yana is translated as "servants" yanakuna is "servants" or "slaves". Hispanicized spellings of yanakuna are yanacona and yanaconas.
Inca Empire
In the Inca Empire yanakuna was the name of the servants to the Inca elites. The word servant, however, is misleading about the identity and function of the yanakuna. It is important to note that they were not forced to work as slaves. Some were born into the category of yanakuna, some chose to leave ayllus to work, and some were selected by nobles. They were to care for the herds of the nobles, do fishing, and were dedicated to other work, like the making of pottery, construction, and domestic service. Yanakuna were sometimes given high positions in the Inca government. Mitma is a term commonly associated with yanakuna, but its meaning is different, as the mitmaqkuna were used as labor for large projects. Yanakuna were specifically not a part of an ayllu and were relocated individually instead of in large labor groups. An example of the differences of the classes is that mitmaqkuna were labor that built Machu Picchu, but yanakuna lived and served the Inca there. In Chile, the mapuche used this word to refer toalleged "traitors of their race". The concept of traitor was unknown to them, so when asked to translate the word from Spanish they referred to the Spanish native auxiliaries.
Spanish Empire
When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in modern-day Peru, the yanakuna declared themselves "friends of the Spaniards." They assisted the Spaniards to take control of the empire. These people, who the Spaniards, during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, began to use the name for the indigenous people they had in servitude, in encomiendas, or in military forces as indios auxiliares. After the conquest, the yanakuna population grew rapidly with people leaving ayllus to work in mining. Spaniards favored the individual yanakuna instead of the ayllu-based encomienda system, so the population continued to increase. The Spaniards did not share the same views of yanakuna as the elites did in the Incan Empire. Sometimes, Indians had to leave ayllus to pay off debts and other forms of economic dependence. The population was not large enough, however, to replace the encomienda system but instead supplemented it. The term yanakuna also was used during the conquest of Chile and other areas of South America.
