[3] Ayllu is a word in both the Quechua and Aymara languages referring to a network of families in a given area, often with a putative or fictive common ancestor.
[1] The male head of an ayllu is called a mallku which means, literally, “condor”, but is a title which can be more freely translated as “prince”.
These studies, however, do not explain how the ayllu is a corporate whole, which includes social principles, verticality, and metaphor ...Ayllu also refers to people who live in [a shared] territory (llahta) and who feed the earth shrines of that territory.”[6] In Bolivia, representatives from the ayllus are sent to the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (Conamaq).
How the ancient and current organizational form correspond is unclear, since Spanish chronicles do not give a precise definition of the term.
[4] Ayllu were self-sustaining social units that would educate their own children and farm or trade for all the food they ate, except in cases of disaster such as El Niño years when they relied on the Inca storehouse system.