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FIELDIANA • ANTHROPOLOGY

Published by
CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

Volume 36 November 26, 1957 No. 9

LIZARD HUNTS ON THE NORTH COAST

OF PERU

Allan R. Holmberg

Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Cornell University

In many of the irrigated valleys on the desert coast of northern
Peru there lives a little reptile which has not received the attention
it justly deserves in the scientific literature, particularly when one
considers the important role it has played in the economy of the
people who have inhabited these regions since pre-Columbian times.
Even today one cannot remain long in most of the north coast
valleys of Peru, such as Moche, Viru, and Chao, without becoming
acquainted with cananes, which are small lizards, highly prized for
their delicate flavor, their nutritive qualities, and their reputed
aphrodisiacal powers. The thought of eating such lizards may seem
strange and unappetizing to most of us, but they have been hunted
and relished in these regions since Mochica times at least, perhaps
even much earlier. In any case, the custom of hunting lizards for
food still persists on the north coast of Peru. During the course of
an anthropological study of the Viru Valley in 1947, my colleagues
and I had the good (or bad, as the taste may be) fortune to eat them
many times and even to attend a typical can&n hunt. Thus, what
we have to say about these lizards derives largely from first-hand
information and observation.

This study was carried out under the auspices of the Institute
of Social Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution. I am indebted to
my Peruvian colleagues, Dr. Jorge C. Muelle, Director of the
National Museum in Lima, and Dr. Humberto Gherzi B., Institute
de Estudios Etnologicos, Lima, for collaboration in the field; to
Senor A. Guillen, photographer, Museo de Historia, Lima, for
photographs of the lizard hunt and of the Mochica pots containing
representations of the lizards; to Dr. Doris Cochran, Curator of
Reptiles, United States National Museum, and the late Karl P.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 57-1 UU75
No- Ik LIBRARY OF THE 2M

DEC 1 '1957

204 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

Schmidt, Curator Emeritus, Department of Zoology, Chicago Natu-
ral History Museum, for zoological identification and description;
to Mr. Tom Savage, undergraduate student at Cornell, for a pre-
liminary search of the literature on lizards for identification pur-
poses. To a Virunero, Senor Carlos Zanelli, goes most credit of all;
he organized the lizard hunt upon which this description is based.

Canaries are strange little reptiles that live in pairs. They
belong to the genus Dicrodon, of the family Teidae, which resembles
other American racerunners of the genera Ameiva and Cnemi-
dophorus. The Chao Valley lizards prove to represent a form
hitherto undescribed. It has been named Dicrodon holmbergi by
Dr. Schmidt (Schmidt, 1957, p. 66). These lizards dig their holes
in the desert sand around clusters of the guarango tree (Prosopis
juliflora) — called algarrobo in Viru — the fruits of which constitute
their sole means of subsistence. They are not gregarious, but
hundreds of pairs of them make their homes around nourishing
stands of algarrobo. The full-grown males are bluish in color and
attain an over-all length of about 20 inches; the females, more
brownish in color, seldom grow to three-fourths this length. Both
males and females have speckled backs, and most of their length
consists of tail. Viruneros claim that cananes are ovoviviparous.

Cananes spend most of their lives underground. Here they
hibernate during the winter (April to November); here they raise
their young. Only when the summer months appear do heat and
hunger drive them from their holes and then only for a few hours
on days when the sun is shining. (We found out by experiment
that cananes cannot live long in the sun; they die within an hour
or so if placed directly in it.) On cloudy days they prefer to remain
indoors. When the weather is warm, however, they stick their
heads out of their holes at about 9 o'clock in the morning, head for
the nearest algarrobo, and begin to feed on the green fruits. Since
few tender ones are to be found on the ground, the cananes usually
climb the spiny trees. In this way they not only reach the more
luscious pods, but they also avoid attacks by larger lizards locally
known as iguanas, and by foxes, vultures, and hawks, which
sometimes kill them when they are caught in the open. After
eating for a few hours, the cananes return to their holes, sometimes
taking with them pods which are stored for winter. After several
months of such feeding, they become fat, and in April, when the
cloudy days of winter appear, they retire to their holes to sleep until
the warm days of November roll around again. Cananes never
taste of water.

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Fig. 93. Mochica jar with modeled lizards probably depicting caHanes in
anthropomorphic form. From collection of the National Museum, Lima.

205

mt LJdKARY OF THE

DEC 1 31957

iVfcKWtT OF ILUNO/S

206 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

While lizards are diversely and extensively portrayed on Mochica
pottery (see figs. 93 and 94), archaeologists have not yet called
much attention to their probable importance in the diet of the
ancient Peruvians.1 To be sure, it is impossible to mistake what
appear to be representations of cananes for anything but lizards but
it has not been emphasized that many of the representations may
portray a specific type of lizard — the canan — which probably con-
stituted an important element in the food supply. Figure 94, for
instance, shows a Mochica representation of a lizard associated
exclusively with the pod-like fruit of the algarrobo tree. It is
possible that a careful analysis of Mochica pottery might even
yield representations of the traps in which cananes were hunted,
although a cursory examination of a great many "lizard" pots by
the author has not produced such results.

Since the distribution of cananes depends on the existence of
algarrobo, it is likely that they were more widespread, and the
custom of eating them more diffuse, in ancient than in modern Peru.
The gradual deforestation of the valleys for agriculture has di-
minished the supply of cananes (it will doubtless eventually bring
an end to them), but they are still relatively abundant in the valleys
of Chao and Viru and are also found in Moche, Chicama, and as far
north as Piura. They may have been eaten in this last area, but
people seem to have lost the habit, although we were told in 1948
by Don Julio Mariano Ganoza R., a Virunero home from an ex-
tended residence in Piura, that the custom had been reintroduced
there in the 1940's.

While the nutritive value of this small lizard has yet to be
tested by science, the virtues attributed to it in Viru are formidable.
These derive to some extent, at least, from the belief that the fruits
of the algarrobo possess extraordinary alimentary and curative
powers. This seems to be a general belief (probably of Spanish
origin) in Peru, where algarrobina syrup is sold — especially in drug
stores — for its tonic powers. Piura is famous for this product.
Peruvian friends state that when they buy algarrobina syrup in

1 Larco Hoyle (1938) mentions the use and portrayal of the large lizards
locally known as iguanas, but not of cananes. Gillin (1947) has called attention
to cafldn hunting in Moche and stated (p. 155) that ". . . eating of lizards and
iguanas seems ... to have been a Mochica trait . . . , as well as the totora-ro\\ trap
still used." We agree with Gillin on most counts but not on that of the Mora-roll
trap. Canan traps — and we have seen many of them — are generally made of
maguey; less often of cana brava. They are sometimes patched with carrizo, for
lack of a better material, but we have never seen one of totora. This material is
too flexible to be used for such a purpose.

HOLMBERG: LIZARD HUNTS IN PERU 207

a drug store, the vendor usually sells it with a smile, as if he were
selling some remedy for the stimulation or restoration of sexual
powers. Algarrobina cocktails are also famous as aphrodisiacs.

It is not uncommon in Viru to hear of such cases as the following,
related to us by Don Julio Zoe" Ganoza: One Novoa was dying of

Fig. 94. Mochica jar with painted decoration depicting a candn eating
algarrobo fruits. From collection of the Museum of Archaeology, University
of Trujillo.

tuberculosis. He had had a number of hemorrhages and was so
weak that he could hardly walk. Having tried everything else
without success, and believing in the efficacy of algarrobo fruits,
he began to eat them and nothing else. Soon he began to improve.
Before long he became so robust that he was able to take up the
occupation of a woodcutter, one of the most strenuous in the
valley. In 1948 he was still in excellent health, cutting wood in
the hacienda of Buena Vista in the valley of Chao.

208 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

Although the Viruneros seldom eat the fruit of the algarrobo —
not a tasty dish — its beneficial properties are transmitted to them
by eating cananes — a more tasty one. One of the principal rational-
izations for the eating of cananes, in fact, is that these reptiles live
exclusively on algarrobo pods and are therefore clean; more im-
portant, however, is the belief that the meat possesses qualities that
both stimulate and preserve the sexual powers. Especially large
families, virility in old age, excessive sexual energy — this last
demonstrated by the "possession" of several women — are frequently
attributed to the eating of cananes. One day, while recording
genealogical data from Don Ernesto Garcia Pulido, a Virunero of
ancient vintage, we had occasion to remark that, judging from the
size of families, the Viruneros of days gone by were even more
fecund than their heirs of today. Don Ernesto's comment on this
remark epitomizes rather well the Virunero's attitude towards
cananes. "What do you expect?" answered he, "there were more
cananes in those days."

Cananes are usually caught in traps. These consist of long, low
fences made from small, roughly rectangular staves of maguey
(or sometimes of cana brava) — about 15 inches long, Yi inch wide,
and \i inch thick — twined in a series with cotton string. A finished
trap contains two rows of cotton wefts, one about 2 inches from
the top and the other an equal distance from the bottom. Since
the top and the bottom of a trap are alike, it is possible to use it
with either end up. When rolled up, a trap has the appearance of
a drum or tambdr and so it is called in Viru.

To make a trap is not a difficult task, but it is a long and tedious
one. The staves must first be cut from partially dried maguey
trunks and thoroughly dried. Cured in this manner, they do not
warp, are light in weight, and endure for long periods of time.
Some 6,000 staves — the material of approximately 20 maguey
trunks — go into the construction of a single tambor of about 100
meters, a standard length. When rolled up, such a tambor measures
about a meter in diameter and weighs about 50 pounds.

Most hunters possess at least two tambores. These together
constitute what is known in Viru as a carga. This literally means
a cargo for a donkey — an indispensable animal in every canan hunt,
for, when going to or coming from the hunt, one tambdr is tied to
either side of the donkey (fig. 95). The carga (two tambores) thus
rests on the animal like a pair of saddle bags (fig. 96) .

Before setting out on a canan hunt, a reconnaissance is made
of the areas containing rich stands of algarrobo and a likely number

Fig. 95. Loading a pair of lizard traps on a donkey.

Fig. 96. Top view of a rolled-up lizard trap loaded on a donkey.

209

210

FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

Swfci

Iff. V

Fig. 97. Setting a lizard trap; Chao Valley.

of can&n holes. Once a good site has been selected, a day for the
hunt is decided upon; usually it takes place the next day. Very
early in the morning of this day, the hunter loads his donkey with
a carga of traps and, often accompanied by his wife and children
or friends, sets out for the site, planning to arrive there about day-
break so as to get his traps set several hours before the first cananes
leave their holes. If he arrives late, he is likely to have bad luck,
for the can&n is a reptile sensitive to noise and may not leave its
hole if there is much disturbance in the area.

HOLMBERG: LIZARD HUNTS IN PERU

211

Fig. 98. Banking sand on the inner side of a lizard trap; Chao Valley.

At the site, the traps are rolled out flat on the sand about a meter's
distance from the low-lying algarrobo branches containing fruit.
Then they are gradually set up — inclined slightly inward — and
banked on the bottom (both inside and out) with sand (figs. 97, 98) .
A piece of broken gourd is sometimes used as a tool. The traps are
arranged so as to follow the curvature of the algarrobo clusters
and to enclose as large an open space as possible. The ends of the
trap are hooked or curled inward, and against them the pieces of
broken gourd used in banking up the trap are sometimes placed
to prevent the canan's escape around the ends. A canan trap, when
set up, thus presents the appearance of a miniature picket fence,
inclining slightly inward and enclosing a large open space within
which lie holes of canaries and outside of which lie clusters of algar-

212

FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

Fig. 99. A portion of a lizard trap sloping inward toward the holes of the
caflanes and separating them from an algarrobo thicket; Chao Valley.

robo (figs. 99, 100). An entrance to the trap is always left open,
so as to allow cananes from the outside to enter the trap as well.

Once having set his traps, the hunter (sometimes accompanied
by friends) retires to a shady spot nearby, where his donkey is
tethered and where he can be neither seen nor heard by the cananes
near the trap. Before he can expect his first catch, he has several
hours to wait, for these lizards do not make their appearance until
the sun has well warmed their holes. If the day is sunny and warm,
he may expect to make his first catch about 9 o'clock.

Meanwhile, the earliest-rising or hungriest cananes have come out
of their holes to eat. On their way, however, they encounter the
barrier of the trap (fig. 101). Instead of returning to their holes,
they continue to search for some avenue of escape to the algarrobo
fruits, but everywhere they go they encounter the trap or its curled
ends — a difficulty which their lack of intelligence does not permit

Fig. 100. A lizard trap set to follow the contours of the algarrobo clusters;
Chao Valley.

-

IS

Fig. 101. Cananes caught in the trap; Chao Valley.
213

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FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

them to overcome. A number of cananes may even have entered
the trap through its open entrance way, but once inside, it does not
occur to them to escape by the same route.

Having calculated that his trap contains cananes, the hunter
returns, approaching cautiously until he arrives at the entrance
way, after which he begins to shout and throw chunks of wood into

Fig. 102. A candn that has been Fig. 103. Breaking a candn's back

picked up from the trap; Chao Valley. to prevent its escape; Chao Valley.

the open space so as to chase as many cananes as possible to the
edge of the trap. Even now, it does not occur to many of them to
return to their holes, although a few, by trial and error, find haven
in their own holes or those of others. A few large males (called
roneros), when startled, may even be able to jump over the trap,
but the majority keep following the fence, looking for a means of
escape which they never encounter. In this process they soon tire
and can easily be caught by hand. It thus but remains for the
hunter to gather up his cananes (figs. 102, 103), break their front
legs and backs — they are thus paralyzed but remain alive — and
place them in a pair of woven saddle bags which he has brought
along for this purpose (fig. 104). Having collected his catch, the
hunter returns to his camp to wait for another, which can usually be
made within an hour or two, when the process is repeated. On
a lucky day, he may collect three or four catches before midday.

Fig. 104. A woman holding paralyzed canaries which she collected from the
trap and placed in her woven saddle bags; Chao Valley.

215

216 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

On one hunt, better than average in the valley of Chao, we and
our can&n hunters from Viru collected about 130 cananes in four
catches made between 9 a.m. and noon; we were using four tambores
or about 400 meters of trap. Since we were photographing and
taking notes on the catch, however, many cananes escaped. On an
exceptional day, a hunter may even collect cananes until 4 o'clock
in the afternoon, but this is rare, since most of them return to their
holes shortly after midday. If enough are gathered for a good feast,
the hunter is usually satisfied. Having made his last catch, he rolls
up his traps, loads his donkey, and returns home, usually late in the
afternoon.

There still persists in Viru a considerable flavor of the fiesta in
the can&n hunt. Until recent times, no Virunero thought of dedi-
cating all of his time to this pursuit or of making a living from it,
but most of the hunters possessed traps which they occasionally set
during the season to enjoy a day of fiesta — a day of picnic with
family and friends. Today, however, a few skilled hunters have
dedicated themselves to the hunt for commercial reasons, since there
is an excellent market for cananes both in the valley and in the
neighboring cities, where they sold for as much as four soles a dozen
in 1948. The true Virunero, however, looks upon this activity with
some displeasure, for he sees his already meager supply of cananes —
and therefore his can&n fiesta — rapidly disappearing. Those who
hunted for commercial reasons in 1948 paid a fixed sum to the
haciendas (particularly Carmelo and Buena Vista, which still pos-
sessed algarrobo forests in abundance) for hunting rights during an
entire season. This sum varied from about 80 to 100 soles a season;
one informant placed it as high as 300.

The lone hunter of cananes generally brings home most of his
catch (often alive), but when a can&n picnic or fiesta — including
family and friends — is held, the feasting takes place near the site
of the hunt. Chicha (maize beer), camotes, yucas, limes, condi-
ments, and necessary cooking utensils are taken along to prepare
the feast, which begins as soon as the first cananes have been collected
from the trap and continues intermittently throughout the day until
the last cananes have been caught. Before being prepared for
special dishes, the cananes are subjected to a treatment that probably
derives from ancient times.

After being collected from the trap, the paralyzed cananes are
laid out in a row near the ashes of a dying fire. They are then
grasped by their tails and thrown into the embers, where, wriggling
for a moment or two, they are scorched to death (fig. 105). Next

HOLMBERG: LIZARD HUNTS IN PERU

217

Fig. 105. Lizards being scorched in hot ashes before they are scaled.

they are moved about in the hot ashes for about 30 seconds with
an L-shaped club, not unlike a crude hockey stick in form. They
are then removed (fig. 106), the purpose of this scorching having
been to make easy the removal of the scaly outer skin, which is
scraped off with the fingernails. A shallow depression in the hot
sand is then dug with the L-shaped club and the canaries are placed
in it and covered with hot ashes. Here they are allowed to remain
for about ten minutes, when they are regarded as "cooked." Finally,
they are removed from the ashes and, once cool, are gutted (fig. 107) .

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FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

Fig. 106. After the lizards have been scorched, they are raked from the
ashes and scaled.

Cananes subjected to the scorching and "cooking" treatment
may be eaten as they are, may be prepared in various ways, or may
be stored for as long as a year. They may even be eaten raw.
Commonly, however, they are prepared in seviches, soups, stews, or
omelets. On picnics, seviches and stews or ragouts seem to be the
most popular dishes. The picnic feast is almost always "settled"
with chicha.

Attention should be called to the fact that cananes are sometimes,
though rarely, caught by other means than traps. Gillin (1947,
p. 26) mentions the traps used in Moche but he also states: "These
are hunted by small boys, who kill them on the run with sticks."
While granting that this may be possible, we doubt whether many
cananes could be caught by this method. In the first place, they
spend most of their time underground ; in the second place, they can
run much faster than any human being; finally, they always have
a ready means of escape, for they never wander far from the algar-

HOLMBERG: LIZARD HUNTS IN PERU

219

Fig. 107. Eviscerating lizards before they are cooked.

robo clusters where no human being can penetrate because of spines.
More commonly, they are dug from their holes with spades and
caught in the hands when trying to escape. This method, however,
is rarely employed when traps are available, although it is some-
times resorted to during the winter months when cananes do not
leave their holes.

Canan hunting also often goes hand in hand with woodcutting
and charcoal-making. Since algarrobo is the best wood for the fire
and for charcoal-making, and since cananes live near clusters of this
tree, the two activities are often carried out simultaneously. In
periods of rest during a day of woodcutting or charcoal-making
a man may collect cananes from his traps; or, if accompanied by his
wife, she may do most of the canan hunting in connection with the
household duties of cooking, carrying water, caring for children,
etc. This combination seems to work out especially well in the
valley of Chao, where fine algarrobo forests still remain and where
families of Viruneros often spend a couple of summer months

220 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 36

making charcoal and sustaining and diverting themselves by lizard
hunts. In spite of many modern changes, this old custom is likely
to persist for some time to come.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gillin, John

1947. Moche: A Peruvian coastal community. Institute of Social Anthro-
pology, Smithsonian Institution, pub. no. 3.

Larco Hoyle, Rafael

1938-39. Los Mochicas. 2 vols. Lima.

Schmidt, Karl P.

1957. Notes on the genus Dicrodon. Fieldiana: Zoology, vol. 39, no. 9.

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