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U&I^ERSITY OF CHICAGO 
IN" ANTHROPOLOGY 



ETHNOLOGICAL SERIES 



University of Chicago Press - Chicago 37 
: Cambridge University Press - London 



Copyright 1945 by The University of Chicago. All rights 
reserved. Published 1945- Composed and printed by the 
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A* 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE 

Mrs. Parsons, at her death in December, 1941, left this monograph in 
virtually its present form. It was prepared for the press by Mr. John Murra 
and Senor Anibal Buitron. Drawings were prepared by Mr. Alfred Harris. 
Miss H. Newell Wardle, of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, studied 
the material on weaving, supplying both drawings and notes. Most of the 
photographs were taken by Mr. Bodo Wuth of Quito. Publication was 
made possible by a gift from the author's children, Mrs. John Kennedy, 
Mr. John E. Parsons, Mr. Herbert Parsons, and Mr. Mcllvaine Parsons. 



PREFACE 

The following information about Indian Ecuador was recorded from 
February to May, 1940, and from September to November, 1941, while I 
made the city of Otavalo my headquarters and spent most of the day in 
Peguche, the near-by Indian settlement. The time spent in Otavalo was 
not a loss, for it enabled me to observe contacts between the Whites and the 
Indians and the particular forms of Hispanic culture from which the In- 
dians have borrowed. 

Through the good offices of Mr. Juan L. Gorrell, a talented and under- 
standing American who has been engaged in business for several years in 
Quito and who has also farmed land in the Cayambe Valley, I received for 
over a year after my visit written reports on Cayambe Indian life from a 
group of school-bred young Indians living in the parish of Juan Montalvo. 
Mr. Gorrell made careful translations of their inadequate or dialectical 
Spanish and passed on to them inquiries suggested by their accounts. Most 
of this information I have kept separate in the Appendix. Although Cayam- 
be is only twenty miles from Otavalo, to the south, it lies over the divide 
of the Otavalo Valley drainage and is on or near headwaters of the south- 
easterly Amazonian drainage. Although the Cayambe data are from 
more sophisticated informants than are the data from Peguche, the Ca- 
yambe picture is in several particulars more like that of Amazonian low- 
land culture. Information about exchange of populations under the In- 
cas is more definite for Cayambe than for Otavalo. All this is good reason 
for keeping information about the two groups separate, but Cayambe 
was an invaluable check on Peguche and gave me many leads to follow on 
my second visit. 

I have made a point of noting various cultural parallels in Middle Ameri- 
ca and in our Southwest, particularly in ritual, not because I would sug- 
gest direct historical connections, but because only through the accumula- 
tion of such parallels from monograph to monograph can our neglect of the 
general distribution of ritual elements in American ethnology be advised- 
ly overcome. 

A great many Spanish or Quechuized Spanish terms are used at Peguche 
in speaking Quechua, and I have -recorded many of them as possibly of in- 
terest to students of acculturation in language. Rosita Lema, my chief in- 
formant, when she knows no Quechua equivalent for a Spanish term, always 
thinks of the term and calls it Quechua, which is also an interesting matter. 
I note her usage by writing "Sp.-Q." before the term. Also I have generally 



IV 



PREFACE v 

preserved her pronunciation of Spanish terms. Almost invariably in Span- 
ish (sometimes in Quechua) she interchanges or uses indifferently the vowel 
sounds of/ and e, of o and u. Before terms that I do not recognize as Span- 
ish or corrupt Spanish and do not find in Quechua dictionaries, I place an 
interrogation mark; they may be dialectical Spanish or dialectical Quechua. 
Quechua as spoken in Peguche is even now undergoing change. Twenty 
years ago tenian otra voz, "they pronounced differently." 

Mrs. Guy Bullock, wife of the British minister to Ecuador, introduced Mr. 
Gorrell, who in turn introduced Rosita Lema of Peguche, who in turn in- 
troduced me to Peguche neighbors. I thank all these understanding and 
helpful people for the opportunities they gave me to study, if only briefly, 
Andean Indian life. 

E. C. P. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii 

I. ECUADOR i 

II. PEOUCHE 7 

III. TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 14 

IV. FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 33 

V. RELIGION 81 

VI. CALENDAR 95 

VII. RITUAL 113 

VIII. LORE AND TALES 125 

IX. IN PEOUCHE HOUSES 149 

X. PROVENIENCE OF TRAITS 170 

\PPENDIX. NOTES ON THE PARISH OF JUAN MoNTALVO, CANTON OF CAYAMBE, 

PICHINCHA PROVINCE 183 

3IBUOGRAPHY 217 

INDEX 221 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATES 
L ROSITA LEMA Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

II. YARD AND CORRIDOR or AN INDIAN HOUSE 14 

III. TlLES ALONG THE RlDOE OF THE THATCHED ROOF' .... 15 

IV. NARROW LADDER AND LITTLE PLATFORM UNDER THE EAVES; A 
MAKESHIFT FOR A TREE ROOST FOR CHICKENS 16 

V. SHEEP ARE OFTEN PASTURED ALONG THE ROADSIDE BY LITTLE 

BOYS 17 

VI. THE DIGGING-STICK Is MADE OF EUCALYPTUS WOOD ... 20 

VII. USING THE HOE OR MATTOCK si 

VIII. WATER JARS DRYING IN THE SUN 26 

IX-X. POTTERY SHAPES 26 

XI-XII. INDIAN LOOMS FOR PONCHOS AND BELTS 26 

XIII. WOMAN USING AN INDIAN LOOM 27 

XIV. SPANISH LOOM FOR WEAVING CASSIMERE OR TWEED .... 27 

XV. MAN WEAVING ON A SPANISH LOOM 27 

XVI. WOMAN WEARING TYPICAL COSTUME 30 

XVII. NECKLACES AND EARRINGS WORN BY WOMEN 30 

XVIII. THE BRACELETS or RED BEADS AND INNUMERABLE RINGS WORN 

BY WOMEN 3* 

XIX. FROM THE DAY OF BIRTH MATHILDE WAS WELL SWADDLED IN A 

WOMAN'S BELT 31 

XX- CHILDREN FROM EARJLY CHILDHOOD ARE DRESSED JUST LIKE 

ADULTS . . . . 50 

XXI. ORGENIO HUAMANG, "MAESTRO REZADOR" 51 

XXII. PICTURE OF HELLAS DEPICTED IN THE CHURCH or LA COMPANA 

IN QUITO : . . . . 86 

XXIII. FLUTISTS. SAN JUAN DAY, OTAVALO, JUNE, 1940 .... 87 

XXIV. CLOTH HELMET MASK WITH HORNS USED BY THE "DiABuro" . 108 
XXV. IN FRONT OF TOE LITTLE CHAPEL OF SAN JUAN 109 

XXVI. SAN JUAN CHAPEL AND PLAZA WITH BOOTHS. SAN JUAN DAY, 

JUNE, 1940 II0 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

XXVII. "CHICHERIA" OF Two STORIES ON DANCE PLAZA. OTAVALO, 

JUNE, 1940 no 

XXVIII. "THE USUAL DRUNKENNESS PREVAILS." SAN JUAN CELEBRA- 
TION, 1940 no 

XXIX. DANCERS DRESSED AS BLANCOS. OTAVALO, JUNE, 1940 . . . in 

XXX. FLUTIST WITH DANCERS. SAN JUAN DAY, OTAVALO, JUNE, 1940 in 

XXXI. "DIABLO" WITH MASK or THE PAINTED WIRE TYPE . . . . zn 

XXXII. A CONQUISTADOR DANCER TAKES A DRINK FROM A GOURD, 

CORPUS CRISTI IN VALLE DE LOS CHILLOS 1 16 

XXXIII. COLUMN DANCE BY CONQUISTADOR DANCERS, CORPUS CRISTI IN 
VALLE DE LOS CHILLOS 116 

XXXIV. COLUMN DANCE BY CONQUISTADORS, CORPUS CRISTI IN VALLE DE 

LOS CHILLOS 116 

XXXV. CIRCLE DANCE BY MASKED CONQUISTADORS AND MEN IMPER- 
SONATING WOMEN 1 17 

XXXVI. A WOODEN LION MASK FROM SAQUISILI . 117 

XXXVII. A CROSS NEAR THE TOWN or COTACACHI 117 

XXXVIII-XL. CHICKENS BEING OFFERED TO THE "HACBNDADO," OR PA- 
TRON 120 

FIGURES 

1. "PONDO" OR "CHICHA" JARS WITH CONICAL BASES . \ . . . . 16 

2. PARTS OF A LOOM 26 

3. T!LE HOUSE AND THATCHED HOUSE 183 

CHARTS 
I. GENEALOGY OF LEMA FAMILY 34 

IL GENEALOGY OF COTACACHI FAMILY 35 

III. GENEALOGY OF Ruis FAMILY 36 



CHAPTER I 
ECUADOR 

The population of Ecuador is about three million. Outside a few families 
in Quito very few, I am told it would be difficult to classify this popula- 
tion by race, except roughly, as is common. practice, as White, mestizo or 
half-breed, Indian, and Negro. Ever since the Spanish conquest there has 
been considerable miscegenation between White and Indian in the high- 
lands and for a long time on the coast between White and Negro. In the 
eastern forest there are few if any Whites, and on the coast except in the 
north there are no Indians. 

Between race and culture there is considerable confusion of thought in 
Ecuador, as elsewhere. A mestizo or Cholo 1 is thought of both as a half- 
breed and as a person of low economic status and cultural inferiority derived 
from Indian contacts. As the following highland study is concerned pri- 
marily with culture, not race, and as I consider the culture of mestizos or 
Cholos to be derived primarily' from Spanish peasant or village culture, I 
will refer to it as White, irrespective of the degree of miscegenation. I beg 
the Teader, particularly the Ecuadorian reader, to keep this distinction 
clearly in mind, realizing that White and Indian refer not to blood but to 
ways of life. Among our problems are to what degree Indian ways may have 
penetrated Spanish culture and to what degree Spanish ways have pene- 
trated Indian culture, and it is important not to predetermine the answers 
to these problems by terminology, however. conventional in Ecuador such 
terminology may be. 

The Indian tribes or states of what is now Ecuador constituted the far- 
thermost northern outpost of the Inca empire and were its final conquest. 
Begun in 1461, it was not achieved until 1487, when the large kingdom of 
Quito became a part of the Peruvian empire, together with several other 
independent states south and north, on the coast and in the mountains. 
North of Quito lay the states of Cayambi, Otavalo, and Ymbaya (Ibarra) 
or Caranqui. 2 Garcilasso describes "the province of Otavallu" as inhabited 

1 In early Spanish days the term was applied in Aymari-speaking Peru to a small and un- 
shapely br^ofdo&(RfIawesg^jKas^InJw,Il>62) and in Cnzco to the offspring 
of "mulattos" wfeo were themselves the offspring of an Indian* toad a Negro. According to 
Garcilasso (II, 503},' the term came from die Caribbean Islands aad meant dog. It was a term 
of contempt, as it is more or less today in Ecuador; one would not use the term in speaking to 
a mestizo. An ordinance for New Spain forbade calling even an Indian a dog or by any name 
but his own (Vasquez, p. 205). 

fl Means, pp. 146 ff. 



2 PEGUCHE 

by a more civilized and warlike people than the people to the south or 
north. 3 

Not very much is known about the culture of all these early peoples of 
the northern highlands of Ecuador. According to a highly controverted ac- 
count by a late Spanish chronicler, a people called Cara (AJ>. 700-1000) 
migrated from the northwest coast, first conquered Tusa (San Gabriel), 
Otavalo, and Cayambe, and, later, Quito. They were remarkable weavers 
of cotton and wool and skilful tanners. 4 There are two types of burials: 
mound (tola) and well, 5 the-mound type being immediately pre-Inca. Arche- 
ological research has not yet developed enough data for valid historical re- 
construction. A recent study of the physical type of a group of Otavalo In- 
dians is negative on relations between them and the Chibcha-speaking 
Cayapa, living on the tributaries of the Esmeraldas and "possibly to be re- 
garded as descendants of the ancient Cara." Comparison shows differences 
"so great as to indicate, at least, that the Cara blood has completely disap- 
peared either from the Cayapa or the Otavalo." 6 

After the Inca conquest of the northern provinces, the Caranques re- 
belled, assisted by unconquered northern allies, and killed the Inca officials 
and their garrison. With great slaughter the rebellion was put down, as 
had been a similar rebellion in the maritime provinces. Referring to the 
maritime provinces, Garcilasso states that, in accordance with established 
imperial policy, the Inca Huayna Cpac removed many of these people to 
other provinces and brought more quiet and peaceful tribes to take their 
place. 7 Such colonizing families, who were called mitimaes, repopulated 
devastated areas or founded new "towns"; they served to spread the 
Quechua language and the Inca culture in general. 8 Although it is not defi- 
nitely stated,* it seems quite probable that colonists were also transplanted 
to the highland Caranque region. 10 It is the more probable, since Caranques 
(also Cayambes in the valley to the south, and Quitus) were transplanted 
by the Inca conqueror to the islands of Lake Titicaca u inhabited by Que- 

Referring to Pasta and Caranque, "inhabited by a very barbarous tribe" (Garcilasso, II, 
. 

< However uncertain the early history of the Cara as given by Father Velasco, the authori- 
ties he quotes may be describing more or less accurately the pre-Incaic people. 

* Means, pp. 145 ff. * Garcilasso, II, 452. 

6 Gillen, p. 192. - * Garcilasso, I, 219, 233; II, 215. 

' Except by Geza de Leon, p. 258 (cited by Stirling). 

10 In physical type the Indians of Angachagua, living in a dosed valley about fifteen miles 
southeast of Ibarra, are quite distinct from the Indians near Otavalo. Their Quechua dialect 
differs (Gillen, pp. 174, 187, 192). Are they descendants of Peruvian colonists or of the pre- 
Incaic population? 

" Garcilasso, II, 340, n. I. Possibly the few copper tools found at Tjticaca, where other tools 
are bronze (Nordenskiold i : 100), were carried there by these Ecuadorian Highlanders who used 



ECUADOR 3 

chua- and by Aymar-speaking people. Turbulent Cayambes were trans- 
planted also to Cuzco, and in this case it is stated that colonists were sent 
to their land. 12 From internal evidence also, from the mass of Peruvian 
traits to be found today in the Imbabura Valley, the northern part of which 
was occupied by the Caranques, it would seem that some of the forebears of 
the valley's Indian population came from Peru. I venture the hypothesis 
because so many of the Peruvian traits occur in the domestic life, usually 
the most conservative part of culture, and because, in spite of unfavorable 
circumstances, the Quechua language was established. 

Inca administration insisted on bilingualism in conquered territory in the 
ruling class; but, in the northern provinces of Ecuador, Inca administration 
was short lived. It endured only seventy years, and troubled years at that. 
After the Spanish conquest in 1531 the Indians were no longer compelled 
or stimulated to learn Quechua, so that in many provinces, among them 
"provinces within the jurisdiction of Quito," the "general language" 
lapsed. 13 This general statement is supported by the first local chronicler 
of the "province" of Otavalo, Sancho de Paz Ponce de Leon, Corregidor 
and Justicia Mayor del Partido de Otavalo, who reports in 1582 that the 
Indians speak "many languages differing one from the other and from 
the language of the Inga, because almost every pueblo has its own Ian- 
guage." 1 * 

Language aside, the Spanish chroniclers of this early period observed or 
described near Quito or in the north few if any traits not Incan. Their ob- 
servations were not detailed and contribute little to the problem of Inca- 
Ecuador acculturation. To the problem of Spanish-Eucador acculturation 
they do contribute. 

By 1582 the Spanish encomienda system, nonhereditary grant of land 
and of tributary Indians, was well established in the northern highlands. 
Our Corregidor reports ten major encomiendas in his district or province of 
Otavalo to a population of 10,115 Indians or over, of whom 8,085 are tribu- 



copper, not bronze, tools before the Inca invasion. Imbabura groups present mote resemblance 
in physical type to Aymar than to Peruvian Quechua groups (Gillen, p. 191). A linguist 
should go on a hunt in the valley for Aymari words and, indeed, for traces of other languages 
also. 

"Salcamayhua, pp. 97, 98, 99. Ondegardo reports (p. 168) colonists sent to the Bracamo- 
ras (River), province of Quito. The village of Zambiza, ten miks northeast of Quito, peopled - 
by mltimaes from Pern and Bolivia (Verneau and Rivet, p. 21, cited by Stirling}. These Zam- 
bizos wear their hair long and weave belts. Their Quechua is very difficult for the people of 
Peguche to understand. 

*3 Garcilasso, II, 219-20. 



Same 

report for the Quito district, bat the "general language" is understood by all excepting the 
pasfuzos, whose language is difficult (Quito, 1573, p. 91). 



4 PEGUCHE 

tary. 15 The "pueblos" in the encomienda of Capitan Rodrigo de Salazar 16 
are Sarance (Otavalo), "which is the principal of them," San Pablo de la 
Laguna, Cotacachi, Tontaqui, Urcoqui, Las Salinas or Tumbabiro, and Inta 
(the last three warm and unhealthy). This population is enumerated as of 
3,100 Indians (old men and married men, indios viejosy casados), of whom 
2,360 are tributary. Within the encomienda of Diego Mendez de los Dios 
and the Crown lands lie the pueblos of Carangue (Ibarra) and San Antonio, 
with 500 tributary Indians and 100 nontributary. Unfortunately, no White 
persons are enumerated, excepting the religious. In each pueblo there is a 
church and in each an indoctrinating Franciscan friar. Besides the above 
pueblos, nineteen other pueblos are listed in the province of Otavalo, with a 
population of over 6,415. In each of these pueblos there is a church, and 
the Indians are indoctrinated by friar 17 or priest (sacerdote clfrigo). 

The Corregidor states that formerly this intelligent Indian population 
(indios de razonable entendimiento) was much larger, as may be seen from 
the distribution of the tillable fields. The population was diminished, he 
states, through the Inca conquest, through the Spanish conquest, and then 
through epidemics of measles, smallpox, and typhus (tabardete).** The Span- 
ish discovery and conquest was made in 1538 by the adelantado Benalcazar 
"they can't say at whose order because no Conquistador is now [1582] living 
whom one might ask." 19 

What does Corregidor and Magistrate Sancho de Paz mean by "pueblo" ? 
As there is a church in each "pueblo," he probably means some concentra- 
tion of population, fostered by the church even if it did not determine the 
location of the church. This concentration was formerly a political unit of 
a kind, for the Corregidor reports: 

The pueblos of all this corrcgimicnto formerly had in each pueblo or parcialidafi* 
its cacique who governed them tyranically, for whoever was most powerful and vali- 
ant him they held for senor and obeyed and respected and to him paid tribute; and 
the Indians had nothing more than the cacique wanted to leave them; since he was 
senor of all the Indians possessed and of their wives and sons and daughters and he 

x All "able-bodied" persons had to pay a tribute or head-tax, 

16 Salazar had assassinated treacherously in the name of the king his predecessor in the en- 
comienda, Pedro de Puelles. Salazar and Francisco Ruiz were accounted the two richest men of 
Ecuador. Salazar, a native of Toledo, was married to Dona Ana Palla, a very near kinswoman 
of .the Incas. By Dofia Ana, Salazar had one daughter, Dona Maria de Salazar. His only son 
(Another) became a Franciscan friar (Quito, 1 573, pp. 76, 80) . 

17 By Mercedarios in Lita, Quilca, Cabosqui, Tuza, Puntal, Guacan, Pu, Los Tulcanes; by 
a Dominican in Cayambe and Tabacundo; by a Franciscan in Malchingui and Perucho. 

18 Rtlad6n de Otaoalo, pp. 108-9. 

19 Ibid.y p. 107. 

* " Italics mine. Parddidad refers to a settlement more or less scattered. This term was 
used in the same way for Indian groups 'or settlements by the early Spanish chroniclers of 
Mexico. In Mexico the current term is barrio; in Guatemala, aldca. 



ECUADOR 5 

made use of all of them as if they were his slavesf!] excepting the Indian traders who 
did not serve their caciques like the others, they only paid a tribute of gold and 
manias and chaquira of white or red beads. 21 

The darker the Indian rule, the less dark the Spanish!" 

Modern Ecuador is divided into seventeen provinces, a governor to each, 
appointed by the president of the Republic. The governor in turn appoints 
ajefe politico for each canton or subdivision of the provincia and a comisario 
municipal for each town. Thtjefe politico appoints a teniente politico for 
each village. The Indians have no distinctive secular officials, and their 
chapel officials Indians are nominated for the most part by their parish 
priest. 23 

In this system the only formal provision for self-government, for either 
Whites or Indians, is through the national suffrage. The president of the 
Republic, two senators for each province, and a deputy for every thirty 
thousand inhabitants are voted for by. men and women over twenty-one; 
Indians as well as Whites may vote, if literate. A national election was held 
in 1940, and in the canton of Otavalo the popular candidate for the presi- 
dency was Jacinto Jijfin y Caamano, better known as an archeologist than 
as a politician. He seems to have been backed by the Church, for during the 
campaign Indians were told that unless they voted for him their land would 
be confiscated, the churches would be burned down, and the Franciscan 
friars would be married to the Sisters of Charity, which idea greatly diverted 
my somewhat incredulous Indian friends. This version of bolshevism may 
have been current quite generally, as I heard in Quito that for the time being 
the government was friendly toward the Church as a bulwark against "bol- 
shevism." 

In politics or in daily life the Church is close to the people of Ecuador, 
particularly to Indian folk, closer in Ecuador, as Saenz has well observed, 
than in Mexico. "The influence of the Church is more coherent and syste- 
matic Catholic ritual and Catholic concepts are clearer and more 

"Relacitn fa Qtasalo, p. in. In a reference to the springs of salt water on the outskirts of 
the pueblo of Mini it is stated that the Indian saltworkers the Indians alone like this salt^- 
are subject to a captain of Don Luis Ango, cacique of Otavalo and encomcndado of Rodrigo 
de Salazar (Quito, 1573, p. 63). Encomendero of an mcomcndaro, and was Cacique Don Luis 
White or Indian? 

Near Quito in the parcialida&s Indian caciques had captams who generally lived near their 
cacique. A crier (prtgmcro) calfcd out orders to bring in wood or for work of any kind, and the 
capifancs sent out their cackas y their messengers* By 1573, Indian officials had lost authority 
(because caciques were punished for killing or maltreating any subject), and Indian alcaldes 
ordinaries and alpuuiles had been enstated as juridical officers for minor matters. Major 
offenders were brought to the city (ibid., p. 96). 

" See, too, Quito, 1573, for a declaration that, although the tribute is larger than before the 
Spanish conquest, the Indians live in greater peace and security. Law and order for a subject 
people was not a British invention. 

* See p. 83. 



6 PEGUCHE 

deeply rooted," 24 Saenz suggests that these conditions are due to a lesser 
survival of aboriginal religion. (There are many survivals that Quitenos 
and rapid travelers are unaware of.) I would suggest, fast, that the early 
Spanish system of indoctrinating the Indians 35 has been more persistent in 
Ecuador than in Mexico and, second, that the Inca religious system was 
particularly close to the Catholic and that Catholic acculturation was easier 
in Ecuador than in Mexico. The Inca conquest in religion, as in govern- 
ment, facilitated the Spanish conquest, as Garcilasso de la Vega, a very 
early student of acculturation, pointed out. "It has been clearly shown by 
experience how much more prompt and ready the Indians who had been 
conquered, governed, and instructed by the Kings Yncas were to receive the 
gospel than the other neighboring people, to whom the teaching of the Yncas 
had not yet extended." 26 

At any rate, the signs of Catholic acculturation are less visible; the old 
stitches have become absorbed. Some of the stitches may have disappeared, 
to be sure, with some of the religious suppression that not even Ecuador 
has been free from. Religious processions are legally proscribed, although 
the law is not applied to Indians, as witness the little chapel processions of 
Indians constantly encountered on the roads leading to parish churches. 
There is a surprising dearth of hilltop or roadside shrines or crosses, although 
here, too, the law is not always enforced. In a suburb of Quito itself there 
stands conspicuously on the roadside near the public baths a shrine to El 
Senor de los Milagros, the Lord of Mirades, the healing Christ. The Orders 
have not been banished, as in Mexico, and even a sometime restriction 
against girls' entering a nunnery is not enforced; nor is clerical garb forbid- 
den in public places. However, manifestations of folk religion are general- 
ly lapsing. 

** Saenz, p. 76. 

** By cfdula or royal edict the cncomendcros, persons granted land and Indians, were ordered 
to have their Indians taught Christian doctrine (Roys, Scholes, and Adams, pp. 7-9). 

a Garcilasso, I, 61. 



CHAPTER II 
PEGUCHE 

Otavalo, the municipality of about ten thousand White people, which 
gives its name to the canton, lies 70 miles a little east by north from Quito. 
It lies at the head of a valley almost 2 miles long, which is flanked on the 
southeast by the volcano of Imbabura (14,884 feet) and on the northwest 
by the volcano of Cotocachi (16,301 feet). Otavalo itself is at 8,000 feet, 
1,000 feet lower than Quito and 1,000 feet higher than Ibarra, the provincial 
capital at the north end of the long valley. Imbabura Valley is fertile and 
copiously watered, lying below the Laguna de San Pablo, which receives 
the drainage off Imbabura Mountain. Here is the source of some of the 
streams which flow through northern Ecuador westerly to the Pacific. Just 
south of the lake is the divide for waters flowing into the Amazonian water- 
shed. In the first great valley across this divide lies the canton of Cayambe. 
We are to keep in mind that Cayambe is closer to the Oriente, to eastern 
and forest Ecuador, than is Otavalo. Between the canton of Otavalo and 
the canton of Cayambe the natural boundary is not formidable, but it is 
impressive. 

In the canton of Otavalo, besides the large municipality of Otavalo, there 
are many smaller White municipalities or incipient municipalities. All these, 
together with the Indian settlements, are covered by the parish system 1 that 
prevails throughout the country. In the early Spanish period, parish and . 
"pueblo" appear to have been coterminous, 8 but, when the municipio be- 
came the unit of government, parish boundaries ceased to correspond to 
secular boundaries. Whatever the Indian "pueblos" were in 1582,3 today 
in the canton there is no Indian "pueblo"; there are only farm settlements 
of Indians, 4 called parciatidades by Whites or Zlactas* by Indians, which lie 
on the margins of White municipalities or haciendas. 

1 See p. 81. 

* As were village and parish in early England, where, too, the village has disappeared and 
die parish has survived. Parish customs of early England are paralleled in many particulars 
with parish customs (White and Indian) in contemporary Ecuador. 

J Note this early reference to the distribution of population ia die Quito district: "The na- 
tives live scattered (apartados) one parcialidad from another. There are few pueblos properly 
populated" (Quito, 1573, p. 92). Note also that because of boundary trespass one parcialidad 
would fight another, even to wounding and killing (ibid. p. 96). 

Run* hinti (Sp. |*ft). 

> Under the Incaic decurion grouping of population this term (llacta) is appEed to one hun- 
dred households (Means, p. 292). The term as used in Peguche is indefinite: Karuttattama 
means "to a distant country/' /for* Itjana* Ututa is also translated as nacifa. Trifa is an 



8 PEGUCHE 

Hacienda lands lie In the most fertile or best-watered areas affording rich 
pasturage. The hacienda of Cusin, for example, covering the entire south- 
west end of the Lagutia de San Pablo, maintains many cows on its pasture 
land. Smaller haciendas, the hacienda of Peguche and the hacienda of San 
Vicente, lie between thtparcialiJaJofPegache and Otavalo. The hacendado 
of Peguche is also the owner of the hacienda of Quinchuqui, the parcialidad 
next to Peguche on the north. The hacendado lives permanently in Quito, 
and his properties have the run-down look characteristic of the absentee 
landlordism so common in the Republic. It is notorious that the Indians 
produce far more on their small holdings farmed for subsistence than is 
produced on the large estates where, under the price system, "fanning does 
not pay." 

Through Peguche and Quinchuqui there is an abundant flow of water; 
the stream called Rio Grande or, in Quechua, Jatunyacu ("Big Water"), 
one of the outlets of the large Laguna de San Pablo, 6 flows through the 
hacienda of Peguche, and there is a system of conduits through the parciali- 
dad of Peguche. But the Indians own only partial water rights in these con- 
duits. They may wash in them or use the water for drinking or cooking; 
they may not divert water to irrigate their fields. In time of drought, with 
water streaming past their failing crops, the best they can do is to pay a 
Mass in Otavalo for rainfall unless covertly they irrigate a little by hand. 
"SanMigueV'the cotton mill on the Rio Grande belowPeguche,fares better, 
its proprietor having acquired water rights from the hacienda above. Nor 
have Peguche folk any pasture land in the valley; they have some mountain 
pasturage as communal land (Sp. ejido, Q michinapamba). Firewood they 
buy from the hacienda. 7 

Most of the Peguche people own land a house site and a field next to the 
house. Some have an additional field or fields. Of 121 households, only 3 
households are "hacienda Indians," tenants working out their rent oh the 
hacienda. Economic independence is generally true of the Indians through- 
out the valley, who are more distinctively landowners than other mountain 
Indians in Ecuador. Somehow they have managed to retain old lands and 
have even bought back good hacienda land on Yanaurco, Black Mountain, 
the great hill just west of Otavalo. 

The tenants or peones of the hacienda of Peguche live on the hacienda 
land bordering the parcialidad^ but there is no wall or demarcation, nor are 
these peon households cut off in any way from the community life, and they 



unfamiliar term. Even the Indians around the Lake of San Pablo, only a few miles distant, 
are referred to as "other people." 

. *Yacucocha, "water lake." 

7 In early Peru, pastures, hunting lands, and forests were used in common, under' regulations 
(Ondegardo/p. 165). 



PEGUCHE 9 

may carry on handicrafts. Their thatched houses look poor, however, and 
people are said to work on the hacienda only because they are poor and 
landless. "They would prefer to have their own land," commented Rosita 
Lema; "it is a more tranquil life, a better life." A peon is allotted from two 
to four cuadras of land. He is paid five reales a day or a cow or bullock for 
the year. A milkmaid only .women milk the cows is given milk for her 
service. Hours are from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., with Saturday and Sun- 
day off. 8 

Hacienda proprietorship dates back to the eighteenth century, when the 
encomienda system was yielding to the system of hereditary proprietorship, 
although even by 1573 small cattle and horse ranches (estancias) were found- 
ed in the Imbabura Valley (Otavalo, Caranque). 9 But what of the tides to 
house sites in White towns or settlements? Perhaps these settlements grew 
up in some such way as a White settlement is forming today at Peguche. 
First a chapel, if not church and curacy, then house sites near churchyard 
or plaza or on a near-by highway are sold or mortgaged by Indians to Whites 
for chicheria or estanco, for the store and dwelling of a trader, for the work- 
shop and dwelling of a craftsman. Most of the White villages in the valley 
consist of a plaza duster and one long street of houses. Between White town 
or settlement and hacienda lands in some places it tends to be a tigjit squeeze 
for the Indians. 

Peguche and neighboring Quinchuqui are telling instances of this squeeze, 
both in water rights and in pasture if not in arable lands. Some of the In- 
dians lost land when the railroad went through about fifteen years ago. 
Alongside the railroad two house sites have been sold to White chicheria 
managers, and even earlier on the highroad a corner house site was sold to 
an estanquero, a White immigrant from Colombia. Below him in the road 
lives a White guitar-maker. In the schoolhouse next the chapel yard lives 
a White family; the schoolmaster boards with Whites. It is a safe bet that 
within a decade or so the highroad between Capello's corner and the steep 
hill descending between hacienda pastures to the cotton mill will become a 
typical one-street White settlement. 

Neighboring Quinchuqui displays a more advanced stage in White pene- 
tration than Peguche. Chapel and plaza are near the highway, which is 
lined with White houses and shops and with a few Indian houses, among 
them the house of Jos6 Cajas, the first Indian in this region to use a Spanish 
loom. 10 There are other weavers in Quinchuqui, but most men, both White 
and Indian, are felt hatmakers. The hbuse of one White hatmafcer in 
particular I found of interest, because here I bought the Indian belt loom 

1 See Appendix, p. 188, for a report on peonage from a school-taught Indian in die province 
of Pichincha. 

9 Quito, 1573, P- ?! * See p. 25. 



io PEGUCHE 

figures shown in Plates XI- XIII and could take a good look around. The 
man's wife, a White, was the weaver (PL XIII). In one of the two small 
rooms behind the porch she kept her guinea pigs like an india y but the rooms 
were littered up and filthy, unlike those of an india. And the woman took 
orders from her husband as no india does. 

Quinchuqui and Peguche are only edged by the highway. Back and up 
lies a self-contained settlement. Through the Peguche fields or along their 
margins runs a network of trails to which gullies off the highway give access. 
The entrance is practically hidden from the highway. Even on the side ex- 
posed to the railway there is little or no indication of the lines of commu- 
nication within, of the inner, self-sufficient life of the community. Whites, 
even the padres, are discouraged from taking short cuts through the set- 
tlement. "Too much water, too many savage dogs, too roundabout," they 
will be told. The Indians are very well aware of the independence that 
comes from privacy. 

Peguche lies about two miles north of Otavalo. No Indians except a few 
in domestic service live in Otavalo, but Indians from Peguche and all the 
surrounding farcialidades are constant visitors, coming in early in the morn- 
ing and returning home about the middle of the afternoon. At night no 
Indians are to be seen on the streets. The Indians are attracted by the daily 
market, especially by the great Saturday market or markets, perhaps the 
most outstanding in the country, by the shops and trade depots, by the 
church services, by the chicherias y and by the opportunities for casual little 
jobs in unloading or transporting, in roofipg or repair. They have also to 
pass through town to the cemetery and to transact all matters of law, crimi- 
nal or civil, in the town offices. Between Whites and Indians the conspicu- 
ous relationship is that of mutual economic convenience, together with a 
conventional demarcation of other interests. Rarely do Indians cross the 
charming flowery plaza or sit on its benches, and in the churches they keep 
to one side, except at their own very early hours or at special services. Rela- 
tions with the priest do not extend, except in connection with baptism, to 
even the most casual relations with the congregation. 11 In church and else- 
where the attitude of the Indians is not at all subservient; rather is it a 
matter of keeping in their place as a guaranty of independence. It is more 
indifferent and impersonal toward Whites than, shall I say, the American 
Negro, attitude; and the nearest comparable relationship I know of is, curi- 
ously enough, that between masters and European-born servants in large 
households of the northeastern Atlantic seaboard. 

Indian withdrawal excites the curiosity of White neighbors, who seem 

" Religious separatism was expressed in early Spanish days by having one priest administer 
the sacraments to the Indians, and another priest administer to the Whites (1580, Valladolid, 
etc., Stirling, pp. 35, 36). Separatism in general is mentioned in this report in describing the 
city of Loyola: "The Spaniards do not mix with them [the Indians]" (#&., p. 33). 



PEGUCHE n 

glad of a pretext to visit an Indian house and look around. Their staring 
and their questions are naturally objectionable. They get little informa- 
tion, and that little, if possible, is misleading. The pretext of telling me 
the car was waiting was used by all the girls in the hotel who, uninvited, 
would walk into Rosita's bedroom. "Are you sick?" asked Marfa. Receiv- 
ing no answer, she added, "Probably you are sick with the influenza." The 
baby was five days old and was tucked away with Rosita in bed, but Rosita 
did not show off the baby or mention her birth. 18 Another time a somewhat 
tipsy White, a stranger to me, followed me into the corridor, "Venga! 
[Come!]" said Rosita, but to his incoherent speech about being an educated 
man she paid no attention, and, after he left, the children began to giggle. 
We all giggled; he had made a fool of himself. "Chumado [drunk]," said 
Rosita calmly, a full and satisfactory explanation. 

In the canton of Otavalo land holdings less than 1,000 sucres 13 in value 
are not taxed, and so small are Peguche holdings that no Peguche people 
pay taxes. Like Indians elsewhere, however, they are called on for minga, 
communal work for state or Church, road work on the outskirts of Otavalo 14 
or church repairs. A church minga is arranged for informally by the padre; 15 
a government minga by the comisario municipal, who sends a messenger 
from house to house. 16 If the order is not obeyed, the messenger returns and 
confiscates some household property. 17 While I was in Otavalo, a town mn- 

" Probably this was merely Rosita's reaction to obtrusive manners, but I am not certain 
that she was not expressing an attitude comparable to that of the Forest peopk, who are very 
unwilling to show their infants to strangers from fear of bewitchment (Karsten 4:412). 

x * There were 13.70 sucres to the dollar in October, 1942. 

x Paving streets or repairing is done by paid labor, a large proportion Indian. 

** Sec p. 160, 

16 In Inca law, referred to as "the common law/' all men and women were obliged to work 
on public undertakingsbuilding temples and palaces, tilling royal grounds, making bridges, 
repairing roads. They took turns by families (Garcilasso, II, 33). According to Ondegardo, 
all the able-bodied people turned out "dressed in the best clothes, and singing" (p. 157). As 
today, there was no property tax, only participation In public works or in producing tribute. 
Failure to understand this system in the early days worked great hardship among landowning 
Indians, whose lands were confiscated on the ground that they belonged to the Inca, hence to 
the Spanish Crown, or whose lands were taxed directly (ibid. y pp. 157-58). 

A report made in 1580 about die natives of Valladolid in an inter-Andean valley of eastern 
Ecuador contains an interesting account of the agricultural work party among these warlike 
peopk who resisted the Inca and who did not have chiefs, only war leaders, one town raiding 
the next town for llamas, guinea pigs, and heads. "They work their land with plows {tar/fef, 
foot plows] and the richest ones have the best plantations because some 100 Indian men and 
Indian women are collected together to plow and they turn back die land to diem [the rich 
ones]. They work until midday and from then until midnight they drink and dance" (Stirling, 
P- 34)- 

z ? See p. 163. Indians participate in a minga because they are patriotic, an Otavaleno may 
tell you. The system of minga is not onerous, today at least and in this area, and it is preferable 
to a land or market tax; but that it is viable through "patriotism" is one of those many cloaks 
worn everywhere by "patriotism." 



ift PEGUCHE 

ga was held to level a short stretch of road leading into the highway to the 
north, and most of the able-bodied men and women of Peguche were called 
upon. They worked down the road in rows, several men and women to a 
row, talking and laughing a gay party. They brought their own imple- 
ments and their lunch; the municipality furnished drinks, as is customary 
for mingas** The work began after 10:00 A.M. and closed before late after- 
noon a short day, not more than five or six hours. Then the Indians went 
home. In the evening there was a procession by Otavalenos, and the brass 
band played at the newly opened road. Indians to work, Whites to cele- 
braterather different from communal work in parts of Mexico. 19 

The Otavalo church ming as I saw were smaller, a dozen Indian men or 
less, to repair a court or reconstruct the foundation of an altar. Here, too, 
there was a spirit of alacrity, 30 

Hacienda mingas are also held for agricultural work clearing land, plow- 
ing, and harvesting wheat or barley or in emergencies such as a freshet. 
I heard of no hacienda mingas close to Otavalo, but the large hacienda of 
Cusin holds mingas with San Rafael Indians." The Cusin superintendent 
told me that his headman would arrange for it through a head Indian, an 
Indian cabecitta. Any special employment of Indians was through a cabe- 
cilla.** The evening I spent at Cusin had a feudal flavor, as under a dim 

* Cf. Gardlasso, II, 109. 
Cf. Parsons 2:501-3. 

90 This too differs, but in another way, from a Mexican picture, an early Yucateco report 
from an unhappy priest. "One Monday, after saying mass for the souls, in front of the altar 
I said to the [Indian] governor, Francisco Pat: 'Son, I cannot say mass at this altar. It is nec- 
essary to raise it, and this wall also, so that the holy crucifix may be set up properly. Send me 
half a dozen Indians to fix it/ An old cacique named Juan Chan answered me: 'Be silent, 
Father. Do not order us about so much, or we will bind you and your interpreter and throw 
you in a canoe from the other side; because our master [encomendero] orders us not to obey you 
nor do what you command. He orders us to make haste with his tribute and attend to our 
milpas,' God knows how I felt. I went out from among them filled with pain, seeing that an 
Indian had treated me with insolence. I remained for two days without going out of my house" 
(Roys, Scholes, and Adams, pp. 25-26). 

' Montejo, the conqueror of Yucatan, lost no time in fixing "rules for the natives touching 
their services to the city" of Chichen Itza" (Landa, p. 22) . Tequio, or minga, was of Spanish as 
well as of Indian provenience. 

" There are only three or four Indian houses close to the hacienda, thatched houses high 
up on die mountain slope, south of the hacienda. The superintendent knew little or nothing 
about aay of the Indians of the district. His business was to provide Otavalo with milk and the 
military and others with horses. In his youth he had studied engineering in Troy, New York, 
and in that day, if not today, sociology was not part of the technological curriculum. His 
family lives in Quito absenteeism within absenteeism. 

* For "little heads" in Cayambe see the Appendix, p. 1 88. . , 

In Cayambe the mayordomo asks thtpatrtin for money to buy rum with which to invite the 
Indians to the minga on the appointed day. All who have committed themsebcs by accepting the 
rum report on thai day. At 9:00 A.M. they are given chicha and rum; for lunch, two pounds of 
boiled meat, a good plate of hominy, and a gourd of chicha. They rest an hour and.then.wovk 
until 5:00 P.M. ;.,,/ 



PEGUCHE 13 

lantern on the veranda the superintendent talked with his headman and 
that man's headman about the affairs of the day. At a still early hour I 
closed my window shutter there was no window glass and by the light of 
a candle went to bed to keep warm. 

The hacienda of Cusin is visited by Peguche folk to buy wool or animals, 
and the cattle market at Otavalo is a conspicuous meeting place of Whites 
and Indians. A few enterprising Peguche weavers and traders even go to 
Quito, by train or bus. But this adventuring is quite recent, and one gets 
the impression that the valley folk are not travdsome. The most enterpris- 
ing person in all Peguche, Rosita Lema, had never been across the valley 
to Cotocachi. 

About the world at large Rosita and others of Peguche have little or no 
knowledge. They have heard of the Oriente and of cannibalistic Jibarosf 3 
Colombia and Venezuela are known by name, but Mexico and North Ameri- 
ca are wholly unknown, and, curiously enough, Peru. Vaguely they refer 
to Inca fury, to the obsidian or potsherds they turn up in plowing as Inca 
money (plate de Inca) or Inca jars (olla de Inca), but no world before the 
advent of the Spaniards is conceived of, nor any part of the world today as 
unoccupied by Spaniards. That there were few if any Spaniards in parts of 
my "land" was indeed surprising information. Once I wa$ asked if the sun 
rose and set in my "land." 84 

Worldly wise as are Peguche folk in some ways, how should they know 
about the sun in the outer world? The Church has a reason for teaching 
them about heaven and hell but not about the sun, and until quite recently 
the state. has been indifferent to secular education for Indians. The little 
ungraded, one-room school at Peguche was opened by the canton only two 
years ago. In Otavalo the schools are open to Indians but are little used. 
In the school for girls, under the secretary of education, there was one In- 
dian girl out of the enrolment of seventy; in the boys' school of Diez de 
Agosto, out of an enrolment of a hundred and eighty pupils, there were 
fifteen Indian boys, all in the two lowest grades. In these schools there is 
no Quechujuspeaking teacher.* 5 

, * See p. 133,3.43- 
9 < Sec, too, p. 151. 

35 No Quechua grammar was to be had in Otavalo, where there is no bookstore, or in Ibarra, 
where there is one. The best-provided bookstore in Quito had no publications on Quechua, In 
the rural normal school in Chimborazo Province no Quechua is spoken. Quechua is being taught 
by the adopted Indian son of a Colombian immigrant to Peguche. This well-informed and 
charming young "professor*' had been a pupal at Diez de Agosto in Otavalo. He is married 
to a White woman of San Pablo. I enjoyed his acquaintance whik he was on vacation visiting 
his father. Perhaps the Otavalena schoolmistress ha4 him in mind when she said: "When an 
Indian learns Spanish well enough to teach, he separates himself from his own people, 90 tkere 
are no Indians to teach Indian children." 



CHAPTER III 
TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 

The economic life of Peguche is diversified but, from house to house, quite 
uniform. Every house is surrounded by tillable land which is cultivated 
close up to the house, leaving only a small yard on one side. On this side 
opens a small space half-inclosed by a low wall (PI. II) or a portico or corri- 
dor of lathe-turned posts set in stone blocks. The corridor of every house 
opens to the west, that is, the house turns its back on the east whence blow 
the strong winds of the dry season. 1 In the corridor (Sp.-Q. kordor) or walled 
inclosure most of the household activities are carried on, cooking excepted. 
Practically, people live out of doors during daylight. It is camp life. 

The houses are of two types: with thatched peaked roof and low walls 
of uncut stones set in mud or clay* or with high walls of pounded earth, the 
peaked roof tiled. Walls are made by throwing the earth at hand and some 
water into formwork or a crib of solid wood, the lower part buried in the 
ground and the upper projections lashed with wire. Men stand on top and 
tamp each fresh layer with a squared ten-foot wooden pestle, narrowing at 
both ends and fortified with, a metal band. 3 Tiles or thatch are laid over 
mountain bamboo. Plume or tampas grass (sigse) is used in thatching. 
Sometimes a few tiles are laid along the ridge of the thatch roof (PL III). 
The thatched house usually consists of two buildings, close together, a 
kitchen and a sleeping-room which is also the storeroom. The Hispanicized 
house consists of only one building, but it has only two rooms, a kitchen and 
a bedroom-storeroom which do not open onto each other but only onto the 
corridor. The actual construction varies, but the way of using both types 
of building is the same.* 

In both types the roof is peaked, but the thatched house is low and the 
walls of the tiled house are high, twenty feet or so. In neither type of house 
are there windows, but in the high-walled house there are ventilation or 
smoke holes, from four to six, in each of the kitchen walls except the wall 

1 Rcbci6n de Otaoalo, p. 108 (but cf. p. 115). 

9 An aboriginal way of building referred to in Peru as thepirka type. The roofs of even the 
great buildings of Peru were of thatch. 

Such concrete-like walls were made in early Peru (Means, p. 524), although Gardlasso 
reports that in Cuzco "mud walls" were not built, only mold-made, straw-mixed adobe walls. 

4 The early Peruvians never built an upper story, "nor did they join their buildings together 

but each one stood by itself. The rooms were divided and surrounded by large or small 

enclosures, so that they might not communicate with each other" (Gardlasso, II, no). 




YARD AND CORRIDOR OF AN INDIAN HOUSE 



PLATE III 




TlLES ALONG THE RlDGE OF THE THATCHED ROOF 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 15 

dividing it from the other room. These openings are halfway up and five 
or six inches square. 

At both ends of the sleeping-room there is a platform or loft (Sp. sobrado; 
Q. soberado}) reached by ladder, which serves as granary. There is no out- 
side granary. The loft, or half-loft, 5 is supported by one squared rafter, 
extending from side wall to side wall about eight feet from the end wall, 
and, tied under the rafter at right angles, by eight beams projecting from 
the end wall. Under these are tied, parallel with the rafter, the bamboos 
(Sp. carrizo; Q. sukus) which constitute the loft floor. Fiber ties, no nails. 6 

In Rosita's lofts the corn is piled by color in one loft a pile of the hard 
white corn called morocho and, at the other end, a pile of red ears; in the 
other loft, a pile of speckled or variegated ears. The piles are not stacked in 
any order. There are no religious emblems in the lofts. Seed corn, ears se- 
lected for size and color, are usually strung over a line from beam to beam. 

Ladders are roughly made, the rungs often missing or fortified by string. 
Even in town the ladders are poorly made. Carpentry is not an advanced 
craft, and metal tools are inadequate. I saw no notched ladders. On the 
outer wall of some houses an exceedingly flimsy, narrow ladder runs up 
to a little platform under the eaves for the chickens to roost on a make- 
shift for a tree roost (PL IV).* 

The kitchen hearth lies in a corner, diagonally, with fire stones, (tulpa 
rumt) actually in less confusion than they appear at first sight. Three stones 
are for the boiling or stew pot and two more for the grill for toasting, and 
between the two sets lies a stone which serves both sets. Fires are built in 
the characteristic Indian way at the tips of the sticks. Rosita describes her 
fires and the order of her hearthstones as meticulously as any White Ameri- 
can might describe her electric stove. 

In the house corner 8 in line with the hearth corner, and also placed diag- 
onally, stand the two chicha jars, huge pottery jars (Sp. pundo y pondo; Q. 
marma), their conical bases packed in straw and buried in the earthen floor. 9 
The pottery water jar stands in the corridor or yard, its base, also conical, 
supported on stones or in a tree crotch (Fig. i). Water jars and all pots 

* Cf. Gillen, Angochagua, Fig. I. 
6 Cf. Garcilasso, II, iio. 

7 Cf. Gillen, Angochagua, Pis. 20 and 21. 

8 The use of corners is notable, as house comers are mentioned as sacrosanct in early Peru. 
"They held these corners to be sacred, and treated them as oratories or sanctuaries" (Garci- 
lasso, 1, 1 08, 116), i.e., the house or family shrine was in a corner, and perhaps other shrines, 
for priests and witches entered "corners and secret places" to converse with the "devil," i.c,, 
spirits (ibid., p. 132; II, 192). A sick man may offer food to the dead and pour out cUcha in a 
corner of his house (Molina, p. 64). Cf. the Zapotec practice of calling a wandering soul by 
speaking into a water jar in the corners of the house (Parsons 2: 122). 

9 The equally large Jibaro jars for fermentation are sunk into the ground, more deeply than 
in Peguche, and covered with strips of bast (Karsten 4:350-31, PI. 7" 



16 PEGUCHE 

are carried on the back in the carrying cloth. A pot may be set in a basket, 
but there are no ring bases or stands for the pots. They may be stoppered 
with a bunch of leaves, no clay covers. Near the hearth lies a brush broom 



In another corner of the kitchen may be built, again diagonally against 
the walls, a high bedstead of bamboo, and under this in straw live the guinea 
pigs when they are not scurrying around the kitchen left free to them. 
Guinea pigs are not penned outdoors, since it is believed that they would 
die of exposure to cold. (White people in Quito, however, do raise them 




FIG. i.--Pondo or chicha jars with conical bases 

outdoors.) There are always fleas, said Rosita, in a house sheltering guinea 
pigs. 

Along the back wall of the kitchen extends a low table or bench, a plank 
supported at each end by a small boulder. The kitchen bed is an extra. 
The family sleeps in the other room on mats on the ground. 10 In a few fami- 
lies the parents use a bedstead ofcarrizo covered by a mat." Sometimes the 
posts of the bedstead are low and sometimes quite high. 

In the bedroom-storeroom the chest trunks of familiar Spanish type are 
.kept, and stores of all kinds are in the circular but square-cornered basket 
(Q. tasa) of plaited zuro (Sp. carrizo de monte), which is made in all sizes 
by male Indians of Quichinche. There is generally a bamboo table on high 

10 Ground mats were slept on in early Quito (Quito, 1573, p. 93). 

"The Spanish mattress was not acceptable in early Peru (Qarcilasso, II, 101). Adults, 
like infants, get adjusted to hard or soft beds. The rod mat-covered bedstead was used in 
Yucatan (Landa, p. 32) and i$ used today by Zapotecs. 



PLATE IV 




NARROW LADDER AND LITTLE PLATFORM UNDER THE EAVES; A 
MAKESHIFT FOR A TREE ROOST FOR CHICKENS 



PLATE V 




SHEEP ARE OFTEN PASTURED ALONG THE ROADSIDE BY LITTLE BOYS 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 17 

posts along one wall, but this does not serve, as in Zapotec houses, as an 
altar. There is no table below the holy pictures, which are fastened to a 
mat on the wall. When a saintly image from church or chapel is being en- 
tertained in a house, it is placed on a low table or support in the center of 
the room. There are no privately owned images a curious lack in the eyes 
of the Mexican ethnologist. 

Poles over which clothes, blankets, etc., are kid hang from the roof of the 
bedroom or corridor. A board as a shelf may hang next the kitchen wall. 
To the corridor posts tree crotches and cow horns are bound as pegs; and 
in corridor and kitchen short poles project from the wall to which a chicken, 
a piece of meat, or a basket may be hung. Through such a projecting stick 
in Rosita's corridor were stuck eggshells from a newly hatched brood, "so 
the chicks would not die." 

In Rosita's corridor there hangs also a large nest made roughly of bamboo 
and twigs for a pair of pigeons. Her chickens 1 * roost in one of the three 
trees 13 in the small yard, and by day, if they encroach upon grain spread 
on a mat, they will be tied by the leg to a stake. A young plant will be pro- 
tected by a pot with the base broken away. Water taken from the wooden 
batea* or trough, is set out in a potsherd for the chickens and pigeons, and 
sometimes an ear of corn is shelled out to them. 

Little pigs are also tied to a stake when they are not being taken out to 
pasture along the roadside. In the yard the kitchen refuse is fed to them: 
pea or bean pods, squash rind, potato peelings, corn chaff. After they grow 
up, pigs are fattened to a great size in a corral. Rosita's pig will be sold in 
the Otavab pig market. Peguche people keep only puercos de pastor, not 
puercos de corral. Pork is eaten in Peguche, but it is bought in the market. 
Pig dung is the best kind of manure. "That is the reason we keep pigs." 

Indian-owned sheep 1 * are often pastured also along the roadside, by little 
boys or girls (see PL V) and corraled at night. Sometimes a dog accompanies 
the flock. Stranger dogs may attack the flock. I saw a lamb bleeding from 
the throat after it had been bitten by a hacienda dog, according to the 
heartbroken little shepherd. Stranger dogs also break down maize stalks to 
eat the corn. I have seen Andrea bring in an armful of devastated stalks . 



"Cock," Sp.-Q. galloy "chicken," Sp. galKna, Q. atalpa. Garalasso reports that, when he 
and otfeer Cuzco boys heard a cock crow, they shouted "Atahualparinderiskmof thetreach- 
erous Inca. Hence fowl, "among the first things from Spain that were introduced into Pern," 
came to be caBed atahualpa (Garalasso, II, 476, 482-83). But see Nordenskiold 2: i ff. Nord- 
enskiold suggests that the Qnito-Inca was named for the. fowl in accordance with an Inca 
practice of giving bird names to chiefs. The Spanish fowl was introduced very early into South 
America, through trade reaching some tribes before the Spaniards themselves. 

*3Sp.kcforo;Q.pinguI. There are no fruit trees in Peguche. In general, frmt is imported 
into Otavalo from the lower and warmer end of the valley. 



x * Q.jama {flaina) an 
calling llama "sheep" (Garcilasso, ff, 377). 



i8 PEGUCHE 

Every Peguche household keeps one or more dogs as watchdogs or better, 
say, as announcers of unfamiliar visitors. 15 Alone of the domestic animals, 
dogs are named "like Christians." One of Rosita's dogs was called 
"Alparo/' for a president of the Republic; 16 another, "Tiver" (meaning un- 
known or withheld); 17 and another, "Recuerdo." Mementa, Sarjento, Ku- 
runil (Coronel), and Bravo are favorite names. 

A few bullocks and burros are owned at Peguche and kept under sheds 
near the house. Their fodder of cornstalks may be stacked slantwise against 
a center pole in the yard. A burro costs from 80 to 100 sucres. One well-to- 
do man pastures three burros in a meadow of the hacienda of Peguche at a 
sucre each a month. This pasture is not far from the man's house and much 
more convenient for him than the mountain land where he turns out two 
horses. All near-by pasturage is owned by the hacienda. All Indian plots 
are planted to crops. 

The plot (Q. a/pa or htiasipungo y "house gate") of one acre, more or less, 
is planted close up to house and yard (Pis. II-III), with several crops to- 
gether: maize, 18 beans, 19 quinoa, 30 and zambo, a bottle gourd which is 
cooked. 31 Beans (porotos)> as elsewhere, are trained up the cornstalks. Qui- 
noa is sown on the margins of the field, as are also a small white lupine-like 
bean called chochos (Q. taori)** and, here and there, a little "sugar cane" 
(Sp. cana; Q. sara [maize] viro)?* to be sucked. Potatoes, the important 
food staple of Ecuador as of Peru, are, of course, planted separately. 

November is the principal time of sowing. In this month are sown maize, 
beans, quinoa, gourds, wheat (Sp.-Q., trigo), and barley, which latter, on 
the small Indian holdings, is a more favored crop than wheat. Potatoes are 
seeded in July or August or according to locality at various other times. 24 

is Among Jibaro, the approach of raiders is made known by the dogs, posted for this pur- 
pose (Stirling, p. 54). For supernatural visitors see the Appendix, p. 213. 

16 Eby Alfaro, reputed to be of Indian descent and a liberal in Indian policy, although dur- 
ing his administration (1897) die so-called concertaje y or imprisonment for debt, was preserved 
(Saenz, pp. 138-39). See p. 188. 

" According to Anibal Bnttrao, of Otavalo, the name is derived from the Tiber River in 
Italy. It is frequently used for dogs by both Whites and Indians. 

18 White, yellow, blue, black, red, and speckled corn, hard corn (Sp. duro; Q. morocho). 

x "Twelve different lands." 

* Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) was sown with maize in Peru (Gardlasso, II, p. 5 and note) . 

n ?Fenxvxan zapallu (ibid., p. 360). 

39 Cf. ibid.i p. 358, tarn. Chochos are eaten throughout Ecuador in soup or mixed with chili 
(q'f) as a condimmt or whole and dry with salt after being steeped in water three days and 
nights to remove the bitterness. 

* The Peruvians extracted sugar from maize stalks before they ripened (#&, p. 357). 
Stalks of maize are still used in this way. 

" Near Quito potatoes were seeded in December to be harvested in Aprilr-May (Quito, 1573, 
p. 71). Wheat, barley, maize, and beans were planted and harvested at the same times as in 
Spain (#*/.}. 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 19 

A large potato field adjacent to Jos Lema's land was seeded in Febru- 
ary. 

Barley is the first crop to mature; the second is quinoa, both in March, 
and potatoes begin to appear in the market. The gourds ripen. In April a 
large flat bean (habas) and sweet corn 35 come in, and maize leaves (sara~ 
panga) are gathered for fodder. The small beans, of which there are many 
different colors, ripen in June, and at this time there is a second crop of 
quinoa. 26 The big harvest of maize (white, yellow, red, black, speckled) and 
morocho (duro^fuerte)^ a hard white maize (two varieties), is in August, 
and in August, too, wheat is harvested. 

Clearings are burned over but not house lots. Ashes are known to be a 
good fertilizer, but they dry up the beans. Next to pig dung, sheep dung is 
the preferred manure; 28 it is better than cattle dung. Fields are not left 
fallow, nor are grass crops grown to be plowed in. There is no irrigation. 
In drought a rain-sending saint 29 will be carried from house to house and 
alms begged to pay for a Mass. 30 A Mass will also be paid to a saint to check 
the rain or drizzle (lancha) which may rot crops, particularly beans and 
potatoes. Hail (Sp.granizadas) is good at planting time but bad when plants 
are young or maturing. It often falls in September and October. 

Men plow with a team of bullocks, and women follow to break up the 
clods. 31 Women do the sowing, and both men and women harvest the 
maize. 32 (In Cayambe in barley or wheat harvesting the women, wives and 
daughters, glean.) 33 

The plow is a pole about fifteen feet long with a metal plowshare; it is fas- 
tened in the usual way to the yoke. With her spadelike digging-stick, 3 * the 
sower first marks out the line to follow in sowing and then, retracting the line, 

digs the hole clusters spaced about two feet apart. C **" 

- - 

s Tierna, a large-kerneled white ear called choch, in distinction to mats and morocho. 
96 March quinoa = kinu a yura; June quinoa = chaucha Mnua. 

** In Inca Peru there were two classes of maize, hard (muruchu) and tender, which was the 
more prized. In Gardlasso's day only mtaruchu had been introduced into Spain (Gardlasso, 



* Llama dung was used in a part of Pern too cold for maize; but human manure was con- 
aidered the best. It was collected, dried, and pulverized for the time of sowing (Gardlasso, 
II, lo-n). 

Seep. 108. * See die Appendix, for prayer to the moon. 

* x As in Pern. The Peruvian foot plow was known in the sixteenth century in Quito (Quito, 
1573, P- 95). 

** In Inca Peru 'In the work of the field both men and women were engaged in helping one 
another" (Gardlasso, 1, 318). 

See the Appendix, p. 184. 

win Inca Peru the sowing was "done by making holes with thick stakes" (Gardlasso, 
H, 13)- 



20 PEGUCHE 

The five holes in each cluster are about .a span apart, from tip of little finger 
to tip of thumb, and the seeds dropped into them severally are: three ker- 
nels of maize, two poroto beans, two haba beans, and two pips of the sambo 
gourd. Each cluster is smoothed over with the foot, the feet alternated as the 
sower progresses. Quinoa is also sown but only at the margins of the field, 
and no hole is dug for this seed; it is merely sprinkled on the surface, for 
quinoa seed will rot if planted deep. 

The digging-stick (palura) 3 * is of eucalyptus wood, rough hewn and Home- 
made, the handle about 3$ feet, the paddle about 8 inches, thinning down 
from ij inches to a quarter of an inch around the curved tip (PL VI). 

^ e long-handled spade (shayyapala) has a paddle - 



of iron hafted in line with the handle, like the Mexican coa y or at a slight 
angle. The hafting is Spanish. 36 The hoe or mattock (Sp.-Q. asadung) used in 
cultivating or planting consists of a long-handled (4 feet) crotched stick with 
strip of iron bound to the tip (PI. VII). 37 For cutting maize, barley, or a 
quinoa a small sickle (Sp. hoz; Q. osis) is used, and for cutting wood or any- 
thing else a machete-like two-foot blade curved only at the tip is employed. 
Modern axes or small knives are scarce or lacking. 

Land holdings that are not bounded by some natural feature such as a 
qttcbrada (gully or ravine) are divided by low mounds of earth topped with 
maguey; in a few cases, by concrete walls and a gate; by trail, or by small 
boulders as boundary stones. 3 * As the plots or fields are not large at Pegu- 
che, the single household seems able to undertake all the agricultural work, 
in some cases no doubt with help from kindred. But no general work party, 
coimte or minga, is organized, as, for example, in Cayambe, 39 

As individual ownership in land prevails, any landowner may sell land 
to anyone, to White as well as to Indian, and there seems to be no local pres- 
sure or sanction against selling to White people. Small house sites along the 
railroad and on the highway have been sold to Whites. The White guitar- 
maker on the road also owns a plot behind his house which he has fenced 
off, by the way, with barbed wire, an innovation in Peguche.* When I 

In Cayambe, pahttdra^ and the tip is described as coming to a sharper print. The term 
is not Qocchna. Possibly it is derived from Spanish, polo duro, "hard wood," originally refer- 
nitaA^tbehaidl^wo(ri Jibarouseadfotepok for digging-stick 

in sowing maize, and this: may have been formerly the Imbabora digging-stick. 

*Uhfc figures such a hoc in copper from Cochasquf (Pichincha) (Kutor und Industrie 
smdammkamscher V&ktr (Berlin, 1889}, VoL I, PL 24, Fig. i). This is cited and figured by 
Illustration that a newly borrowed form may be copied in an old 



* As in Pern (Gardlasso, 1, 190). See the Appendix, p. 186. 

/"Afipamit^m limitation, bone lot the Indian ownera hare draped some cut blackberry 
brarearoondthecorastalks ^^ . : 7 



PLATE VI 




THE DIGGING-STICK Is MADE OF EUCALYPTUS WOOD 



PLATE VII 




USING THE HOE OR MATTOCK 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE ai 

asked Rosita if she could or would sell their land to a Blanco, she answered 
that she could but that she would not; she and Jos6 wanted to leave it to the 
children. It is probably safe to say it is the family tie that holds the lands 
of the parcialidad together rather than any sense of local solidarity. At 
Cayambe accumulating land is condemned as a form of miserliness. 41 

Peguche cookery is simple: boiling (stewing included) and toasting are 
the two processes; 42 gruels of maize (morocho), barley, or quinoa/* boiled 
beans, 44 maize, squash (zambos and zapallos) t and potatoes, and toasted or 
roast sweet maize are staple foods. Extras are cauliflower, cabbage, onions, 
and carrots, all boiled, and chili ground on an eight-inch-high stone mortar. 

*j |. Only a few wild plants are used: watercress 45 from the rivulets 

and the leaves from a "wild turnip." Garlic is cooked with meat. (It is good 
to keep a bit of garlic in the purse as a safeguard against loss.) Only a few 
families can afford meat, which is generally in a stew, cooked only once a 
week 46 but lasting over a few days, when barley or quinoa broth becomes 
the main dish. Stewed guinea pig 47 and chicken are only festive dishes. 
Boda (hula), in Spanish mazamorra,** is the staple festival dish. It consists 
of meal of maize parched first and then ground, 49 cooked in lamb broth, and 

x See the Appendix, p. 187. 

* As in early Peru (Gardlasso, II, 157, 359)- h pk of bread, maize was toasted or boikd 
in the grain. 

Quinoa has to be washed wdl to get out its bitter taste. The wash water is mixed with 
penco bianco (maguey) to wash cotton or woolen clothes (Cayambe). 

44 Cayambe: Beans are cooked with onion, lard, and salt. In some families (20 per cent!) 
the water in which beans, lentils, have been cooked is thrown away because, they say, jt causes 
menstrual flow; it is even dangerous for a woman to pass by in the street where this Kqtud has 
been dirown, her monthly will be excessive and sickening. (Because of this unscientific belief, 
adds Segundo Fe% Maldonado, people throw away the nourishment, the substances they 
need, and serve themselves the palp. Knowledge of vitamins spreads.) 

4sCf. Garcilasso,!!, H9- 

4* In distinction to Whites, who soot said to eat meat and potatoes every day. 

"Cayainhe: Roast guinea pig. They remove hair and viscera; inside they put salt ground 
with pepper, cumin seed, garlic, onion, and color ( \acHtft) and let it salt for a day. They run 
a long thin stick through die length of the body, tying the paws to the stick. They hold it 
dose to the fire of glowing charcoal, robbing pork lard over it and pricking it with an awl, 
that the heat and lard may. penetrate, until it is well browned. 

'TtyKVxrtiLmedianaotajldeeuy: to n^t guinea pigs and roast chicken are added pota- 
tc>esccokedafterpe*lin&cu^ 
and peanuts &asfed with" salt and ground. In the platter or Atftethere is also cheese. 

The hair of guinea pigs and chicken feathers are dirown into die street, they say, in order 
that guinea pigs and chickens may increase. 

4 According to diciiooafy, "crumbs," "small bits"; a sort of com pap, much used in Peru 
and Colombia. 

* Barky is also parched before grinding. . 



22 PEGUCHE 

colored with achiote. Hominy (mote)& or maize kernels boiled with lime to 
remove the skin is a supplementary dish. Bread from the town bakeries is 
quite generally served; there is no home baking, since there is no oven. 51 The 
corn bran (shushushkahupa) is steamed in a potsherd on top of the boiling 
pot. To remove the bran, 52 the meal is winnowed in a bowl and then sifted 
by rubbing it over a round sieve of horsehair and a black wooden frame 
called sedasu. The fine meal is called haku. The Mexican maize tortilla is 
unknown, and the lack of this standard dish greatly differentiates Ecuadori- 
an Indian cooking, food-serving, and housework from the cookery and do- 
mestic activity of Mexico. Fingers or spoons take the place of the tortilla 
dipper, and there is far less grinding. 53 Meal has to be ground regularly only 
for the light maize gruel which is the staple drink at meals, like Mexican 
at ok. Coffee and milk are not drunk. 

There are four mills in Otavalo, but they are not used by Indians, nor 
do they use the little hand mills (coffee-grinders) they see used by Cholo 
neighbors. The metates and grinding-stones of Peguche are cut by a White 
from a quarry in the hacienda quebrada. Rosita's metate is kept in the cor- 
ridor carefully covered with a cloth when not in use. It is a footless oblong 
block, eighteen by ten inches, about a foot high, with a narrow rim on three 
sides. The grinding-stone is a rounded oblong, not the "half-moon" of the 
early Peruvians. But Garcilasso's description of grinding will do for a Pegu- 
che grinder: "From time to time she collects what she is grinding into the 
middle of the tile [metate] with one hand to regrind it, while with the other 
she holds the stone." 54 The large round grill (Sp. tiesto; Q. kajdna) is of clay 
or metal. (The Mexican coma! is unfamiliar.) There are long-handled wood- 
en stirring spoons or ladles, a day caldron (Sp. caldera; Q. manga), a 
wooden troughlike batea (the kitchen sink), gourd cups, and gourd food 
bowls. These gourd bowls are often decorated with incised designs, 55 the 
only attempt at decorative art outside of weaving and embroidery that I 
saw in the valley. 

There are only two regular meals, one at a late morning hour and another 
before dark; but early, after rising, there may be a bite heated up from sup- 

**Moti. (Gardlasso, II, 357). Mutt maize boiled for hours (Karsten); rebelling, says 
Gardlasso (II, 119). 

* z None in early Pent; bread was cooked in a dry pot (ibid., p. 229). 
**4freeho. This term is obsolete in Peru (#*, p. 356, n. i). 

The same condition prevailed inlncaPera, where, as today in our valley, boiled or toasted 
maize was generally eaten, instead of homemade com bread, which was a ritual food (*&., 
PP- 355-5$). 

"/&/., p. 356. 

The designs are very similar to the spirit designs painted on Jibaro house doors (Karsten 
4: PI. XVII, see, too. Fig. 9) and on eating and drinking vessels (/&., p. 492) against spirit 
attack. The cross design on the Imbabura gourds suggests that here, too, spirit attack is, or 
once was, guarded against. For the Brazilian concept of danger from food see Wagley i: 258. 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 23 

per 56 or a bit of toasted corn (Sp. tostado; Q. kancha}^ and in the afternoon 
a lunch of toasted corn, "very good for the stomach," popcorn, chochos 
(the lupine bean), sometimes goat cheese, may be in order, with hot choco- 
late cooked in water as a treat. It is proper at any hour of the day to offer a 
visitor refreshment, so gruels or boiled beans are generally kept on hand. 
For such hospitality the woman of the household is responsible, since wom- 
en are the custodians of the food supply. For meals, seated on box or maguey 
chunk or mat, 5 * the household members gather around the woman who dis- 
tributes the food. Even on the road a woman will carry the food and dis- 
tribute it to the man or men with her. On the other hand, men distribute 
the drinks. 

Asua (Q.), fermented maize, referred to as chicha or in English as "corn 
beer," is the staple drink. It is home brewed only for the San Juan festival; 
at other times it is bought in the White drink yards called chicherias, either 
for home consumption or, more generally, to be drunk on the spot. Chicha 
is cheap: one red the liter. At festivals two bowlfuls of boda are served 
free with each liter. The house of feasting is generally referred to as boda 
wasi y "boda house." 

Sugar may be put into chicha to make it strong. The home-brewed San 
Juan chicha is made from sprouted maize (jora). 89 The kernels (Q. kiki), 
of very tender maize, are laid in the yard, watered, and covered with the 
leaves of hurapanga, a tall shrub with small white flower umbels. The ker- 
nels are watered thrice a day for three days, when they sprout. The inch- 
long sprouts are left three weeks to dry in the sun. Then three basketfuls 
are ground. The jora meal is cooked (soaked?) with water in a very large 
metal caldron. This liquid is then put into the huge clay jars called 
pundo inside the house and left with a cloth over the top and sealed 

56 Cayambe: In some Hispanldzed families there is an early cooked breakfast. Rarely at a 
meal is there more than one dish, which is either salt or sweet. "Because food is eaten as nature 
produces it without combinations of any land the stomach makes no acids, so people almost 
never wash the stomach, nor do they wash the mouth which stays sweet, and many nave white 
teeth." 

This distinction between salt meal (comida fa sal) and sweet meal seems fundamental. The 
salt meal consists of riced barley or of a colada of maize flour, to which chopped onion, lard, 
raisins, and meat may be added, and then salt. The sweet meal (of what?) they prepare with 
ckafaarmiskqui (maguey juice, unfennented) or, lacking this, -mthpanela (brown sugar), which 
is also used at wakes, in Holy Week, and at Finados (All Souls). 

57 But Garcilasso (II, 357) says it should be pronounced camcJia. 

* 8 There are tables in a few Peguche houses, but they are used only to serve meals to White 
guests. The mats (totora) are made by men and women of San Rafael from die reeds of the 
Lake of San Pablo. A mat costs from one to one and a half reals according to size. 

Cf. Garcilasso, II, 357. "Some Indians who are more fond of inebriety than their fellows 
steep the mai2e until it sprouts, and then mash it in the same water, and keep it until it fer- 
ments. This produces a very strong liquor which intoxicates at once The Yncas prohib- 
ited its use but since their time I am told that some vicious men have begun to use it." 



by string around the neck. It ferments for three days. 60 All this is done 
by women. 

The chicheria is a large walled yard and kitchen kept by Cholos and used 
exclusively by Indians. 61 There are several chicherias on all the roads lead- 
ing out of Otavalo; in Peguche there are two side by side on the railroad. 
These are patronized every afternoon. The town chicherias are patronized 
every Saturday and Sunday, on saints' days, and in connection with family 
rituals: baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The party will stop at the chi- 
cheria on their way home. The liquor is served warm, in a large bowl with 
a small gourd floating on top from which the purchaser, the family senior 
or host, will distribute the liquor to his group, men and women. 63 Chicherias y 
as well as estancos, where rum is sold, are state licensed and taxed, in Otavalo 
1 8 sucres a month. The excise duties of Ecuador form a large part of the 
government revenue, 63 and the bulk of this is contributed by Indians who 
pay indirectly before drinking and directly in fines after drinking. 6 * 

There are several potters in Peguche, most of them living on the south 
side opposite the great hill called Cotama, from which their clay is fetched 
by a man in the family. The pebbly, sandy clay, placed on a mat in the 

yard, is beaten with aflat wooden flail ^xZlIX & ground on the mat 
with a large unworked boulder, naturally rounded or convex on one side 
so that it can be readily rolled from side to side. It is heavy work. Thor- 
oughly .broken up, the clay is sifted onto another mat through a sieve of 
punctured sheepskin, homemade if not aboriginal. It comes out very fine, 
ready to be wetted and rolled into balls for use no special tempering is 
needed, as inferably there is enough sand in the clay. 

The potter kneels to a flat unworked stone, takes a small handful from 
one of the mud balls, kneads it into a cube, presses her index finger into the 

* Csyambe: The maize germinates for eight days; then they stack it up for two or three 
days, blanketing it well with sacking. Then thejVa is brought into the sun to dry out. They 
grind it by hand or at the mill. They soak the meal in a portdo, thirty liters of water to an 
arroba. The next day they pass it through a sieve to separate die mash from the liquid. They 
cook the liquid well, let it cool a bit, and filter it through a woolen cloth (bayeta) placed on the 
mouth ofdvepondo and well tied on. The kind of mazamorra that remains unfiltered on top 
of the doth is called concho; the liquid that has filtered through is the chicha proper, which 
will now ferment. 

61 See Saenz, p. 86, for a good picture of the chicheria, which he defines as a cross between 
Mexican/<Mft&, "hostelry," and canting "bar." It is this and something more. See pp. 99-103 , 
105, 182. 

69 For further particulars see pp. 57-58. 
s Saenz, pp. 87-88. 

See p. 124. Cf. Central America (Bunzel, pp. 362-63). Fines were worked off on the plan- 
tations, so drunkenness was encouraged. "Take aguardiente away from the Indian and what 
will become of coffee?'* said a Guatemala coffee-planter. "Until very recently," remarks Dr. 
Bunzel, "the alcoholism of the Indians was an essential part of the whole economic structure 
of Latin-American countries." 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 25 

middle, and from this perforation presses the clay into the conical base* 3 of 
the water jar she is to make \l . From a bowl of water beside her she 

takes one of several little strips of soaking cowhide to smooth with. Now 
she makes a long roll or cylinder of mud and adds it around the top (anti- 
sun wise all the motions of coiling and smoothing are antisunwise). This 
is pressed into shape with the right hand as the jar form is turned against 
the left palm held on the outside. Then the smoother is applied until the 
wall is thin enough, as the jar is revolved, the left hand held inside for the 
smoother to be pressed against. Now large leaves (hoja de lechero) are laid 
along the rim, the form is put away with others to dry overnight, and the 
potter turns to add a second coil to those that had dried the night before. 
She picks off the leaves and proceeds as before. For water jars there are 
eight coils, and the coiling and drying-out require eight nights and a day in 
the sun (PI. VIII) before the jars are ready for firing. 66 (For pottery shapes 
see Pis. IX-X.) 

The fire is made of dung and straw, the pots being protected by pot- 
sherds badly burned or broken pots. Straw is piled on top, up to three 
feet for large jars, and the mass is left to smolder for several hours. The 
dun-colored clay comes out red-brown and often black spotted from un- 
skilful firing. 

Pottery-making is a hereditary craft in certain families. The fourteen- 
year-old girl in one house we visited was pounding clay as we arrived; then 
she ground it. Her mother was coiling, but the young girl, too, knew how 
to coil, for she knew all the processes, having been taught by her mother 
just as her mother had been taught by hers. 

The upper end of Imbabura Valley is an outstanding center for weaving. 
Ilumn, the pardalidad north of Quinchuqui and Peguche, has the most 
looms, but there are many looms also in the latter settlements, both Indian 
and Spanish looms, the Indian loom (Pis. XI-XIII) for ponchos and belts 
(no belt-weaving at Peguche) and the Spanish loom (Pis. XIV-XV) for 
cassimere (Sp. casimir) or tweed. About forty years ago the Spanish loom 
began to be taken over by the Indians. Jos6 Cajas of Quinchuqui is said to 
have been the first to use it, at the suggestion of a gentleman 67 of Quito. 

s The conical base is paralleled in the aryballus vessels of Peru and in some jars of early 
Ecuador (Means, Figs. 101-3). Among Jibaro, medicine men make conical jars in which to 
bring the shrunken heads up to boiling. The large jar is propped on stones (Stirling, p. 70, 
citing observation made in 1899). In Cusin Hacienda' I observed a large green glazed Spanish 
jar set to catch water percolated through a porous slab. The base was conical and passed 
through a circular hole in a wooden slab. 

66 Cf. Jibaro pottery-making (Karsten 4: 100), which is quite similar. 

<? F. A. Uribe. Senor Uribe is the son-in-law of the hacendada of Cusin. He told me that at 
his marriage in 1917 his prospective mother-in-law had presented him with a poncho beautiful- 
ly woven by Jos6 Cajas, and it occurred to him to set up Jos6 Cajas with a Spanish loom, supply 
samples of casimir to be copied, and afford the weaver a Quito market. 



26 PEGUCHE 

Jose died in 1936, but he had taught his son Jos6, who lives in the family 
homestead on the highway. When I visited Don Jose, as he is surprisingly 
entitled by his White neighbors, he told me that his son Antonio, whom he in 
turn had taught to weave casimir, was away at Cristobal in Colombia to be 
gone one year to give instruction in weaving. This family is related to the 
Ruises of Peguche; the sister of Jos Cajas, Josefa (see Chart III, No. 4), 




FIG. 2. Parts of a loom: a, a, posts; b, warp bar; V, cloth bar; c> c\ upper and lower 
shed sticks; </, heddle with harness; e, batten;/, shuttle; j-, back strap. 

married Jos6 Ruis, and three of her sons are weavers, using the Spanish 
spinning-wheel but not the Spanish loom. Her grandson Alexandra uses 
both Indian and Spanish looms. Antonio Cajas married into Peguche over 
fifteen years ago, 68 and it seems probable that it was he who introduced there 
the Spanish loom (see Fig. 2). 

The Indian spindle is about fourteen inches long, slender, made of cane, 
with a small wooden whorl. It is turned in a horizontal or slanting position 

" See p. 25, n. 67. 



PLATE VIII 



> - * , 






* \ ^' ' J .. 
WATER JARS DRYING IN THE SUN 




PLATE IX 




jpjF" *im f 

^^ <P .^f -S: 




POTTERY SHAPES 



PLATE X 




POTTERY SHAPES 



PLATE XI 




INDIAN LOOM FOR PONCHOS AND BELTS 



The weaver has finished about half the poncho, the completed cloth being rolled around the 
cloth bar and its twin stick, which is added to prevent slipping and unwinding. The great thick- 
ness of the warp bar obviates the necessity of a shed stick to separate the warps at that end. 
The man weaving on the narrow belt loom is about to insert the batten, preparatory to plac- 
the round shed stick which he holds in his left hand. The warp chain of the belt loom, with 



ing 



most primitive weavers, is differently wound from the cloth loom, the latter being wound in a fig- 
ure 8 between the bars, the former in an O around them. The weaving of the belt is done only 
upon the upper set of warps, and, as work progresses, the finished belt is pulled downward over 
the cloth bar and moves upward upon the lower level. 



PLATE XII 




INDIAN LOOM FOR PONCHOS AND BELTS 

The poncho- weaver sits on the ground, on a low bundle of cloth, with his legs outstretched. 
He straightens out the warp with a short pointed stick (pick) and uses a stick measure on the 
warp to keep it of uniform width. 



PLATE XIII 




prevent tangling 



PLATE XIV 




SPANISH LOOM FOR WEAVING CASSIMERE OR TWEED 



PLATE XV 




MAN WEAVING ON A SPANISH LOOM 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 27 

with the right hand, the wool (milma) or yarn fed from a distaff 69 or ball 
of roughly spun wool in the left hand. 70 Women take their spindles along 
with them, just as our ladies take their knitting, and they often spin or twist 
while walking on the road 71 or sitting on a street curb or in the market. 

At home women may help in winding, but all the actual weaving is done 
by men, 72 for poncho, belt, and cassimere. At San Rafael, it is reported, 
women weave their skirts. 

With the Spanish loom came the Spanish spinning-wheel (Sp.-Q. tornd) 
and spindle (Q. puchavende), each set on a post fixed in the ground, the post 
for the wheel being about 3$ feet; for the spindle, about 2j feet. The lathe 
is about three inches wide. The spindle of black, hard chonta wood (Q. 
KJ0) 74 is about twenty inches long, polished and brought to a fine point to 
which the wool or yarn is fed just as it comes from the carders or winding- 
frame. The wheel is turned by another person by hand, sunwise. Men rather 
than women work this mechanism, whereas women use only the Indian 
spindle. 

The woman's fiber-wool belt is woven on the Indian loom by men: the 
woof is agave (cdbuya) fiber; 75 the warp, of wool dyed red. 

The oven (Sp. hornillo) used in felt hatmaking is a cube of clay-chinked 
plastered stones, about three feet deep, high, and wide, with an opening 
on the top for the grill and an opening at the base for the ash. The grill is 



of bronze. 



Under their enveloping poncho (Q. ruana)* Peguche and other valley 

*' Cf. tree crotch used as fixed distaff at Angochagua (Gillen, PL 20). 

7 Cf. Garcilasso, 1, 319. Spindle of cane, a knob at the end. The distaff is carried in the left 
hand "and not at the girdle, holding it with the two smaller fingers, and taking hold with 
both hands to thin off die thread, and get rid of anything sticking to it." 

71 "The Indian women were so fond of work, and such enemies to wasting even the shortest 
space of time, that even in going from the villages to the city, or in passing from one house to 
another on necessary business they took with diem the means both of spinning and twisting. 
On the road they went along twisting what they had already spun, as being more easy; and 
on their visits they took with them die distaff, and spun while they conversed" (ibid.}. 

73 Ibid.> II, 1 8. In Inca some of the coarser weaving was done by women also, but all the 
fine cloth was woven by men "because they worked standing," as in Mexico, but w/in Ecuador. 

By 1580 the spinning-wheel was introduced into the region of Santa Maria de las Nieves 
(near the Maranon) by the encomenderos> in order to pay their Indian gold-washers in cotton 
cloth (Stirling, pp. 35-36). 

7 Jibaro use a spindle of chonta wood. Their wheel is a stone disk or of chonta wood (Kar- 
sten 4:97). 

Cf. agave-weaving in Peru (Garcilasso, 1, 57-58; II, 367) ; also the Zapotec woman's fiber 
belt (Parsons 2 138). 

76 Mountain people (gentc de cerro) call a poncho kapisay& or, near Cotocachi in the moun- 
tains, yirgit&ng. 



28 PEGUCHE- 

Indians wear a white cotton shirt 77 and cotton pants pantaloons reaching 
between calf and ankle. The homemade pantaloons have an opening on the 
right or left side, but no front flap. The shirt is gathered over the pantaloons 
by a broad, pink woolen belt, falling about eight inches below. For the most 
part men wear a soft felt hat with narrow brim what we call a "fedora" 
and agave fiber sandals with cotton heel and toe straps with a colored string 
tied around the ankle or, on festive occasions, instep-covered sandals. 

Women generally go barefoot. Over a headcloth, a rebozo y of white cotton 
or of blue or magenta wool, Peguche women wear a huge-brimmed, brown, 
sometimes white, felt hat, 78 heavy and as stiff as a board, almost as uncom- 
fortable and as useless a conformity with fashion as, say, high heels in other 
circles. 

Headgear varies somewhat with locality, women's more than men's, brim 
and crown of felt hat being of different sizes, and women wear the rebozo in 
different ways, the two front corners tied behind at the nape of the neck 
and hanging to the waist (Peguche), or falling in straight folds (San Antonio, 
near Ibarra), or tucked around the head into a kind of visored cap (San 
Rafael), without a hat. 79 The rebozo is of wool, red or blue wool carded on 
one side, or, if visored, of cotton. 

Women wear their hair in two side braids that are braided into a single 
back braid doubled up and bound with a belt or ribbon. A little lock kept 
cut to about two inches lies down the temple. Men's braids, three or five, 
are carried over the top of the head into the back braid, which is left hang- 
ing. 80 Viewed from the back, the braids form a cross. "Why do men wear 
their hair long?" I once asked Rosita. "Because we are Indians." 81 An- 
other time I asked why our short-haired Indian visitor wore his hair short. 
"Because it is customary in his country [Riobamba]." Short hair is also 
customary in the Cayambe Valley and in several parciatidades of Imbabura 
at San Rafael, near Cotacachi, etc., but "up to Arcos they do not- cut 
the hair." 

" Formerly, at Cayambe the shirt was made like a poncho: two varas of cotton (ttenzo) 
were folded in the middle with an opening cut for the head, and at the sides openings left un- 
sewn for the arms. The rest was sewn. This garment was called guashmi. 

* Sp. sombrero; Q. somkro. The woman's hat is referred to as somtro yura or somlro kijo 
(dark brown but translated as amarillo y "yellow"). Some men wear this hard, broad-brimmed 
felt which was in vogue before the soft felt. 

This mode, called tarzan, approximates the head covering described by Cobo. 

* See p. 157- 

81 "And for various reasons prize our hair," Rosita might have added (see the Appendix, 
p. 205, and cf. Jibaro practice). The men wear their hair in three braids. The hair is full of magic 
power, particularly when arranged in braids. A man would never omit, before leaving his 
house, braiding his hair; without braids he is not a real man, and loose hair subjects him to 
witchcraft (Karsten 4:88, 107, 426). 

The Spaniards in Ecuador soon learned that cutting an Indian's hair was a punishment 
"next to death" (Appendix^. 208), perhaps because it actually subjected him to death. 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 29 

Over a coarse cotton chemise (Sp.-Q. camisa bordada), heavily embroi- 
dered across chest and around armlets with cotton thread of various colors 
or with yarns, women wear two skirts (anako = enagua) y reaching to the 
ankles, the underskirt of white wool and the outer skirt of black, often with 
dots or with straight or angular lines around the bottom. These are wrapped 
around the body and doubly belted, with a once-around broad and stiff 
fiber-woolen belt, red with green edging, and over that with several turns 
of a narrow woolen belt gay in color and design (PL XVI). The wide belt is 
called mama chumbi> "mother belt"; the narrow one,guagua chumbi> "baby 
belt." The folds of the black skirt leave it open on the left side, showing the 
white underskirt. A rather pretty costume, left to itself, without the addi- 
tional pieces that make women look like walking bundles of cloth. Besides 
the rebozo (Sp.-Q.), a back cloth, black or white (Q. pachalina yana, pacha- 
linayura)) and a carrying cloth of wool or cotton, both knotted across the 
chest, are worn. 82 

Men wear no jewelry, but to women it is indispensable in several ways: 
rings, earrings (Sp.-Q. orejittas), necklaces (Q. walka), and bracelets (Q. 
makiwatana) (Pis. XVII-XVIII). The bracelets on both wrists are always 
tightly wound strings of red glass beads. They are purses, for under the 
beads women slip their small change. (I was always reminded of the Brit- 
isher's handkerchief up his cuff.) But these bracelets have other functions, 83 
for they are put on girls in infancy. The necklaces are of two kinds: (i) "ro- 
saries" of brass and red beads, coral and glass, with a large silver cross and 
ancient silver coins and, quite often, as a pendant the silver disk pin called 
tupu;** and (2) strand upon strand of gilded glass beads forming a sort of 
collar as well as hanging necklace. Three or four of these strands, which are 
very lightweight, may be tied and hung around the ears, reaching gorgeous- 

8a Cobo reports that Peruvian women wrapped the skirt (anacu) which reached to the feet 
around the body "from under the arms downwards, and pulling up the edges over the shoulders, 
they join and fasten them with their pins. From the girdle down they tie and circle the body 
with a scarf, broad, thick and handsome, called chumpi." The anacu "leaves the arms free and 
naked and it remains open on one side so that, although the edges overlap a little, when they 
walk they flutter and open from the chumpi or scarf down, showing part of the leg or thigh.' 1 
A mantle is thrown over the shoulders and fastened over die breast with a pin or tupu. This 
mantle comes down "as far as half the limb"; they take it off "when they work or when they 
are at home" (Bandelier, p. 74). 

83 Jlbaro believe that the tight cotton-string bracelets and armlets of the women render the 
arms stronger for carrying burdens (Karsten 4:93). Also, we may note, that among Jibaro a 
red stone gives a woman long life and success in domestic tasks and promotes the growth of her 
crops (Karsten 4:436). 

8 Some of these mantle pins look antique, others set in front with colored glass and 
without a trace of the pin which should be welded on the back have been bought from 
White peddlers. The tupu is Peruvian. "In these pins," writes Cobo, "they place their great- 
est pride" (Bandelier, p. 75). Tupu were introduced into Otavalo by the Incas, it is noted in 
the Relaciones geogrdficas, written in 1586 (cited by Nordenskiold, p. 12, who remarks that 
"topus are still spread by barter among the Indians to places far away from where they are 
made," both in Bolivia and in Peru [ibid., p. 60]). 



3 6 PEGUCHE 

ly to the waist. Twelve strands cost six reals. Other earrings are little affairs 
of colored glass and wire. Finger rings (Q. sortija) may be silver seal rings 
with initials but commonly are rings of brass with curious prongs, as if a 
heavy setting had been emptied of its jewel. All the fingers may be loaded 
with these rings, which are given at marriage. A ring worn on the middle 
finger, a ring of steel, is said to be an amulet against witchcraft. The rosary 
necklaces are the two rosarios that figure in marriage ceremonial, 8 * and, 
inferably, they, too, have a protective function. 86 They are not used in any 
way in prayer. 

Some of their jewelry, if not all, women wear for display. The only equiva- 
lent display open to a man is through his poncho, his "overcoat of four 
points," for there is some pride in a new well-made poncho. With these 
exceptions apparel is not thought of ordinarily as indicative either of status 
or of personal taste. As a Cayambe man writes, "People do not like to dress 
themselves luxuriously even if they have the wherewithal." Indian 
enough ! 8? 

The Otavalo Saturday market (or, rather, markets) consists of a magni- 
fied version of the general daily market, the textile and pottery market in a 
great clearing on the north side of town, the cattle market on the east side, 
a little meat market beyond, near the railroad tracks, and the pig market on 
the west side. In all the markets both Whites and Indians are sellers and 
buyers, although there is some specialization. The Indians buy but do not 
sell cattle; in the textile-pottery market the vendors are all Indian excepting 
the vendor of green glaze pottery, which is man-made and turned by wheel in 
town; in the general market the merchants of tailored garments and of met- 
al-waretools, locks, etc. are White. So are the merchants of gourd cups 
from Colombia, of fruit, mostly rotten, from Ibarra, 88 of jewelry, needles, 
leather purses, tiny mirrors, and toys. These dry-goods merchants sit under 
or in front of the portales, which they rent from the town. The vendors of 
salt, achiote, vanilla, and remedios sit together under cotton shades and are 
all White. The remedios are "sea beans" (habas de mar), tiny sections of the 
liana aya huasca, the sole vine narcotic of eastern Ecuador, and the large 
beak with downy yellow feathers of the predicator (toucan), the diviner. 
These are all advertised as remedies for mal de corazSn, heart trouble, 
and seizures. 

At the comer of the textile-pottery market one Saturday sat an old White 
man selling panpipes. From him I bought one of these instruments. Ahead 

*s See p. 56. 

86 Jibaro women wear seed or pod necklaces or objects on the breast against disease (Kar- 
sten 4:91-92) or as love charms (Stirling, p. 103). 

"Seep. 171. 

M Apples, peaches, alligator pears, bananas, oranges, and black grapes. The northern end 
of the valley is about a thousand feet lower, with a better climate for fruit-growing. 



PLATE XVI 




WOMAN WEARING TYPICAL COSTUME 
Note the wide and narrow belts wrapped around her body 



PLATE XVII 




XECKLACES ANTD KARRINGS WORX BY WOMEN 



PLATE XVIII 




THE BRACELETS OF RED BEADS AND INNUMERABLE RINGS WORN BY WOMEN 



PLATE XIX 




FROM THE DAY OF BIRTH MATHILDE WAS WELL SWADDLED IN A WOMAN'S BELT 



TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE 31 

of me was an Indian who began to play on his purchase as he walked away 
with it. 

In the general market Indian and White women sit on the ground along- 
side one another in the specialized groups selling embroidered chemise tops 
or sandals or vegetables. In all the markets, wares, not race, is the principle 
of classification; in usual Spanish-American market style all vendors of the 
same line of wares group together. Also, any division of labor by sex holds 
in merchandising, at least by Indians. Women sell their wool or embroidery 
or pots; men sell their belts or ponchos or cassimeres. (Even in house-to- 
house merchandising this arrangement holds. A woman may discuss the 
price of cloth, but the actual purchase is made by the man. I have seen 
Rosita, after virtually making the deal, take the purchase price from her 
chemise and hand it to her husband to hand to the trader.) 

The textile-pottery market is especially interesting alike for the occasion- 
al tourist-purchaser from Quito and for the anthropological observer. Along 
the southern wall stand the Indian weavers, a line of two hundred men, 
their cloth piled neatly in front on cotton sheets, a gay and picturesque 
show. The men chat and laugh together; they are plainly having a good 
time. They are competitors, but there is no expression of anxiety and little 
bidding for purchasers. There is a notable lack of bargaining. Indeed, 
throughout the markets there is no such prolonged haggling as in Mexican 
markets. 

At a little distance beyond the weavers sits a row of aniline-dye merchants 
behind their tin-can containers. Sometimes a woman helps her man wrap 
the purchase in a small square of newspaper. Next come the women spin- 
ners in the midst of their wool piles, spinning or suckling a child or just chat- 
ting with a neighbor. Beyond them stand the scales, the usual simple con- 
trivance of hook and weights from a crossbar on two upright stakes. At the 
north end of the market against the wall there sit the women potters behind 
their wares: huge chicha jars, water jars, cooking pots, pitcher jars. I saw 
no clay grills or small containers of any kind. 

Entirely separate from this group, on the east side, a man sells the little 
pottery pieces from the "fabrica." On the west side there is a short row of 
portable burners for cooking beans, potatoes, or corn boiled in the husk. 
Most of the cooks are White; a few, Indian. 

Not to be overlooked is the white-robed friar of Los Mercedarios who has 
come from Cotacachi to hold out his collection plate 89 where the main street 
comes into the general market. It can hardly be worth his while, for late in 
the morning, one Saturday at least, there were in the plate only a few reals 

89 Something of a reminder of the medieval market held upon a Sunday in the churchyard 
under the church peace or market peace, symbolized by the market cross; cf. Mitla (Parsons 
2:8-10). The combination of fair and sanctuary pilgrimage familiar in Mexdo is not found 
in Ecuador. 



32 PEGUCHE 

plus the sucre the Americana put in and for which she received a smile and 
the thanks which is a blessing Dios se lo pague! "May God pay you for it !" 

From this trading, weaving, and farming community wild animal life 
seems remote. Rosita had heard of puma, tigre, and oso, of the turkey 
buzzard that eats dead horses (Sp. gallinazo; Q. ujawanga)** and of large 
serpents (Sp. serpiente; Q. kulibra), but she had never seen any of these 
creatures. The weasel (Q. ckukuri) 91 and the fox (atu) that prey on chickens 
are familiar. 92 In the conduit there are little snakes and lizards (Sp. lagartija; 
Q. paid). When a little brown lizard darted past Segundo and me one day, 
the boy remarked, "It sucks the blood!" A tiny, most pestiferous black 
fly (hamsi chuspi, "tiny fly") does indeed draw blood. People cover up 
against it; for example, weavers will keep their legs and feet covered or burn 
a smudge 93 of weeds (?). The darning-needle is said to steal hair to make 
its wings and is therefore called achashua, "hair thief." Hummingbird 
(kinde), nighthawk (Q. shusht), and owl (Q. kuskongo) were familiar to 
Rosita, who could hoot like an owl. And Rosita had seen, of course, the 
water birds of the Lake of San Pablo the wild ducks called wakava and 
garza (Sp. and Q.), the beautiful white heron that roost in the eucalyptus 
trees of the hacienda of Cusin. One day as we were sitting on one of the 
ancient burial mounds near Carabuela, Rosita and the children spied a 
hawk alighting in the meadow just after Rosita had pointed out the great 
waterfall of Imbabura where men go to ask Hawk for strength in fighting. 9 * 

As a young man, say thirty years ago, Manuel Lema went hunting with 
a blowpipe (Q. bodokera)** to shoot small game. He used clay pellets. Bow 
and arrow are quite unfamiliar. 96 Today, now and again, on the road you 
see a gun in the hands of White or Indian, probably to hunt rabbits; but 
little if any hunting is done by Peguche people. Hunters are disesteemed; 
they are considered lazy, 9 * in Peguche eyes ever a despicable trait. 

* Peruvian suyuntu (Gardlasso, II, 390). 

* Obsolete. A kind of weasel (S. comadrejd) (Middendorf) . 

* See p. 139. 

Jibaro born ant-nest against flies (Karsten 4:34). 

* See p. 94. 

* Used by Jibaro, with dart (Karsten i : 12). 

+ Also unknown among Forest peoples of eastern Ecuador ^Karsten 4: 108); but bow and 
arrow were used in the sixteenth century, when die blowgun is not reported (Stirling, pp. 795".). 
Stirling and others opine that the blowgun was introduced into America from Asia via the gal- 
kontraffic. The earliest account of a true blowgun is 1620. The pellet gun of Mexico and Cen- 
tral America is mentioned in the sixteenth century. 

Arrows eon estalica were in use near Quito, also lances and sabers ofpalma (Ichonta). The 
most dangerous weapon was die sling, with which they were very skilful, rarely missing their 
mark. In fighting, there was no formation {Quito, 1573, p. 96). 

w In Inca Peru there was a great annual hunt drive, but private hunting was restricted lest 
men "should become idle and neglect their necessary household duties" (Garcilasso > II, 115). 



CHAPTER IV 
FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 

The single family prevails, although after marriage the couple usually 
lives with the parents of bride or of groom for a few years until they have 
accumuated enough to start a separate establishment. During this period, 
or even before marriage, 1 earnings belong theoretically to the earner, al- 
though as members of a parental household young people will contribute 
to its economic activity, and both son and daughter are said in Spanish 
phrase to be "in the power of their father." Actually, a young married 
couple are under the control of their household head, who is usually the 
bride's father, although "some girls prefer to go to live in the house of their 
father-in-law." 2 Not infrequently the groom's father will give him a piece 
of land, and, as soon as it is convenient to hold a work party, 3 the house is 
built, co-operatively by members of the extended families (aytht) of both 
husband and wife. 

Houses are built after the August harvest, and the work goes on for about 
two months. On the day of completion there is a celebration, with the banda^ 
and with the eating and drinking necessary to celebration of any kind. 
There is no ritual of consecration at this casamiento budo wasi, "marriage 
house feast." This year a new house was to be built for Rosa Ruis, who 
married Joaquin Muenala of Quinchuqui seven years ago. They have two 
children. They have been living with Rosa's father, Esteban Ruis. He has 
given them a piece of land for their house, and in April he had already cut 
down a eucalyptus tree in his yard for house timbers. Jose Ruis, a distant 
cousin of Rosa/ will join the work party. 5 Practically only relatives living 
in Peguche volunteer, so that this is a form of local as well as of kinship 
co-operation. 

1 E.g., Manuel Ruis and his unmarried son Rafael, aged twenty-one (see Chart III, Nos. 
14 and 53), both poncho-weavers, share their earnings, the father retaining the earnings of 
one week; the son, those of the week following. 

a Rosa Ruis (Chart III, No. 53), e.g., who lives with her two children and husband in his 
parents' house rather than in the house of her father and demented mother. 

In Inca law, referred to as "the brotherly law," villagers were to help one another "in 
getting in the harvest, building houses, and similar work, without any pay" (Garcilasso, II, 33). 
Cf. Maya .of Yucatan (Landa, p. 38) or Cuna Indians of Panama (Stout) or Caddo of our 
Southeast (Parsons 4:8) or Pueblos of our Southwest. Indeed, the work party is a far-flung 
Indian trait. 

4 Same great-grandfather. 

* Sp--Q. minga defamilia; Sp. conoido. "Minga is Spanish." 

33 



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38 PEGUCHE 

However acquired, house and land are considered as owned jointly by 
husband and wife. Divorce is unknown, and thus practically no question of 
ownership arises. At death the widow or widower continues to own the 
property. Offspring, male and female, inherit in equal parts, although use 
of the parental house and land depends upon family circumstances. For 
example, Josefina Cajas (Chart III, No. 4), the widowed mother of five 
sons, has living with her the youngest son, Angel Ruis, a widower with one 
little girl At the death of his mother, Angel will probably continue to live 
in this house, since his brothers have each a separate home; nevertheless, 
the brothers retain property rights in the parental homestead, and at Angel's 
death it will revert to them or their heirs, excepting, of course, Angel's 
share, which in some form, not necessarily land, will go to his daughter, his 
only child. The division of land after a death may be made amicably within 
the family, but in case of dispute appeal will be made to the land office 
in Otavalo. 6 

In this system of division landholdings tend to be small, 7 and related 
families live close together. 8 In my list of households there are a great many 
such cases. 

Relations between families connected by blood are close. There is con- 
stant visiting; field tools or household things are borrowed; the children play 
together. Adults do not play together, for there are no games for adults, but 
in work parties and religious celebrations they help one another in all sorts 
of ways; and on all more or less formal occasions they eat and drink to- 
gether. There are no taboos on contacts within the extended family at all, 
except that of marriage. Marriage within the third degree, descendants of 
a common great-grandparent,' either paternal or maternal, is forbidden, by 
Church and even more by custom. However, today the rule is being broken; 
sometimes there are marriages within el segundo grado, but no first-cousin 
marriage has yet occurred. 10 

6 In early Pern lawsuits were not within the village but between villages because of the 
Inca policy of coercive delimitation of village boundaries (Ondegardo, p. 163). 

* In Ecuador kw landholdings assessed over 1,000 sucres are taxable. No Peguche land- 
owner is taxed. 



of the 



8 As in Inca Peru. Probably the average size of Peguche holdings is about the same as that 
r the schematic holding of Inca Peru: one acre and one-tenth (Garcilasso, II, 4 n.). Accord- 
ing to Garcilasso, there was constant division of the land; according to Ondegardo (pp. 162-63), 
there was no division of land within the family, but the person who represented the a yllu 
(lineage) had charge, and all the rest enjoyed the fruits in common. Those who did not sow had 
no share in the harvest. 

9 In Chart I, No. 34 may not marry No. 43, his mother's father's brother's daughter's 
daughter. The children of No. 34 and No. 43 might marry. 

10 Recently on a hacienda near Quito an Indian girl was pregnant by her first cousin, and 
the haccndado suggested marriage; but her family was utterly opposed. In White Ecuadorian 
circles cousin marriage is not unfamiliar. A recent presidential candidate who was tacked by 
the Church as a conservative is married to his first cousin! 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 39 

The consanguineous bilateral group within which marriage is forbidden is 
called ayllu The kinship terms fail to indicate that the ayllu was ever a 
unilateral group, a true lineage. 12 But so many Spanish terms are used and 



KINSHIP TERMS 



taiti'ko\ 


father 


tiu (tioYi 


yaiya**) 




tia* 


mami'ta (mama) 


mother 


sobrino 


ehu'ri* 


son 


sobrina 


u'shi 


daughter 


warmi 


guagua* 


child 


kusa 


awelo (abueld) 


grandfather 1 * 


tai'ta 


agwila (abuela) 


grandmother 




nieto 


grandson 


mama n 


nieta 


granddaughter 




wau'ki 


brother (male speak- 


masha \ 




ing) 


mashapura] 


tu'ri 


brother (female 


ha'chu 




speaking) 


pani'ko 


pa'ni 


sister (m. sp.) 




nyafnya 


sister (f. sp.) 





uncle 18 

aunt 

nephew 

niece 

wife (woman) 

husband 19 

senior male relative of 
spouse 

senior female relative 
of spouse 

son-in-law, brother- 
in-law reciprocal 

daughter-in-law 

daughter-in-law, 
mother's sister 



Una famitia junta, de dos lados; parientes. Pura means "among" (Sp. entre), and ayllu 
pura Gffamilia piara would be said of all the siblings of one's father or ny any a pura of all the 
siblings of one's mother. As exogamous restrictions are curtailed, the ayllu may be expected 
to shrink, just as elsewhere for the same reason the dan breaks down. 

" Gardlasso applies the term ayllu both to lineage based on patrilineal descent from a 
known or traditional male founder (1, 95, 97; II, 043, 345) and to what we would call moiety. 
All towns, large or small, of the Empire were separated like Cuzco into an "upper ayllu" and a 
"lower ayllu" according to the lineages of the families, i.e., into localized moieties determined 
by descent (1, 67). Patrilineal, patrilocal groups are indicated, but, as no account of marriage 
rules is given by Garcilasso except in the supreme Inca lineage, which favored but did not re- 
quire endogamy within the blood family, the only warrant we find for considering the lineage 
[Footnote 12 continued on following page] 

Obsolescent. ee Inca usage (Garcilasso, II, 353). 

* Given with the possessive prefix, nyuka> "my.* 1 Used by father (Garcilasso, 1,314; or 
particularly by father (Paris). 

z $ Term for son or daughter used by mother (Garcilasso and Paris), who will qualify by add- 
ing male or female. 

16 In Peruvian Quechua machu (Salcamayhua, p. 99, n. 4). 

17 Applied loosely to affinal relatives, particularly if relationship is not quite friendly. Also 
courtesy term. 

18 In Peruvian Quechua the term for mother's brother was kaka (Garcilasso, 1, 285). 



ao Courtesy term ^see below) 

Obsolescent for mother (see p. 41); courtesy term. 

88 Apparently a derivative from pani, "sister," male speaking; but the term is used by fe- 
males. It may be applied to mother's sister but, I am told, not to father's sister. When I said, 
"Kaiyakama, sobrino [Goodbye, nephew]," to little Segundo Lema, he always responded, 
"Kaiyakama, paniko." 



40 PEGUCHE 

so loosely that it seems next to impossible to find traces of family organiza- 
tion in the nomenclature. Yet a classificatory system of some kind is hinted 
in the sibling terms and in the way the borrowed Spanish terms are used. 

APPLICATIONS OF KINSHIP TERMS 

taitfko, father: Chart I, n > 3, father 

mami'ta (mama), mother, (?) father's sister: Chart I, 11 > 4, mother; Chart III, 
64 > 1 8, father's sister (Tomasa Mama); 64 > 22, father's sister (Carmela 
Mama) 

churi, son: Chart I, 12 > 34, son (nyuku churl) 

u'shi, daughter: Chart I, 3, 4 > n, daughter (nyuka u'shi, "my daughter") 

guagua, child: Chart I, 3, 4 > n, daughter 

abuelo, grandfather: Chart I, n > i, father's father 

abuela, grandmother: Chart I, n > 2, father's mother 

nieto, grandson: Chart III, 15 > 81, son's son 

nieta, granddaughter: Chart I, i, 2 > n, son's daughter 

wau'ki, brother (male speaking) : Chart II, 44 > 52, mother's mother's sister's son's 
son (nyuka sobrino wau'ki); Chart III, 20 > 16, brother; 39 > 61, father's broth- 
er's son (sobrino wau'ki) 

fun (tort), brother (female speaking): Chart I, n > 20, brother; 33 > 37, mother's 
sister's son (sobrino turf)-, 42 > 34, mother's sister's son (sobrino tori); Chart II, 
1 8 > 28, mother's sister's son (nyuka sobrino tori) 

pant, sister (male speaking): Chart I, 20 > n, sister; 34 > 41, mother's sister's 
daughter (sobrina pant); Chart II, 28 > 18, mother's sister's daughter (nyuka 
sobrina pant); 28 > 43, mother's sister's daughter's daughter (sobrina pant); 
Chart III, 43 > 64, father's brother's daughter (sobrina pant) 

nya'nya, sister (female speaking); Chart I, 11 > 13, sister; 33 > 41, mother's sis- 
ter's daughter (sobrina nyanya); Chart II, 43 > 42, mother's mother's sister's 
son s daughter (sobrina nyanya); 43 > 53, mother's mother's brother's daughter's 
daughter (jobrina nyanya); Chart III, 36 > 64, father's brother's daughter (so- 
brina nyanya) 

sobrina, niece: Chart I, 20 > 33, sister's daughter (nyuka sobrina); Chart II, 
7 > 18, sister's daughter; 9 > 18, wife's sister's daughter; 7 > 47, sister's 
daughter's daughter 

[Footnote 12 continued from preceding page] 

to be a dan or part of a clan is in the appeal sent to Spain in 1603 by die heads of eleven dis- 
tmctivety named Inca lineages (penaka), each founded by one of the Inca emperors. This rec- 
?~j 67 f r ! ons ** genealogy to be recorded for Indians, was never submitted and was 
placed on file because one of the Inca descendants in Spain to whom it was intrusted thought 
it would lessen the weight of his mdivdiual appeal for consideration (Gardlasso II o ffV- 
very unclannish conduct! ' 

In the list of lineages (panaka) given by Gardlasso some are also referred to as ayllu (cf. 
Molina, pp. 22-23) Possibly in Inca Peru ayllu was a generic term for any group, equivalent 
22? P"* 1 ' or * ** Kerc8 ^ ***> term >sL,, whidi is appfi^ to tril? dln^r 

Meansrefers to the ^ as a tribe (see pp. 223, 284, 286, 287) or as a localized group or 

SVr7^ llF** 5 s Peg ?^ ? H et of "** ^ houses ha ^ ?t 

puctrd or fortified hilltop, and round it fields for fanning and herding" (p. 285). Peguche folk 

liowev^donot^toPe^ 

as ayllu, recognizing the mother's lineage as well as the f athePs 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 41 

tai'tay senior male relative of spouse: Chart 1, 12 > 3, wife's father; 17 > 3, wife's 
father (sucgro tai'ta)\ 12 > 5, wife's father's brother; 14 > 12, wife's sister's 
husband (older than fourteen); Chart III, 19 > 3, wife's father (suegro fai'ta); 
21 > 3, husband's father (tai'ta Josf) 

mama, senior female relative of spouse: Chart I, 12 > 4, wife's mother; 12 > 7, 
wife's father's sister; 12 > 6, wife's father's brother's wife; 14 > n, wife's sister 
(older than wife); Chart III, 21 > 13, husband's brother's wife (older than 
twenty-one); 21 > 15, husband's brother's wife (Mama Paula) (older than twen- 
ty-one) 

tiu (tio\ uncle: Chart I, n > 5, father's brother; 33 > 20, mother's brother; 
34 > 5, mother's father's brother (Pedro Tio); 11 > 14, sister's husband;'* 
3 > 10, sister's husband (Tio Angelo); 12 > 14, wife's sister's husband; Chart II, 
1 8 > 9, mother's sister's husband 

tia, aunt: Chart I, 33, 34 > 16, mother's sister; Chart II, 18 > 7, mother's sister 
(Tia Antuca); 43 > 7, mother's mother's sister; Chart HI, 64 > 10, father's 
sister (Rosa Tia); 64 > 26, father's father's sister's daughter (Marica Tia); 
64 > 13, father's brother's wife (Dolor Tia); 13 > 21, husband's brother's wife 

sobrino, nephew: Chart I, 16 > 34, sister's son (nyuka sobrino)^ 5 > 34, brother's 
daughter's son 

masha, son-in-law, brother-in-law: Chart II, 6 > 19, daughter's husband; Chart III, 
3,4 > 19, daughter's husband (Masha Miguel); 20 > 19, sister's husband (Masha 
Miguel); 19 > 20, wife's brother (or Cunado Jos) 

ha'chu, daughter-in-law: Chart II, 8 > 29, son's wife; Chart III, 4 > 21, son's wife 
(ha'chu pani'ko) 

pani'koy daughter-in-law: Chart I, 33 > 13, mother's sister (Carmen Pani'ko); 
33 > 16, mother's sister (Mari Pani'ko); Chart II, 8 > 29, son's wife; Chart III, 
3 > 17, 21, son's wife; 12 > 21, brother's wife (Rosa Pani'ko); 15 > 21, hus- 
band's brother's wife 

In practice personal names are used 24 rather than kinship terms, or the 
personal name is combined with the kinship term 4 Mari paniko, tin Angel. 
Similarly, by the way, the personal name may be added to compadre or 
comadre Cumpa Juanti, Cumari Andrea. Persons of the same name ad- 
dress each other as (Sp. and Q.) tucallo^ 

Between cousins personal names are used, but, to describe the relation- 
ship, the Spanish terms for nephew-niece are prefixed to the brother-sister 
terms: soMnowau'ki,soMna pant, etc. Inferably, only brother-sister terms 
were used until the Spanish use of primo hermano suggested the present 
compound terms. 26 

A spouse is not addressed by his or her personal name. 

*3 Note that between n and 14 there is distrust. 

* Jose" and Rosita Ruis (Chart I, Nos. n and 12) call their children by name. Scgundo 
Lema, aged nine (Chart I, No. 20), calls his little niece and nephew by name and also his aster 
Rosita, who is old enough to be his mother. 

** According to Robert Redfield, tucallo is a Nahua term. 

36 Rosita once referred to a first cousin as sobrina prima, which was one of her many little 
experiments, I think. 



42 PEGUCHE 

COURTESY TERMS 

Tai'ta y "father," is a term of respect very generally and widely applied: 
to affinal relations, to men of any distinction like prayer-makers or "mas- 
ters" who teach "the doctrine," to the Sun, Indi tai'ta, to Dios, tai'ta Yus. 
Mama, "mother," is similarly applied to affinal relations, to the moon, luna 
mama? 1 to Eve, mama Eva. The Spanish unde-aunt terms, tiu (tio) and 
Jfe, are even more generally applied, within the family connection or even 
to mere acquaintances. If applied within the family to one who is not actu- 
ally unde or aunt, some degree of the formality that goes with distrust may 
be implicit. 28 Compadre terms, given the godparent relationship, are pre- 
ferred 29 to kinship terms. 30 

AGE CLASS TERMS 

juju* infant, through first year 

guagua** child, from one to seven 

guambrago boy, from seven to ten 

kwitsago girl, from seven to ten 

sobero y soltera, or rapaz** from ten to marriage 

casado tiu after marriage; literally, married unde 

casada tia after marriage; married aunt 

ruko (tai'ta) old man 

paiya (mama) old woman 

The last child in the family is called atu turu, "fox"(?). 

EARLY LIFE 

Rosita is familiar with the European belief that if a pregnant woman does 
not eat what she craves she will abort. Anger or quarreling with your hus- 
band or anybody else also brings on abortion. (The widespread Indian be- 
lief that deformity is caused by parental behavior is unfamiliar, nor is there 

87 Cf. mama-quilla ("moon" in Quediua) (Gardlasso, I, 274). 

** See p. 41 . But another interpretation is possible. In Peruvian kinship nomenclature there 
was a large number of affinity terms. These may have lapsed in the Peguche nomenclature, 
and the elastic Spanish terms, tio, tia, may be replacements. In some cases other Spanish kin- 
ship terms have been applied to affinal relations. 

* Manuel Lema (Chart I, No. 3) addresses his sister-in-law Marica Quimbo (Chart I, 
No. 6) as cumadrc and his brother-in-law Miguel Conejo (Chart I, No. 8) as cumpadrc, as 
Manuel was godfather to a child in the family of each. 

3 Cf. Parsons 2:545. 

3* Ticrno, blando (Paris); juju luna, "crescent moon." 

*Guapta romi y "child stone," i.e., rubbing-stone for the grinding-stone (romi); guagua 
ckumbi, a narrow belt worn by woman. 

33 The Quechua term for the unmarried youth, auki, is not used (see p. 44). 

** This term was applied to Inca women after marriage -palla. Inferably in early Peru and 
in contemporary Ecuador for the age period from marriage through old age there was but one 
term, except for the generic term warmi, "woman." 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 43 

any association between harelip [Q. palfakiro] and lunar eclipse.) 35 From 
Cayambe is reported the belief that if a woman, close to childbirth, hears 
the child crying in her belly, it is a sign that he is going to become a diviner 
(adivino), a good one. If she talks about it, he will not become a diviner. 36 

Twins are produced, it is believed, after conception, an epigenetic theory 
rare among Indians. If a pregnant woman goes to a bubbling spring (pogyo 
bravo) to bathe or get water, the baby is split (separte el guagua), and twins 
are born. Similarly, if she goes out during a thunderstorm, el ray o (thunder 
and lightning) will split the baby. Giving birth to twins is a punishment 
from God (castigo de Dios). Yet twins are lucky 37 and are sure to become 
rich, because people will make them gifts. (Rosita says this is not true. 
People are stingy and make no gifts; and it costs more money to bring up 
twins.) It is said that twins of the same sex will live; if of different sex, one 
will die. 38 

Aside from the above restrictions and continence which is practiced in 
some families, there are no pregnancy taboos on prospective parents. A 
pregnant woman works as usual, even to carrying heavy packs. Two days 
before Matilde was born her mother carried a heavy load of cloth part way 
into town and would have carried it the whole distance of three miles had 
I not given her a lift in my car. It did not occur to her to ask her husband 
or her servants to carry the pack. After the birth they all waited on her 
constantly. 

Matilde was born late at night after a labor of about three hours. Al- 
though the midwife lived dose by, she was said to be unavailable; nor was 
Rosita's mother summoned. I surmise that Rosita was quite able to look 
after herself, 39 Matilde being the fourth child in the family. 

Rosita was delivered lying in bed. In other families the woman may 
kneel, the husband holding her under the arms from behind. 

ss Canelos and Jibaro believe that deformity is caused by demonic impregnation (Karsten 

4:219, 222). 

3 It is also reported from Cayambe that, "when a woman is carrying a girl, she gets bigger, 
but she feels nothing until six months when it begins to move like a mouse or jump around and 
kick like a guinea pig, not hurting at all. But a boy hurts from one month until Ae birth, mov- 
ing around like a ball, a worm, or a goat. They give the woman cinnamon water and liquor 



(trago) to make ner strong, witn oira nescs iacy mute smu.c uui ouuw; * */* ~,. 
the legs, and from a double boiler they give her a decoction of an herb called;^." (F. A. C., 
a Cayambe informant.) 

37 See Appendix, p. 191 . At Cayambe, as among Jibaro and elsewhere, a pregenetic theory 
is advanced, since a double impregnation is suggested to account for twins. 

3 This id happen in Rosita's family (see Chart I). This suggests infanticide or a conceptu- 
al survival (see Appendix, p. 191). 

3 According to a report made in 1887 and cited by Saenz (p. 9*), a woman had no profes- 
sional assistance in giving birth, and I incline to think that this is so today in Peguche and that 
Rosita exaggerated the function of the midwife (but see Appendix, p. 19*). It certainly is not 
so important as among the Zapotec of Mexico. 



44 PEGUCHE 

To hasten labor a drink of agua de canela, cinnamon water, or of agua de 
culantro is given; also chicken eggs (Q. lulling) are swallowed raw. For de- 
layed placenta two eggs 40 or onions are given raw. Scrapings from a deer 
horn in water are said to be a familiar remedy. 41 

The placenta is buried anywhere. The cord (Sp. blego [umbilico]\ Q. 
pupo), which is cut dose, about an inch from the body, 42 and is supposed to 
drop off in three days (Matilde's was off on the third day), is thrown away 
anywhere. There is no lore concerning it. 

There is lore about baptism. An infant (or anyone) dying unbaptized is 
called auca* (auquf}** or, curiously enough, alma santa and becomes a 
night-wandering spirit. 45 The unbaptized are buried apart in the cemetery 
in unsanctified ground. Baptism on the day of birth or soon afterward is 
urgent and is generally performed before the mother begins to suckle the 
infant. Indeed, an auca may be described as an infant dying before 
suckling. 

Godparents 46 may be Indian or White. Indian godparents may be chosen 
within the family connection, and for each child there are different god- 
parents. In some families White persons of some distinction are preferred. 
Our Maria Matilde, who was baptized in San Francisco on Palm Sunday 47 

< Among Jibaro an egg is swallowed to promote the delivery (Karsten 1:67). 

** Parsons 2:75. ^ See p. 192. 

** In Quito any unbaptized person is called auca. Catholicized Napo and Canelos csdlaucas 
all unbaptized Forest Indians (Karsten 4:79). In Inca Peru the term meant traitor, tyrant, 
and was applied in wrath to Atahualpa and his son (Garcilasso, II, 177, 528). When I was 
asked in Peguche, sometimes in Otavalo, if in my country people were baptized, it was a polite 
way of ascertaining whether or not they were savages, wild people. Cf. the need to rebaptize 
the woman who had started to become a bear (pp. 141-42). 

The term auca has become confused in Ecuador with the term auqui. In Inca Peru the 
sons of the Inca, the heir excepted, until they were married, were called auqui honorifically 
(Garcilasso, I, 95-96; 11,352). Today in the region of Cuzco the term is applied to spirits 
honorifically (Me"traux, XXVII, 334; Mishkin, p. 237). Aymar of the island of Titicaca, 
Bolivia, dance auqui-auqui in their chapel the night of All Souls (Bandelier, p. 118). 

" Among Zapotecs unbaptized deceased children become spirits around the house (Parsons 
2:231). There are European parallels. In Picardy it was believed that children dying un- 
baptized became/r-/<7/&/, one kind oflutin. Lutins are little beings punished for having broken 
a law of the Lord by having to stay in the imperfect state of dwarf or beast (Carnoy, p. 9). 

4* Godmother, Sp. madrina; Q. achimama (achi = Dios); godfather, Sp. padrino; Q. achi- 
taita. 

u After the ten o'clock Mass Maria Matilde was baptized together with two other newborn 
Indian babes. Matilde alone had a White godmother; the second infant was held by an Indian 
godmother and the third by an Indian godfather. Thecura appeared in the baptistry in his 
black vestments, making no change in them except when he removes his stole. He touches his 
finger to his mouth and then applies it to the infant in front of each ear. Next he applies the 
holy oil on cotton to the eyes, ears, mouth, and back. Then he pours the water from his silver 
mug over the head of the child, who is held face downward. He passes his hand over the head, 
pressing out the water. The large lit candle held by the sacristan is given to the godparent to 
bold, and a cap is put over the head and eyes of the infant while the cura pronounces the 
final words. 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 45 

on the second day after birth and before she was suckled, had a White 
godmother, as had her brothers and sister. White compadres are an asset 
for anyone who has business in Otavalo or Quito.* 8 

Matilde's White godmother gave her a cap, a shirt, and three woolen 
swaddling cloths (envoltorios). In return the godmother was given five chick- 
ens. This interchange and other matters would have been somewhat differ- 
ent had the godparents been Indian. In that case the infant's father meets 
those chosen as godparents in the cantina and gives them cups of brandy, 
and that night he takes to their house a big basket containing four or five 
cooked chickens, four or five cooked guinea pigs, three arrobas of potatoes, 
and four bottles of brandy. Somewhat formal sentences are exchanged: 
"Compadre, we come to leave you these medianito> these things for a little 
banquet." 

"Bueno, compadrito y we met in the cantina, we got drunk. Bueno, con 
mucho gusto. Tomorrow we go to the baptism." 

"Bueno! Gracias!" After the baptism they go to the chicheria. 

"Compadrito? says the godfather, "I am poor. I am unable to give you 
much." And then with the infant he hands over to the father swaddling 
cloths and belt. The father gives a large bottle of rum to the godparents, 
addressing one or the other: 

(S.) kumadrita upiapashu (S.) si quiera kai kupawuyapas 

little comadre let us drink if you wish this little cup (copita) 
(S.) kumadriya kunanga (S.) kumadre (S.) proprio mi karpanchi mana 

little comadre now comadre proper already we are not 

ista karpanchichu wasi (S.) hinti (gente) mi karpanchi mana 

strangers (ajenos) we are house people already we are not 

(S.) ahinu (ajeno) karpanchichu (S.) kumadrita huiyarishpa 

strangers we are little comadre now we love each other 

kaiusapashu kunanga (S.) lo mismo que mama yaiya kwenta 

let us live now the same as mother (and) father for that 

kaiusapashu 
let us live 

They all get drunk. They danced The godmother may say: 

(Sp..jQ.) bailapashung compadrito guagua uchia puripatshu ama 
let us dance little compadre child quickly may he walk not 

guagua suchuyachu guagua ucha ucha rimachu 
child crippled child soon soon may he talk 

< 8 See p. 150. 

< Among the Peruvians of Cuzco at tfte naming ceremony which took place when the child 
was weaned, gifts were made, and after the presentation "the ceremony of drinking began, for 
without it no entertainment was considered good. They sang and danced until night [for three 
or four days or more]" (Garcilasso, 1, 313-14)- 



46 PEGUCHE 

Although Matilde lacked Indian godparents, her father was at the 
chicheria the day of her birth and the next day. The day of the baptism he 
got drunk. 50 

After the baptism Matilde's ears should have been pierced by the god- 
mother, 51 but this is not done when there is a White godmother, and Ma- 
tilde's were not pierced until she was twenty-seven days old. The midwife 
pierced them, with a steel needle, and in each ear inserted a thread. 52 

Matilde was carried to the church by the midwife and brought back 
home, and when she arrived I happened to be talking to Rosita. The mid- 
wife sat down on the ground near the bed and gave a long account of every- 
thing that had happened. After about five minutes a little cry was heard, 
and the baby was removed from her back and at once for the first time given 
the breast. This was my first vivid impression of how a baby on the back is 
completely ignored until it cries. 

Maria Matilde was named for a saint, and saint names are commonly 
used; but a child is not named for the saint on whose day he is born. Span- 
ish baptismal names are cut down or modified, 53 but there are no Indian 
names. A few of the patronymics of Peguche are place names of Indian 
origin Cotacachi (Chart II, No. i), Muenala (Chart I, No. 14), Cajas 
(Chart III, No. 4) but these patronymics do not indicate family proveni- 
ence. Nicknames are in vogue in Otavaleno circles, 54 but not among 
Indians. 

For four days after the birth the midwife visits, and each day she bathes 
the baby in warm water. The mother is not bathed until the confinement is 
concluded, which is eight days in some families; in others, thirty days; and 
in some, forty days. The bath may be cold outdoors in the conduit or in- 
doors in warm water. Rosita stayed abed for twelve days; on the thirteenth 
day she sat for a while in the corridor, and each day thereafter she spent 
more time there. Knitting a little and sewing on the machine, on the 
twenty-eighth day she joined the burr-picking circle. On the twenty-ninth 
day she bathed in warm water at home, body and head, and was deloused 
by her husband. 55 It happened to be Friday, the weekly washday, and it was 
cool and windy, otherwise she would have joined the family in their open- 
air bath at the conduit, where clothes, body, and hair are washed. This 

s See p. 152. 

*' At the Cuzco naming ritual the godfather cut the boy's hair (Gardlasso, 1, 313-14). 

* a In the early seventeenth century the Peruvians did not perforate the ears (Bandelier, p. 
75, citing Cobo). 

M See Appendix, p. 190. 

Male: Polio, "chicken"; Chino, "slant-eyed" (in Peru, child of Indian and Negress [Gar- 
cilasso, II, 504, n. a]); female: Tortula, "dove"; Pajara, "bird"; Tripuda, "big-bellied"; Pa- 
pona, "potato rich" (tpapuda, "double-chinned"). 

"See pp. 157-58. 



weekly cold-water bath is customary in all families of Peguche. At no time 
is any kind of vapor or steam bath customary. 

Baby Matilde had her first cold-water tub or rather bowl when she was 
a few days old, on a cool, rainy afternoon outdoors in the corridor, and the 
experience was not at all to her liking. But her mother was ruthless. It 
was the first time Matilde's cry was unheeded and she cried for ten min- 
utes. "Cold water makes a baby strong," 56 said both parents. 

In bed and outdoors Rosita kept the baby and herself very warm, head 
and body, in cloths, in clothes, in blankets, all against aire. Habitually, 
women sleep in all their clothes, merely loosening their belts, and Rosita 
was as much clothed throughout her confinement as at any other time and 
more bundled up. Even in bed she kept on her headcloth and, besides, a 
band of woolen cloth. As soon as the confinement was over, she was quite 
indifferent to slight exposures, and she renewed the daily trip to and from 
Otavalo, a walk of five or six miles. The first day out she went to the Satur- 
day market, the second day to Mass, the third day to a baptism in the fami- 
ly, and the fourth day she got around to paying her confinement Mass of 
eight sucres 57 to La Virgen Purisima (sacamtsa, but this term is not used in 
the valley) which theoretically she should have given the first time she 
went out. (In Peguche, however, only a truly devota pays this Mass at all.) 

Feeling about the cold during confinement is expressed also by not drink- 
ing cold water. Cinnamon water (agua de canela) and hot chocolate 58 are 
drunk. Potato and grain foods or soups are eaten no meat. 59 

For the first twenty-four hours or more no attempt to suckle the infant 
is made. To bring milk into the breasts, a soup of dried fish (Sp. camar6n; 
Q. apangura) is taken. At the first nursing Rosita lay on her right side and, 
bending over the child, gave her the right breast. This continued to be the 
posture in nursing 60 as long as Rosita was in bed. I never saw her give the 
child the left breast, at that time or even later when she sat up outdoors and 
held the baby in the customary nursing attitude, on her lap with her right 
arm under the neck and shoulders. Rosita's left breast dried up, the nipple 
remaining undilated. Not until the sixth week after the birth, when the 
right breast became infected, a swelling appearing just above the nipple 
with a "burning" sensation in the breast, did Rosita resort to the use of the 

** The Peruvians of Cuzco bathed the infant after birth in cold water, and cold morning 
baths continued, generally in the open air, to strengthen the limbs (Garcilasso, 1, 315). 

57 This for a misa rezada; for a misa cantada, 12 sucres. 

* 8 Chocolate may be mixed with water or milk. Chocolate stirrers are not used in the valley. 
Chocolate is not served at fiestas. 

- Cayambe. To make the pain go away, for several days after confinement they give the 
mother fig leaf and a herb called pihsco chaqui in water mixed with tusa quemada and tiant de 
ticsta and daily, morning and afternoon, for eight days or more a broth of guinea pig with eggs 
and the herbs paico and or/gano. (F. A. C.) 

60 A Peruvian of Cuzco "leant over her child and gave it the breast," but only three times a 
day in accordance with the disciplinary character of the Peruvians (Garcilasso, 1, 316). 



48 PEGUCHE 

left breast, with what ultimate success I do not know, as my visits termi- 
nated. To allay the "burning," she kept the breast covered with a cabbage 
leaf. She gave me no explanation for favoring the right breast, and I do not 
know positively how general the practice may be. I infer it is a common 
practice, because abroad, in a market, in church, on the roadside, I rarely 
saw an infant suckled on the left side. Women may walk along suckling an 
infant, but usually they suckle sitting down with the right arm under the 
infant's neck. 

Matilde was picked up and suckled whenever she cried, whether from 
hunger or anything else, 61 sometimes only three or four minutes after being 
suckled. The intervals grew longer, of course, to an hour or so or even, when 
she was three weeks old, to two hours. When Rosita began to go into town 
or even to go visiting in Peguche, she carried the baby with her; but on one 
occasion she was away from home without the baby two hours or more. As 
we approached the house, we saw Andrea down the road holding the crying 
child. Rosita called, and Andrea ran toward us. Matilde was put to the 
breast at once with expressions of compassion. "My poor little one ! Guagua 
porotoy baby bean!" and Rosita nursed her as she walked on home. 

At first the nursing lasted only a minute or so, and for two or three days 
Rosita commented on how little the baby sucked. Then she began to take 
more, but no nursing lasted longer than five minutes, Matilde falling off to 
sleep. Length of nursing and frequency were entirely regulated by Matilde 
herself. And on this system she throve. By the end of the first month she 
was a plump infant. 

From the day of birth Matilde was well swaddled in a woman's belt, 
wrapped around her woolen cloth from shoulders to feet, precluding all mo- 
tion of legs or arms which were first covered by the cloth (see PL XIX). In 
some families this swaddling is continued for six months; Rosita restricts it 
to three months.** Indeed, after three weeks she would remove the swad- 
dling belt while the baby lay next her in the corridor, or after "changing" 
the baby's cloth no diaper was used, but the cloth was changed after a 
movement she would let the baby lie unstrapped for a while. But the 
baby was never carried about without the belt, and I got the impression that 
the lack of concern about carrying the baby was in part due to the practice 
of swaddling. The strapped-up baby was just as secure as any other bundle. 

I could notice no effect of swaddling upon the limbs of the infant; when 
the belt was removed, arms and legs seemed normally active and normally 
developed. (Matilde's middle and index fingers of each hand were of the 
same length, and all the fingers seemed unusually long^no doubt, personal 
peculiarities which nobody noticed until I drew attention to them.) 

41 See p. 89 for a theory about excessive crying and for its remedy. 
fa Peruvians of Cuzco "did not loosen the children's arms from the swaddling bands for 
more than three months" lest the arms become weak (Garcilasso, 1, 315). 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 49 

What would have happened to Matilde had her mother died in bearing 
her an extraordinarily rare occurrence, according to Rosita, who could not 
cite a case of death in childbed in her whole family connection or what 
would happen should her mother die during the period of lactation ? Other 
nursing mothers in the community would be asked to suckle her, perhaps 
two or three different women during the same day, and other women on 
other days. A young woman in the family connection the cousin of Rosi- 
ta's brother-in-law did die, suddenly and mysteriously, during my visit, 
and in this way her baby was to be cared for. How the baby was to be 
nursed at night, Rosita did not know. There seems to be no practice of a 
woman suckling two children, her own and an orphan, continuously. 

Rosita had heard of bottle feeding, but it has not been introduced at 
Peguche. The mother of little Laura Ruis died when Laura was seven 
months old, and she was then given the regular family food. Today the 
girl is five years old and is a robust and very pretty child. When I saw her, 
her father, still a widower, was combing and braiding her long glossy hair. 
Father and daughter live with his mother. 

Commonly, lactation lasts from two to three years; 63 Lucila was suckled 
until she was two and Alberto until he was three. Children are arrayed 
almost like adults as soon- as they begin to walk or before, in little pants 
and poncho, in belted skirt and backdoths, in jewelry (PI. XX), and in 
felt hat; 6 * and to one accustomed to baby clothes it is ever comical to see 
these adult-seeming miniatures standing to the nipple. 

To assist weaning, verbena (Sp. matico romarilla; Q. pishkukancAa, "bird 
toasted")^ which is- bitter to the taste, may be rubbed on the nipples. "It is 
bad" to suckle a child when you are pregnant. 

Rosita's solicitude about suckling was in contrast to her unconcern about 
the way the baby was handled. In the large bed the baby was frequently 
left lying behind her mother's back, and one of the two older children 
would climb on the bed, pick up the baby, and place it for nursing. Alberto, 
aged seven, would do this as gently and competently as Lucila, aged ten, 
and there was a little rivalry for the privilege, Later on, in the third week, 
Lucila was allowed to carry the baby (see PL XIX) on her back in the carry- 
ing cloth, after their mother made the knot firm* Once even Alberto was 
given this privilege. (I have seen other little boys packing an infant.) After 
the baby was well placed on her back, Lucila was not kept in sight; she 
might make off for half an hour or so, probably staying away until the baby 
began to cry. Jos, the father, and Juanti, the servant, were often called 
upon to bring the baby out to Rosita in the corridor or take her back to the 

fc The Peruvians of Cuzco weaned their children at the age of two years and upward (ibid^ 
P- 3I3)- 

6 * Little girls wear a small fedora, not the great brimmed hat; nor do they wear the 
fiber-wool belt until they are about seven. 



50 PEGUCHE 

bed. They enjoyed doing this, and after two or three weeks they were likely 
to kiss the baby on the face 65 when they picked it up. In general, the han- 
dling of the baby begun to be much freer at this time. 

Rosita was not a proprietary mother. She shared the baby with the 
household and never aroused jealousy. Indeed, Matilde was a joy to all 
members of the family or household, except perhaps to Andrea, the servant, 
who had been married seven years to Juanti but was childless. I never saw 
Andrea kiss the baby. Andrea was a good worker, but sexually she was un- 
developed; she had never menstruated. 

When Matilde is six months old, she will be placed in a swinging cradle, 
a child's hammock (Q. hamaka guagua). A large basket is used to seat the 
child in. 

For backwardness in walking a child will be buried to the waist in sandy 
soil (Q. tin) well warmed by the sun. He is left unwashed and warmly cov- 
ered. The treatment is continued on and off for eight days. 

A child is supposed to be able to talk when the fontanel closes, or rather 
the other way around: the fontanel will close when the child is able to talk. 
For backwardness in talking a hummingbird is caught alive and, its beak 
contacted with the child's tongue inside the mouth. Also verbena is brushed 
across the child's mouth. For deaf mutism "there is no cure." In Peguche 
there are but two deaf mutes. These two adult males are unrelated. They 
are weavers and particularly able. 66 They are unmarried. (There are said 
to be no insane persons in Peguche. One middle-aged woman has been men- 
tally incapacitated for seven years, since the time she received a head in- 
jury while drunk.) 67 

The first tooth falling out is thrown over the house for Rat to attend to: 

Rat6n, Raton 
Lleva tu muela mala 
Y traeme 
Otra ms buena! 68 

In Quechua: 

Okucha, Okucha 

Rat Rat 

Apai kamba kirota 

Carry (? tuyo) tooth 

Apaimui nyuka all kirota 

Carry me good tooth 

<* I saw no woman kiss the baby on the face (see p. 1 14). Sometimes Rosita would tap with 
the index finger of her right hand on the upper lip of the baby plainly a customary motion. 

66 In Inca Peru the deaf and dumb were expected to work (Garciksso, II, 21). 

"Seep. 152. 

Cf. Mitla (Parsons 2:87). 



PLATE XX 




CHILDREN FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD ARE DRESSED JUST LIKE ADULTS 



PLATE XXI 




CRGEXIO HL-AMA.VG, "MAESTRO REZADOR" 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 51 

The child life of Peguche is peculiarly happy. Children are free to play, 
and in the large family connections contemporary playmates are always at 
hand. There is a yard or corridor to play in, with no doors to be closed, and 
the children may wander or visit in an area which with one exception is only 
naturally restricted, in the fields or yards of relatives or neighbors. The 
exception is perros bravos, "fierce dogs." Plenty of play space and play time, 
but at the same time children are expected to contribute to the activities 
of the household 69 in so far as they are able. 70 Parents call upon them for 
many little services; to fetch things, to carry messages, to help in preparing 
food, to look after younger children. And these services are rendered cheer- 
fully and freely with little or no scolding, nagging, punishment, or threat. 71 
The temper of the whole family is co-operative; the children want to share 
in what they see their parents engaged in. A little girl wants to carry a 
pack because she sees her mother carrying one; a little boy wants to shell 
peas or rub out quinoa because he sees his father shelling or rubbing. It be- 
gins to shower, and children as well as parents rush to take in the family 
wash or wool or the barley drying on a mat in the yard. 

The lack of any marked division of labor in the household promotes this 
spirit of co-operation. One day, to my astonishment, I saw Juanti the serv- 
ant grinding corn, "because he wants to help," Rosita remarked. On many 
another day parents and servants would sit in a group picking burrs 
(frimbul) from a great basketful of wool. 

The children's special interests are considered important, and the chil- 
dren know this. Alberto has his flute (PI. XX), his "bean-shooter," his 
tortaS) the beans that are used instead of marbles in the game very popular 
with boys, "Indians and Cholos;" and when Jos6 showed me his new san- 
dals, bought for a gala occasion, with them was a like pair for Alberto. 
Lucila sees her mother saving scraps for a rag doll, and Lucila is adorned 
like her mother with earrings and red bead bracelets. Rarely if ever have I 
seen children as completely incorporated into the life of a household. 72 Prob- 
ably this identification of interests would not be so striking to Indians else- 
where or, indeed, to peasants anywhere as it must be to modern people who 
have foregone the advantages of teaching by apprenticeship and have suc- 
ceeded so completely in divorcing the interests of seniors and juniors. 

Much of the play is improvised and formless, but some of it is imitative. 
When Lucila's doll was dressed to look just like an india, excepting the face, 
which was of white cotton (with black yarn for eyes), Lucila and a little 

* See pp. 155-56. 

70 In Inca Peru "even children of five years old were employed at very light work, suitable 
to their age" (Garcilasso, II, 34, 40, 205). 

72 Once I saw Rosita, out of patience with Lucila for untimely romping, strike her with the 
back of her hand; and Rosita told me she would threaten to tell on the children to the Mother 
Superior or the padre, of whom the children are afraid. 

72 See pp. 155-56. 



52 PEGUCHE 

neighbor took the doll between them, each by an arm, for a walk or perhaps 
a dance, for Lucila tried to sing the popular dance tune. This doll was of 
walking or dancing age. Little four-year-old Laura's rag doll was wrapped 
in a white cloth and swaddled like a baby with a bit of belt. Once Lucila 
herself was the baby or perhaps just a pack carried on another child's 
back, and the fun was to unload her rather roughly so that she fell out in a. 
heap. Another time Lucila, Alberto, and three cousins joined hands and 
ran around and around the yard and house (always turning antisunwise, by 
the way) as we do in "snapping the whip," except that there was no snap 
at the end, for they were imitating the way the bride is "pulled." 73 The 
same group gave a most laughable imitation of dancing "Negrit" on San 
Juan's Day. 74 

Tortas, "Beans" (Q. turtocuna), is played by any number of boys, quite 
according to the rules of our game of marbles, 75 by scratching a circle on 
the ground and each player placing his bean or beans in the center and at- 
tempting, by casting a larger bean, to shoot the beans out of the circle. 
The casting bean must be played from where it falls. If it falls inside the 
circle, the play passes to the other fellow; it passes also when no bean is 
knocked out of the circle. Tortas is played all night long by Indians and 
Whites while burning candles to the Cross in the celebration of Holy Cross 
on May 3. 7 * 

Girls do not play "Beans." They have a game of hopscotch called ficha> 
an object being kicked by the hopper from square to square, from "day" to 



"day," but not into the half-circle "Sunday." 



The "bean-shooter" has displaced the slingshot that Jos6 used as a boy. 
String figures seem also to be lapsing, for neither Rosita nor J os had taught 
those they knew to the children, and they had almost forgotten them. But 
Rosita showed me the "Mill," 77 worked on both hands with another per- 
son to help in the final figure, the European way; and Jos showed the 
"Thatched House," worked on one hand, Indian fashion. 78 

See p. 58. 
"Seep. 108. 

"The Peruvians also had bean games, played by boys and men. They used round, vari- 
ously colored, inedible beans called chuy (Garcilasso, II, 358). 

?<This association of a game with ritual has an Indian flavor. We recall, e.g., the playing 
of hidden ball during All Souls' Night among eastern Pueblos. 

" Representing the funnel into which grain is poured at the electric mill in town. 

* But there seems to be no specific Quechua term for "cat's cradle"; one says only, "Haku 
pugttsku [Let us play (anything)]." 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 53 

One afternoon Alberto and his cousin amused themselves kicking and 
throwing an inflated cow bladder. 

Pelota, or ball, is played in three ways in Ecuador: by hand, the ball hit 
off wrist or palm rather than thrown; by bat or flat wooden stick; and by 
guantes, a circular leather-covered piece of wood with wooden pegs on the 
outside and finger holds inside, eighteen inches in diameter, tied to the wrist 
with leather thongs. Balls are of hard rubber: in handball, half the size of 
a baseball; in guantes> half again the size of one. At Peguche a few Indian 
boys play handball with the Cholo boys in the school, but neither here nor 
elsewhere have I seen any Indian group playing ball. As Lucila and I 
passed by these ballplayers, by the way, one of the Cholos called out to her, 
"Have you come to look for a husband?" which upset and annoyed the 
little girl. 

The physical aspects of marriage will not be explained to Lucila before 
she marries, nor will she be told in advance about menstruation. 80 Men- 
struation occurs between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. Rosita did not 
menstruate until she was sixteen, the year she was married, Menstruants 
usually stay at home; a little folk tale is told girls to warn them against 
going up the mountain during menstruation lest a bear get them. 81 This 
"moral story" is probably significant of a sometime belief that menstruants 
are susceptible to impregnation by spirit animals. 83 Menstruants may go 
to prioste entertainments, but to Mass it is forbidden to go; "it is a sin." 

Menstruation lasts from two days for some women, like Rosita herself, 
up to eight days for other women. There is no intercourse at this time, mere- 
ly as a matter of taste. After giving birth some women will menstruate in 
three months; Rosita does not menstruate for two years. The earlier in 
life menstruation occurs, it is believed, the earlier the menopause. 83 The 
menopause of one of my Peguche acquaintances occurred when she was 
about forty-six. 

Before she is marriageable, or considered so by her family, say at six- 
teen or seventeen, Lucila will have learned how to sow and cultivate and 
harvest, to prepare grains, to cook, to wash clothes, to embroider shirts, to 

ft Bat see p. 128. Q. chungai peloto; haku chungkasha pektao, 'let as play ball/* 

80 Kija nanaiwan, "month, gets sick." A conceptual association between menstruation and, 
month-moon is suggested, as is indicated also by Gardlassp in describing lunar eclipse as sick- 
ness of the moon. Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Victorian translator, menstruation is con- 
sidered too "disgusting" to be mentioned (Garcilasso, I, 181-82). It is Jibaro beKef that the 
new moon causes menstruation (Karsten 4:504)- "The moon has seen her" is said of a men- 
struant (Karsten 3:422). However, in Cayambe, menstruation is associated with mountain 
mother and river (see p. 191). 

81 See p. 141. 
84 See p. 191. 

8 * Mana charingo kijata or akashkambi kijata (ya no time mes, "no longer has monthly"). 



54 PEGUCHE 

use a sewing machine, to take care of a baby, and to take care of a man 84 
when through drink he is as helpless as a baby but more troublesome. She 
will have learned some part or other of textile production, since that is the 
special interest of her family. She will have learned all the trade values 
of everything she has to use, as well as the techniques of bargaining. Had 
her mother been a potter, she would have learned all the processes of that 
handicraft. Similarly, Alberto, before he marries at twenty or later, will have 
learned how to plow, how to feed or look after animals oxen, burros, and 
pigs how to spin by wheel, to dye, and to weave. From his father he will 
probably learn how to build house walls and from his grandfather how to 
butcher and retail meat. He will know how to pack a burro and ride a horse. 

MARRIAGE 

Outside of kin or compadre circles there are no restrictions on choice of 
spouse within Indian circles. Strangers (ahina; Sp. ajenos) from other In- 
dian settlements are considered desirable spouses, or, according to Rosita, 
even preferable spouses. Married into Peguche are persons from the near-by 
hamlet of Bulse (La Bolsa), Quinchuqui, and the north end of the valley. 
However, the greater number of matches are between neighbors, the out- 
come of propinquity. Girls are not taken to celebrations; they do not know 
how to drink, and so their contacts with eligible youths are necessarily 
limited to neighbors or visitors of neighbors. 

In Peguche Whites are not considered eligible husbands. They do not 
know how to farm; they are lazy 85 (Sp. ocioso; Q. kija).* Nor would White 
women make good wives; they, too, are lazy and want others to work for 
them. 87 It is the general impression in Ecuador that, although there has 
been considerable sexual intercourse between White men and Indian women, 
and in Imbabura Valley even more today than formerly, 88 marriages are 
very infrequent. 

* See p. 152. 

15 la Inca Peru a man who was dilatory in irrigating his land was beaten across the shoulders 
with a stone or was flogged over the arms and legs with osier wands as an idle, lazy fellow, for 
this vice was much despised among them (Garcilasso, II, 14). One of the rules for households 
was that none should be idle, and it was a most infamous and degrading thing to be chastised 
in public for idleness (ibid., p. 34). 

" It sounds like the word for "month." 

* Cf. the attitude of the Peruvians who first saw bullocks at the plow. "They said that 
the Spaniards were too idle to work, and that they forced those great animals to do their work 
for them" (Garcilasso, II, 470). 

M Formerly Indian women yielded only to men of position, say Otavalenos; today lower- 
class men, Cholos, have more success, and an Otavaleno reports that there are a few townsmen 
who will take advantage of a drunken India if no sober protector is at hand. 

However, in Peguche only two women were mentioned as having had relations with White 
men: an elderly childless woman now widowed but promiscuous even before her husband died 
and a married woman (Chart III, No. 1 1), who, of her twelve children, had only the first four 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 55 

It is said that marriage is planned by the parents. 89 However this may 
be, there is no formal courtship.* The Spanish serenade is still customary 
in Otavalo, and Rosita knew about it, but flute-playing by a suitor is un- 
known in Peguche. 91 Love charms are quite unfamiliar. 92 

Long hair in women is admired 93 by men and by "devils." 94 Rosita's 
hair falls to her waist, but once 3 said her husband with pride, it came to 
her knees. 

BETROTHAL AND WEDDING 

The maytro rezador or may fro matrimonial asks for the bride, calling on 
her parents 95 and saying the (proper) words, las palabras, remarking that 
"all the world gets married, following the example of La Virgen, who was 
married to JosS." 96 Three days later or sometimes the same day, in the 
evening, the father and family of the groom go to the bride's house carrying 
las cosas de mediano y "the things of the mediano": cooked guinea pigs and 
chickens, ears of corn, chocho y potatoes, eggs, a'nd twenty bottles of rum. 
The fathers orate: "Let us marry our children with good will and with 
affection ! Hagamos palabray, let us go through with the words !" Bride and 
groom hide away during these preliminaries. 

Now they place a table in the middle of the room, cover it with a fine 
cloth, put down a handful of carnations, the rosaries of bride and groom, 

by her husband (a notorious drunkard), the others by White men. The half-breed children are 
brought up as legitimate, although in hair and skin they show plainly their White blood; and a 
sharp-tongued kinswoman tells their mother, whom she considers mala, that she should have 
dressed them as Whites. 

89 Saenz, pp. 89-90. 

90 In the market the youth may snatch the rebozo, and, if she is interested in him, she will 
try to recover it. In the country he may throw something at her (ibid., pp. 90-91). According 
to Cayambe youths, they merely look at or greet a girl with interest; she knows what that 
means and ignores the look or smiles. 

91 It figured in Inca Peru (Garcilasso, 1, 192-93). 

93 From Cayambe it is reported that a man may put "dust" from under his nails in the food 
or drink of an indifferent girl. 

" Cf. Garcilasso, II, 368. "The Indian girls are very fond of having their hair very long 
and black." 

M See p. 20$. 

95 In more Hispanicized circles a letter will be written and answered; the bearer is referred 
to as angel. 

96 At Juan Montalvo (Cayambe), it is the parents of the suitor who visit the parents of the 
girl, taking with them a bottle of rum, bread, and fruit. The girl's parents may agree at once 
or may hold off because rhey do not like the suitor or from prudence or from convention (cut- 
tura). Suitors may be very persistent, for as long as two years. This rings like characteristic 
Indian nagging or refusing to take "No" for an answer, but it is described in Spanish terms 
"La constancia y fe vence lo que la dicha no alcanza [Constancy and faith conquer what the 
word does not reach]." See Appendix, p. 193. 



56 PEGUCHE 

and two rings. The bride kneels at one side of the table and the groom at the 
other side. The maytro* (sp. maestro) addresses the bride: "Ahora j/, do 
you wish to many this man r" 

W 

Addressing the groom, "Do you wish to marry this woman?" 

"sir 

"Let us place the rosaries !" The groom puts one around the neck of the 
bride; the bride puts the other around the neck of the groom. The rings are 
similarly put on. The may fro says: "Ahora no esjuego, no es burla [Now it is 
not play, it is not joking, you are married until the tomb]." The may fro 
addresses the assembled relatives, the ayffu, "You are witness that they 
have married of their own free will." The relatives answer: "Good, this 
is no joke; they are married until the tomb." The groom asks the maytro 
for his blessing, and the couple kneel before him, in conclusion kissing his 
hand.* 8 The parents and then all present give their blessings. All give coun- 
sels. Says the father, "Now, my son, you have fulfilled your destiny. It 
was your destiny to be married. You and your wife are to become heads of 
a family (padres Jefamilia)." They tell the bride she must obey her hus- 
band; they tell the groom he must take care of his wife, maintain and 
clothe her. 

This ceremony of palabray takes place of a Saturday. The next day, 
Sunday, is spent by all in feasting and drinking at the bride's house. Mon- 
day the civil marriage is performed in Otavalo, and they register at the 
church. The following Stmday they are due to leave the bride in the curacy 
to serve the priest eight days; 99 but, as the groom may not want her to un- 
dertake this servicio taita curata,* 00 he commutes it, paying the priest two 
sucres. The party goes to the ehicheria, where they notify the padrinos de 
casamientoy "the wedding godparents." 

The following Saturday, late in the day, they go to confession, and the 
groom pays fifteen sucres in advance to the priest. The next morning after 
the eight o'clock Mass they are married. As they kneel at the altar, the 
priest encircles their necks with the wedding chain and places a cloth over 

* Not to be confused with the maytro de captlla, "teacher of doctrine" (see pp. 84-85). 
The marriage maytro is spokesman of the words of God for marriage: 
DIM puhimikvnata remador casa rachinggapa 

palabra hablador casamiento para (Ea)cer. 

Cf. Mexican huchutte (Parsons 2:82) and the early Maya go-between (Landa, p. 42). 
* See p. 114. 

99 The same practice is reported from Riobamba, where service in the curacy is for one 
month (Saenz, p. 92). Living in the curacy would be good prophylaxis against demons. 
Canelos Indians believe that a bride is susceptible to demons (Karsten 4:210), and marriage 
practices at Peguche hint at a like belief (see below). 



"Or modified /*r primae nocfis. Cf. this "purification" by monastic orders in Picardy 
(Carnoy, pp. 147, 153). 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 57 

their heads. 101 Bridal pair and godparents hold candles. In the church party 
is a couple called nyopadura (adelante) who precede the party on leaving the 
church. For further or somewhat different details let me describe the wed- 
ding I happened to see in the Church of San Francisco on Monday, April 22. 

About 7:00 A.M. I went into the church to see the responses for the dead, 
but of any offerings before the altar of the Souls there is no sign, only a wed- 
ding party is sitting near that altar. The groom, not more than eighteen 
years old, and his godfather, about fifty, are sitting together on one of the 
benches, near by on the floor sit bride and godmother and nyupadura. The 
men wear blue-and-white check ponchos, their hair, excepting the top 
braids, is flowing, a rosario of red and brass beads around the neck. The 
nyupadura attendant is dressed as usual, but bride and godmother are ar- 
rayed in full Chola skirt and blouse, with Indian backcloths of pink or white 
cotton. Their hair is braided and clubbed up as usual, but over the head 
lies a piece of white net, coarse and shabby. To my eyes they look very un- 
attractive. 

At 7:30 the cur a walks through the church, and the party follows him, I 
suppose, to the sacristy. When I return at 8:15, bridal couple and god- 
parents are kneeling at the rail of the high altar. The dark-blue doth around 
the bride's neck will later be removed by the sacristan. The latter gives 
each a tall lit candle. The cura enters in his white and gilt vestments and 
proceeds to read the service. Within five minutes the cura has withdrawn, 
and the sacristan brings forward a paper to be signed. As the party walks 
down the aisle, I notice that the bride is older than the groom and advanced 
in pregnancy. Outside the church there is some hand-kissing, but the group 
of attendants waiting there is confusing, and whose hands are kissed I can- 
not see. As the party starts eastward on their way to the chicheria y I see 
bride and godmother putting on the straw hats that go with their Chola 
costume. The whole Chola outfit has been hired from a Chola estanguera. 10 * 
(Chola wedding, Jience Chola dress the complex borrowed as a whole.) 

The church party and all the relatives (ayllu} will gather at the chicheria. 
Food is distributed: toasted corn (kukaybi)> hominy (mote), and buda> called 
on this occasion picante de la chicha. The food is followed, of course, by 
chicha. The party moves on to an estanco, where everybody, including bridal 
couple, is given a bottle of rum. All drink and get drunk. They dance 103 to 
the harp, the music being paid for by the marriage godfather. Three alcaldes 
have been chosen for the wedding, and they dance with the godparents in a 
circle. Any relatives who are shy and reluctant to dance are forced to take 
part. 

101 There is no aras, the dower in money given the bride by the groom in Mexico, some- 
times at the church door, as in medieval England. 
XM Cf. Parsons a: 102. 
zo * Described as njandang^ but not seen by investigator. 



58 PEGUCHE 

From the estanco the party goes to the house of the bride, where there is 
another distribution of mote, buda, and chicha. 

In the evening the alcaldes and all the company escort the bridal couple 
to some conveniently empty house where all, hand in hand, form a string 
and run around the house, three times, antisunwise, while the alcaldes 
shout: "Halima, halima, hachunja, hachunja! [Pull, pull, the daughter-in- 
law, the daughter-in-law!]" 104 

Now the alcaldes take the bridal couple inside, lock the door, and carry 
off the key for the night. ("They are jokers, the alcaldes!") The next day, 
about noon, they unlock the door, 103 greet the couple, and give them a drink 
of cinnamon water. 

All the wedding participants go to the river for the nyavi majay (face- 
washing). There is a large batea of water filled with flowers and rosemary. 106 
With the wet plants the godmother washes the face of the groom, and the 
godfather, the face of the bride. The harpist and the alcaldes wash one an- 
other; the other guests do the same. 

From the river they go to the house of the bride, where they sit at a long 
table to eat mazamorra, and the mediano of potatoes, chicken, and hominy. 
Before and after eating, all make the sign of the cross. Later the bridal 
couple goes to the house of the godparents, where the bride changes from 
her wedding clothes. They return to the bride's house. 

Tuesday the bridal couple visit the house of the godparents, padrino rikwi 
punchy "godparents see day." Wednesday and Thursday there is drinking 
of rum in all the houses of the party. The ayllu will have contributed from 
seventy to one hundred sucres for this. "If you don't drink the offered cup, 
they whip you." Friday it is all over. 

There is no prescription in regard to remarriage by widow or widower. 
They may remarry "in two or three months or in two or three years." 
Ankel Ruis has remained a widower for four years. 

In this Catholicized community formal remarriage except for the 
widowed is, of course, out of the question. Rosita's amazement over the 
possibility of recognized divorce and remarriage in other parts of the world 
testified to this attitude. But remating does occur. The wife of Misias Te- 
ran, the "trujo," left him because of his devotion to another woman. For 
the last twenty years Teran has lived in the house of this woman 107 without 
ever marrying. A little nephew of Teran lives with the couple, who have 
had no children of their own. Such "unmarried" mates are called mapiusu 

xt < See Appendix, p. 194, for the Spanish wedding song and dance, of which this seems to be 
a highly abbreviated version. 

"5 According to Saenz (p. 92), the door is unlocked by the naupador (nyupaJura), who all 
night sits outside singing advice to harp accompaniment. 

"*&rib dt claoeles y "bath of carnations" (ibid. ). 

i Transita Kachumel (CacAumuel). She inherited her house. 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 59 

askirusu, and derogatory terms are applied: in Spanish puerco sucio, "dirty 
pig"; in Quechua mana pinga (sin verguenza, "shameless"; nachu pinga 
nayangy porque no tiene verguenza?) y huainandiro (pecando con ajeno[a], 
"sinning with another's [spousej [i.e., adulterer]"), alkunyaui, "dog face." 
(Quechua-Spanish 108 insults, like English, are depreciatory of dogs alkua 
huachaskwa, "dog born"; alkukichaska y "dog droppings" "that's a funny 
one, making you laugh.") Adultery apart, there are many couples living 
together without benefit of clergy. 

Surreptitious relations also occur before marriage and after marriage (in 
a few cases with Whites) which among the unmarried may or may not lead 
to marriage, but most couples are said to have "marriage" in view. Some- 
times the informal relationship is entered upon when the man comes from 
a distance so that he may get to know the girl well (Cayambe). In such a 
trial marriage, if a child is born before the formal marriage, the man may 
not be held to account, yet he will acknowledge the child. 109 

A bachelor is referred to as rapaz (Sp.-Q.)" or, unmarried at thirty, as 
mas rapaz, and it is assumed that he has several sweethearts. If he loses 
one to another man, it would not occur to him to quarrel with the rival, since 
his other women satisfy him. "Only Cholos fight over a woman." Fighting 
when drunk is not motivated by jealousy. Theoretically, jealousy is never 
entertained, just as it was said by the Zapotec to be unfamiliar, at least 
among men. 

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of being mated" 1 or the 
singularity of living unmarried." 3 In the family connections of Rosita and 

108 See Preface, p. iv. 

109 From Francisco Andrango Cabezas of Cayambe, who has Cholo connections, comes 
the following: "When an unmarried woman feels for the first time that she has something 
inside, she says, 'Well, what am I going to do if God has punished me? Dios mfo, is it be- 
cause of evil conduct toward my parents that this happens to me; is it my evil hour or my 
evil luck?' Moved by repentance, she says, *It is up to me to go away and work somewhere, 
away from my parents and my family so that they may not see me or see anybody's angry 
face.' " (All this sounds more Cholo than Indian.) 

110 The term is applied to an old maid also, and, of her, it may be said, huamita maskai rapaz, 
"woman looks for a bachelor." All our talk about bachelors and maids was taken humorously 
by Rosita and Jos6. 

111 A like point of view seems to have prevailed in Inca Peru. The lineage name, Inca, was 
bestowed only after marriage. A married man of the blood royal was also called ataucki. The 
female of Inca lineage was nyusta before marriage, patta afterward (Garcilasso, I, 96-97). 

A like point of view prevails among Otavalenos. Whether or not one is married is ever the 
first question put to you, as you engage in conversation on a park bench, in the cemetery, say, 
with the White pantconero, on the roadside, or when invited into somebody's house. 

IIf In Cayambe it is believed that the unmarried at death is condemned. This belief saddens 
parents of an unmarried son or daughter of advanced age. Because the single person has not 
married, the devil makes him or her marry a she-goat or a he-goat. This, if it is a sudden death. 
If the moribund can still talk, the family will summon his or her sweetheart, if there is one, to 
hold the hand of the moribund. If there is no sweetheart, any single person will do. By hold- 
ing hands, they feel that they are married and that the moribund is thereby saved, to the 
tranquillity of the family. 



60 PEGUCHE 

Jos only one lifelong celibate, Mercedes Ruis (Chart III, No. 7), was to be 
found. (Except for her unwillingness to get married, there was no peculiar- 
ity about Mercedes, I am told.) Marriage does not fully determine economic 
status, but it is a step toward economic independence. But participance in 
festivity and wider sociability is determined by marriage. Girls never drink 
before marriage; youths, rarely. 

Although certain economic roles are fixed between the sexes, there is a 
great deal of informal co-operation, women helping men," 3 and in house- 
work men frequently lending a hand to women, even to washing clothes or 
wool, to grinding corn, to rubbing out quinoa or shelling peas, or to holding 
the baby. The idea that men who do women's work should dress as women 
transvestism is wholly unfamiliar. Nor did I find any suggestion of 
homosexuality. One of the folk tales contains an overt account of bestiality 
a woman sleeps with a cat as her husband and the idea of intercourse 
with animals appears to be familiar. 114 A generation or so ago a well-known 
gentleman of Quito, Rosita had heard it gossiped, lay with a bitch who 
bore him a human child with the tail of a dog; and once there was an Indian 
woman at Quinchuqui who copulated with a dog. 115 "Women who do not 
know how to have children [no saben tener guaguas]" are "those who may do 
this." This statement was made by Rosita without criticism or any ex- 
pression of outraged feeling. 

Rosita stresses the importance of continence in connection with child- 
bearing. She remains continent throughout pregnancy and for one year 
after childbirth, 116 a practice not altogether general in Peguche. Some wom- 
en have a child every year. In some families, according to Rosita, there are 
ten, twelve, or even fourteen children. The amount of intercourse at any 
time varies from couple to couple; every night for some, less often for others. 
Rosita had no shyness in speaking of this or of other matters of sex. Of con- 
traception or of notions about means to conceive or to determine sex she 
was ignorant. I asked her if she had ever noticed whether Jos6 got drunk 
more often during their long periods of continence than at other times. 
"No, he did not," she said; and, as I expected, the very idea was strange to 
her, too strange even to question me about it. From Cayambe masturba- 

* Cf. early Peru, where every man knew how to weave, till, and build and where "Ac 
women knew all these arts also, practicing them with great diligence, and helping their hus- 
bands" (Garcilasso, II, 27). 

< Sodomy is mentioned as a pne-Inca trait "in some provinces" (tfft, I, 59; II, 154-55), 
and it was severely punished as "a crime which the Yncas abominated beyond anything." 

" Rosita mentions these cases just as did an Inca general: There were some sodomites 

not in all the valleys, but one here and one there, nor was it a habit of all the inhabitants, 

but only of certain particular persons" (Mt. 9 1, 245). 

"'Continence throughout the period of lactation was die practice of the Peruvians of Cuzco 
JW..i 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 61 

tion is reported as practiced, but only by a few; Indian informants believe 
it is more common among Whites. 

Between the sexes there is the familiar distinction in posture, men sitting 
with legs outstretched; women, with legs underneath or with right leg under 
and left knee raised. In sitting down, a woman will kneel, bend forward on- 
to doubled-up hands, and then straighten up on folded legs. I was always 
reminded of a cow lying down, although a cow drops first to her forelegs. 
Both men and women walk flat-footed. In carrying very heavy burdens, 
men will go at a trot. Both men and women are constant carriers; but a 
woman is never without her carrying doth, and there is generally something 
in it. Men go about their business more often back-free. You often pass 
men on the road with nothing but a flute in their belt or a cigarette on the 
brim of their hat. Women do not smoke, but they, too, carry on their hat 
brim a folded headdoth or things that might be crushed if thrust into the 
chemise, commonly a bulging receptade. 

As a rule, on the road a woman follows the man she is with, but men and 
women often walk together in a group, instead of single file. Walkers of 
either sex somewhat favor single file, "like cranes," says Garcilasso, or In- 
dians anywhere. 

Road greetings are in Quechua: nyachurihupangiy "Thou art going"; 
nyarihupanimiy "I am going" (Sp. ya me voy); or butnas dias y tia or //, 
"Good day, aunt or unde." On entering a house at all formally, you ask: 
shamupasha mingachiway, "Can you offer hospitality?" The host will an- 
swer: shamupayja kayguma shamupay (Sp., venga no mas y a casita oengd), 
"Come, indeed, come to (my) little house," or yaikupay okuguma, "Enter 
the corridor." On leaving anybody or at any time, you say: rinimi, "I 
am going," or hasta kashkdma (Sp. hasta luego), or kayak&ma (Sp. hasta 
manana). Between Indians the Spanish embrace or the handshake is not 
customary; and, when either is performed for the benefit of a White, it is 
reduced into a slight and listless contact. Sometimes, indeed, in shaking 
hands the hand is kept covered by the poncho. Yet, if a man is feding gay 
from liquor, he may kiss your hand, as Manud Ruis, meeting me on the 
road, kissed mine, or as I saw Pedro Lema kiss the hand of his niece Rosita. 
To a priest, to his patron, sometimes to other Whites, an Indian will raise 
his hat; 117 he removes it when passing by a church, and inside the church 
Indian women as well as men take off their hats, an indication that Indians 
took to wearing hats in imitation of their men, as might anyhow be inferred. 

Neither sex makes much use of gesture. I have seen Rosita place the 
index finger of her right hand vertically over her mouth, for her as for us, a 
silencing gesture. Only once did I see any suggestion of lip-pointing." 8 The 

"' OtavaleSos commonly bare their heads in passing a padre but less commonly, I think, 
than the Indians and far less commonly in passing by a church. 

See p. 98. 



62 PEGUCHE 

hands are not used in pointing or in attracting attention. For this, the head 
is thrown back. 

Men and women seem to enjoy the same kind of humor jokes about 
sex, about dung, about lousiness," 9 or about personal singularities, laugh- 
ing at somebody (asi, "laugh," naian, "desire"). One Venture is laughed at 
in the family (Chart I), for example, because he calls himself Buena Ven- 
turita, "Good Little Luck." 

SICKNESS AND CURING 

Within her household Rosita uses a great many plant remedies or medi- 
cines. The following list is a small part of them, for I never went walking 
with Rosita that she did not point out others, and all these we did not col- 
lect. Indeed, every plant is a remedy for something, she herself once re- 
marked. Yet she is firm also in the belief that prayer, too, is essential: 
"Only those who know how to pray can cure." 

Boiled maize is "good for the stomach." 00 

For malaria Rosita has an elaborate herbal prescription, a quicker and 
much more effectual remedy, she insists, than the quinine of the drugstore. 
It is a decoction of verbena, 01 botoncillo alpa kinua, flor de nacha^flor de 
irba (yerba) mura, pelo de chock ("corn hair") (Q. chuguacha), and a little 
linaza (linseed). A remedy for "fever" is poshe, the white clay used for felt 
hats and on the spinner's fingers, together with miyoko (a root vegetable 
like potato) or oka. 

Nettle (Q. sini) is good for several fits of illness, the seizures that here, as 
elsewhere among Spanish Indians, are called ataque: nerves, rheumatism, 
or pain in the lungs. You rub it on, it stings, and the pain goes." 3 The 
thistle (Sp. and Q., Carlo Santo) with a yellow bloom, growing on the edges 
of a cornfield, is boiled and drunk against witchcraft, "nobody can be- 
witch you." Tjhe leaves of ambululong (little puirple flower) are heated to- 
gether with egg, which serves as an adhesive, and applied to the jaw for 
toothache. 

Rosemary (Sp. romero; Q. romirota), which may certainly be considered a 

"'Seep. 157. 

" Garcilasso reports (II, 357) that the Spanish doctors used maize flour in lieu of wheat 
flour "in the treatment of all diseases." 

131 A medicinal or ritual plant in Spain, in ancient Peru, and among Jibaro (Karsten 4 : 507). 
The night festival on the eve of a Spanish saint's day is called verbena (Sp. dictionary). 

*The root offotoncitto together with other things is used as a clyster by Canelos Indians 
(Karsten 4: 509). 

** At Cayambe the above ailments are all attributed to "bad wind," and treatment by 
nettle may be prescribed (Appendix, p. 196) . Inferably, the "ataque" at Peguche is from "bad 
wind" also. 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 63 

ritual plant, 134 is also a remedy for toothache. Cinnamon (Sp. canela; Q. 
ishpingo)?** is also ritualistic cinnamon water is drunk by the bridal 
couple, drunk in childbed, served with rum at saint's day celebrations, and 
a bit of the plant is chewed and sprayed by the curer. I learned of no nar- 
cotic except the little magenta field poppy (dormidera) which is applied 
fresh to the head for sleeplessness. For sale in the Otavalo market is aya 
huasca, "dead (soul) vine," an inch or so of fibrous vine. 226 (The name 
aya huasca^ the narcotic, of the Oriente, was known to Rosita, who so identi- 
fied my market specimen, but Rosita said she did not know how it was 
used.) The idea of plant spirits seems quite unfamiliar. 

Another market remedio is toucan (Sp. predicador} beak, 327 not the whole 
beak but a bit to scrape as powder. 128 Rosita identified the beak as that of 
the predicador but did not know how it was used. All market-sold remedies 
are said by Chola vendors to be for m al de coraz6n. 

For malde corazdn or any sort of seizure (ataque) obsidian is dropped into 
decoctions. 129 Bits of obsidian, plata de Inca, Inca money, 130 or aya kulki, 
dead (soul) silver, are quite common in the fields of Peguche, and I found 
some in the mound of Quinchuqui that was trenched by the hacendado. 

Urine is a remedy for Rainbow or for mountain-sent disease. 131 

If you rub a dead housefly (raku chuspi, "big fly") onto a cut that is 
healing, there will be no scar. 

For broken bones one kills a dog and with its blood makes a plaster, 
binding it with a belt. In a month the bone mends. An arm or leg is never 

*** See p. 199- 

" Canelos remedy for diarrhea and stomach ache, a decoction of bark or flower (Karsten 
4:507)- 

126 Bannistfria ca'api (Karsten 1:6). One of the two narcotic drinks used in divination 
(Karsten 4:432 ff.) by Jibaro and Canelos Indians, among whom plant animism is developed. 
The other Jibaro-Canelos narcotic is datura (Ju/antuc). Both plants are cultivated by Jibaro 
and Canelos. To narcotized Canelos medicine men datura appears "as a little white man in 
black clothes, who arrives to cure the evils he has inflicted 'smoking a big cigar' " (Karsten 



Datura leaves are used by Peguche and Cayambe curers to envelop what has been cleansed 
from the patient (see pp. 71-72) or at Cayambe to sweep out the house of death (Appendix, 

p. 202). 

"7 Bird beaks are kept by Jibaro hunters for a purpose other than medicinal to attract 
birds (Karsten 1 144). But Jibaro believe the toucan is a demoniacal bird bewitching people 
with its large beak (Karsten 4:389). Obviously, the beak might also be prophylactic. 

xa8 For scraping bird beak for aire and for malde coraz6n y "heart trouble," see Parsons 2 : 1 19. 

139 For use of stone amulets among Jibaro see Karsten 3 :367~68. 

o An amusing secondary interpretation. Obsidian was used originally for knives. 

* See p. 66. Cf. use among the Zapotec (Parsons 2:119) and in Yucatan (Redfield,p. 73). 
Urine is also a Spanish or European remedy. 

From Cayambe it is reported that if a cow drops a calf in the paramo the owner must urinate 
over the calf; otherwise, if the cow is gentle, a condor will seize the calf. 



64 PEGUCHE 

cut off, remarked Rosita, as in the White hospital at Quito, quite unneces- 
sarily. Rosita would not go to the Quito hospital, 132 an attitude not uncom- 
mon, I am told, among Quitenos themselves. 

There is no hospital at Otavalo, 133 but there are public health doctors and 
a dispensary conducted by the Sisters of Charity, who fill prescriptions. 
The doctor's service is free; 1 " the medicine is bought, and, in comparison 
with home remedies, naturally seems high priced to the Indians. However, 
the dispensary is used by the Indians. Rosita, for one, will buy boric acid, 
which she knows is a good wash for sore eyes in an infant. She also gets 
honey 135 from the dispensary as a laxative for the baby and oil or milk of 
magnesia for herself. 136 Stronger cathartics are not supplied, although ap- 
parently they are needed. In some cases elimination is quite neglected. 

School children in Otavalo are vaccinated, but there are many pock- 
marked adults, and in Peguche vaccine has never been used. Only three 
years ago there was an epidemic of smallpox. In Rosita's household Jose, 
Andrea the servant, and little Lucila got it. Rosita administered a purge 
and applied vaseline. 

Ailments that are unidentified, so to speak, or pains anywhere in the 
body may be attributed to mal aire, "bad air," to Rainbow (cuichi) y or, 
by many, to witchcraft. Rosita accepts the two first diagnoses but not the 
third, which runs counter to the Church and indirectly, as we shall see, to 
her economic betterment. 

Pains from aire are cured, as in Mexico and elsewhere, 137 by passing an 
egg over the body se limpia con huevo, "you cleanse with egg." Particular 
persons, not necessarily midwives or curers at large (the term curandero is 
rarely if ever used at Peguche), know how to cure by egg.* 38 Cleansing by 
egg is not witchcraft. Nor is cleansing by guinea pig, another cure for aire. 
You rub a dead guinea pig over the body, and the pain leaves you and goes 

See p. 167. 

* Nor surgical instruments. The autopsy made in the witch-suspect case reported in El 
Comircio on August 14, 1940, was made with carpenter tools! 

134 The public health doctor of the municipality has an average of 450 calls a month. Per- 
haps 10 per cent are Indians. Patients are not classified as White or Indian, and little or no 
case history is kept. No house calls are made. When I reported that the Peguche folk were 
about to eat meat said to be from poisoned cattle, acting on the information was not considered 
a public responsibility. Later I heard that the dead cattle were being buried. The cattle were 
not poisoned; they had died of some fever, and it was dangerous to eat the infected meat. 

x Cf. Garcilasso, II, 395. 
See p. 167. 

'" Parsons 2:136-37. This method is familiar to Whites in Otavalo and Quito, who say 
that the rainbow causes fever and wounds. 

"* For details see Appendix, p. 197. 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 65 

into the guinea pig. 139 Nobody knows what aire is; they know only that it 
causes pain. Mai aire may be referred to as agent 140 or, more commonly, 
as the sickness or pain itself/ 41 After encountering a night-wandering spir- 
it, 14 * peg* mal aire, mal viento, bad air, bad wind strikes you. 

The second day after Matilde's birth Rosita suffered pains in shoulder 
and back, afterbirth pains not experienced, she said, at the birth of her 
other children. "What should cause them ?" she asked me. "They are quite 
common after childbirth," I answered, "and they will pass." But Rosita's 
mother called and advised her to be cured by egg; the pains were caused 
by aire. 143 The next day I learned that early in the morning the egg treat- 
ment had been given, Rosita getting up for it, and the pains had ceased. 
Rosita was feeling cheerful not only because of relief from pain or ache but 
because she was satisfied that she had taken the proper and effectual 
remedy. 

She enjoyed the same satisfaction when she caused little Lucila to be cured 
of granoSy granites, "little pimples," as any skin eruption or malady, any 
sore, may be called in Spanish America. After a bath in the stream, in the Rio 
Jatunyacu, Lucila's face broke out. She must have touched the boulder 144 
which is the "house" of Rainbow. 145 And so her mother took two guinea 
pigs, one white and one black, to the "house" and fastened them there alive, 
for Rainbow. 146 She also left there some cooked food meat and potatoes 
and some cigarettes and matches. 147 

It is generally believed both in White and in Indian circles throughout 



Z 4 Cf. Garcilasso, I, 49. Among Canelos Indians, Huaira Supai (Wind Demon) resembles 
a monkey and may be seen flying through the air. He is the spirit of disease-bringing winds 
and is much feared (Karsten 4:387, 428). 

x <* Cf. Parsons 2:118-20; Redfield, pp. 61 ff.; Bandelier, p. 93. The concept of santo aire, 
an ill wind from the saint, precludes keeping a saint's image in the house. 

w See p. 89. Or, at Cayambe, neglecting funeral exorcism when the deceased sends mal 
viento (Appendix, p. 203). 

z Sudden, unexpected, or localized pains are attributed to bewitchment among Jibaro 
(Karsten 4:394; Stirling, p. 116), in Mexico and elsewhere. But Rosita does not believe in 
witchcraft. 

z At Cayambe at the edge of a large accquia that passes to the Hacienda Ishigto there lies 
a flat rock on the middle of which the spirit (ducnde) stands to bathe just at noon. If persons 
go there to wash clothes or to bathe before noon, they have bad accidents. If they go after the 
spirit has bathed, nothing happens to them. 

x In Inca belief rocks and great stones were huaca^ sacred places entered by the spirits 
(Garcilasso, 1, 115) or, in pre-Inca belief, themselves spirits (#&, p. 47). 

146 For guinea ing offerings in Inca Peru see Molina, p. 62; Salcamayhua, p. 85. Garcilasso 
refers (II, 372) to "modern wizards" as "sacrificing" maize, vegetables, and fruits, chicha, cold 
water, wool, clothes, sheep, and "many other things," including coca leaves. 

z " Cf. the offerings to the sprits causing granos in Maya Yucatan (Redfield, p. 69). 



66 PEGUCHE 

the country 148 that Rainbow malady, 149 unless treated, causes death 15 * or 
insanity. I heard of the fear of Rainbow first from a White woman in Quito, 
where prophylaxis or cure was to urinate in the direction of the rainbow or 
to kill and skin two guinea pigs and rub them over the body in the belief 
that the sickness would pass into the animals. 131 Rainbow-sent eruptions or 
sores (salepura materia, sale agua) may be treated by guinea pig in this way 
or by egg also in Peguche, and urine and mm may be blown on the patient. 
Obsidian is also used as a remedy in Rainbow maladies (quando pega el 
cuichi)y but how I do not know. (Obsidian is not derived from Rainbow.) 

Rainbow causes sickness 15 * also in animals, and here se cura cuichi by 
purging, 

The place under the rainbow or where it ends is particularly threatened. 353 
One afternoon when I remarked to Rosita that on the way to her house I 
had seen a rainbow, she asked eagerly its whereabouts. "Over the Hacienda 
San Vicente, no mas? and that relieved her. 154 

For fright in a baby (Sp. bebe espanto) you hold him head downward and, 
shaking him vigorously, call out, "Shungo! Shungo! [Heart! Heart!]" 155 If 
an older child is frightened, you put the leaf of the gourd called sambo on 
his belly, wave a rosary around him, and call out his name; or, as among 
the Zapotec, you may go the place of fright, scratch a cross on die ground, 
and pour out some rum. (You do not kill a chicken.) 156 Then in the corners 
of your house you call into the water jar filled with water and flowers, "Ven- 
ga! Venga! Vamos a casa!" For adults there is a more elaborate herbal 
treatment. 



*< In Cayambe there are two kinds, red and white. Cuichic Colorado is serious swellings 
and abscesses all over the body; cuiehic bianco is comparatively trifling: blisters over face, 
hands, and feet (see Appendix, p. 198;. Lucila's case was, in Cayambe terms, white cuiehic. 

Cuichic Colorado appears to be what the Spaniards called lulas> "pustules," believing it was 
contracted from Indian women (Quito, 1573, p. 61). 

Aymara forbid children to gaze at Rainbow lest it kill them (Bandolier, p. 100). 

' Curing with guinea pig (method not specified) was familiar in early Peru (Bandelier, p. 
154, n. xig, citing Arriaga). 

In Inca Peru they called "the rainbow Chuychu, and, owing to the veneration they felt 
for it, when they saw it in the air, they shut their mouths, and put their hands over them, for 
they said that if they exposed their teeth it would decay and loosen them" (Garalasso, 1, 276). 
Covering the mouth with the hand is a widespread Indian gesture on being startled or discon- 
certed. Garcilasso's interpretation of the gesture is probably a secondary explanation. 

*M See Cayambe (Appendix, p. 198, n. 45). 

x The foot of the rainbow seemed to the early Peruvians a fearful place, since there a aar 
or other awful thing would be found (Bandelier, p. 154, n. in, citing Cobo). 

x s See p. 198 for Cayambe cure. Cf., for fright sickness, Zapoteca (Parsons 2: 120-23) La- 
guna Pueblo Indians (Parsons 3 : 191, 717); Chiricahua Apache (Opler, p. 224). ' 

Chicken sacrifice or offering is unfamiliar. Chickens and domestic turkeys were intro- 
duced by the Spaniards. 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 67 

The two treatments I saw given for fright varied somewhat from this 
generalized account. One was given by an old woman, a hacienda Indian 
of Natahuela at the northeastern end of the valley ?& the other by Josefina 
Teran, a curandera of Peguche with an active midwife practice among Indian 
and Whites. She is a sister of Misias Terin, the best known "witch doctor" 
of Peguche. Their father was White. Josefina's cure was proceded by diag- 
nosis and cleansing (exorcism) by guinea pig. I will describe the treatment 
as a whole. 

Rosita removes her belts and first lies down so that Josefina may more 
easily pass the guinea pig over her head, neck, chest, and stomach; for her 
back under her clothes, she sits up. Josefina holds the guinea pig firmly 
around the neck; at first it squeaks a little, but it does not struggle. Its back 
is brushed, rather than rubbed, over the patient. Within ten minutes the 
guinea pig is dead, by slow strangulation. 

Maria now brings a small bowl of water, and over it Josefina skins the 
animal, beginning from the back feet and pulling off the skin in one piece. 
She uses only her hands, cutting by nail. She looks carefully at the body, 
finding some white spots which indicate shungo. Then she opens the body 
with her fingers and pulls out the entrails, which she throws to the puppy. 
She inspects all the organs intently, communicating to Rosita what she 
sees. The organs are not full of blood, ensangrentados; so it is not fever. They 
indicate debility only, not bewitchment. Some long whitish fibers seem par- 
ticularly significant. 158 The heart is prognostic: if the upper parts open and 
close "like a mouth," the patient will die; if they do not move, the patient 
will recover. Happily, they do not move, and Rosita will recover. 

Josefina throws the guinea-pig remains to the lean mother of the puppy 
and dips her fingers in the bloody water in the bowl. She has not removed 
her many rings, and so deftly has she worked that only the ends of her 
fingers suggest the butchery. She refers to the whole process as limpiando > 
"cleansing." It is pretty clear that the animal is taking over, if not merely 
catching, all the ailments of the patient. However, practically, it is diagnosis 
rather than purification or exorcism, for now the cure for fright proceeds. 

Into a little bowl containing lard supplied by Maria, Josefina has dropped 
her own pulverized cinnamon (poho de caneld) and a small round tablet of 
chocolate. All this Maria has heated and melted, and now Josefina rubs it 
on Rosita, on all the seats of pain. Josefina has very firm hands, and the 
neck rub hurts "Eh! eh!" from Rosita. As Rosita sits up for the back rub, 
Josefina has her move her arms forward with her hands clasped. Then Jose- 
fina makes the sign of the cross over her back with the usual words of prayer, 
and she hits her back three times, saying each time, "Rosita, Rosita, Shim- 
go, shungo, shungo!" 

x 7 See pp. 167-68. xs * See p. 197. 



68 PEGUCHE 

Meanwhile little Alberto has fetched from the ravine some leaves of 
takso de gal/inazo 9 which Josefina puts under her own belt (to warm them, I 
think), 159 glancing at me to see if I am looking. This is the only time she 
shows any self-consciousness. The massage is repeated, and then Rosita 
is held at the waist and, as far as her sitting posture permits, shaken up and 
down, three times, Josefina saying at each shake, "Shungo! Shungo! Shun- 
go!" In pairs the leaves are put around Rosita's waist, Josefina blowing 
from the lips in the sign of the cross on the first pair of leaves. The belts 
are replaced, and Josefina gives a short final massage to the arms. 

Throughout, Josefina has talked in a conversational vein, with Rosita 
rejoining, expressing interest in every detail. While the pay is being collect- 
ed for Josefina to bundle on her back two sambos (each worth two reales) 
and about eighteen ears of maize Josefina asks me if they cure this way 
in my country. "Yes, and they suck too." 

"But that is de brujo [witchcraft,]" remarks Rosita. Josefina, sister of the 
Peguche sorcerer who sucks, says nothing. 

Sorcerers (Sp. brujo\ as professional curers, curanderos (Q. kambidurd), 
are generally called, 160 are able to send sickening creatures into the body, 
also to suck them out snakes, fish, worms. One sorcerer may send them 
in, and another take them out. Sorcerers are also diviners. 161 

An enemy must work through a professional to bewitch you; there seems 
to be little or no private black magic. 16 * Envy is believed to be the prime 
cause of the kind of enmity that resorts to witchcraft.* 6 * But I surmise from 
general attitudes and from an incident in the "cure" I experienced that 
envious desire to harm another is not directly or overtly expressed; rather 
the harm or injury you have received from another is to be turned back 

x Seep. 196. 

^Other Quechua terms are yahatukushk* and kanchamiko. A mongrel term is bruhung- 



'' In the provinces before the Inca conquest many sorcerers and witches "only exercised 
thar art, to be able to talk to the devil, so as to gain a reputation with the people, giving replies 
to things that were asked, and making themselves great priests and priestesses" (Garcilasso 
I, 60). Despite disparagement by the Catholicized Inca, divining was in high repute also in 
Inca culture (tftf., II, 372, 378, 459). 

* '*! ( ? n f e f . 1 ** rf P ladn 3 a candfe on a table and calling out the name of a victim. The 
Spanish belief in malojo, "evil eye," hurtful to cows and infants, is said to be entertained by 
some Ptguche persons who will cure an infant by spraying him with chewed squash pips. This 
is not the usual cure, and I am not certain that the evil eye was actually being described. At 
any rate, the belief seems far less current than elsewhere in Spanish America. 

J *i 'Women used the art of bewitching people, oftener women than men, from envy or 
recorded through Father Bias Vafcra and Garcilasso is this: "Envy is^a^Trm d^t gnawTand 

STT!?^ 

able that the Father misunderstood the saying, which should read: "Envy sends a worm thai 

gnaws and consumes the entrails of die envied"? 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 69 

upon the sender, much as any c asus belli is worked up. This is the line of 
black magic used overtly wherever a sorcerer works against another sorcerer 
and tacitly wherever bewitchment is thrown back upon the bewitcher. 164 I 
surmise that this kind of retaliation, throwing back the curse, is an even 
more common attitude in practicing black magic than has been realized. 

There are three practitioners in Peguche: Pablo Rimachi, Jose Maria 
Romerez, and Misias Terdn. Rimachi, who bears the name of a conquista^ 
dor, is from Pucara. I heard of him too late to arrange a visit. Romerez was 
born at Monserrate and married into Peguche. Romerez looks Indian and 
his manners are Indian. Terin was born in Peguche, but his father was 
White, and he shows it quite plainly, a large man, with something of a 
beard. When we first called on Jos6 Maria, he was absent in Quito, giving 
treatment to a White patient, but from Misfas I succeeded finally in getting 
a treatment. Jos6 and Rosita kept putting me off, being very loath to in- 
troduce me to Teran; but at last Rosita went with me to his house. It was 
in the middle of the morning, and Misias had not yet slept off the effects of 
two treatments given the night before treatments are supposed to be given 
at night, and at each treatment a bottle of rum is drunk. 165 Practitioners are 
reputed to be hard drinkers and generally incapacitated by day. 

However, Misias overheard us talking in the corridor, came out, and 
asked "what favor was wished," did I want him to divine (adimnar la 
suerfe) 166 or to learn about a marriage or about a robbery or to have him 
cure? "To cure." So Rosita and I were invited into the bedroom, and a 
mat was spread. I was asked for two sucres to buy a bottle of rum and a 
candle. 167 Misias delayed some time in returning from the chichma> and, 
when he came back, the bottle was half-empty. The candle was placed in 
a small, black clay candlestick and lit. Misias and Rosita sat down on the 
mat on one side, and I on the other side facing them, the unlit candle be- 
tween us. From a small, rectangular covered basket alongside, Misias 
takes out five bits of ishpingo, "vanilla/* placing them near the candle. 
He asks me for ten sucres. I put down two bills. He asks for the money in 
silver. He asks for a sucre in plata blanca y "white money," as the smaller- 
sized issue is called. Two sucres he places in front of Rosita, and he calls for 
his wife to come and sit with us with money in front of her it is malo, 
"bad," not to have money in front of you. The woman does not come. 

Now he shows me how to blow, three times on the candle a forcible 
expiration from the throat. He lights the candle. "No es pecado [It is not 

Ifi < As among Jibaro (Karsten 4:418; see also below, p. 199) and many other peoples. 

z< 5 Jibaro medicine men cure by night, in a darkened room, and they have to become gradu- 
ally narcoticized (Karsten 4:413, 4x4; Stirling, p. 119). 

166 Divination by tossing corn kernels or beans (Parsons 2:306-12) is unfamiliar. But see 
Molina, p. 14. 

x 7 Cf. Parsons 2:305; Redfield, p. 57. 



70 PEGUCHE 

a sin]," he remarks to Rosita. 'It is not a sin to cure; only to kill when 
somebody asks you to do so." 

He asks my name. He asks for "tobacco," and I give him a package of 
cigarettes, the kind that is folded over at both ends, in thick yellowish pa- 
per. He orders me to hold my palms out near the candle. He asks for a 
handkerchief and he scrubs the palms hard. Again he asks my name. He 
stares at the candle flame. Again he asks my name; he cannot remember it. 
"No es pecado!" he exclaims for the third time, and from his basket he takes 
a powder and sprinkles some on the candle flame, which sparks. 168 This ap- 
pears to be divination or diagnosis, for he proceeds to state that the suitor 
I rejected had sent gusanos, "worms," 169 into my neck and upward into my 
head and eyes. He orders me to remove my glasses, and he stares into my 
eyes. He looks at my tongue. "Pobre! Poire!" Poor thing! He takes hold 
of one hand, then the other. He is heavy-handed, almost rough, and impa- 
tient when his orders are not at once understood or carried out. In talk 
which is mixed Quechua and Spanish he emphasizes yo 9 "I," in an unusual 
way. (I wondered if all this was the effect of the liquor that in other cir- 
cumstances also makes men self-assertive or whether it was traditional pro- 
fessional behavior until I got the Cayambe account of curing, 170 which 
prescribes overbearing behavior.) 

The diagnosis completed, Misfas proposes that we leave and return 
another day. We demur to this, but he leaves the room, and there is noth- 
ing for us to do but to retrieve half the fee and step into the corridor, where 
we see Misias already lying asleep. His wife tells us to return in the after- 
noon. 

On our return Misias is considerably recovered- He pats me on the shoul- 
der and bids us take our positions inside on the mat. He lights two candles 
and closes the door "porque eso es muy secreto [because this is (to be) 
very secret]." He bids me put down the money I removed. He arranges 
alongside the ishpingo (cinnamon), a spray of HgrecUbfi* the bottle of rum, 
and takes out two cigarettes. He shows me how to blow from the throat 
twice on each end of one of the cigarettes. The other cigarette he lights and 
pufis at very fast, 17 * depositing the ashes on a bit of white paper (provided 
by me), together with a sprinkle of powder from his basket. 

He asks my name, scratches a little cross on the ground, with a spot on 
each side "Y", and remarks to Rosita, 'This is Elisa [left spot facing out]; 

Itt The Aymara sorcerer casts something on his ritual fire which causes it to spit and crackle 
(Bandefier, p. 98). See p. 174 for early Peruvian divination from fire or flame. 

x * Among Jibaro, worms are sent into the body by a sorcerer and are therefore invoked by 
medicine men in curing sorcerer-sent sickness (Karsten 3:293). For distinction between be- 
witchment and disease see Karsten 4:394. 

* See Appendix, p. 196. '?' Tiprccilh (fiperonia sp.). See Appendix, p. 197. 

x **The Brazilian Tapirape shaman smokes to intoxication (Wagley i :258). 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 71 

this [right spot], her enemy. The evil (maid) he sent into her I am going 
to send back into him." 

He stands up, takes a drink from his bottle, rolls up his cotton pants well 
above the knee, and orders me to remove shoes and stockings, head kerchief, 
and glasses. Kneeling close to me, he bids me repeat three times: "Yo creo 
en Dios 173 [I believe in God]," and three times, "Yo creo en la Virgen San- 
tissima [L believe in the Holy Virgin]" indubitable sanctification for what 
is to follow and possibly an invocation. 174 

He manipulates toes and ankles, fingers and wrists, neck and forehead, 
with no light hands. Puffing the cigarettes I exhaled on, he blows the smoke 
in large mouthfols on my feet, chest, and head. 175 At this time, in fact, 
most of the time, Misias stares or glares at his patient. 

Now Misfas reaches for his cinnamon and tigrecillo, chews some, takes a 
mouthful of rum and, standing up, sprays 176 it all violently over my feet 
and legs. Then he sprays another mouthful into my face. He orders me to 
put out my tongue. 177 I demur, suggesting that instead he spray the neck. 
He orders me to pull down my neck-fitted sweater as far as I can, two or 
three inches, 178 and he proceeds to spray. 179 

He goes toward the door, turning his tack on us. From there he asks im- 
patiently if not angrily if I still want him to take out the gusanos? "Yes, of 
course." Coming back, he stands over me, growls and snorts violently 380 
and bestially/ 81 pounces and sucks 182 one side of my neck, strongly but not 

* Cf. Appendix, p. 196. 

74 We may recall the story of the shipwrecked Spanish sailor who repeated the "Credo" so 
as not to be taken for a devil (Gartilasso, 1, 44, 45). 

1 7s Among Jibaro, tobacco is a staple against disease and enhances the power of the body, 
particularly to resist evil spirits (Karsten 4:442) or to summon spirits (Stirling, p. 120). 

n*Brujo kambingfukushba, "witch cures he belows"; (sopla) pami hambing, "in this way 
he cures." (Rosita agrees with the view held ever by die padres throughout Spanish America 
that "blowing" is witchcraft.) 

x "The Jibaro medicine man blows and sprays tobacco water, sometimes into die mouth 
(women are given tobacco juice through the mouth, men through the nose). Then he sucks 
vigorously and holds up to view what he says he has sucked out (Karsten 4:418, 442). 

Z 7* Cf. Appendix, p. 197, where the patient is nude. 

x " For Mexico and elsewhere see Parsons 2:135, 1 3&1 Redfield, references to santigttar; and 
note the lines in an early Peruvian poem addressed to the god Viracocha (Means, p. 437): 
"Being one who 
Even with his spittle can work sorcery." 

180 Described as bravura, "fierceness," at Cayambe (Appendix, p. 196). The behavior of 
Misias is certainly that of one possessed, although there is no verbal expression of this con- 
cept. Cf. Lowie, p. 423, for South American parallels. 

lSl Among Canelos Indians jaguar or tiger cat, the puma supay, is invoked in curing. These 
beasts are incarnate medicine men (Karsten 4:387). The Tapirape shaman has a jaguar famil- 
iar (Wagley i :256; also for Caraja, Lipkind, p. 250). 

183 Shimiwa skupang, "with his mouth he sucks"; shupashpami shitang (Sp. mala 'kunata)> 
"sucking, he casts away all evils." 



72 PEGUCHE 

painfully, and then from his mouth he takes out a dark-brown cylindrical 
quid about two inches long and puts it on the piece of paper near the candle. 
"Now you see it, you see it!" he exclaims excitedly. "Que bueno! Que 
bueno !" I respond. Again he moves toward the door, returns, and, snorting 
again but less violently, sucks the other side of the neck, and presents to us 
another brown quid, less compact, more stringy or fibrous-looking. "Que 
animalito!" we exclaim. A third one is sucked from the back of the neck. 
As this is being shown us, we hear voices outside, and, when Misias goes 
to the door, I take advantage of the interruption and draw on my stockings. 

When Misias returns, he asks for a sucre to pay the person who will carry 
away the anirnalitos to a distant gully, a dangerous task. The door opens 
halfway; he hands out the parcel wrapped in a large datura 183 leaf and 
sprays the recipient (his wife) with rum the spraying is obviously prophy- 
lactic, a protective rite. 

Closing the door and returning to us, Misias asks, "Is it good?" 

"Muy bueno, muy contenta." That pleases him, and he shakes hands 
with us both and sits down again behind the candles. He sprinkles his 
powder on them; one sparks, the other goes out. "Mala suerte [Bad luck,]" 
he comments. 

Now he puts pinches of the cigarette ash and powder he had previously 
prepared into my outstretched palms and with his index finger taps vigor- 
ously on each palm. He does this also for Rosita. It is for buena suerte, 
"good luck." 

In two days I am to return, he says, for another treatment. 184 I need 
twelve treatments 185 to be rid of all the destructive "animals" inside my 
head. 

Three I am rid of, but the others are still there, for I did not return. 
However, I was truly muy contenta. One finger ached a little, my dress was 
stained, and I was reeking of rum; but had I not been through one of the 
oldest of American Indian rituals well performed? 

The reactions of Rosita and Jos6, to whom we described the treatment, 
are of interest. Rosita, who had never been cured for witchcraft or attended 
a cure before, said that at first she felt like laughing but that then she began 
to be frightened. It was, of course, funny to her to see me take off my stock- 
ings, and afterward with a laugh she wondered what Senor Andrade would 
think when he drove me back to town and smelt the rum. Rosita has as 

z> > p>J!cripundcl; Q. huantu. Two subspecies of datura grow in the valley: Datura arborea 
(white bloom) and Datura stramonium (yellow or red Moom). The juice from the rind of D. 
stramonium is drunk as a narcotic for divination by dream by the Jibaro (Karsten 4:438). 
Rosita knew of no medicinal use of datura. 

xl Cf. successive treatments, every other day, at Cayambe (Appendix, p. 197). 

x| sThe Jibaro medicine man gives successive sucking treatments; there is more than one 
tuncki to be extracted (Karsten 4:418; Stirling, p. 118). 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 73 

keen a sense of the ludicrous based on incongruity as anybody I know. 
Jos6 laughed even more; the whole affair and every detail we related seemed 
ridiculous to him, but from another angle, that of the scoffer. "Yuya bmjo 
[Lying witch,] says Jos. Why yuya (Sp. mentira) ? "Porque no es cierto 
[Because it is not true]." This seems to be the prevailing attitude of Peguche 
people toward their sorcerers, 186 of whom, nevertheless, they are not quite 
unafraid. 

Misias plainly welcomed the opportunity to impress Rosita. Probably 
he is visited more by Whites than by Indians. 187 Once he was taken to 
Guayaquil 188 to treat a White patient. As we left Misias' house, we saw 
a White patient waiting in the corridor for his turn, a young man with a 
bandage around his jaw. 

Earlier, during the diagnosis, another White man dropped by obviously 
to eavesdrop, to Rosita's annoyance. For one thing she would not like to 
have it reported to the cura that she had visited a sorcerer. "Catholics hear 
Mass and believe in the saints," Rosita had said to me. "They do not be- 
lieve in witchcraft. Es pecado [It is sin]. Masones or Protestantes visit a 
sorcerer to have him send animalitos into a person." 

Through Rosita I met the wife of Jos Maria Romerez during my 1941 
visit and although I called alone, Rosita being sick, Jos6 Maria was quite 
acquiescent about divining for me about a missing ring. Was it lost or sto- 
len? How might I recover it? "Have you brought cigarettes and a candle? 
he asks. Cigarettes, yes; but not a candle. Two other clients are sitting in 
the corridor, a couple from near Tabacundo, canton of Cayambe, and the 
woman offers us her little white candle. Jos6 Maria declines it; it won't do. 
"They are strangers (ajenos)." So he sends his daughter to buy a candle for 
which I pay 2.50 sucres. Meanwhile the Cayambe couple have told me 

186 The early attitude was different, it was reported in 1582. "Anciently the Indians of all 
this district worshipped at the guacas, where the Demon appeared to them and the Indian 
witches (hechiceros) talked with him, and they believed in and reverenced those Indian witches 
and did all that the witches ordered" (Rclaci6n de Otaoolo> p. in). On the other hand, there 
was a certain type of Peruvian diviner (district unspecified) said by those who consulted them 
to be unreliable "because they always lied" (Molina, p. 13). So some degree of skepticism 
may be pre-Spanish. 

187 Witch doctors. in Argentina are patronized more by Whites than by Indians (Metraux). 

xM A Cholo stranger from Guayaquil was treated by the witch Patricio Arias (living near 
the cotton mill La Joya) the night of July 28, 1940. The stranger died the following day (El 
ComerciO) August 14, 1940). 

On April 1 8, 1940, El Comercio had reported another brujo-cvrmidtro case. A witch in the 
parish of Yaruqui, province of Pichincha, a hacienda Indian, gave a night treatment to one 
Jose" Maria Morales, in the house of Morales. A candle, a bottle of rum, tobacco, and "certain 
kitchen things" were supplied, and the witch shut himself in with the patient. Three kinsmen 
eavesdropped and, frightened by the guttural sounds and unintelligible phrases of the witch 
and believing he had harmed the patient, set upon him when he left the house about eleven 
o'clock and beat him with sticks and, as he was escaping, fired a fatal shot. (From this, I take 
it, the patient and his kinsmen were Cholos unaware of die need of bravura?) 



74 PEGUCHE 

about their robbery: blankets and all clothes except what they had on were 
stolen from their houseskirts, backcloths, belts, poncho, hats. They start- 
ed at once to get help from Jose Maria, staying overnight near Espejo. 

How long Jose Maria may have kept them waiting I do not know, but 
they still had to wait, for he told me to enter his room. We sit down in a 
corner on logs against the walls, a mat in front. His daughter lights a candle 
end, closes the door, and sits down near by on one of the two cane bedsteads. 
Jose Maria proceeds to rub my candle over the back of my right hand, three 
times, then over the palm, four times; over the back of the left hand, twice, 
over the palm four or five times. From his throat he blows twice on the 
candle and passes it to me to do likewise. He lights the candle from the 
one burning and on a little melted wax stands it up at the edge of the mat. 

He asks for a cigarette, lights it in the candle flame, and smokes quietly 
without puffing the smoke anywhere. He asks if I am living in the hotel 
and where did I keep the ring? 

"Sometimes in a box; sometimes I wore it. I don't know if it was stolen 
or just lost." Gazing into the candle flame, Jos6 Maria says quite positively 
that the ring was not stolen; it fell off my finger. He smokes another ciga- 
rette, his eyes always on the flame. For further information he will have to 
arrange for (componer) ishpingo (Sp. canela, cinnamon) and carnations, 
which he can get in the market, if I give him a sucre. He smokes and gazes 
at the flame. "The ring has fallen off in the road; perhaps as you were walk- 
ing, perhaps from the car. Come back tomorrow." He asks for another 
sucre for this visfo. He blows out the candle, and I take my leave. 

The following morning I find Jose Maria cutting some bamboo near the 
house, and he asks me to wait a little while. His wife Francisca is not there; 
his cousin, a poor widow, she tells me, from Monserrate, is in charge. As 
soon as she sees me, she starts to grind the cinnamon on a conveniently flat 
stone with a dark, polished one (an ancient artifact, I think) which fits 
vertically into the palm of her right hand. For hard pressure from time to 
time she puts the left hand around the upper end of the stone and of the 
index finger of her right hand, thus bearing down with both hands. The 
base of the stone is flat. She uses her left hand also to brush back the scat- 
tering powder. After covering the pulverized cinnamon with a flap of paper 
weighted with a little stone a needful precaution against the nosing dog, 
the woman takes off the line some of the unusually elaborate wash: a large 
pink tablecloth with drawn work of floral design, large white bed sheets, 
cotton flannel pajamas, a man's shirt with cuff-button holes all store- 
bought things. Jose Maria has been shopping in Quito. (A polo cap hangs 
on a bamboo rafter.) 

An hour or more passes as the cousin settles down to spin from a distaff 
tied to a post in the corridor. Finally, Jose Maria returns with his wife and 
a large gourd ofchicAa. They have been to a house-roofing minga to which 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 75 

Jos6 Maria contributed his bamboo, and he and Francisca both had the air 
of having had a good time. 

Jos6 Maria offers me some of the chicha, but chic. ha will not be used in 
our tardy ceremony; a bottle of rum is necessary. He asks for 3.40 sucres 
and sends for the rum a man who had been helping him cut the bamboo and 
who is to be invited to sit in on the ceremony. Francisca and her cousin 
also attend, and all are given drinks and are talked to from time to time by 
Jos6 Maria, who seems to like to talk informally to somebody or other, just 
as did Misias Teran in his ceremony. 

Francisca folds and lays down on the mat a white cotton headcloth. This 
is called the mesa> "the table," inferably the altar cloth/ 89 Yesterday's half- 
burned candle is produced, and Jose Maria bids me rub it hard on each 
palm and on my chest. He lights it and places it on the edge of the cloth 
with the bottle behind it. To one side is the paper of cinnamon and also a 
paper containing a grayish powder, "from a mine in the East," which Jos6 
Maria is to sprinkle on the flame to make it spark out, as did Terdn. 

Now Jos6 Maria arranges in the middle of the doth, forming a little circle, 
or, rather, four points, his four stemless crimson carnations. From his small 
covered basket, one just like Terdn's, he takes out a highly polished dark 
stone, much the size and shape of the grinding-stone, and places it in the 
center of the flowers. To each flower, radiating so that a cross design 
emerges, he adds a shell three are spiral univalves and one a bivalve (half 
a scollop shell). On top of the antique central stone he places a translucent 
glass marble with a little white figure in the center, a "five-cent store" 
affair, no doubt, instead of a crystal. His altar is complete. 

He asks for a cigarette, puffs smoke on the altar, including the candle, 
blows twice from throat into the bottle, and takes a mouthful which he 
sprays over the altar. He takes a quiet smoke, his eyes fixed on the marble, 
and then he tells me it is certain the ring is lost. I shall not find it. So 
that's that. 

But was this not the second time I had lost the ring? "Yes," I answer. 
He can arrange (componer) so I will not keep losing things. Would I like 
that? "Yes." 

"What will you pay?" 

"Five sucres." 

"I want ten sucres." 

"Bueno." And the second ceremony begins. 

He replaces the marble in the basket. His wife hands him two sprigs of 
kchero leaves and two sprigs of some other plant to place at each tip of the 
cross design. He asks for a sucre and places it where the marble had been, 
on top of the antique stone. More smoke-puffing and nun-spraying. In be- 

z *9 This term, used regularly for altar, might easily mislead any one describing at second 
hand into thinking the altar was table set y not ground bud. 



76 PEGUCHE 

tween he makes noises between a hiss and a whistle through his teeth which 
correspond to the animal sounds made by Teran but are less violent per- 
haps Jose Maria's spirit is a bird. He prays for a minute in Quechua, con- 
cluding with the sign of the cross over the altar, "in the name of the Father, 
in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Ghost" (Espiritu Santu) 
He bids me put down the ten sucres, and he sprinkles a pinch of the gray 
powder on the bills. He takes a drink, this time from a tiny wooden bowl 
or cup that has been set on the altar. He refills it for me. It is only a 
mouthful but, pretending to blow my nose my digestion happens to be 
upset I spit into my handkerchief while he is busy giving a drink to the 
others. 

He bids me place my right hand on the altar, palm upward. He puffs 
smoke on it, sprays rum, and repeats for the left hand. With a cloth he 
scrubs hard both palms held toward him. He puffs smoke into them and 
then closes them as if they were to hold in the smoke each time. He blows 
from his throat twice on both ends and middle of a cigarette and gives it 
to me to light by the candle and to smoke. He puts into my hands two of 
the carnations and a pinch of the gray powder and bids me rub my hands 
hard together. I rub and rub and then shake off what is left into a bit of 
paper he holds underneath. He balls it up and casts it into the middle of 
the room. Later he will spray rum on the little ball so this seems to be a 
cleansing (limpiado). He looks carefully at my palms and turns them so 
the others can take a look, commenting the while (I infer that if nothing 
stuck to them it was a good sign, but this is where I most miss Rosita). 

On the altar he has placed a small chunk of something which he now 
hands me to "try/* I nibble; it might be wax. I take the particle out of my 
mouth, of which he disapproves. More puffing and spraying; more whistle- 
hisses. Another much longer prayer in Quechua. He bids me remove the 
wrist watch, eye glasses, and coat. After blowing twice from his throat on 
the sucre on the altar, he presses it firmly to the middle of my forehead, 
where it sticks for a minute or two, while the rum circulates. When the 
coin falls into my lap, he orders me not to touch it, and he blows on it again. 
He asks for a bit of cloth. Not being an Indian woman, I haven't any, of 
course, which annoys him, so I offer my handkerchief. In a corner he wraps 
up the sucre, now well charmed, together with a carnation and a pinch of 
the gray powder, and tells me I am to keep it all as ^guardta and that, when 
I return another year to Otavalo, I am to visit him and tell him I have not 
lost a single thing during my absence. 

Again he fills the tiny cup with rum for me, but this time he sprinkles 
into it in the sign of the cross some of the cinnamon and again in the sign 
of the cross a pinch of the gray powder! The powder or powders float on top. 
He looks at the design intently, pointing it out and commenting to the 
others. I am in a jam! For he looks closely at me as I take the mouthful; 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 77 

lie suspects something. I suppose he has smelt the rum on the handker- 
chief. "Swallow it! Do not spit it out!" I turn my head away. "Speak to 
me," he says, knowing, of course, that if I speak I must swallow. "Speak 
to me!" They are all looking at me, with concern, almost with consterna- 
tion. I am well aware that it would be like spitting out the Blood. And this 
time I would have swallowed but for that gray powder that makes a candle 
spark. What would it do to my stomach? So in plain sight I spit again into 
my handkerchief, in which the coin is knotted. Fortunately, that placates 
him. It is not inside me, but at least it is in a good place. 

Again he bids me place my right hand, palm upward, on the altar. With 
his index finger he presses down hard on the tip of the middle finger, above 
the wrist, and then with some of the gray powder he presses down very 
hard in the middle of the palm, leaving a blackish spot of powder. All this 
is repeated for the left hand. He passes his hand down the neck of my sweat- 
er and on the breast bone presses another pinch of powder. He puffs smoke 
down the chest and sprays rum. (He remarks that all the cigarettes are 
gone, and he would like to have some on hand. I put down four reales.) 
Then he blesses me with the sign of the cross. I stand and step toward the 
ioor; but he moves ahead and turning quickly sprays me over with rum, 
so unexpectedly that I turn my head instinctively to protect my eyes, which 
makes the ladies laugh. 

In comparing the ceremonies of Misfas and Jos6 Maria, it is obvious that 
certain rites or practices are identical, although they compose somewhat 
differently: the candle for diagnosis, puffing smoke, spraying rum, rubbing 
the palms of the hand, 290 the use of cinnamon, the medicine basket, getting 
pay step by step, so to speak, and sounds indicative of a spirit companion. 
But in some particulars Jos Maria's methods differ from those of Misias. 
Jose Maria was not overbearing; even when I was refractory, he did not at- 
tempt to bully, as I am sure Misias would have bullied. This was partly a 
personality difference, I think, and partly cultural- in general, Jos6 Maria 
seemed more Indian than Misias. Why Misias did not make more of an 
altar, setting out stones or shells, I do not know. Allbrujos have stones which 
they are given in the mountains by the spirits (duendes) who accompany them 
(Rosita). 

DEATH AND BURIAL 

In White Otavalo the velorio, "the wake," lasts one night, and. burial 
takes place the day after death. In Peguche also this is sometimes the prac- 
tice, but generally the wake, biloriu y lasts three nights. A may fro (maestro) 
or may fro rezador, master prayer-maker, is in request if the deceased is mar- 
ried (or past the age of marriage?). 191 The mourners eat and drink and get 

z Probably there is more to learn about this. 

191 See p. 143. Maytro rezadar sJuanushka rizangapa Kloriupi y "master prayer-makers come 
to pray at the wake/' 



7 8 PEGUCHE 

drunk. At the wake of a child (angelito guagua, "little angel baby") up to 
the age of fifteen a violinist plays dance music to which the godparents 
dance 1 * some mothers dance and do not cry, others cry and do not dance 
all this in the early Spanish mode. 1 " The godmother supplies the shroud, 
up to marriage, 194 and the angelito a crown of gilt paper. The family sup- 
plies the coffin. 

The corpse is washed 193 and then brushed with rosemary and carnations. 
A sprig of rosemary is placed under the arm, "which means it will be needed 
by the deceased." 196 Rosemary and flowers, probably those that have been 
passed over the corpse, are placed in the coffin above the lower part of the 
body on top of the white cotton shroud. Bread and fruits in a food gourd 
or tied up in a doth are also placed in the coffin near the head. The grave 
cross lies temporarily on top of the corpse. 197 

Coffin and little wooden cross are fetched from Otavalo from the street 
of the coffin-makers the day of the death. A child's coffin is painted white; 
an adult's, orange or magenta; and once I saw a black coffin, unusually 
large and escorted to the cemetery by more people than usual. 

Funeral parties pass through Otavalo about nine o'clock in the morning. 
Sometimes the little formless procession of men and women stops at the 
Church of San Francisco for a burial service, which costs fifteen sucres, but 
usually it goes directly down the street to the cemetery. For a child's funeral 
the violinist is in the lead, carrying his instrument but not playing it until 
he reaches the lane to the cemetery. 198 The child's coffin is carried on the 
shoulder; the adult's coffin, on a bier. 

192 General among highland Indians. The dance is called sirichi (Karsten 4:485, n. i). 

z *>Zapotec (Parsons 2:148-50); Yaqui (Spicer, p. 38). See Bemelmans, pp. 97-98, for 
the observance of a still more elaborate Spanish funeral for an angelito by Ecuadorian Indians. 
The seated angelito is carried from house to house for several days. 

*Cf. Yaqui (Spicer, pp. 103, 216-17). Yaqui godparents are responsible for the entire 
funeral of an unmarried person. It is a return for the feast given the godparents at the baptism, 
and "it is thought of as the essential feature in the whole relationship" between godparents and 
the parents of their godchild. See also Parsons 2: 149. 

*** Mimistirittg armacfunggapa wangyushkaia (necesita banork al muerto), <c lt is necessary 
to bathe the dead." See Appendix, p. 200, for carrying the corpse to the irrigation ditch. I 
surmise because of the use of ritual flowers, as in the wedding wash, that the Peguche corpse 
is also carried to the ditch. 

2 *"A weapon in the other life .... against any danger on the road" (Appendix, p. 199). 
See tales, pp. i43~44> which indicate a sometime belief in the capture of the dead by spirits. 



Appendix, pp. 199-200, for burial practices at San Rafael and at Juan Montalvo, 
Rchincha Province. 

x * There is no violinist in the more formal procession of a White child. I watched that of a 
pupil in the boys' school of Diez de Agosto. First came the sacristan, carrying a cross covered 
with magenta doth, and three chanting altar boys in white vestments and magenta collars. 
The classmates follow, two by two, some carrying bouquets or wreaths of white roses. Then 



FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE 79 

Down the long street they make their way to the double cemetery, the 
Indian part separated by a high wall from the part for Whites, and deposit 
the coffin at the foot of the tall central cross, la santisima cruz. The lid is 
removed from the coffin, exposing the shrouded body and the half-uncov- 
ered face. The headcloth is down over the eye and the shroud pulled up 
over the mouth. Near the head of the coffin, outside on the left, a lighted 
candle is affixed by dripped wax. 1 " The women mourners gather around, 
and one or two, the closest relatives, begin to wail. 200 They are addressing 
the deceased: "We were companions. Together we did this or that. \Ve 
had a good life." 

The women sit around the open coffin for an hour or more, the wailing 
cadence 201 intermittent while the other women chat and even laugh; then 
the lid is nailed down with a stone, and the coffin is carried to the grave and 
lowered. At one burial the White cemetery keeper, the panteonero, failed 
to supply the lowering ropes, and women loaned their belts, showing a sur- 
prising lack of fear of death "contagion." 

After the coffin is down, holy water from the Church of San Francisco may 
be passed to the panteonero to cast into the grave accompanied by prayer. 
Wailing is renewed, and in one instance an old woman who had wailed very 
persistently tried to throw herself into the grave. 202 A youth restrained her, 
holding her from behind by her arms. After some earth has been shoveled in, 
two grave-diggers jump in to stamp down the soil. 203 The grave is narrow, 
wide enough only for the narrow coffin; it is about six feet deep. All the 
graves are orientated south and north, head to the south. Earth is piled 

the white silk-covered coffin, borne on their shoulders by boys. Lastly, the priest in gold and 
crimson vestments, and several men in black. There are no women in the procession, but a 
few attend the church service, as does a little girl all in white and wearing a white veiL 

In the church there is a candle at each corner of the little coffin, with flowers in bottles or 
jars alongside. At the head, at the foot of the cross, are two paper angels. The priest asperses 
the coffin. The bells ring doubly fast as the procession approaches and as it departs for the 
cemetery. 

199 For light on the "road" taken by the deceased see Appendix, p. 200. 

** In Quechua wailing is described as Kaparisfipa huakaka huanyushkamanta ya kishpa 
(gritar /fan* el muerto [?}de la pena). 

302 In early Quito there was much funeral wailing (grandes voces y plantc) (Quito, 1573, 
p. 93). There was wailing, too, in Inca Peru and professional wailing during the past century 
at funerals in Cuzco. The barrio wailing women were paid in currency. The funeral procession 
was led by men carrying candles and by a violinist and a clarinet player (Squier, p. 459). 
The Jibaro widow chants to the deceased, praising him and reminding him of episodes in their 
past life (Karsten 4:456). 



902 



2 See Appendix, p. 203. In White Quito circles, I am told, it is not unusual for chief mourn- 
ers to manifest suicidal intent. In early Indian Quito the most beloved wife was buried with 
the deceased (Quito, 1573, pp. 93-94). In Peru women and retainers were sometimes buried 
with the Inca. 

** I have seen fragments of bone in excavated grave soil but nothing like a whole burial. 



8o PEGUCHE 

over the grave in a low mound, about a foot high. This mound is considered 
important. At one burial a good deal of trouble was taken to get enough 
earth to make the mound. (I heard a man remark with an emphasis I did 
not then understand that no earth was left over. It meant the deceased had 
died at his appointed time.) 204 At another time I saw a funeral party on 
their way out gather around a grave furrowed by rain. The mound 
had been washed out, and there were cracks on the surface. Pobre! 
Pobre! they exclaimed; and a woman said to the panteonero that lest 
such a thing happen to her grave she would prefer to be entombed in the 
concrete vault. There are several of these vaults which, unlike the grave, 
are orientated west (head) and east. 803 The large central cross faces west. 

After the grave mound is completed and the cross fixed at the head, a 
clothful of cooked victuals potatoes, corn, etc. is laid on top of the 
mound for the grave-diggers; it is the lunch of the dead, almuerzo delmuerto, 
a regalo for their work. 

On the cross has been written the name of the deceased and the date of 
death. Sometimes on the spot the panteonero 206 is asked to write it. For this 
and for his prayer he charges a fee the amount of which is generally disput- 
ed. Not even at the graveside is bargaining foregone! 

Now the women and all outsiders will withdraw, and the men of the 
family connection will encircle the grave while a senior, if not a maestro^ who 
has been in attendance at the wake will lead in a long prayer delivered in 
Quechua. 

Last of all, the chief woman mourner, sometimes more than one woman, 
will step over the grave mound, go around the head of the mound antisun- 
wise, and step over it again this for an angelito as well as for an adult. In- 
ferably, this is the same rite as that observed in San Rafael and Juan Mon- 
talvo when a child is passed across the corpse of the house father in order 
to forget and not be "impassioned" for the deceased.* 7 But in Peguche in- 
terpretation was lacking. 

** Sec Appendix, p. 202. 

** Although both vault and trench are undoubtedly Spanish forms of burial, they also, 
curiously enough, suggest the prehistoric burials of this region, the deep "wells" and the 
mounds or rude oven-shaped vaults of stones over which earth was heaped. 

^The psnuonero is a loquacious and inquisitive fellow. Among other questions he asks 
if there are naturdes, "natives, Indians," in my country. He tells me that una carta de comen- 
dactin> "a letter of commendation," is put into the coffin. Roata denied this, and it seems im- 
probable. The panteonero also tells me that grave permits have to be obtained from the cura of 
San Francisco, who keeps a mapa of the graves, family by family. There are some family 
plots Jose* and Rosita have one but they are not common and are probably an innovation. 
Only Rosita's deceased child is buried, or rather entombed, in her plot; Josefs father is not 
buried there. 

ai ? Appendix, p. aoo. 



CHAPTER V 
RELIGION 

In the municipality of Otavalo there are three churches, representing 
three parishes: the churches of San Luis Obispo, of San Francisco, and of 
El Senor de Jordan. The parish of San Luis contains the parcialidades of 
Rinconada, Punyaro, Santiaguillo, Imbabuela, and Mojanda. Baptismal, 
funeral, and memorial services are performed irrespective of parochial 
boundaries in San Francisco. The parish of El Jordan contains the par- 
cialidades of Monserrate, Peguche, Quinchuqui, Ilumn, La Compania, and 
Agato. Parish priests are in charge at San Luis and San Francisco; San 
Franciscan friars are in charge at Jordan. The friars are replaced every 
three years; their order was re-established in Otavalo fifteen years ago. 

Peguche, like other settlements or villages, has a chapel, but the sacra- 
ments of baptism, confirmation, and marriage are performed in the parish 
church. For the last sacrament the Peguche family whenever possible will 
send for the priest, who makes no charge for this ritual; and a funeral serv- 
ice is often held in the church. On Mondays and Thursdays Masses and 
responses are said in all the churches for the Souls, las almas Masses 1 for 
the Whites, responses for the Indians, who deposit grains, fruits, bread, and 
meat under the altar of the Souls. From 5:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M. the Indians 
bring their offerings, which the priest sprinkles with holy water and ap- 
propriates. For each service, every few minutes, the bell of San Francisco 
repeats its clamor more gratifying to those regardful of their dead, I may 
say, than to one who would sleep a little longer. 

From their crops the Indians pay primicia, "first fruits," and diezmos, 
"tithes," to their parish church. The church sells the rights to tithes to 
Otavaleno merchants, who collect the produce. Instead of tithes hacendados 
will send from five to ten baskets of produce to the church. "Convinced by 
their priests," writes Jos6 Antonio Maldonado of Cayambe, the Indians 
"give primicia and diezmos as if it were a divine law and a way to conquer 
a heaven." 

The cult of the saints was organized in early Spanish Ecuador much as in 
early Mexico or elsewhere in Spanish America. Every village or settlement, 
every town or city, has its patron saint and major saint's day celebration. 
Other saints may also be specially identified with any unit of population, 
and their days also may be celebrated, although in less degree. The saints 
are the "advocates, abogados, of the dead," and one had better stand in 

1 Misa de alma, from 10 to 300 sucres. 

8l 



82 PEGUCHE 

with them a point of view I have never heard advanced in other Indian 
circles. Besides, the saints bring blessings to the living, a belief general 
among both Indians and ^Yhite people. 

In charge of each locally notable saint there is a manager, a mayordomo 
or, to use the prevailing term in Ecuador, a prioste* In Peguche, as gener- 
ally in Ecuador, men volunteer for the office, which may be continued from 
one to three years. The installation takes place some time in advance of 
the fiesta, and the incoming prioste party, carrying large candles, visits the 
parish church to give a Mass. 3 Every man in Peguche and in other Indian 
communities is expected to perform this duty, pasar cargo, as soon as he 
becomes the head of a household and can afford the expenditure; once is 
enough, but he may undertake the charge several times "six times, even 
ten times." Manuel Lema was prioste or capitdn, the usual Peguche term, 4 
four times: when he was twenty-five and married three years for El Senor 
de Jordan and later for Santa Lucila, San Jose, and San Agostin; Jose Ruis, 
married at nineteen, an independent householder at twenty-four, became 
prioste for El Senor de Jordan when he was twenty-six and served three 
years. When a man fails to undertake his charge promptly (no pasa cargo 
pronto), he is called mukusu (mocoso), "an inexperienced youth." People 
say to him: Pasai karguta, mukusu! They also call him pobrc, "poor," or 
sakaje, "a savage." 5 

A capitdn may have two assistants, pajes, youths or men who have not 
yet served as capitdn. 

Small boys, called loa (Sp. for short panegyric), may also attend the 
capitdn. On entering his house, they address a few words to the Lord Jesus 
Christ (Peguche), and again, as orators, they take part in dramatization 
(San Rafael).' 

Except on patron saint's day, and then rarely, is there any dramatization. 
At vespers the saint is carried from the capilla, the chapel, to the house of 
the capitdn for the night. The table-litter is set down in the middle of the 
room. There is no altar. The next morning the saint is carried on his litter 
and escorted by the capitdn and others to the parish church in Otavalo, 
where a Mass is to be paid. Saint and banner are pkced on the altar, and 
after the Mass they are carried back to the chapel, whence relatives and 
compadres move on to the house of the capitdn to feast. 

This term became current also in Uruipan, Michoacan, Mexico. The term cargadar, as 
well as the term mayordomo^ is used in Yucatan (Parsons 2: 154, n. 2). 

a See p. 109. 

Priest* is Spanish; capitdn, Quechua(!) (or early Spanish; see p. 207, n. 82). 

* Mana c*rg> yalishka [*ya li ishka], "Thou hast not fulfilled el cargo" (no has pasado el 
cargo), is the greatest of insults (Saenz, p. 79). Note similar disesteem among Zapotec (Par- 
sons 2:178, 193) and Yaqui (Spicer, p. 53). 

* See pp. loi and 103. 



RELIGION 83 

Elaborate preparations have been made. Bombs (camaritas) are to be 
set off, as in Mexico, gunpowder in a piece of pipe. 7 Foodstuffs and liquors 
have been contributed by relatives and compadres, who also contribute their 
services. Wood for the cook fires has been brought in, and a pile raised 
which may last over for some time. A cross is set at the top of the pile. 
The main dish is boda (Sp. mazamorra or colada), the ritual dish of fine corn 
meal cooked in water; and the prioste house is called boda huasi (Sp. casa 
funcidri). Mutton, beef, guinea pig, chicken, fruits, and wheat bread are 
also served. After eating, the party drink chicha and rum all night long. 
Rum may be mixed with canela (cinnamon) water. Flutes and panpipes 
are played, and la banda, the brass band of White musicians, is employed. 
Men and women dance or merely stagger around, since everybody gets 
drunk. 

At the installation of the capitdn and his assistants there is also some celer 
bration, with a Mass and the passing-on of large candles. 8 

Besides the capitanes there are chapel officials: the sindico, who keeps the 
keys (and is responsible for church property), and several alcaldes, mayor 
and minor or kati alcalde, "second alcalde," who act as sheriffs, 9 taking 
those who get drunk and fight at fiestas into Otavalo to be fined by the Co- 
misario Nacional, and to this extent these chapel alcaldes are secular ofEcers. 
Alcaldes de capi/la also assume responsibility for assembling work parties, 
mingas, desired by the parish church, of which also they may be considered 
to be alcaldes. The five alcaldes" of the Peguche chapel are also alcaldes of 
the Church of Jordan. The first and second alcaldes are changed at the 
New Year if they so wish; otherwise they may hold office for two or three 
years. Alcaldes de capilla have canes of office (baras\ which are kept in the 
chapel." 

In parish church and more particularly in chapel organization lies the 
nearest approach to self-government to be found in Peguche or in any In- 
dian settlements in the valley or elsewhere in Andean Indian Ecuador. 13 
By 1573 the alcalde system was established in the district of Quito, and, 
as we noted, the 1580 report on eastern highland Ecuador states that "all 

i At the fiesta of El Senor de Jordan los "Voladores" or "Sartas," fine balls that run from 
the church portal and back, are set off; but nothing like the Mexican use of fireworks, so popu- 
lar among both Whites and Indians, is to be seen in Ecuador. There are no fireworks, for 
example, at the funeral of an angelito. Nor is the art of the maytro kwifero (maestro cohetero) 
as highly developed. 

8 See p. 109. Cf. Parsons 2:195-200. 

See Appendix, p. 208. 

10 In distinction to the alcaldes de doctrina, who function today only in connection with the 
haciendas (see Appen., pp. 207-8). 

11 Rafael Lema, Antonio Cotocachi, Jos6 Ruis, Severio Teran, and Casimiro Diaz. 
" See Appendix, p. 207. xs See Appendix, pp. 207-8. 



84 PEGUCHE 

the towns have churches and alcaldes and they [the Indians] live in an order- 
ly manner and are intelligent people." 14 The edict of Philip III in 1618 pro- 
vided for an Indian alcalde in every pueblo or settlement (reduction), or, if 
more than eighty houses, for two alcaldes and two regidores, but at most no 
more than two alcaldes and four regidores. These were to be elected at the 
New Year, "as is the practice in Spanish and Indian pueblos," in the pres- 
ence of the euros. 15 In New Mexico it was found that the two euros dictated 
elections, and their presence at elections was prohibited. Separation of 
church and state was initiated and a measure of self-government en- 
couraged. But in Ecuador this feature was not introduced. The euros con- 
tinued to appoint the alcaldes; secular election of Indian officers was never 
introduced. Under the the parochial system Indian officials were and are 
factors of control by the Church. 

From the beginning the Church realized that Indian assistants were im- 
portant to its control. It not only established and encouraged the mayor- 
domia or prioste system for the cult of the saints; it also trained Indians as 
church musicians or chanters, as lay readers or prayer-makers. In Mexico 
the musicos chirimio* drummer and flutist and the brass band 17 the 
cantoresy and the rezadores carry on the folk religion in vital ways. Their 
functions are paralleled in Ecuador by the players of panpipes (Sp.-Q. ron- 
dador), flute, whistle (pingutto), and drum at the saint's day celebrations; 18 
by the violinist or harpist and rezador who figures in child funeral or mar- 
riage; and by the maestro^ the rnoytro who officiates at wakes and burials, at 
chapel services, and wherever outside the parochial churches prayer is de- 
sired or la doctrina is to be taught. 

During my visit at Peguche Rosita Lema and Jose Ruis entertained a 
maestro de capilla who was born at Riobamba, capital of the southern prov- 
ince of Chimborazo, but who had been living a long time in Ibarra. Orgenio 
Huaniing, maytro tayito, or Tayito Orgenio, as Rosita called him (see PI. 
XXI), slept in the house and was fed without change. In return he proffered 
prayers and benedictions, and his presence, I surmise, brought some prestige 
to the family. He would sit by the hour in one corner of the corridor copy- 
ing prayers and la doctrina on loose sheets which he would make up into 
little folios a medieval-like scribe. He sat on a mat, using a box for a desk, 
and alongside was the little orange-painted chest in which he kept his writ- 

'< Stirling, p. 33. 
15 Vasquez, p. 98. 

x *This term is unfamiliar at Peguche. Cajiro (cajero), "drummer," aadpifanirv (pijano) 
"fer," arc given as both Spanish and Quechua terms. 

" In Indian Ecuador U band*, which is made up of White players, is paid directly by those 
responsible for the celebration; it has no official connection with church or village and renders 
no communal service. 

* 8 Saenz, pp. 78-81. 



RELIGION 85 

ing materials, his breviary and rosary. He was intent on his work, but now 
and again he would join in our conversation, in Quechua or in Spanish which 
was none too easy to understand. Tayito Orgenio's relations with the house- 
hold were easy and pleasant, but they showed him no particular respect. 
Once, as we were talking about hats, Lucila grabbed his hat off his head to 
show it to me, a white felt, Cholo-made. That was a great joke to the chil- 
dren, and the maytro^ too, thought it was funny. Little Alberto would rough- 
house with him, one day even teasing him with a strap as he sat before the 
hearth. 

Maestro Huamng was in demand not only in Peguche but in other In- 
dian settlements, and he would be gone on visits elsewhere for three or four 
days, sometimes returning somewhat the worse for wear, disheveled and a 
little drunk. I think he sold his copybooks on these trips, besides officiating 
as a prayer-maker at wakes during Easter at a capilla on the west side of 
the valley and at several saint's day celebrations. At other times he told 
the rosary in people's houses or in the chapel, where he would be paid two 
reales by everyone present. The house services are an innovation en- 
couraged by the Bishop. Returning from one trip, Huaming reported that 
he had been godfather to a saint. When a saint's picture is installed in a 
house, baptismal ritual is performed and a godfather is needed. 29 "They 
give the saint a name." They eat and drink, just as in infant baptism. 20 

Maestro Huam&ig enjoyed traveling* He told me he wanted "to go all 
over the world, hasta doce tierras, as far as twelve countries/' When news 
came that the Bishop of Ibarra was gravely sick, Huaming returned to 
Ibarra for two or three days. He considered himself dose to the Bishop as 
his representative. Formerly, if not now, the maesfros de capilla were in- 
deed ecclesiastical representatives or proxies.* The hacienda peons, the 

19 Among Arizona Yaqui, godparents are assigned to images. Those in charge of the Holy 
Cross fiesta (May 3) are called the paarino and madrina of the Santa Cruz (Spicer, pp. 1 10-1 1). 

20 Was this ever an acculturative mechanism for transforming Indian spirit into Christian 
saint? In Guatemala and Mexico we find analogous suggestions in shaman godfathers (Par- 
sons 2 :$24, n. 99). 

81 As elsewhere, among Zapotec or among Yaqui. The ritual functions of the Arizona 
Yaqui maestro are notable. Without reference to book he must be able to recite the Aye Maria, 
the Credo, the Pater Noster, the Sign of the Cross, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, the Salve 
and Confiteor; these may be recited in either Spanish or Yaqui. The maestro must know the 
Catholic Mass for the Dead in Latin and the various responses for the dead (also in Latin). He 
must know the standard form of die five Yaqui prayers for the closing of a service. He must be 
able to chant in the Gregorian style various chants in Latin or in Spanish. He must know 
Spanish sufficiently well to read certain ritual from a book, for example, the oracioms at the 
Stations of the Cross. In addition, he must be sufficiently ready of tongue to give a sermon in 
Yaqui at the end of a ceremony, which is improvised but which contains certain conventional 
ideas. All this must be accompanied by a knowledge of the regular order of ritual at death 
ceremonies, at saints' days, and at other celebrations of the fixed calendar. With these tools a 
maestro can conduct any of the ceremonies in Pascua. All the texts for Yaqui rituals as well as 
biblical myths are in the longhand notebooks which the maestro keeps as personal property 
(Spicer, pp. 118-20, 242-43). 



86 PEGUCHE 

youths or the younger married men with their wives, were required to visit 
the hacienda two mornings a week at four o'clock to listen to la doctrina 
taught by an Indian maestro. They paid for this By working on the hacienda. 
The nonco-operative were subject to whipping by the maestro or the alcalde 
de la doctrina. 3 * This system of religious instruction is a survival of the obli- 
gation of the encomendero to Christianize his Indians. 

SUPERXATURALS 

God, Dios (Q. achf)> is referred to as Yus,* 5 taita Yus, or as Nuestro 
Senor, "Our Lord." Jesus, too, is Nuestro Senor, Nuestro Senor Jesucristo; 
also Verdadero Hombre Verdadero Dios, Salvador del Mundo, Criador del 
Cielo y de la Tierra, Redentor Jesus, Glorificador, Amorosisimo, Dulcisisi- 
mo, Justicia divina, San Salvador. The last epithet the maestro forgot 
"there should be twelve epithets." "God is great, God is helpful, helpful in 
all ways" (Dios tamanana^ Dios ayudacho, tuquita ayudacho). 

The saints (Q. santukuna), as advocates with God, are to be prayed to 
devoutly: 

santukuna tyangmi manyangapa tuqui chunggua 
los santos ahi para pedirle contoda devocion 

the saints ask them with all devotion 

The Sacred Heart, the Heart of Jesus, Corazon de Jesus, and San Judas 
Tadeo are miraculous in sickness (milagroso 24 por enfermedad). The invalid 
takes a candle to the church* (Godparents of the candle are unfamiliar.) 35 
San Francisco is prayed to against thunder 36 and at planting, and San Mar- 
cos, in behalf of the stock. La Virgen may be asked to give a child, and San 
Antonio to reveal lost articles. (San Emilio might be addressed in earth- 
quake,* 7 said the maestro from Chimborazo Province. In Peguche no saint 
is associated with earthquake; there is little or no fear of earthquake. The 

33 Saenz, p. 95, citing an account dated 1887, but in certain parts of the country this ha- 
cienda system is soil in force (Saenz, pp. 112-13). Cf. the whip that hung in Pueblo churches 
to be used by the Indian fiscal against nonattendants (Parsons 3:150, 475-76). The fiscal also 
assembled the children to be taught la doctrina. Inferably, the Pueblo fiscal is to be identified 
with the alcalde de la doctrina. 

** Dios is similarly pronounced by other Spanish Indians, by Zapotec and by Pueblos. 
Jibaro on the Upano say Ytua (Karsten 4:371). 

** This epithet for the saints, so common in Mexico, is rarely if ever used in Ecuador. 
35 Parsons 2 169. 

afi See p. 153. Curiously enough, the Quechua term for thunder or lightning, yttapa, is for- 
gotten; only the Spanish term for lightning, clrayo, k used. Yllapa referred to lightning, thun- 
der, and thunderbolts (Garcilasso, 1, 275). The Zapotec also use a single term in Zapotec or 
Spanish for all these phenomena. Thunder-Lightning was an outstanding Inca supernatural 
sending hail (Molina, pp. 13, 20); see also Ondegardo, p. 155. 

*? Jibaro believe that earthquakes are caused by powerful demons within the earth shaking 
themselves (Karsten 4:382)- Cf. Zapotec (Parsons 2:206, n. 29). 



PLATE XXII 




PICTURE OF HELL AS DEPICTED IN THE CHURCH OF LA COMPAKIA IN QUITO 



PLATE XXIII 




k sy Bed* tt'i<tk 

FLUTISTS. SAN JUAN DAY, OTAVALO, JUNE, 194 



RELIGION 87 

great earthquake of 1868 seems to be almost forgotten "It occurred, they 
say, because it was the end of the century" and since then there has been 
no memorable quake.) 

Like the saints, las almas y the Souls, may be prayed to for blessings; 
"they will receive prayer for a new house 28 or whatever you want," but the 
Souls are also prayed for, since they live in Purgatory, almas de Purgatorio 
who burn like those in Inferno, but less so. Robbers and murderers go to 
Inferno. Jos Antonio Maldonado of Cayambe writes: "We are very sure 
that there is Heaven and Hell where the Souls enjoy pleasure or suffer 
bitterly for the sins acquired for the world." 

Although food offerings are made in church at the altar of the Souls and 
food for the deceased is set out at the wake 29 and placed in the coffin, 
Rosita was positive that "the Souls cannot eat"; they take only the es- 
sence of the food. 30 The idea that the dead might be living in the same 
way as they lived before in this world seemed quite unfamiliar. "Some Mexi- 
cans believe the Souls live in a pueblo," I remarked. "Without work?" 
queried Rosita significantly. 31 On the altar of the Souls there is no image; 
instead there is a wall fresco or an oil painting of the afterworld Hell, 
Purgatory, and Heaven. 

These pictures in all the Ecuadorian churches I have visited are peculiarly 
vivid and unmistakably impressive, as are such pictures in Spain. Let me 
describe a masterpiece of Hell in the Church of La Compania in Quito 
(PL XXII), the famous Jesuit church gilded, it is said, in Inca gold. The 
picture is a "faithful copy" made in 1879 of one painted in 1620 by "d H. 
Hernando de la Cruz director de la B. Mariana .de Jesus" and represents 
all the sinners, well labeled, and all the tortures appropriate for them that 
the painter could think of: tmpuro, with water from a tap running over his 
head and a vicious black beast 38 devouring his entrails; two females, van* 
and adultera, also preyed upon by an animal; murmurador (backbiter), 
whose protruding tongue is being bitten by a serpent; vengativo> pierced by 
a knife; cruel, strangled by a devil; impenitentes, four figures being racked 
on a wheel; injustos> one of whom wears a crown, in a fiery caldron; usereno, 
his head bitten by a devil; homicides > with knives through forehead; deli- 

38 Cf. Guatemala (Bunzel, p. 364). For use of land thought cf as belonging to the deceased an- 
cestors candles and other offerings are paid to the dead. Cf. the miniature houses made in the 
hills by Yalalag pilgrims in Oaxaca (Parsons 2:379). 

See p. 77- 

3 For Andean Ecuador at large see Karsten 3 1379, n. 2; for Inca Peru, Molina, p. 36; for 
Pueblos, Parsons 3:302. 

3* The Peruvians believed that the future life was "corporeal like this one." In the upper 
world there was freedom from toil, no bodily labor (Garcilasso, I, 127). Among Jibaro and 
Canelos Indians there is no special resting-place for disembodied souls (Karsten 4:454)- 

3 Among Jibaro, missionaries say that the demons, of whom many are animals, torture the 
dead for their sins on Sangay Volcano (Karsten 4:382). See below. 



88 PEGUCHE 

ciosa, her head buried in her arms; zotador, chained by ankles; boracho^ 
drunkard planked with spikes through body and a devil pouring liquor from 
a jar into his mouth; ladron, robber, his body entwined with snakes; three 
hechiceras (sic) who are males, their backs turned and walking calmly away. 
Others who are untortured or whose torture I overlooked are registrador, 
deskonesto (lewd), tahur (gambler), hardhearted (de duro coraz6n)> nefando 
(base), sacrileges, traidor, perezoso (lazy). 

I was not the only fascinated observer of this picture of the penalties of 
sin or crime. An Indian was showing it to his young wife, who carried their 
child on her back. The man motioned 33 to figure after figure, but a large 
male figure with an animal crouched on his shoulder held attention longest. 
The Indian put his hand to his heart, obviously describing the dire thing 
the animal was going to do to the sinner's heart. After fifteen minutes or so 
the couple took a look at the picture of judgment day on the opposite wall, 
dipped for holy water into the basin which was dry, and, without visiting 
the altars or looking at anything else, departed. They had come in just to 
see those two pictures of life after death. 

Again and again I saw similar little scenes before similar pictures in the 
Church of San Francisco in Otavalo." Above the altar of the Souls is a 
charming picture of a compartmental hereafter: the sinners below a bish- 
op, a king, a fair lady in flames, in chains or thorny creepers, on the rack; 
a prison-like purgatory, and above it a bridge, a mere thread, from which 
bodies are falling down or floating upward. Below the bridge but seemingly 
unrelated to it is a sweet, little, blue-water pool with figures standing in it. 
Cherub messengers are flying toward the clouds where God and the saints 
are seated. This picture and comparatively recent bedside frescoes of "Good 
Death" and "Bad Death" focus the attention of the Indians. Near the 
bed of the man dying a good death stand Jesus and an angel ready to ac- 
company the moribund to Heaven; a frustrated devil is turning away. The 
counterpart moribund is gazing upon the picture of a lovely lady, and devils 
stand at his head and feet equipped with chains and brambles and fire. It 
is not surprising that the family of a moribund should wish him to be anoint- 
ed with the holy oils "as a viatic and protection against all the toils of the 
enemy." 35 

Spanish devil, diebfo, Jemonio, was identified by the maestro with sopay,* 

Seep.6i. 

" See Bemelmans, pp. 87-89, for the placing of a like painting in Banos by Franciscans 
newly arrived from Quito. 

" Rubruck, p. 218. 

* 6 Supay. "They had no other name for the devil than supay" (Garcilasso, I, 108; see 
Means, p. 433). Aymara" use the same term for an evil spirit that sends hail (Bandelier, p. 93). 
In early Quito "all their sacrifices and offerings were made to the Devil (Demonic) whom they 
call Zupay" (Quito, 1573, p. 93). Jibaro and Canelos Indians consider various animals or birds 



RELIGION 89 

a generic Quechua term for evil spirit. The maestro also referred to the devil 
as enemigo, maligno, atentaciSn, satands^ and in Quechua shushubiko^ a term 
not known to Rosita. When I asked the maestro for a story about "Diablo," 
he told the story about the man who did not go to confession or to Mass and 
was led by Diablo to a precipice where he fell down and was killed. 37 By 
the padre's order he was dragged to the cemetery by a cord around his neck, 
"like a dog, because he was not a Christian." 38 The same treatment was 
ordered for a woman who lay with the devil incarnated as a cat. Devils can 
make way with a witch or fornicator, "body and soul," 39 or as a black cat 
take possession of a person, living or dead. 40 

The spirits of the unbaptized dead, we recall, are termed auka or alma 
santa* and become dangerous night-wandering spirits.* 3 (In the Cayambe 
Valley it is believed that if a baby's swaddling cloths are exposed toward 
evening to the gaze of an unbaptized infant [huakaisiki or guagua kuko], this 
baby spirit will take possession of the baby and keep it crying.) 43 Alma 
sanfa are abroad in moonlit nights. They are eighteen feet tall. 44 If you 
encounter one, you sicken; "bad air" afflicts you. 45 There are other night 

to be supay. Consider the incident of the Indian lady in Cuzco who, being insulted by a talking 
parrot, spat at it and called it supay (Garcilasso, II, 397). 

37 A story about the origin of devils, a version of the orthodox story, comes from Cayambe. 

the Angels, who became soldiers in favor of Jesus, and the other group in favor of an Angel 
who wanted to be like Jesus, Satanis or the Diablo Mayor, the war chief. In this war between 



WUV TYCtUh^U W **W **** JVOVMJ, ^.^w o* . -*y. , _.w .. -- - - _ 

the good Angels and the bad Angels sometimes Satanis won, other limes the army of Senor 
Jesucristo, and in the end the army of Jesus won the war. Having lost the war, all the enemy 
Angels and the Angel Mayor were sent to hell, sentenced to be condemned forever. So they 
say, all devils have wings because they were once angels. They say that since that war devils 
exist; if there had not been this quarrel (contrariedat?) between the angels, there would have 
been neither devils nor hell. This is a belief not only of the Indians but even of die mestizo 
race. 

a" See pp. 135, US- 

3 See pp. 143-44. Possibly there is some connection here with the Jibaro belief that the 
death demon remains in the body and tries to lay hold of the soul which is then identified with 
the demon that caused death (Karsten 4-395)' 

4 See pp. 142-43- This creature is not the witch familiar of Europe but the black jaguar 
or one of the tiger cats of Peru or the Oriente. In die opinion of all the Forest peoples of Ecua- 
dor the spirit or demon cat may be the incarnation of a sorcerer, living or dead (Karsten 4 1374- 
75; 3:270-71). Cf. Zapotec dream about black cat (Parsons 2:321). 

v In San Pablo Cholo opinion they go to die Limbo de Adin. 

* Among die Isletan Pueblos the stillborn or infants dying before baptism are put away 
under a cairn on a hillside and become Indian rain-making spirits. 

Another account adds that a crybaby may have himself seen ththuakaistki (diabttto florin, 
"little crying devil") . The remedy is to smoke the infant in a smoke from river refuse and a 
grass called huakaisiki and then to wrap up the infant and put him for a while among the guinea 
pigs. After this he will "forget to cry." See Appendix, p. 204. 

44 See p. 44- 

4s In early Peru a patient might be told that he was afflicted because the dead were starving 
(Molina, p. 64), i.e., he had neglected to make food offerings. 



90 PEGUCHE 

spirits merely called diablos whom it is fatal to meet. 46 A Peguche woman 
married into Quinchuqui reported to us one day the sudden death of a 
Quinchuqui man. He had gone outside to urinate the night before he died 
and had met a diabh. "There is no cure when you meet a diabolo; you die." 
The crazy widow, luca (loco) viuda, reported by the maestro from Riobamba, 
also wanders by night, but she does no harm. She is six and a half feet tall. 
The headless rider reported from Cayambe as a duende* seems to be from 
Spanish lore, although we may note, perhaps as a sort of convergence, that 
the beheaded enemy warrior is a most powerful spirit in Jibaro belief. 

Another Cayambe duende carries a drunken woman away across country 
and would have possessed her "body and soul" in his cave had not the cock 
crowed and aroused her. As it was, she fell sick and ever since has been 
sick.* 8 Her experience of hallucination in drunken torpor is extraordinarily 
like that of the narcotized Jibaro. A Cayambe who is not drunk experiences 
similar hallucinations, one of them being the sight of a deer, an animal 
deemed supernatural in the lowlands and formerly in the highlands. 

We may infer from a familiar and widespread folk tale about the Chi- 
picha that anciently a cannibal old woman was believed in. She had two 
mouths; talking to you with the one in front, she would eat human flesh 
with the one behind at the neck hidden in her hair. After this terrible 
monster was burned to death, her ashes called out that she would take 
vengeance; and, when the simpleton carrying the box of ashes disobeyed 
and opened the box, the ashes flew out, to become briars and insect pests. 
Chipicha, I incline to think, is related, historically, with the two-faced 
down mask that is indubitably Indian, 49 but no identification is made by 
the Indians. 

At Peguche Sun and Moon are personified implicitly in terms of reference 
Father Sun and Mother Moon, the Peruvian terms, and the sun is 
thought of as anthropomorphic, a man 50 who goes down into the western 
sea into which all the waters run and sucks them up. 51 But there are no 

4< In Cafiar a mountain dwarf, Urkuyaya, mountain father, kills mountain trespassers by 
night (Rivet, pp. 91-92). Probably the Spanish term duende was used by Rivet's informant, 
but he should have translated it not as "dwarf* but as "sprit." See below. 

Jibaro sprits move around by night (Karsten 4:384). 

In early Peru "it was unsafe to go out at night," for hapinunu achacalla might carry you off. 
They carried off men, women, and children, but their name suggests special danger to women: 
hapinunu means "seize-woman's-breast," achacalla is an exclamation of admiration (Salcamay- 
hua, p. 68). 

See Appendix, p. 206. 

# See pp. 135-36. See pp. 132-34. 

* Among Jibaro, sun, moon, and stars are thought of as having once been men, but there is 
no cult (Karsten 4:381). People are indifferent to the stars, naming only Venus (ibid. 504). 
There is a like indifference at Peguche. 

sx Cf. Garcilasso, 1, 184. "When the sun set, seeing it sink into the sea .... they said that 
on entering, by its fire and heat, it dried up a great portion of the water of the sea, and, like a 



RELIGION 91 

tales about Sun or Moon, no lore about eclipse (Q. amsaiyari); and, with 
one exception, I found no further evidence that they are envisaged as super- 
naturals. The exception I observed in Otavalo. From my balcony I saw an 
Indian crossing the street look up into the sky to see where the sun was. It 
was toward noon, and the sky was somewhat overcast. He looked up again 
and then crossed himself twice.** There was no mistaking his behavior; but, 
when I asked about it in Peguche, Jos6 and Rosita insisted that only drunks 
did this, that making the sign of the cross at noon was not done at Pe- 
guche.* 3 The man I saw was not drunk. 

At Cayambe the Sun is thought of as the husband of the Moon. At full 
moon women say to their children, "Achili Mamita y Holy Mother, has come 
out," and "they make them adore her, principally in drought when the 
women gather all the children together and, looking at the moon, they cry, 
'Achili Mamita, send me a little shower!' The sun they call Achili Taitico, 
Holy Father." A very interesting instance of religious survival among the 
women. 

About the stars (luceros) there is no lore except from Cayambe, the Eu- 
ropean belief that it is bad to count them. If a child says he is going to count 
the stars, his pap& will rejoin: "Hijito, little son, it is not good to count, 
because when we die, Taita Diosito, they say, gives one a quintal of sand to 
count in punishment for having counted the stars." It is a mystery of God, 
and none may dare trifle with the kw of God (Jos6 Antonio Maldonado). 

The rainbow (cuichf)?* as we have noted, 55 is dearly thought of as a 
supernatural 56 who may frequent boulders and who sends sickness, a re- 

swimxner, made a great dive under the earth, to rise next day in the east." In our Southwest 
Sun visits nightly White Shell Woman in her ocean house. 

a Cf. Mishkin, p. 236, for contemporary Peruvian practice. "Every morning as the first 
rays of dawn appear, the men stand outside their houses bowing their heads with hat in hand 
reciting die following: Aw Maria purisima, Inti Huayna Ccapac, sumacllato chisiyauuchihuai, 
ama ima llaquihuan> sumacllata michicuhuaicu, Most Holy Virgin Mary, Sun Huayna Ccapac, 
young, powerful, permit me to pass a good day, without trouble. Teach us with kindness." 

M At Isleta, New Mexico, a prayer to Sun is said at noon, for at that moment Son stands 
and descends to his children much as in Peruvian ceremony Sun descended to sit on his column. 

The etymology is obscure. Although Garcilasso calls the rainbow cuichi (cuchi, Salca- 
mayhua, p. 75, also turumanya and yayacarut), the word is not Quechua (not in Middendorf). 
Aymari for rainbow is kurmi. At Lake Titicaca Rainbow is considered to be a supernatural; 
and children are forbidden to gaze at a rainbow (Bandelier, Islands of Titicaca and Koati, p. 
loo, Part III, n. 98; p. 150; p. 96 cited by Karsten 3:330). 

There is some similarity with the call for swine (see p. 146). Were swine identified with 
Rainbow (see below) because of this vocal similarity? 

Among Tapirape of central Brazil wild pig is a "pet" of Thunder, who in anger sends a 
shower followed by Rainbow after pigs have been hunted and lolled. When Tapirape see a 
rainbow, they say, "The shaman has been successful Cm finding pigs) against Thunder" (Wag- 
ley i : 259, n. 23). 

"Seep. 66. 

6 At Cuzco .the fourth hall in the great "house of the Sun" was dedicated to Rainbow. 
'They had ascertained that it [Rainbow] proceeded from the Sun; and the Kings Yncas there- 



9* PEGUCHE 

cipicnt of offerings, a malevolent being except as he may be associated with 
rain and even so not necessarily benevolent, since rain may damage crops 
as well as favor them. Naturally, a rainbow is thought of rather as a cause 
of rain than as a consequence of rain. (Tamia 57 huakan, "the storm clouds 
weep," is the ordinary term for raining; but about the clouds there is no 
lore.) But Rainbow is associated far less with rain than with the pig; Rain- 
bow is identified with the pig, "es una forma de puerco"***, conspicuous 
case of the intimacy, if not metempsychosis, between cosmic and animal 
spirits that is marked in South America. 

The mountains 59 and hills are personified in reference* and in tales. 61 
They are male and female. 6 * Imbabura is hart urku y "man mountain," and 
Cotocachi, huarmi urku> "woman mountain," and Imbabura courts Cota- 
cachi. The Mountains play ball. The Mountains are endowed by their 
father, whoever he may be, and they inherit according to their virtue, as was 
customary in parts of Peru. 63 The spirit of Black Mountain is thought of as 

fore adopted it for their device and blazon, as descendants of the Sun. This hall was all covered 
with gold. On one side of it, on the plates of gold, a rainbow was very naturally painted, of 
such a size that it reached from one wall to the other, and with all its colours exact" (Garcilasso, 
1, 276) . To the founder of Inca lineages the rainbow was "a good sign," and Rainbow strength- 
ened him (Salcamayhua, pp. 74, 75). 

" Heavy storm clouds, Sp. aguacero; other clouds, puyo. 

s* See Appendix, p. 198. At Pelileo, in the mountains of central Ecuador, Karsten was told 
of a woman who had given birth to a monster, half hairy pig, half human. The woman was 
said to have exposed herself while menstruous to the rainbow (Karsten I :?o). Among Quechua- 
speaking Highlanders, Canelos Indians, and Indians of the Napo and Jibaro the rainbow (Jiba- 
ro, tuiuly&a) is a huge water boar (Q. am&run; Jibaro, pangi or cuicki), and it may impregnate 
a menstruant. The rainbow serpent also embodies the soul of a deceased sorcerer* (Karsten 
4:392). Cf. Cayambe belief (Appen., p. 198) that Rainbow may live in whirlpools. In Jibaro 
origin myth the Water Serpent lashes his tail and creates the rainbow (Stirling, p. 129). See 
p. 2x5 for Cayambe tale about Rainbow produced from the blood of an adulterous spirit, in- 
ferably a water spirit, who has seduced a peon's wife. 

* Mountains were sacred in Incaic Peru, but the concept is left vague (Garcilasso, I, 47, 
232). For personification in contemporary Peru see Mishkin, pp. 236-37. Among Jibaro and 
Caneios, mountains and hills are the dwelling-places of dead sorcerers, especially snow moun- 
tains, razuurku supai (Karsten 4:382,391). Belief in mountain spirits is widespread in high- 
land America, in our Southwest, in Mexico, and in Guatemala. 

* Cayambe. Formerly when novices (los nucoos) went for the first time to a certain moun- 
tainhere, Mount Sayaro the mountain became angry (huasM)> and it rained, with high 
winds and hail. To preclude this, the novice had to bathe in spring or near-by river. (Reported 
by Segundo Felix Maldonakb.) Eating a lunch on the p&ramo brings an aguacen (Gorrell, 
citing Jose* Ruis of Peguche). No Jibaro will speak while crossing the summit of Cuticu be- 
cause the rain spirit dwelling there likes solitude and silence and, if offended, will send down 
heavy rains and flood the streams (Stirling, p. 116). 

^Seepp. 128-29. 

69 Throughout Ecuador mountains are personified with sex. Chimborazo is male; Tungura- 
hua, female (Rivet, pp. 89-90). 

fe Garcilasso, 1, 312. 



RELIGION 93 

a little fellow, a dwarf. Father Imbabura, Tayita Irnbabura, in Mexican 
phrase "the owner, eldueno, of the mountain," rides a white horse and lives 
in truly Inca splendor in a golden house stored with crops of all kinds. 64 In 
tales Imbabura is associated with a cat demon 65 and with medicine. 66 As 
Imbabura can cure, he undoubtedly can sicken, like Cotacachi, Snow 
Woman, 67 or like mountains elsewhere in Ecuador. 68 

The earth, kadajata,jata entera, the whole world, tugui (toda) mundo en- 
terOy is not personified or even referred to honorifically as mama, "mother." 69 

Lakes are personified. 70 Lakes, streams, springs, and waterfalls are spirit 
haunts. 71 During the fiesta of San Juan, a spring not far from the chapel is 
visited and bathed in: elbano delsantu. Before the fiesta of San Pedro, per- 
haps before other fiestas, Peguche and other Indians may visit the great 
waterfall of Imbabura called angafacha (pacha), Hawk Waterfall, to bathe 
in it; "it gives strength." 72 Men who want to be strong fighters may visit 
this waterfall at any time, going singly or two or three together. Visitors 
to the waterfall make offerings of guinea pigs, food, drink, and cigarettes. 
They ask for strength, but they do not "pray," says Rosita, "because they 
love not God but the Devil [no quieren a Dies, quieren al Diablo]. 99 Spirits 

6 *Seep. 131. 

fi s See p. 145, n. 89. Cf. the black "cat" that lives today on the mountain above Kauri in 
the department of Cuzco and controls lightning and hail (Mishkin, p. 237) ; also the black beast 
labeled grantsso y hail, in the altar picture of Salcamayhua-Avila reproduced from Lehmann- 
Nitsche by Means (Fig. 168) which depicts the ancient Cuzco pantheon in, very much the same 
way as modern kiva murals depict the pantheon of Isleta, New Mexico. 

"Seep. 128. 
128. 



68 Karsten 4:382; 3:331; also in Peru (Mishkin, p. 236). 

69 Among Jibaro, Earth Mother and her spouse, in charge of maize and bananas, are im- 
portant snpernaturals. There is no earth cult among Canelos (Karsten 4:379). 

7 See p. 130. 
71 See pp. 129-30. 

*> Cf. Cayambe. "In Hato we have a waterfall called Chimborazo. This waterfall is asso- 
ciated with spirits (duendes) who also accompany persons in contact with it. Such men asso- 
ciate with spirits with the object of being able to overcome difficulties with any other man 
unacquainted with this place. 

"Men use this waterfall especially at the fiesta of San Pedro. The day of San Pedro, in the 
morning, they go to bathe in the waterfall, taking with them an a azote of mediano and two 
or three litres of rum. After the bath they eat and drink, they eat it all. They go to their houses 
and go out to dance and to win the plaza (ganar la plaza] . They go accompanied by the spirits 
(duendes) and with a drizzle (pdramo) and they are very wild and furious with every one they 
see, this, they say, because the sprit dances in front of them and because of this they are all 
enraged. And the demon leaves them the plaza clean (to themselves) without being disturbed 
by anybody or having quarrels with anybody, as happens when two companies fight for the, 
pkza and the first withdraws through violence" (Francisco Andrango of Juan Montalvo). 

This mountain-rain spirit who dances in front of the dancer is a striking parallel to the 
kachina sprit of the Pueblo Indians, who dances behind. 



94 PEGUCHE 

live in this waterfall, 73 according to Rosita, who calls them kuku or duendes y 
"dwarfs," 74 but describes them as a hundred feet tall. 75 <c Like auka, they 
are not baptized," i.e., they are apart from the Church. "They are kuku." 76 
They may do you good or evil. 77 

How does Hawk come into the picture? Inferably, Hawk is the source of 
fighting power. 7 * Of other birds or of animals there is some lore, 79 but, 
except in connection with swine and cats, 80 nothing that suggests a posi- 
tively supernatural character. (In Cayambe animal supernaturalism is 
marked.) 8z Swine and cats can take demoniacal possession of a person's 
body, and, as noted, swine are identified with Rainbow. 

7 Jibaro believe that mountain waterfalls are the haunts or abodes of spirits, and men bathe 
in waterfalls to facilitate intimate contact with the spirits (Karsten 4 .-382-83) . Canelos curers 
and witches invoke the waterfall demon (paccha supay), asking him to fill them and their datura 
drink with power (Karsten 4:441). 

74 Cucu * duende,fantasma (Paris). Cf. Parsons 2:231. 

Ecuadorian Indians use dutnk to mean apparition or spirit, not merely a small spirit 
(see p. 90, n. 46). 

76 An Indian word, the Whites say, for the devil (tentacitn). Undoubtedly, it is the Spanish 
term koko, for bogey spirit which is familiar at Quito. In this Ecuadorian usage, by the way, 
is a little more evidence for the Spanish origin of the Zuni term koko for their kachina spirit. 
Note in this connection that the Penitente mask is called cucuruchu. 

77 This ambivalent character is like that of Jibaro supernaturals (Karsten). 

78 One of the chroniclers relates that the early Incas had a brother (kuauqui) or familiar 
who was a falcon (fWf, inti) and later became identified with the sun (Means, pp. 390-91). 
According to current Peruvian legend, after a certain battle the Inca offered llama meat to a 
falcon flying overhead (Garcilasso, II, 89). Falcon is listed among the spirits of Peru (Garcilas- 
so, 1, 48). Among Canelos Indians, Hawk (anga) may be a spirit bird (Karsten 4:390). 

See pp. 212-13. 
80 See pp. 120, 142-43- 
11 See pp. 204-6. 



CHAPTER VI 
CALENDAR 

The Spanish name of the months are known more or less, but in speaking 
Quechua the moons or months are named from the Church feasts. 1 Peguche 
men are notably more familiar than are the women with the following list: 

January Jordan Kija* August San Luis Kija 

February Carnaval Kija September "Nameless, no fiesta" 

March Pascua Kija October San Francisco Fiesta 

April "Nameless, no fiesta' 9 November Alma Bendita Kija (also 

May Espiritu Kija (Cruz Fiesta) Sp. Finados; Q. Ofrindas) 

June Curpus Kija* December Nino Pasqua Kija 

July San Juan Kija 4 

In timing by this lunar calendar, 5 the last feast celebrated will be mentioned 
ya alma kija yaling (pasado), "past the moon (month) of the Souls." 

The Spanish New Year's, elano nuevo, is called mushu wata, "new year," 
or mushu bara^ "new cane," a reference to the canes which are passed on 
when officials take office at the new year. This formality has lapsed in Otar- 
valo and in the White villages of the valley and is observed only by alcaldes 
of Indian chapels. 

On New Year's Eve in Otavalo, as in Quito and elsewhere, images are 
burned in street or plaza. They are los oiejos, "the old ones," el ano viejo y 
"the old year." 5 

KINGS' DAY ("DIA DE LOS REYES") 
In Otavalo masks come out. 

1 Prescriptive fiestas today, according to Cristiano Runapac (see p. 113), are: New Year's, 
Muchuc Huawata Punzcha; Kings' Day, Reyes Punzcha; St. Joseph's Day, San Jose* Funzcha; 
Assumption, Ascensi6n Punzcha; Corpus Cristi, Corpus Punzcha; St. Peter and St. Paul, 
San Pedro San Pablo Punzcha; Virgin of Transito, Transito Punzcha; All Saints, Todos Santos 
Punzcha; Holy Virgin, PuHsima Punzcha; and Christmas, Navidad Punzcha. 

9 Jordan quitta, moon of 1 Senor de Jordan. 

* Corpus Cristi is a movable feast. I think the May-June reference should be Espiritu 
Corpus for June and Cruz Kija (May 3, Holy Cross Day) for May. 

* Actually, of course, tht fiesta is celebrated at the end of June. 

* In Inca Peru "they counted by moons," and monthly feasts were observed for the sun at 
the new moon (Garcilasso, II, 132, 227, 234, 251). 

6 Cf. Mexican practices (Parsons 2:232-38; Landa, p. 61). At the initiation of the youths 
at Cuzco faggots dressed as a man and a woman were burned in the square, together with a 
sheep, as "ofierings" to the Creator, the Sun, and the Inca (Molina, p. 46). 

95 



96 PEGUCHE 

"SEUAXA SANTA" 

Holy Week is celebrated in the valley by Indians and Whites in quite 
different ways: by the Otavalo townspeople quite simply with prescriptive 
church services, the church bells muted until they ring out for la Gloria^ 
and on Sunday with feasting and dancing at home; 7 by the Indians, elabo- 
rately with priostc ritual and entertainment, visits to the parish churches, 
chapel or house services at which a maestro will read prayers in return for 
contributions of food, and with a great communal feast in the Otavalo ceme- 
tery Thursday and Friday mornings, followed on Sunday by Mass in San 
Luis, the blessing of plants, and afterward in the streets the benedictions of 
godparents. 

On Palm Sunday, Domingo de Ramos, more Indians than usual come in 
to Mass at the parish churches. At the ten o'clock Mass in San Francisco 
the bulk of the congregation are Whites, sitting or kneeling on bench or 
prie-dieUy but there are about twenty Indians who sit on the ground or kneel 
along the right-hand wall. They make the sign of the cross but say no 
prayers. Only a few put a coin into the plate that the cura himself passes. 
One woman kisses the priest's hand. The women carry tasseled corn tops 
and a sprig of rosemary in the corn leaves, which they shake whenever the 
bdl is rung during the elevation of Host 8 or Chalice. The images, of course, 
are covered, but the edge of a garment shows under one concealed group, 
and several Indians touch this as they come or go and then bring the hand 
to the mouth. A Cholo kisses the foot of the big cross. A few Cholos carry 
palm leaves twisted into knots or cups. 

The important occasion for a large number of Indians is the eleven o'clock 
Mass at San Luis. The long benchless nave is packed with men, women, 
and children carrying tasseled corn or alm leaves to which miniature palm- 
leaf basket, mat, or cross-and-mat are fastened. Some women have a bunch 
in each hand, and all keep their plants ashaking as they kneel. When the 
bell rings, a great murmur is heard as of wind in palms. Greens astir over 
rtbazoS) scarlet, blue, or white, over black and white skirts, over ponchos, 
blue or red; it is a pretty show! Many, as they leave the church, kiss the foot 
of the great green cross set into the wall near the portal. 

The morning of Holy Thursday the street to the cemetery is choked at an 
early hour with Indians, all the women carrying small packs. In front of 
the Cholo stores stands are set to display the bread rolls the Indians buy. 
The little orange or magenta grave crosses are conspicuously set out for 



. 7 Compadres and padrinos are invited; round dances to the guitar; some immoderate drink- 
ing. The only tipsy White man I saw in Otavalo had been on this Easter spree. 

1 There are three preliminary rings, three rings when the Host (the Body) is elevated, and 
three rings when the Chalice (the Blood) is elevated. In our North, Catholics were instructed 
formerly to hoWintheXr hands the palms that altar boys distribute before the Mass. Thepalms 
are snrinkled with hnfa vrat** n*iiro*1ir K? +h* ***** 



are sprinkled with holy water privately by the priest. 



CALENDAR 97 

sale. As one passes with the stream of Indian men, women, and children 
up the lane and through the large stone portal, what a sight in the slope-set 
cemetery! A mass of figures in blue or red ponchos, in white or crimson 
backcloths or headcloths passing in and out between the tall eucalyptus 
trees, the cedars, and the little peach trees or sitting in small groups around 
or on the uninclosed grave mounds, of which many are planted to gerani- 
ums. At the foot of the central cross lies a tiny white coffin. 

What is all the stir and buzz about? Here are two women sitting close 
together with a carrying cloth on the lap of one, from which she puts a few 
potatoes into the empty gourd bowl of the other. Beyond them stands an 
old man with his hat off, saying a prayer to which three or four seated 
women are listening. A woman is surrounded by four or five forlorn beg- 
gars, sickly or aged Whites or Indians 9 importuning her with their food 
bowls. She pays no attention to them. Along comes an Indian youth who 
greets her cheerfully and from the recesses of her bulging shirt or tightly 
held cloth she gives him straightway a handful of toasted corn which he 
wraps up in a fold of his poncho. These groups and all the others are con- 
stantly recombining, while people eat, beg, pray, or chat in low Indian 
tones; no liquor, no dispute; even the beggars are less importunate by voice 
than by gesture, thrusting forward their gourds and crowding in upon 
likely donors. Of these it is said: se dan caridad^ "they are bestowing char- 
ity/' Beggars apart, the interchange of food is between relatives and com- 
padres. Deceased relatives are mentioned in the prayers said by the women 
themselves if they know how to pray or by elderly men who move around 
from group to group and are bidden to pray. A woman may ask for a prayer 
for a particular relative or for a sort of omnibus prayer for all the dead in 
her family when the prayer-maker removes his hat and recites what sounds 
for all the world like an ethnographic list of kinship terms. 10 

By noon the cemetery has emptied, most of the women still carrying full 
or half-full cloths and the beggars well supplied. Friday morning everything 
is repeated, except that on departure the carrying doths of the givers of 
charity are all empty. This day, too, as it happens, there are more burials. 
If anybody dies during Holy Week, it is customary to curtail or even omit 
the wake, if necessary, that the burial may take place during the general 
visitation of the cemetery. Several coffins of adults were placed in turn at 
the foot of the central cross. There were two, side by side, when I arrived, 
each with its circle or half-circle of women mourners. I saw one woman untie 

9 Many more Cholos than Indians. In Otavalo begging is not confined to Holy Week, but 
no Indians beg. Garcilasso writes that up to the time he left Peru in 1560 he never saw an 
Indian, man or woman, begging (II, 08). On the other hand, Inca law provided that at the 
public feasts thrice a month all the poor (blind, lame, aged, and infirm) should be invited 



10 See pp. 164-65. 



98 PEGUCHE 

a little knotted cloth dose to the right shoulder of the corpse and put some- 
thing into it perhaps a little more food. 

To or from the cemetery during these two days the Indians drift into the 
churches, a few attend the services, sitting as usual on the floor alongside 
the walls, but most go in merely to kiss the foot of the big green cross affixed 
to the wall near the portal of San Luis or, in San Francisco, the bloody feet 
of the crucified Jesus who lies on crimson velvet cushions between images of 
his Mother and of Nicodemus. This group is one of los monumentos^ as the 
Whites of Otavalo refer to the images and scenes shown these days in the 
churches. Over the high altar of San Francisco there is a drop curtain show- 
ing Jesus and the disciples outside Jerusalem, with a foreground of tall white 
candles set between vases of white flowers. The figures are lit up theatrical- 
ly by electric lights. San Francisco is modernizing, borrowing from the 
contemporary stage in order to counter the law against religious dramatiza- 
tion or procession outdoors. Friday evening at Jordan the Descent from 
the Cross is performed dramatically at the tree-embowered high altar. The 
whole of white Otavalo seems to be packed into the church, and there are 
busses full of people from other parts of the valley. There are no Indians. 

Formerly at San Luis at the twelve o'clock Mass of Good Friday masked 
figures were present, called cucuruchu. They carried whips and whipped 
Our Lord. 12 

Saturday morning early the Indians are back in Otavalo for the Saturday 
market, the biggest Saturday market of the year. After the market there 
is the usual drinking at the chicherias y and, as usual, the afternoon road to 
Peguche is full of drunken men tended by their more or less sober women* 

As on Palm Sunday, the eleven o'clock Mass in San Luis on Easter Sun- 
day is appropriated by Indians, and again women bring palms and corn 
tassels to shake, but this time there are only a few women. The cura passes 
the pkte and many contribute. I notice a woman taking a coin from under 
her bracelet and passing it to the man behind to put into the glass plate. 
Indias hold the purse! 

The charming Otavalo plaza is not much used as a rule by Indians, but 
today the benches opposite the church are filled. I sit down next an old 
man, from Rfo Blanco he tells me, pointing his lips toward the west. A 
youth comes up and kneels in front of the old man. The youth mumbles in 

" The etymology is obscure, but cucu is inferably the Spanish term for bogey, coco (see p. 
94). Cucuruchu are to be identified, I surmise, with the Fariseo masks of northwestern Mexico. 
Elsewhere in Mexico the Pharisees or Jews (Judeos) appear in mask or are burned in effigy. 
(The Fariseo masks are burned by the Yaqui Indians.) Judeos were bad people, mala gentt. 
(The cura of San Rafael refers to them today as "bad people in international affairs.") The un- 
baptized Indians were also bad people, and their spirits were devils. So Jews and non-Christian 
Indians were readily identified and the masked diablo of Holy Week or of other Church cele- 
brations is the product. 

" See Appendix, p. 211. 



CALENDAR 99 

Quechua, and the old man answers, making the sign of the cross with out- 
stretched palm. The youth, still kneeling, takes the old man's hand and 
kisses it. This is the bendicidn de Jesucristo de Pascua given by godparents 
of baptism or of marriage. Everywhere around us, on the church terrace, 
on paved sidewalks, on cobbled streets, the blessing is being given and re- 
ceived. Men kneel to women, women to men, but always juniors to seniors. 
Some elderly men are surrounded by quite a little group awaiting turn. 
According to Rosita, the godparent says: 

Nyuka pobri mana kunicho pai Dios miko gracias bendisiunta hiyakuja 
Yo pobre no le duve page le da bendicion hijada 

mushu paskwa kaimantami kustumbrita charishkauchi 

nueva pascua por (ha)cer costumbre tenimos 

I, poor one, may not give you [anything]. God will pay. He bestows thanks and 
blessings, goddaughter. To make Easter anew we have the custom. 

The goddaughter says: 

Bendisiunta karawi achitaita paskwa puncha tuparishkanchi Dios se lo 
bendici6n de mi padrino pascua dia nos encontrado Dios se lo 

pay achitaita 

pague padrino 

[For the] benediction of my godfather Easter day we met. God alone will pay 
you, godfather. 

Beyond on the west side of town the Mcherias are open and filled. Euda 
is being distributed in bowls or gourds; and from a hogshead (balde grande) 
a Chola sells large bowls or gourds of chicha. A man buys a gourdful, and 
then from the small gourd floating on top he gives drinks to his own little 
circle of relatives or compadres. In one place an old man is playing feebly 
on a violin. 

In the broad street leading from the market, family groups are gathered 
in meal circles around a cloth spread on the ground for the food which each 
helps himself to and in the usual way puts into his own food gourd. 

"PRIOSTE DE PASCUA" 

But at the cantina on the Peguche road there were women as well as men, 
far from sober. It was an Easter prioste party from Carabuda, about four 
miles north of Otavalo. The afternoon before they had met la banda at the 
cantina and had gone on into Otavalo for las visperas, the vespers service. 
They went home for the night and in the morning returned to Otavalo to 
pay their Mass. Now they were on their way home and had stopped to drink 
rum at Capello's and to dance. Capello expected the party; a day or two 
before I had seen him preparing buda> grinding maize on his coffee-grinder. 
When I joined the party Saturday afternoon, Capello was ladling out the 
buda from a large caldron to fifteen men or more. I sat down in the corridor 



TOO PEGUCHE 

with la banda> five or six Cholos. The drummer, an Indian of the prioste 
party, walked up and down the road, in front of the burro shed, playing his 
two-headed laced drum with two drumsticks. Then the brass pieces struck 
up. A dozen older men and women formed a circle, holding hands or grasp- 
ing somebody's neck and moving antisunwise, but they were all so drunk, 
lurching about or tumbling down, that the cirde barely held. A young wom- 
an with a baby on her back luckily kept her feet. The band leader called 
the dance. Another piece, and two or three women danced in a line, holding 
or trying to hold hands or two youths danced side by side, close up to the 
musicians. All these staggering dancers bumped or mauled one another 
with an astounding lack of that inhibition of physical contact characteristic 
of Indians elsewhere and of Andean Indians, too, when sober. However, 
even the old woman who grabbed an old man by the neck did it in an im- 
personal maudlin way. 

One young man, the prioste or capitdn himself I think, was excited but not 
impersonal. He stepped or capered lightly and rythmically in enjoyment 
of the dance itself such dancing I never saw again in the valley. He was 
paying the musicians, getting the money from an older woman, inferably 
his mother, a handsome woman, and the youth also was handsome. As 
usual the band would repeat the dance tune several times five or six bars 
of the popular air called Yali-Mishqui and then would have to be paid 
another sucre to go on. The capitdn would dance his pas seul right under 
the nose of the flageolet player and then hold up the coin to show that he 
still had money for a repetition. After several repetitions the youth's mother 
(and father, too), in spite of being drunk, began to demur and tried to 
hold and quiet the youth. They succeeded only when I got up and, after 
shaking hands with the youth, went up the lane to Rositafs. The youth en- 
joyed dancing, but he also had enjoyed an audience, showing off in a way 
that was also uncharacteristic. 

The Carabuela party brought no image with them. Another prioste party 
brought in image and bandera, "standard," a red flag, so probably they came 
from the capifla of San Juan, for red is the color of this saint. I did not see 
the party until after the Sunday noon Mass at San Luis, when the home- 
bound procession formed on the terrace of the church. It was led by a wom- 
an carrying the standard M . x * Then came the saint on a table-litter carried 

by two men. About fifteen persons followed. 

The most outstanding Easter prioste celebration in the valley is in the 
village of San Miguel in San Rafael Parish, a White one-street town with In- 
dian houses on the road below the steep hill and in the farm land to the edge 

s * Among Mayo-Yaqui Indians women are also standard-bearers. Some explanation seems 
called for. 



CALENDAR 101 

of the Lake of San Pablo. The population of the parish consists of about 
four hundred Whites and three thousand Indians. Unfortunately, I did not 
see the whole Sunday-Monday celebration, and information was meager 
and uncertain. The padre of San Rafael believed that the dramatization 
represented life at the court of Atahualpa, the last Inca ruler at Quito, but 
nobody else, White or Indian, expressed this idea. 

The dramatic group consists of thirty-two men and lads who are re- 
ferred to as kurasaSy capifanes, and their attendants, yumbos has or pajes, 
"pages." 14 There are several groups of musicians, inferably a group to each 
kurasa capitdn, each unit consisting of two panpipers, one flutist, and one 

drummer. In one group I see a large horn ^l . In another group a man 

combines drum and panpipes; holding pipes in his left hand with a tiny 
drum (four inches in diameter) suspended from left thumb, he plays on the 
drum with a single stick in his right hand. 

Sunday morning this group may have danced in the plaza below the 
church or they may merely have sat there this was the usual account 
while the wives of the kurasas danced in two lines in front of them. In the 
afternoon when I arrived separate groups or units consisting of capit&n dt 
kurasay yumbos y and pages, musicians, and a few women were visiting from 
yard to yard and being regaled with rum and chicha. 

The dramatic performers are dressed in baggy blue cloth trousers deco- 
rated with silver paper stars. They wear stockings and low yellow leather 
shoes. On the head is a gilt paper crown stuck with chicken feathers and 
a few peacock feathers, or a befeathered felt hat. Their faces are painted 
or powdered white and spotted red. One of them wears a wig of long black 
ringlets. Some are on foot, some on horseback. 

A White girl has picked me up on the road, and she and I follow some of 
the performers, or shall we say "impersonators," into the yard of the 
prioste or capit&n. Here there are two groups of Indian musicians, one on 
each side of the yard, and everybody is more or less drunk. A man presses 
upon me a gourd of chicha. A drunken old lady insists that I dance with 
her, so I take her hand, and together we step from foot to foot, in front of 
the panpipers, who play a bar or two of melody and repeat. Then three or 
four other 'women dance in the same way, in line, holding hands, right up 
in front of the musicians, just as did the Carabuela dancers at the Peguche 
cantina. But here in the prioste house nobody is paying the Indian mu- 

14 When the lad Garcilasso was sent by his Spanish father with presents of grapes grown 
by a conquistador to the gentlemen of Cuzco, he was aided by "two little Indian 'pages" (II, 
488). "Page " portent, errand boy, parental deputy, as Garcilasso himself was more than once, 
every traveler in the Peninsula or in Spanish America recognizes the distinctive position and 
ability of these boys in a Spanish community. Except on the war trail they have few if any 
Indian equivalents. 



102 PEGUCHE 

sicians. They are otherwise compensated, with food and drink. Here, too, 
there is an antisunwise circle dance of men and women. 

As at Peguche, I offer cigarettes to the musicians, but here it is a mistake, 
for everyone begins to clamor for them and crowd in on me again quite 
atypical behavior in those who always give a White person the right of way. 
As I work my way through the pressing, sprawling little mob toward the 
door (it is a walled-in yard) 3 I wonder if I can reach it without getting 
mussed up unless I resort to the old trick of throwing out cigarettes to be 
scrambled for. No violence, just pushing like children. However, it isn't 
far to go and I get through, with cigarettes and clothes intact. 

The next yard is more orderly. I talk with the mounted impersonator^ an 
older man; the others are lads. He asks my name. I notice that his face is 
not painted and that his stirrups are of brass in the early slipper mode. 
Carmen and I are offered a drink, and Carmen goes into the house and is^ 
given half an ear of boiled corn which she shells into her hand to eat, the 
usual way of eating corn off the cob, whether boiled or toasted. Carmen is 
a housemaid from Quito vacationing with a friend in San Rafael. 

A group of musicians and kurasas enter the yard, one of the women carry- 
ing a black umbrella, another a stick topped with a bunch of paper flowers, 
the official stick of the kurasa capit&n. The capitdn is given a chair and 
offered a gourd of chicha. He is an honored guest. After this formality he 
dances between two women in front of the musicians. He wears a yellow 
kerchief around his head and over it a felt hat. This is not his proper head- 
gear, which is too precious to be worn all the time. 

Carmen and I climb the hill and sit down on the roadside, below the 
bleak, unlovely plaza. At once we are surrounded by a group of little boys 
asking us questions, teasing each other and calling names, chattering, shout- 
ingall in vivacious Spanish no suggestion of Indian behavior in these 
youngsters, nor from their looks a drop of Indian blood. Their older broth- 
ers or fathers are playing handball on the road beyond us, no Indian among 
them; on the other hand, Carmen and I were the only Whites at the prioste 
celebration. In pastime or pleasure how much apart they remain, Cholo 
and Indio! Then, as I am taking leave of my friendly and sympathet- 
ic Chola companion, a young man, India, passes by and greets her, not 
drunkenly but gaily and frankly, a romantic figure handsome features, 
sleek black braids, in spotless white cotton trousers and elegant blue 

poncho. Were I Carmen I doubt if the Conquistadors are wholly 

responsible for Indian looks among Whites, although that is the popular 
theory of miscegenation. The Chola White today is more exposed than 
the India. 

Monday morning I find the upper town street of San Rafael astir with 
horsemen and horses covered rump and neck with colored cotton cloths 
thtyumbos are running their horses across the plaza or gathering in front of 



CALENDAR 103 

a cantina for a drink between gallops. All the White cantinas are busy, for 
in them the impersonators are painted and fitted out. The outfits are hired 
out and rum is sold here as elsewhere Indian celebration is good business 
for White people. 

In a cantina corridor I find a kurasa capitdn sitting in a chair with his 
musicians along the wall playing their tune. After photographing, I offer 
cigarettes. The musicians all start to grab for the package, but, when I give 
it to the capitdn, he passes it around and each man quietly and decently 
takes one. (What is the history of these contrasting forms of behavior?) 

The capitdn withdraws inside to be made up, and after a few minutes 
the musicians follow, and I, too, am invited in. The capitdn, his face now 
painted white with a red spot on each cheek, is to be "crowned" while the 
musicians play. The "crown" is a corporal's felt hat stuck with feathers 
^and covered with pearl beads, colored glass stones, and gilt spangles. Hang- 
ing from it behind and in front well over the face are gilt ornaments or 
jewelry. White silk shirt and pants are also heavily bespangled. 15 

The capitdn takes his chair, now holding his beflowered stick. He is given 
a drink of rum; in fact, he is plied with drinks, some of which he passes on. 
A yumbo sits on either side, and they see to the circulation of the tiny 
gourds or glasses or bottles of rum which an elderly Indian is paying for. A 
little crowd has gathered around, including some loos who are not more than 
twelve or thirteen years old. They drink too. 

The same performances are going on in at least three other cantinas. In 
the one across the street the capitdn sits out in front, and a black umbrella 
is held over him, although the sun is shining only through clouds. There 
is to be no dancing today, the padre tells me. Arraying the kurasas and 
regaling them with drink seem to be all there is to this day's celebration, 
except, of course, the eating and drinking in the houses of the priostes. 

This dramatization is performed again at San Rafael on August 25, the 
day of San Luis Obispo, the patron saint. On this occasion the kurasas re- 
main in the church all day, from 5:00 A,M. to 5:00 P.M. with nothing to eat 
or drink.* I was told of this fast in Peguche as a peculiar and striking ob- 
servance. 

Ritual fasting, ritual drinking, 17 staff of office, and respect for office all 
suggest that Indian chieftaincy of a bygone period is being represented. 

*s To the great Raymi ceremony at Cuzco "the Caracas came in all the splendour they could 
afford. Some wore dresses adorned with bezants of gold and silver, and with the same fastened 
as a circlet round their headdresses" (Garcilasso, II, 156). 

16 A three-day fast was observed prior to Raymi (Garcilasso, II, 157). 

" In Inca Peru the "custom of inviting each other to drink was the usual mode by which 
superiors showed favor and complacency to inferiors, and by which one friend saluted another. 
.... The Inca drank from the cup offered him by a visiting Curaca, drinking a great or a small 
amount, according to the degree in which he esteemed the chief who proffered him his cup" 
(Garcilasso, cited by Means, pp. 369, 373). 



io 4 PEGUCHE 

Probably kurasa is a form ofcuraca, the term for Incaized chiefs 18 or, as to- 
day in the Oriente, for war leader. (The term also suggests the Spanish for 
cuirass, coraza, or the term coroza y the shame headdress.) 19 The yumbos 
who "take care of the capitin" although called skirmishers, escaramuza- 
dores, are without warlike appearance at San Rafael, but at the Corpus 
Cristi celebration in the valley of Chillos 21 near Quito the yumbos carry 
lances. The function of the young has of Chillos, as of San Rafael (and of 
Peguche), is to speak set words or pieces, any pieces they have memorized 
(Chillos) or "two or three words to the Lord" (Peguche). Loa> "praise," 
refers in Spanish to a short dramatic panegyric. Are the Corpus Cristi and 
Easter performances of Chillos and San Rafael Ecuadorian versions of La 
Conquista-Matachina dances which were taught by the early friars in 
Mexico and New Mexico? Are they fragments of early war ceremonial such 
as may still be seen in the Oriente or are they reminiscent of those festival 
dramas of Peru in which "the actors were not common people, but Yncas 
and noblemen, sons of Curacas, or the Curacas themselves, down to masters 
of the camp"? 22 Perhaps they are reminiscent of the Inca law that "three 
or four rimes a month all the inhabitants of each village should feast to- 
gether, before their Curacas, and exercise themselves in military or popular 
games, that they might preserve constant friendship among themselves, 
and that the shepherds and husbandmen might have times for rejoicing and 
relaxation." 23 In this case the aimless equestrianism of the celebration 
might be accounted a military pastime. 

SANTA LUCILA'S DAY AT PEGTTCHE, TUESDAY, MARCH l6 

Early in the afternoon I meet theprioste party on the road carrying the 
saint into Otavalo for her Mass. They have placed the canopied table- 
litter on the ground, and two or three men are dancing before it the famil- 
iar formless one-step to the music of the bmda. They stop for only a few 
minutes and then move on, the saint's blue mantle waving in the breeze. 

On the return of the party, about an hour later, I hear the music from 
Rosita's house and easily overtake the little procession, which is held up 

18 Officials in charge of a hundred households and upward were so called (Means, pp. 292- 
93)- Under the Peruvian conquest the head official of San Rafael would have been called 
"Curaca." 

x A cone headdress of pasteboard worn as a mark of shame (dictionary). The Maya of 
Yucatan protested against being made by the Franciscan friars to wear the penitential corozas 
and samknitos (garments) of the Inquisition (Landa, p. 118). 

A general term in Ecuador for Forest Indians, probably derived from ayum&a, a Jibaro 
reference for killing an enemy. The term is so applied to the head-taking dancing described 
in 1682. The lance tipped with a human bone testifies to "the murder ofayumia" (Stirling 
p. 46). ^' 

81 See Appendix, pp. 208-10. 

Garcilasso, 1, 194. * Garcilasso, II, 33. 



CALENDAR 105 

because the top of the canopy has caught in a telegraph wire. We cross the 
gully and go on by the way which is just beginning to be a street, past the 
schoolhouse and into the churchyard with its large cross. 

The chapel door is open, but the procession does not enter it at once. 
First it makes a complete circuit of the chapel antisunwise. 

They place the image on the high altar, near San Jos6 with the Infant in 
his arms, and they light the five tall candles that were carried in procession. 
The sindico and two other men kneel apart and closest to the paper-begar- 
landed altar. A long prayer is said by one of the men ( ? alcalde de capilla or 
maitro). Then inside the chapel the banda plays. 

Outside, the banda again plays its dance tune, but nobody dances, and 
the inevitable dispute about payment starts up. After it is settled, I talk 
with my old acquaintance, the bandmaster it is the same band that 
played for the Carabuela party. He tells me they are paid sixty to seventy 
sucres for the afternoon and for playing into the night at the prioste's 
house; for dance music they are paid extra. 

A group of boys, about fifteen to seventeen years of age, Cholos and In- 
dians, are standing on the pedestal of the cross and leaning so heavily on 
the cross that finally they break it down. Alongside the wall a few women 
and men are seated on the ground, and an elderly couple bring out to them 
from a near-by house a bowl of chicha. A Chola from the schoolhouse offers 
me a chair, and in turn two men, Indians, both rather drunk, try to talk 
to me in halting Spanish. The frioste is about twenty-five years old. He 
has been married seven years and now is living in a new house. This is his 
first cargo. 

SANTA ROSA'S DAY CELEBRATED BY MUENDE "PRIOSTfi" 
IN OTAVALO, SATURDAY, APRIL 6 

About 8:00 A.M. on my way to the cattle market I hear flutes in a 
chicheria yard on the east side of town. Here there is a circle of dancers and 
flute-players performing to a large audience, women and little children 
sitting on the ground on one side of the yard and men standing on the other 
side or sitting on a ledge of the wall. 

About thirteen men are dressed as Blancos, as Whites: white riding 
breeches, boots and puttees, black waistcoat over white shirt, woven 
belt, black felt hat, a riding whip with a small hoof handle hanging from the 
left arm. One man wears goathair chaps. One carries a flag of the national 
colors red, blue, and yellow. Four men carry each a flute which is tucked 
into the belt when not being played. 

The flutists start the dance, in antisunwise circle, dancing as they play 
two beats with one foot, two beats with the other. After a few revolutions 
the circle enlarges, the flutists still a part of it but facing one another in a 
smaller circle, all moving antisunwise until the flagbearer waves for the 



106 PEGUCHE 

circle to reverse. He does this every two or three minutes. Two beats or 
one beat from foot to foot. 

Now the flutists withdraw but go on playing, and, revolving more slowly, 
the circle does a stamping step from foot to foot, 34 with knees bent and body 
inclined forward (see PI. XXIII). They dance rythmically and to shouts 
or cries yuh& yuh& washkarihti, [? haricuna, "men (we are)"], 25 typical In- 
dian dance cries. 

Inside the dance circle, lying on the ground, are an enamel bowl, a tin 
cup, and a woolen muffler on which coins are being placed. From time to 
time the standard-bearer (? prioste) removes the collected coins and gives 
them to a woman who is keeping the purse. 

Besides dancers and flutists there are two important figures, capitanes de 
Negros, each wearing a felt hat turned up in front with blue and gilt paper 
stars, at the back of which is a bunch of colored downy feathers. One has 
on two red ponchos; the other, two blue ponchos. Several times Red Poncho 
darts out to the crowd at the doorway to seize a man by the neck and drag 
him into the yard, probably to make a contribution, but I cannot see for 
the crowd. One captive breaks free from the clutch and gets out of the yard. 

During the dance, which lasts about twenty minutes, gourds otboda have 
been presented now and again to the older men seated on the wall ledge. 
Now at the close of the dance the gourds of steaming yellow boda are carried 
to the women. An old man with a white goatee says a long prayer, all the 
men gathering in front and removing their hats. At the close all make the 
sign of the cross. The food has been blessed. 

The dance is repeated: same two figures. Another man carries the stand- 
ard. The muffler for contributions has been removed. Roast corn ears begin 
to circulate, and, when the dance stops, another prayer is made, shorter, 
with hats off and the sign of the cross. 

A chair is brought out for Blue Poncho, the capitdn, and man after man 
comes up to say ayllukunapa toming y drink (from) all the family, and to 
offer him a drink of chicha. He takes a sip or two from the little gourd 
proffered him, empties the rest back into the large bowl, refills the little 
drinking gourd, and hands it to the offerer, who drinks. 36 The rest of the 
chicha is now distributed to all the family, the ayllu who have contributed 
to its purchase. They also contributed to the roasted corn, which is referred 

** A regular kachina dance step! 

a * So the cry sounded to me, but in Peguche they told me the cry was Churapashtinshi, 
"Stamp alii" and the dance movement is called chvra negrito, "Negrito stamp." See below; 
also p. 156. 

9 The chief is drinking with his retainers. Recall Garcilasso's account (II, 166): At the 
great feast of the summer solstice the Inca was approached without a word by the captains 

and curacas who presented their cups, but "as he could not drink of them all, he merely 

put them to his lips, drinking a little from all of them, from some more, from others less, ac- 
cording to the favor he wished to show to their owners." 



CALENDAR 107 

to as kukdbi*t That, too, was offered to the capitdn and redistributed to 
the ayllu aytiukunapa kunapa kukdbi. This ritualistic drinking and eating 
is common to all saint's day ceremonies. 28 

Again the dance. A short-hair Indian is sitting in the dance plaza munch- 
ing corn and in spite of appeals he won't remove, so they just dance around 
him. They are less patient with a vociferous young Chola, a termagant 
protesting price, and a man drags her screaming.back to her kitchen, from 
which she does not reappear. 

Now in the dance circle a mask appears. Although he dances quietly with 
the others, at once he attracts attention, and the lookers-on crowd up. The 
masker wears a sweater and long cloth trousers with pockets in which he 
keeps his hands. The cloth helmet mask is black on the upper part and pink 
below, with openings for eyes and mouth and a large loop for nose, back and 
front, i.e., it is double faced (PL XXIV). From the top projects a bunch of 
six finger-like pieces ("Horns [Q. kachu}"* 9 says Rosita; so he is a diablito)*** 
Only once does the diablo, who is called Negrito, act peculiarly: he dances 
opposite the dancer in chaps, imitating his motions, 31 and the crowd laughs. 

The two capitanes do not dance, but in this third performance they stand 
inside the dance circle. In this performance the two dance figures are being 
repeated without intervals of rest. So after ten o'clock, feeling the worse for 
wear from standing in the sun and, as it happened, without breakfast, I start 
to leave, on the way asking an intelligent and pleasant-looking man if this 
is a bails deprioste. "No." "What is the name of the dance?" He moves 
away, without answeringjust as a Pueblo might do when questioned by 
a stranger; and throughout I have been as much ignored as are strange 
White people at Pueblo dances. Outside I meet a Peguche acquaintance 
who says it is a baile de Negro, and later at Peguche I get positive evidence 
that this is the San Juan dance, clown mask, ritual drinking, and all. At 
the San Juan fiesta?* the Negritos carry a whip, the wooden ox-goad with 
rawhide thong and "they frighten people." The capitanes are chiefs of the 
dance group, capitanes de Negros.** 

MASS FOR SAN FRANCISCO BY THE PARCIALIDAD OF SAN JUAN, APRIL 9 

Another procession on the highway, near Peguche, southward bound, 
about 2:00 P.M. The saint on the trestle or litter wears a brown habit. 

"Seep. 121. 
98 See p. no. 

39 Note resemblance to cacha, the executive messenger of the capitdn (p. 181, n. 23); among 
other Indian peoples the clown-bogey-messenger may be masked. 

3 See Appendix, pp. 209-10. The Camuende mask is the same type as the Amaguana, 
bat smaller and less well made, with no ear loops. 

31 Just as do the Koyemshi clown masks of Zuni pueblo. 
* See pp. 108-1 1 . 33 See pp. 108-9. 



io8 PEGUCHE 

The maize at San Juan has been suffering from drought, so some people 
have gone to Carabuela, north of Human (ahead of, alf rente de> Human), to 
get San Francisco who lives there and bring him to their house in San Juan, 
praying to him overnight, and giving him a Mass in the parish church (San 
Luis) between 4:00 and 6:00 A.M. Cuando no le dan misa no lluete, "When 
they do not give him a Mass, it does not rain." After the Mass they will 
carry the saint back to Cgrabuela. 

On their return home, later in the day, they must have got wet, as it was 
raining hard. 

CORPUS CRISTI 

At this celebration, el dia de Espiritu (Corpus), in Otavalo there were 
dancers dressed all in silver, toda plata** (From what town?) Of recent 
years they have not come out. I surmise that the performers were conquis- 
tadors and that diablos also came out. 35 

SAN JUAN'S DAY, JUNE 21 

Several parcialidades of the valley celebrate this saint's day, which coin- 
cides in time with the great Raymi ceremony of the autumn equinox, the 
new-year ceremony of pre-Conquest Peru, when representatives of all parts 
of the Empire came to Cuzco to honor the Sun and the Inca, son of the Sun. 
Several valley parcialidades honor the saint in the usual way through prioste 
organization and through a particular dance organization headed by two 
capitanes, capitanes de Negros, and their dance is called baile de Negros, a 
dance which may be performed, as we have noted, at other saint's day cele- 
brations. Men volunteer to dance for two or three years, hacen elvoto* they 
make a vow, to save their lives, para tener la vida. Several parcialidades, 
including Peguche, set up table altars in the house (the only time, in 
Peguche at least, that table altars are used) and brew chicha at home. Sev- 
eral parcialidades^ including Peguche, also observe on the eve of San Juan's 
Day an essentially non-Christian ritual at the Hawk Falls of Imbabura." 

Peguche has no San Juan capit&n and as a community is indifferent to the 
celebration by the dance groups of the other parcialidades at the chapel of 
San Juan, which is about a mile west of Otavalo. These dances last for four 
days and were observed and photographed by Mr. Bodo Wuth in 1940 
(Pis. XXV-XXIX). To Otavalenos they appear to be the outstanding In- 
dian celebration of the year, and the White townspeople are said to be some- 
what fearful of the Indians at this time because their usually submissive 

*< Cf. Saenz, illustration facing p. 85. 

35 See Appendix, pp. 208-10. 

3* The Mexican term, por promcsa, is not used. 

Cf. the pHpimage made to a mountain spring by the Otomi of Hidalgo the night of 
August 5. At other times this spring is guarded by a serpent supernatural (Fabila, pp. 239-40). 



PLATE XXIV 




CLOTH HELMET MASK WITH HORNS USED BY THE "DIABLITO" 



PLATE XXV 



IN FRONT OF THE LITTLE CHAPEL OF SAN- JUAN 




CALENDAR 109 

neighbors tend to be self-assertive and overbearing. For one thing the 
dancers dress like Blancos and carry whips. They are heavily policed by the 
town authority. Before giving Mr. Wuth's account, let me describe part 
of the installation of a San Juan capitan^ which I saw earlier in the year. 

On Sunday, April 21, 1 happened to be in front of the Church of San Luis 
in Otavalo when a procession arrived from Azama on the west side of the 
valley to give a Mass at the installation of their Capitan de San Juan. 
Thirteen men are in the lead, each carrying a large white candle decorated 
with white wax leaves and white and pink wax flowers. They are followed 
by about forty women in two files, a file each side of the road. Each woman 
carries a small white candle. As they mount the steps, one woman forgets 
to take off her hat, and a man removes it for her. They all go into the 
capilla of the Senor de Angustias, the women placing their candles in the 
familiar circular tin candlestand and the men with the aid of an altar boy 
attempting to find places on the already full altar for their precious ornate 
candles, particularly ceremonial candles in the fashion of another day. 38 
They are so fastidious and so slow that the priest comes in grumbling; the 
church is full, and, as he wants to begin the Mass, he tells them to hold their 
candles and later set them on the altar. The service begins, but the chapel 
altar is well out of sight of the high altar of the church, and finally all thir- 
teen candles are satisfactorily placed and the main ritualistic object of the 
determined pilgrims is secured. During the sermon, completely unintelli- 
gible to the pilgrims, women nurse their babies and in low tones some of the 
men now and again engage in talk. A White boy hides the hats of two In- 
dian boys, to their amusement. There is a marriage party sitting to one side 
of the high altar, but I can see only the back of the groom, his blue striped 
poncho and flowing hair, over which lies the rosary of red and brass beads. 
One of the chapel frescoes divides my attention: a lamb with a human face 
standing on a little mound, with a cross on his back and from his chest a 
stream of blood to the large chalice set in tongues of flame below the mound. 
I wonder how the Indians have interpreted this realistic picture of the 
blood of the Lamb as I recall that anciently the llama was a sacrificial 
animal and that its chest was opened and its heart taken out. The Quechua 
word for sheep, we recall, is llama^ though today the Spanish term is more 
frequently used. 

West of the humble little chapel of San Juan (PI. XXV) lie the fields and 
houses of the parcialidad of San Juan, and in their midst is the spring of 
the saint, a quiet, cold-water spring below high banks, flowing away in a 
little stream where ordinarily women wash their clothes and families take 
their weekly bath. No cross or other religious sign is to be seen, but this is 
el bano del santo, and here at la vispera, on the eve of San Juan a ritual bath is 

3*Cf. Parsons 2:202. 



i io PEGUCHE 

taken by Indians and Whites. 39 A wooden rail to hold by stands in the bed 
of the stream, and a large number of potsherds lie in the bed close to the 
spring. Water is carried away from the spring to the Church of San Luis by 
the euros to be blessed. The Indian I met near by when I visited the spring 
told me that the curas as well as others bathe in the spring on Sunday, 
added Rosita. 'The bath is a remedio, a cure." (The saint is not bathed as 
are images in parts of Mexico on the eve of San Juan.) 

Now for Mr. Wuth's account of the saint's day celebration. In the large 
uninclosed chapel yard on three sides booths of mats and poles have been 
erected (Pis. XXVI- XXVII). There is one of two stories. In these im- 
provised chicherias molasses candy (melcocha) and pork the whole pig 
as well as chicha will be sold. The usual drunkenness prevails (PI. XXVIII). 

The performers come dancing into the chapel yard: ten men, two by 
two, the first two carrying whips, the last two, huge flutes. As they advance, 
they sing. Then the two leaders cry an order, and the whole group dances 
backward, 40 bodies slightly inclined (PL XXIX). At another order the lead- 
ers swing their whips in the air, and the group dances forward again. Danc- 
ing thus forward and backward, they move up to one of the chicheria 
booths, enter, and take a drink. 

After drinking, they form a circle, the two flutists standing inside, circle 
and flutists alike rotating in a stamping step, to song* 1 and flute-playing. 
At a given shout they reverse the circle. The capitanes carry flags but do not 
dance. 

The dancers are dressed as Blancos, in riding breeches, waistcoats, and 
mufflers; some wear high boots. The characteristic San Juan hat is of straw 
with upturned brim to which colored paper stars or flowers are pasted; a 
bunch of feathers is attached in front to the crown. This hat may be worn 
over the large brimmed felt hat or over a yellow headcloth. One flutist 
wears an Uhlan helmet (PI. XXX). * 

Besides the group dancers, there are men impersonating women, their 
hair in ringlets, 43 and diablos in mask, the mask of the painted wire type 
(PL XXXI). These diablos, I infer, are the Negritos group. 44 All the im- 

Cf. Parsons 2:47, n. 36; Spicer, p. 215. 

40 Cf. the men's dance of the I&cas (Garcilasso, II, 420-21) in which after the circle dance 
they advanced singing, taking two steps forward and one backward, steps which in Spanish 
dances are called dobles and rfprtsas. 

" Wuth questioned many persons, Indian and White, about the songs in Quechua but could 
get no information. 

<* Rosita thought that my raincoat would be very suitable apparel for "la fiesta de San 
Juanito." 

* At Cotacachi Whites as well as Indians impersonate women at fiestas. 

In Cayambe the diabk^ who are called diablumas, wear either cloth or wire mask (see 
Appen., p. 213). 



PLATE XXVI 




SAN JUAN CHAPEL AND PLAZA WITH BOOTHS. SAN JUAN DAY, JUNE, 1940 
The volcano of Imbabura in the background 



PLATE XXVI I 




k by Bids ff'uth 

"CHICHERIA" OF Two STORIES ox DANCE PLAZA. OTAVALO, JUNE, 1940 



PLATE XXVIII 




Pkctosrapk by Bodo Wutk 

USUAL DRUNKENNESS PREVAILS." SAN JUAN CELEBRATION, 1940 



PLATE XXIX 




5o<2-5 ff'.'if/: 

DANCERS DRESSED AS BLANCOS. OTAVALO, JUNE, 1940 



PLATE XXX 




Photograph by Bodo Wuth 

FLUTISTS WITH DANCERS. OTAVALO, SAN JUAN DAY, JUNE, 1940 
One of the flutists wears a Ulan helmet 



PLATE XXXI 




Photograph by Bodo truth, 

" DIABLO" WITH MASK OF THE PAINTED WIRE TYPE. SAN JUAN DAY 
OTAVALO, JUNE, 1940 



CALENDAR m 

personators seemed less organized, more of a medley, than at the Corpus 
celebrations in the valley of Chillos. 

Otavaleno officials armed with rifles police the dance yard, standing 
sometimes out in the middle in order to separate the dance groups who come 
from different districts. Bloody quarrels are common between different 
groups and within the same group, and the police will fire into the air to 
quiet the fighters. 

From Peguche informants I learned that the Capitan de San Juan, the 
Negro Capit&n, and two pajes or luas each give a Mass. 

ALL SOULS 45 

Food is taken to the cemetery (as elsewhere in Quechua-speaking Ecua- 
dor) 46 and eaten there, as in Holy Week. 

The Mexican distinction between the child dead or angelitos and the 
adult dead (the first day, properly All Saints, the second day, All Souls) is 
not observed in Ecuador, but, as the whole ceremonial is commonly referred 
to as Finados, it seems in Ecuador as in Mexico to have in mind the Souls 
rather than the Saints. 

There is a prioste para almas who functions at All Souls and possibly for 
the weekly days of the Souls, Monday and Thursday, but I was unable to 
learn what he does except that he drops chicha on the ground for the Souls. 
He has no pajes, no assistants. 

Bread figurines are baked for Finados in Otavalo, as elsewhere in Ecuador, 
and given to godchildren, White or Indian, by their White godmothers. 
These lambs or little horses of the dead, borreguito, cdbdllto definados^ are 
of wheat bread trimmed in sugar colored red or green. 47 

WEEKLY CALENDAR 

Fiestas aside, the passing of time at Peguche and elsewhere in the valley 
is punctuated by the Sunday Mass in the parochial church and by the 
Saturday market of Otavalo or the nearer town market (Ibarra; Sunday 
market, Cotocachi). The week's work in weaving, hatmaking, or pottery- 
making is regulated so as to finish products for the market. The Friday 
bath in Peguche is also preparatory. The diet may also be affected by the 
market. Meat is available only during the first part of the week. 

Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 48 and Saturday are accounted good days 

4 5 Q. Almapuncha, Sp. dia de Almas; or Ankilpunch&y Sp. Angel dia. 

6 Cf. Karsten 4:486, Fig. 16. 

See p. 155- 

4 g See p. 196 for necessity to cure sickness from fright on Tuesday or Friday. 



ii2 PEGUCHE 

to make a trip or to start anything; Monday and Thursday are bad days. 49 
Monday and Thursday, we recall, are the days of the Souls. Sunday is only 
for prayer, el dia para rezar. It is well to plant or do anything during the 
new moon (Rosita). 50 

The evening star is called Shishi locero (lucerd), tarde estrella, afternoon 
star, and people say on seeing it, nyami chishang^ya es tarde. By the morn- 
ing star "they know the hours of the early morning" (Cayambe). "We can 
always tell the time," thought Manuel Lema, who liked to check his guess 
with my watch and who went somewhat by the whistle of the cotton mill 
at Rio Grande. The whistle blows every six hours, day and night, for labor 
shifts. 

*Cf. Zapoteca (Parsons 2:323); Guatemala (Wagley 2:34), where planting must be 
finished on a favorable day. 

**New moon = juju luna, "baby moon" (luna minguantt or tripping?); luna pura y "full 
moon*'; luna concosi6n, "waning moon." At Cayambe the phases of the moon are well ob- 
served. 



CHAPTER VII 
RITUAL 

PRAYER 

Prayers (Sp. rezo; Q. risa) are exceedingly important, 1 and persons who 
know them are respected and paid for saying them, whether priests or lay- 
men. 3 Rosita Lema once asked me if I knew any prayers, and when I said, 
"Yes, a few, in my language," she asked me to repeat one. I said in English 
the first prayer we teach our children, the frightful one: "Now I lay me 
down to sleep." Rosita did not ask me to translate, but she looked gratified 
and impressed. At the time neither of us was aware how well it fits into 
Indian belief. 

According to Rosita, the prayer for the dead said in communal feasting 
in the cemetery is a sort of litany, the one requesting the prayer saying: 

Risapai kay almamanta, 
Pray for this soul, 
Risapai nyuka familiamanta, 
Pray for my family, 
Risapai nyuka abuelomanta, 
Pray for my grandfather, 

and the grandfather's baptismal name is given. Then the prayer-maker 
says: 

Risapasha kampa abuelomanta. 

I will pray for your (?) grandfather. 

The petitioner gives a bit of food to the prayer-maker, and then the two re- 
peat the aforesaid sentences for each deceased member of the family or dose 
compadrty or for all compadres tukmiya kumpadrekuna^ using kinship term 
and personal name. In conclusion the prayer-maker will say: "Risa chiwai 
risa pasha tukwiya almakuna manta risa pashami nyami risa kani tukwi- 
manta." 

After receiving food, the prayer-maker will thank as usual: Dies se lo 
pague, "God will repay," and add, Nya risa parkani, "Now I have prayed." 3 

1 As usual among Indians (among White Catholics, too, of course); nevertheless, I call at- 
tention to Karsten's remark that the idea that the efficacy of an action is enhanced when it is 
repeated in words (one form of prayer) is one deeply rooted in the minds of the Jibaro (Kar- 
sten 4:353). 

8 See pp. 84, 158. Rosita owns a prayerbook or book of doctrine: Cristiano Runapac: 
causai o sea deoocionarito a usu de los indigenas (AP.C. SS. R. Allichishca; Cuenca, Ecuador: 
Up. San Alfonso, 1939). 

3 From my own observation in the cemetery, longer prayers are said also. 

"3 



ii 4 PEGUCHE 

KISS: KXEEUXG 

The cross and the images of the saints are kissed in the usual Catholic 
way. Also the hand of anyone to whom you have knelt 4 to receive a bene- 
diction, 5 a godparent or the cura. Indeed, at any time you may kiss the 
hand of anyone you wish to honor. 6 

The only informal kisses or caresses I observed were those given baby 
Matilde, and these were sometimes impressed upon her blanket, just as the 
dress of a saint may be kissed. 

CIRCUIT: ORIENTATION: FAVORED NUMERALS 

The antisunwise circuit is very marked. It is followed in the play and 
games of the children (p. 52), in dance (pp. 100, 102) and processional 
(p. 105), at the grave (p. 80), and in handicrafts (p. 25). The lakes that 
figure in the tale of the lost giant (p. 130) are mentioned in antisunwise 
circuit. 

There are no specific terms for the directions, only descriptive terms: 
indijushihO) the sun comes out, east; indishitahung, the sun goes down, west; 
(Sp.-Q.) shuklado, otro lado, the other side, south; (Sp.-Q.) washdadoy atraz 
ladO) across side, north. And the terms or phrases for north and south were 
given hesitantly, as if improvised. Place names are used rather than direc- 
tional phrases. In speaking of the evening star, Rosita pointed to its place 
in the sky in the west in April, in the south in June; but the directional terms 
she did not use. 

Burial is head to the south. Houses in Peguche invariably open to the 
west, for no reason of weather or wind, according to Rosita. The prevailing 

In Inca Peru kneeling was a posture of veneration or worship (Garcilasso, II, 80). In 
early Quito, Indians in house service heard Mass in the morning and were given religious in- 
struction at noon, and in some houses in the evening kneeling before an image (Quito, 1573, 
P- 95)- 

* Guatemala Quiche*: In making requests of parents, offspring kneel and kiss their hands 
(Bunzel, p. 364). 

* The hand of the Inca was kissed by one kneeling before him. The Inca himself kissed the 
initiate on the right shoulder, saying that the child of the Sun deserved to be venerated. The 
Quechua verb "to kiss" (muchani) means also to worship or venerate (Garcilasso, 1, 237, 249; 
II, 22, 175-^76). In worshiping the Sun, the Peruvians "kissed the air," which is equivalent, 
says Garcilasso, to kissing the hand or the dress of a prince in Spam (1, 106, 130; II, 158). 
The Cuzco youths at their initiation when the images were brought out to the square rose up 
and "made their mucha, which was their manner of worshiping" the images. Mucha was per- 
formed "before" the images (Molina, pp. 37, 44). All of these references incline me to think 
that the Catholic ritual kiss was identified with a ritual inhalation similar to that of the 
Pueblos of our Southwest. The Pueblo rite of exhalation, by the way, was also observed by the 
Peruvians (Garcilasso, 1, 132; Molina, p. 63) and is even associated with an offering of com 
meal and shell which a patient breathes on before he offers it. 

The ritual kiss among Eastern Christians and Russians, by the way, is an approximation 
to the Indian rite of inhalation. The hand that has touched the sacrosanct object is kissed 
(Rubruck, p. 184); as Zuni would say, "You breathe from your hand," actually the thumbs 
of the clasped hands. 



RITUAL II5 

wind is from the north, "from Colombia," and is "good"; wind from the 
south is "bad, stormy."* 

For a long time I was baffled about the use of a numeral to indicate 
plurality, the favored numeral. As directional terms are not used, there is 
no association between number and directions, as in our Southwest. The 
Quechua count is decimal, and at Peguche I have seen people counting on 
their fingers, 8 but neither five nor ten is the term used for "several." In 
narrative, if anything, it is three, as it may have been also in Inca Peru. 9 
In the curing ritual 10 of Peguche, three is plainly prescriptive," and the wake 
lasts three nights. In playing beans with imaginary opponents, I noticed 
Alberto making it a game with three players. 

DANCE FORMATION 

Circle dancing is distinctly favored. 12 Hands are joined, 13 and moving in a 
line hand in hand is notable in marriage ceremonial. 1 * Dancing by small 
groups of women in a line is notable. 

When intoxicated, women and men will start to dance solo. 15 

PROCESSION: SAINT'S TRESTLE 

In saint's day celebrations there is usually a procession, sometimes two, 
into town to pay a Mass for the saint or attend a vespers service. Chapel 
officials and their wives take part, and the saint is carried on a trestle or 
litter. 16 Banners and other church paraphernalia are carried. The procession 
may pause and dance; it is a dance processional. 

MUSIC 

As noted, the reed flute in Peguche and throughout the valley may be 
used for pleasure, 17 but other instruments are associated merely with cere- 

But see p. 183. See p. 154. 

9 Garcilasso, 1, 338, 341, 342, 346; II, 75, 82, and passim. Undoubtedly, Garcilasso himself 
uses three as a convenient numeral. Cf. Salcamayhua, p. 105. 

10 For ritualistic or other ways cf. Garcilasso, 1, 148 n., 315; II, 157, 206, 229. In Eastern 
Ecuador three is favored (Karsten 4: passim). Cf. Mexico (Parsons 2:489; Landa, pp. 47, 
49, 79)- 

"See pp. 71-72. 

" Cf. Jibaro (Karsten 4:321). In changing the direction, the dancers shout (ibid.. 304-25), 
as in the baile de Negro of Imbabura. 

This is a Jibaro trait (Karsten 4:301, 321). 

'< See p. 58; cf. Jibaro (Karsten 4:342)- IS Cf. Jibaro (Karsten 4:354, 355). 

** In Inca Peru the priests in charge carried the in 



- f-m-m*rm~ i -WMMgw WM***>* UAW J 1 1 lly J WA VUL1WA 1 ^,JJ 4 C9C1A UtUUEU* t/i U1C EOQS 

in ritual processions. They carried them on litters (Molina, p. 33). The army on the inarch 
carried the god (Salcamayhua, p. 101) . Distinguished persons in Peru were carried on litters. 

"As in Peru (cf. Garcilasso, I, 192). Jibaro play the flute (and dance) to keep off evil 
spirits (Karsten 4:430)- (Among Pueblos whistling keeps off witches.) 



ii6 PEGUCHE 

monial: the pito or whistle pipe, 18 the pingullo> pipes 19 or flutes, the pan- 
pipes, 20 harp, violin, drum. Drum (a small drum played with one stick) and 
pipe may be played together by the same performer, a fashion widespread 
among Spanish Indians. 21 

Imbabura Valley is thought of in Ecuador in a general way as a musical 
center, but, as far as I know, no records of Indian-played music, instru- 
mental or vocal, 22 have been made. 

String and brass instruments are in vogue: the harp at weddings, the 
violin at funerals; and brass instrumentalists are hired to play at prioste 
celebrations. 

From Cayambe and San Juan "many monotonous and sad tunes" are 
reported, sung when people are "gay or drunk." There are few harps, more 
guitars, one or two violins, perhaps one or two bandolins y few flutes (flau- 
tines), the immense flutes called tundas** being almost obsolete, panpipes 
(rondadores)y rondin and the bocina at harvesting and to take cattle to 
Quito. 24 

At Cayambe for the feast of San Pedro men practice their music long in 
advance. Some believe that a little spirit (duende) called serenista, "serena- 
der," who plays the guitar in style, lives halfway up certain brush-covered 
canyons. Persons who have heard him play a serenade (sereno) will say, 
"In such a place I have heard him play, so I am going to leave my guitar 
there for him to tune it well and play on, too." So they leave the guitar 
leaning against the cliff and beside it some trago in a corked white bottle. 
The next day they go to fetch their guitar and the empty bottle. The guitar 
has been tuned during the night, and its music is very agreeable. The place 
is empty; they see nobody.* 5 Spanish instrument and saint's day; Indian 
spirit and Indian offering! 

MASK 

Six types of masks have been noted or reported in Ecuador: the peaked 
or pointed penitente hood or cucuruchu* of Good Friday (Otavalo, Tulcan, 27 

11 Peruvian ccuyvi (Gardlasso, 1, 192, n. f). 

x Peruvian pincullu (ibid.). 

* Peruvian (ibid.,, pp. 191-92) . 

" Parsons 2:254, n. 2$; Spicer, pp. i8i-$2. 

In Inca Peru only war songs were traditional (Garalasso, 1, 193). 

** Made ditunda they get from the jungles. 

* Reported by J. A. Maldonado. 

35 Reported by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

*Sp. cucttrucko, "paper cone." Cf. euculla, cowl or old-fashioned hood, and coco (ftvu), 
"bogey." My guess is that the Spanish pointed hood or mask was the original of the bogey 
mask of northern Mexico and our Southwest. 

^Appendix, p. 198, n. 42. 



PLATE XXXII 




A CONQUISTADOR DANCER TAKES A DRINK FROM A GOURD 
CORPUS CRISTI IN VALLE DE LOS CHILLOS 



PLATE XXXIII 




COLUMN DANCE BY CONQUISTADOR DANCERS AT CORPUS CRISTI 
IN VALLE DE LOS CHILLOS 



> 






PLATE XXXVI 




A WOODEN LION MASK FROM SAO.UISIU 



PLATE XXXVII 




A CROSS NEAR THE TOWN OF COTACACHI 



RITUAL 117 

Quito, Banos); the very high pointed carrizo frame mask of Good Friday; 
the paper or wire false face of the modern carnival (Quito), which is also 
worn in the Chillos Valley by Conquista dancers at Corpus Cristi (Pis. 
XXXH-XXXV) and in the Imbabura Valley by San Juan diablos; the 
Negrito cloth mask worn ztprioste celebrations (Imbabura, Cayambe, Chil- 
los Valley [Pis. XXXII-XXXV)]; a wooden lion mask* 8 worn at Saquisili, 
Cotopaxi Province (PL XXXVI), which is almost identical with the Zapotec 
lion mask from Zaachila, Mexico; 89 and a clay mask reported by J5j6n y 
Caamano. 30 

All these mask types are worn by Indians, but none, as far as I know, is 
made by Indians, not even the Negrito or Montero, 31 Diablo or Diabluma 
mask, of which the design appears to be aboriginal. 33 

There is so little clowning in the behavior of the diabks or Negritos that, 
were they not obviously related by name and by their policing near-bogey 
functions to clown masks elsewhere in the early Spanish empire, 33 it would 

38 Probably Spanish substitute for aboriginal lion head and skin. 

39 Parsons 2 : 264. Certain Peruvian curacas or chiefs came to the summer solstice ceremony 
at Cuzco arrayed in the skin of a lion with the head fixed over their own [Aztec fashion] or 
with condor wings attached to their bodies [Pueblo Indian Eagle dance]. These representa- 
tives or impersonators claimed descent from Lion or Condor (Garcilasso, II, 156). At the 
initiation of the youths of Cuzco their installation as "knights," i.e., warriors "those who 
dressed in the skins [Honsldns, their heads set with gold earpieces and gold teeth] put on the 
head and neck of the lion so as to cover their own, and the skin of the body of the lion hung 
from the shoulders" (Molina, p. 45). 

3 Los Aborigines de lapromneia de Imbabura en la republics del Ecuador ', p. 307, PL XV. Ji- 
jon specifies two masks, one he found being used by an Indian, in what connection is not 
stated, and one inferably found in an ancient burial, a pozo or well-like burial, the location 
not specified. It is unfortunate that this archeological evidence for masks is so uncertain. My 
letter to Senor Jij6n remained unanswered. 

31 Canelos and Jibaro Indians do not use masks. Jibaro warriors paint black all over and 
slayers observe abstinence taboos for several months (Karsten 4:288, 307). 

* 2 Cf. the "multiple-headed god" on Nazca pottery (Means, p. 98). Cf. Appendix, p. 210, 
n. 90. 

33 Tagalog of Philippines; mestizos or Whites and Pueblo Indians of New Mexico; in Mexi- 
co, mestizos, Yaqui-Mayo, Tarahumara, Zapoteca. 

The only down masks of Bolivia indeed, the only dance mask are worn by Cholos, 
who are not infrequently paid for their perfomances. The dress of these "Morenos" is "usual- 
ly very costly, being the costume of the eighteenth century, bright-colored frocks of velvet or 
silk, richly embroidered with gold and silver, vests to fit, knee-breeches, hats, and low shoes 
and masks, hideous rather than comical. With them go small boys wearing ugly masks of 
devils, and frequently a condor, that is, a performer arrayed in the plumage of that bird and 
with a mask imitating its head. If the Morenos were less addicted to hard drinking, their 
pranks and jests might be more palatable. At Copacavana, however, they performed in a 
rather dignified way. Their costumes were plainer, and each played a small flute or fife. They 
evidently have nothing in common with the primitive dances of the Indians" (BandeHer, p. 
1 16, also n. 136). As Bandelier points out, these Moreno dancers were introduced by the early 
Church. They correspond to Los Mora, "the Moors," of Mexico; also to conquista or mata- 
china dancers (Parsons 2:250-58). 



ii8 PEGUCHE 

not occur to us 34 to refer to them as clowns. 35 (Possibly they are warriors.) 36 
As near-bogey impersonations they may be compared with the Abuhuwa 
jungle bogeys of the Cubeo of northeastern Colombia. 37 Both are two-faced 
with a big head. The Abuhuwa mask is made ridiculous at the mourning 
ceremony. Our Imbabura-Pichincha impersonation is plainly related to the 
two-faced cannibal called Chipicha, 38 a version of the Abuhuwa. 

ROADSIDE RITUAL 

Near the top of a long slope where the road ascends toward the town ot 
Cotacachi a niche is cut out of the clay bank, and in it stands a wooden 
cross. On its pedestal and arms small stones have been piled (PL XXXVII). 
Blackening and wax drop show that candles have been burned in the small 
recesses of the niche. 

Candles are burned here on Holy Cross Day, May 3, and, according to 
my White driver, the cross was set here because a man was robbed and 
killed here the reason often given in Spanish America for a roadside cross. 39 
The Cholo knew nothing about the pebbles. 

But Rosita knew about the pebbles, although this particular pile she 
had never seen, never having crossed the valley to Cotacachi. However, to 
the northeast near San Antonio de Ibarra where the road descends, Rosita 
knows of a cross and pile of stones where a person will rub his feet and legs 
with a pebble to get rid of fatigue or foot soreness se limpia muy bien> "he 
cleanses himself well" and will then leave the pebble near the cross to 
which he has prayed. 

In southern Ecuador at difficult or dangerous places on the road piles of 
pebbles are to be seen, together with little crosses of straw.* 

" Bat Jose" Ruis identifies this nigro tukushka (negro disfrazado, "black mask") as paysa 
(Sp.^fly&f0), "down." Otavalenos refer to these masks aspayaso, and once I saw some little 
White children inverting a paper bag over the head and shouting Payaso! as they chased one 
another on the street. 



. Repre- 
sentative of the northwestern Yunca tribe "came attired in the most hideous masks that can 
be imagined, and they appeared at the feasts making all sorts of grimaces, like fools and simple- 
tons; and for this purpose they brought instruments in their hands, such as badly-made flutes 
and tambourines, and pieces of skins, to assist them in their fooleries" (Garcilasso, II, 156-57, 
167). On the coast of Ecuador the chiefs were attended by buffoons (ibid., p. 425). 

In its own dramatization the Inca court "did not allow improper or vile farces" (ibid., I, 
194). Inca and Catholic authorities may alike have suppressed in Ecuador the downing be- 
havior characteristic elsewhere. 

* See pp. 136-37. 

** Goldman, pp. 24647. 

"See pp. 131-34. 

19 But see p. 145 for the tale of a highway murder in this locality. 

" Rivet, p. 90. In Peru and Bolivia stones and coca leaves are piled at mountain passes 
(Bandelier, p. 99) . See Squier,p. 248, and picture of a cross-crowned, twenty-foot-high vpacMto 



RITUAL 119 

CLEANSING ("UMPIARSE") 41 OR EXORCISM 

The legs and feet are cleansed of fatigue by passing a stone over them. 
Similarly, the body is cleansed of ailment by passing over it a guinea pig 
or egg. 

Another form of cleansing or exorcism is by smudge 43 from plants that 
have been blessed and other plants. Rosita had a smudge made of palm 
when she was frightened by thunder, 43 and again, when she was very sick, 
palm and other plants were burned. The sorcerer blows tobacco smoke on 
the patient who is sick from bewitchment or who is to be charmed against 
losing things. 44 

A ritual bath 45 or wash is prescriptive for all marriage attendants after 
the night the mating is consummated 46 and, at Peguche and San Rafael, 
for the corpse. 47 The ritual bath on visiting the mountain for the first time 
has been interpreted at Cayambe as an exorcism, 48 and a bath of purifica- 
tion is recommended during the dark of the moon. 



(term unfamiliar in Ecuador) at the pass of Guaylillos, where men and animals succumb to 
soroche. Apachita has been derived from Quechua apana, "to carry away"; causative form 
apackina, to make someone carry away; the Peruvian rite, too, has been interpreted as an 
exorcism (Karsten 3:347-48). 

In early Peru burden carriers at the passes unloaded themselves and made an offering of an 
eyebrow hair, of the coca they were chewing, or of a small stick, a piece of straw, a stone, or 
clod. "Now, in these times," writes Garcilasso, "crosses are placed on the tops of passes, which 
they worship in acknowledgment of the grace that has been conferred by our Lord Christ" 
(1, 117-18). 

41 Situa> the fourth of the great Inca ceremonies, was for general exorcism, "cleansing from 
evil." When the Sun's messengers were running forth from the city to banish evils, chasing 
them out beyond a fixed mark, all the inhabitants came to the doors of their houses, shook the 
clothes they had on as if getting rid of dust, and "passed their hands over their heads, faces, 
arms, and legs, as if in the act of washing. All this was done to drive the evils out of their 
houses" (Garcilasso, II, 230-31). 

43 Ritual smoke may be partly of Spanish provenience (see Parsons 2:55, 510, 523), but 
see Appendix, p. 204, for fumigation used at Cayambe to exorcise a ghost infant in possession 
of an infant, the infant being held in the smoke of plants that the padre has "baptized." Any- 
one at Cayambe who has been possessed by Rainbow may also be smoked over a plant smudge 
(Appen.,p. 198). 

Among Jibaro during the exorcising four-night dance, preliminary to the victory war dance, 
the head trophy is kept hanging over a smoking fire (Karsten 4:325-26). 

See p. 153. Cf. Maya practice: "In times of necessity even the women and youths and 
maidens understood it as incumbent on them to burn incense and pray to God that he free 
them from evil and overcome the demon who was the cause of it" (Landa, pp. 46, 78). As 
usual, fumigation is confounded with incense. 

Cf. Wagley 1 1258; Karsten 3:382. 

4S The ritual bath in stream or waterfall is a marked trait among Jibaro and Canelos In- 
dians (Karsten 4:326, 342, 346, 359, 391, 440). The ritual bath was Inca also (Molina, pp. 23, 
24, 45, 64; Karsten 3 : 4 85, 488)- 

< 6 See p. 58. 

4* See p. 78 and Appendix, p. 203, for bath after burial, at Cayambe. ^ See p. 200. 



no PEGUCHE 

In the ravine called Porlugarda where three streams unite, two from the same 
river and another from another ravine, it is very effectual, some people say, to 
bathe in the dark of the moon. They collect many plants laurel, satuo, Mkoto 
rub with, besides twigs to whip themselves with. They cast all the plants into the 
middle of the river, saying He chique (misfortune, danger Middendorf) and in 
this way, they say, good fortune (la sucrtt) will come and all distemper (mal humor) 
will depart [Francisco Andrango]. 

Asperging with holy water is clearly thought of as a rite of exorcism some- 
times associated with confession. 49 

CONFESSION* 50 

Rosita Lema and others in Peguche go to confession 31 once a month. 
Some Peguche people confess themselves only once a year, on Good Friday. 
During Rosita's month-long confinement she skipped confession, but this 
omission the padre told her "Our Lord would pardon/* In sickness* people 
may confess to the padre; then they recover. They may confess to having 
quarreled. 53 If a child is sick and a parent confesses, the child will recover. 

In Cayambe a girl who was threatened or possessed by a spirit cat or by 
the Fire Mother was taken to confession that the spirit might not continue 
to molest the household. 54 Another Cayambe female who experienced spirit 

* See p. 142. 

** In spite of statements made by his own contemporaries, Gardlasso denies ^that "secret" 
confessions were practiced prior to the Conquest, but the Peruvians did make "public" con- 
fessions because "they held it to be a shameful thing that evil should be brought upon the 
commonwealth by their faults, such as pestilence, deaths, bad harvests, or other special mis- 
fortunes" (I, 121, 148). This we recognize as indeed an Indian attitude associated not with 
the concept of penitence but with that of exorcism for breaking rules. The following account 
of cleansing or exorcising practices cited by Garcilasso's editor, Markham, in this connection 
supports this point of view. After fasting for some days, participants in the principal cere- 
monies blew sacrificial ashes into the air. Then they washed their heads at die juncture of 
the two streams. Returning to the officiating priest, they said: "Hear me! ye hills, plains, 
condors that fly in the air, owls, lizards, and all plants and animals for I desire to confess my 
sins." After observing certain omens as criteria of the "sins," i.e., whether or not the specific 
acts had been or would be the cause of disaster, the perpetrator had to abstain from salt and 
pepper, to undergo whipping, or to put on new clothes "so as to leave his sins in die old ones" 
(Garcilasso, 1, 148 n.; cf. Karsten 3:487 ). 

" Among modern Catholicized Indians elsewhere confession is a rare practice, and I have 
never observed among them the rite of "striking the breast" which our northern Catholics 
perform during the Mass when they say the Confiteor. 

s From a parcialidad "near Otavab" a priest reports that after a reconciliation between 
a father and son who had been quarreling and were not on speaking terms the son knelt before 
his father for forgiveness and blessing. The father said that, in so far as was in his power, he 
forgave him completely but that God must give the final and complete forgiveness and that he 
would pray to God to do so (see, too, pp. 138-^39) All this also suggests Maya practice. 

There was special confession for sickness in Inca Peru (Molina, p. 64), just as among the 
Maya, modern (Bunzel, pp. 376-77) and ancient (Landa, p. 45). 

See Appendix, p. 205. 



PLATE XXXIX 




CHICKEN BEING OFFERED TO THE "HACENDADO," OR PATRON 



PLATE XL 




CHICKEN BEING OFFERED TO THE "HACENDADO," OR PATRON 



RITUAL i2i 

hallucinations while drunk tried to send for the padre to confess her but 
failed to reach him and so has remained sick. 55 Quite plainly confession is 
thought of as an exorcising or curing rite. 

EATING AND DRINKING: DRUNKENNESS 

Eating and drinking, feasting, is a part of every formal assemblage wheth- 
er at home for baptism, wedding, or funeral, in the house of prioste> in 
chicheria or estanco, in the cemetery. 56 Food is generally served first and 
afterward the drink, 57 excepting in the cemetery, where no liquor is drunk. 

Contributions of food or liquor or of money to purchase liquor are made 
by family, by padrinos or compadres, and by officials (prioste or alcalde). 
The family seniors will offer or distribute the drink (servicio budador) that 
all have paid for, as when chicha is offered to the capitanes or priostes of 
saints' days ceremonies. It is customary for the chicheria to supply boda 
(buda), the corn meal gruel, without charge. 58 

Boda and roasted corn, on or off the cob, are the usual food. The toasted 
corn kernels are referred to as kukabi In cemetery feasts boiled potatoes 
and beans are also eaten. These also are served at feasts in houses, together 
with boiled chicken and guinea pig. To highly honored or distinguished 
guests at home chicken and guinea pig, bread, and boiled milk will be 
served. After serving, it is mannerly to withdraw, not to watch guests 
eat. At haciendas chickens are offered to the hacendado or patron (Pis. 
XXXVIII-XL). Produce and bread and meat are offered to the Blessed 
Souls. 60 Live guinea pigs and cooked food are offered to Rainbow (p. 65) 
and at Hawk Falls (p. 93).* 

The drinking ritual in offering chicha to the capitanes de Ncgros has been 
described. 62 I was told at Peguche that chicha was also dripped on the 

ss See p. 136. 

See Index, "Feasting." 

57 In Inca Peru "while they were eating they never drank." Indeed, this was the custom 
of all Peruvian Indians (Garolasso, 1, 129-30; II, 164). 

5* In early times people went to the great houses tyuyyo, fohio) of the chiefs (los senores y 
caciques) to put in an appearance (haccn prcscneia.) and to meet to drink (Quito, 1573, p. 94). 

Cocavi is defined by the Spanish dictionary as "coca or other provisions for a journey." 
Inferably, the term derived from the coca leaf is now applied in Ecuador, where coca is not 
known, to toasted maize. 

60 At the August exorcising ceremony of Situa before the Inca mummies "the food they had 
been most fond of when they were alive was placed" (afterward the persons in charge of the 
bodies consumed the food) (Molina, p. 25). See above, p. 77. 

61 To the Sun the Incas offered "domestic animals, large and small [including guinea pigs]," 
also "rabbits and all birds used for food, all the pulses and cereals, the herb cuca, and the finest 
cloths" (Garcilasso, I, 53, 129; Means, p. 374). Guinea pigs were offered to the Sun by die 
Collas (Salcamayhua, p. 101). 

fa Seep. 106. 



122 PEGUCHE 

ground during the San Juan fiesta** Of this celebration, Mr. Wuth writes: 
"Its onlyO) purpose consists of dancing and singing and drinking." In 
much the same vein Garcilasso wrote of a victory celebration at Cuzco: 
"The festival was celebrated with songs and dances, and much eating and 
drinking, which was the principal things in their festivals." 64 Garcilasso 
adds: "Having finished their dance, they drank to each other; 65 and pres- 
ently others rose up to dance, and then others, so that the dancing lasted all 
day" indeed, all month. 

During the San Juan or the San Pedro festival, Peguche and other Im- 
babura parcialidadcs make an offering of liquor at Hawk Falls. 66 It seems 
significant that especially at this season is chicha home brewed. 

In offering a drink, a little speech may be made: 

ishkanipashu 67 opiapashu machangkapa kashnami opiaring rikupangi 

two we let us drink to get drunk so it is so drink earnestly (pera s) 

(pard chumar) 

tukuchi parkarnimi rikupangi kambash chasnayata upiapangi 

I have drained I have finished earnestly you too similarly drink 
{a mi acabe) (ya me acabe) 

The drinking associated with curing is probably not a fortuitous matter 
or even merely to give courage to doctor and patient. Spraying rum is 
plainly exorcistic, and drinking may once have had, if not now, the same 
character. 68 

In this connection drunkenness had best be discussed, closely related 
as it is in Ecuador, as throughout South America, to ritual theory and prac- 
tice. Among Imbabura Indians there is more drunkenness from chicha than 
from rum, according to Rosita, probably because less rum is drunk at a 
time or less frequently. Little or no stigma attaches to drunkenness, 69 and 
no sense of guilt. There is no concept about immoderation being in itself 
regrettable or condemnable, nor is there any idea of condemning a person 
for any behavior while drunk. He may behave quite immorally, for example, 
showing disrespect toward parent or godparent, even to fighting with a 

*s This was done at ordinary meals at Cuzco. "They dipped the point of the middle finger 
into the bowl [ofchictui], and, gazing attentively at the sky, they filliped off the drop of liquor 
which adhered to the tip of the finger, thus offering it to the Sun, in gratitude for the grant of 
this liquor. At the same time they kissed the air two or three times" (Garcilasso, 1, 130). 



*s See p. 1 06. ^ In Spanish rendered as sahid. 

"See p. 93. "See below. 

69 "They almost hold it as honorable to be drunkards" (Quito, 1573, pp. 92, 93). This was 
approximately so in early Guatemala (Bunzel, p. 362) but not in Inca Peru, where no official 
"dared" to get drunk (Garcilasso, Vols. I, II), and Garcilasso reports that in his day "through 
the mercy of God and die good example which has been set them in this particular by die Span- 
iards, no Indian can get drunk without being despised and reviled by his fellows" (II, 164). 



RITUAL 123 

father or godfather, but this is considered a natural consequence of drink- 
ing 70 and is not held against the drunkard. 71 When Jose asked me if in 
my country brothers fought together when they got drunk, only curiosity 
about foreign customs was involved; there was no suggestion about superi- 
ority or inferiority in behavior. I had been asking if men when drunk ever 
fought over a woman. 72 "Never," said Jose, adding that when men fought 
they fought merely because they were drunk; even brothers fought together, 
even son and father, even godchild and godfather! Incredible behavior ex- 
cept in drunkenness. The reputed lack of all motivation 73 in drunken fight- 
ing utterly precludes condemnation. 

On the other hand, not to drink, to refuse a proffered copita, may be a 
misdemeanor involving whipping; 7 * refusal is always an offense. 75 Once when 
I was out walking with Jos6 and our direct way home led past the chicherias 
in Peguche, he told me to go on by myself while he avoided the chickerias 
through a circuitous cornfield trail. He knew he would be invited to drink, 
and it was more polite, as well as easier, no doubt, to avoid temptation, for 
him to take the roundabout way. Besides, he knew that I, too, because I 
was along with him, would be offered a drink and would probably decline 
it, and that would add to the awkward situation. "If you eat [proffered 
food], we are friends," once said Rosita; "if you do not eat, we are not 
friends." This is felt even more strongly for drinks. 
. Apy acceptable stranger, say, one accompanied by an acquaintance, will 
^'offered a drink. At a dance, of course, I would accept the capita, but in 



the casual roadside drinking of which I knew Rosita did not approve I did 
not join, giving the only possible excuse, "No se tomar [I do not know how 
to drink]." But only girls are supposed not to know how, 76 so that excuse 
was not wholly acceptable. "Si, sabe, no quiere [Yes, she knows, she doesn't 
want to]," was the ready retort. Perhaps the better way out would be 
always to dissimulate, disimular, as under like circumstances I was once 
advised at Mitla, and just to take a sip. Ethnologists cannot afford to be 
reformers. 

7 One of the sayings of the Inca Pachacntec was: "Drunkenness, anger and madness go 
together; only the first two are voluntary and to be removed, while the last is perpetual" 
(Garcilasso, II, 208). Inferably, Peruvian drunks also got into fights. 

" Cf. Parsons a: no; Quiche, Bunzel, p. 367; Chiapas, Mexico, Bunzel, p. 378. 

^See p. 58. The reporter for Loyola in 1580 states that at the drunken dances "each 
one takes the woman that he desires/' and this is the cause of their wars because after they 
sobered up they felt the insult and went to avenge it (Stirling, pp. 33, 34). 

Cf. Chiapas, Mexico (Bunzel, p. 376). 
w See p. 1 88, n. 7. 
w Bunzel, p. 373. 

76 This may be cited as an instance of feminine conservatism, for it is probable that in early 
times youths also were not allowed to drink, as in Aztec Mexico, where drinking was a preroga- 
tive of old age. 



126 PEGUCHE 

wizard of Peguche, we recall, sought an omen from candle flame. 6 I have 
found no other omens at Peguche except through dreams. 7 

DREAMS 

"I dream, but I forget my dreams," says Rosita. "I don't believe in 
dreams, but others do believe." 8 They believe that it is mala suerte to 
dream of peppers (aji), fire, a wild bull, or a horse. Peppers, fire, 9 and bull 10 
are a sign of anger (c6lera) in yourself or in others the next day. A horse 
means a fever; a dog, sickness from mal aire; an egg, a boil, a growth. 11 A 
big river means visitors from a distance; a downpour, that it will rain; a ring 
or rosary, marriage; maize, losing money; barley, getting money. 12 

If the dead appear in dream, you sicken; it gives you mal air e. 

wanyushka almakuna muskurin chaymi wayira washka 
el muerto almas todas sueno por eso mal aire mi ha dado 

For dreams at Cayambe see the Appendix (p. 216) and also the dream or 
hallucination about spirit swine (pp. 204, 206), which has a decidedly Jibaro 
character. And see also the tales (pp. izjff.) for dreams or hallucinations 
of traveling. 

RIDDLES 

Peguche may be added to the many Indian groups that have been ex- 
posed more or less to the Spanish riddle for a long time without taking it. 
Rosita, probably the most Hispanicized person in the parcialidad, knew no 

6 During the war between Huascar Ynca of Cuzco and Atahuallpa Inca of Quito two cap- 
tains of Atahuallpa sought for an omen. They "lighted a fire on their left hands with a piece 
of grease, putting one lump of grease to represent the camp of Huascar Ynca, and the other 
for the camp of Atahuallpa. And the one in the place of Huascar Ynca burnt much more than 
that in the place of Atahuallpa, so that the grease of Huascar, burning up so high, went out very 
quickly, while that of Atahuallpa went on burning." Then the captains "sang the kaylK 9 and 
and told their men that all would go well" (Salcamayhua, p. 117). 

* For ordinary omens they made use of dreams and the appearance of sacrifices (Garcilasso 
1, 183)- 

8 In Inca Peru they believed that dreams "are what the soul sees in the world while the body 
sleeps. Owing to this vain belief, they paid much attention to dreams, and their interpretation, 
saying that they were signs and omens which presaged either much evil or much good" (ibid., 
PP- "9, 344, 346; II, 89). Unfortunately, "to avoid scandal," Garcilasso does not list dream 
prognostications which were "fearful things" (1, 183). Cf. Salcamayhua, pp. 104-5. 

Jibaro attach supreme importance to o!reams, in both normal and narcotic sleep. Indeed, 
only in dreams is true reali ty revealed. The dead and the animals, at other times dangerous, ap- 
pear in dreams in friendly, counseling ways (Karsten 4:444 ff.). "Tapirape shamans travel 
widely in their dreams" (Wagley, pp. 253, 256, 258, 259). 

Jos Ruis believes that a dream of making a fire, blowing on one, or cooking means that 
people will come disputing (rencgando) the next day. It has often happened to him. 

" To a Chola from Ibarra a bull dream meant money; lying down in a bed, a voyage; water, 
weeping (cf. Appen., p. 216). No indication here or at Peguche of the European idea of dreams 
going by contrary. 

"See Appendix, p. 216. " See Appendix, p. 216. 



LORE AND TALES 127 

riddles when I asked her about riddling. Apparently she had never heard 
of this form of entertainment. But, as we were talking about it, little Lu- 
cila was listening, and she brought me her convent-school reader and showed 
me some adivinanzas. 

Oro, no es; plata no es y el que no adivina un gran borrico es (Plitano). 

Casco de grana Cajetita de bombon 

Gran caballero Sin tapita ni tap6n. 

Capa dorada El huevo 

Espuela de acero. 

El gallo 

A day or two later Rosita, the alert minded, told me some other riddles 
that she had picked up meanwhile from somebody: 

Un hombre que se pone calz6n bianco con saco verdc. 
Que sera" ? 
Cebolla. 

Ataud verde 
Mortajita blanca. 
Guaba. 

Una flor que sale s61o de noche. 
Estrella. 

La mam es cabezona 
El guagua es muy bravo. 
Aji. 

Que cosa es que anda dia y noche y no se acaba? 
Elrio. 

La mam esta* hechada 
El guagua anda. 
Metate. 

Una negra amarrada la cabeza con panuelo bianco. 
Olla de cocina. 

Que cosa es que sale dia y noche, que tiene mil es- 
padas, no se anda, estan no mas? 
Penco (Sp.), Sawar (Q.). 

De dos ventanas se parece y pues se pierde. 
Mucus [Rosita points to her nose]. 

TALES 

IMBABURA VISITS COTACACHI* 

Imbabura Old Man was in love with Huarmi Rasu, Snow Woman. 1 * He went to 
visit her. In the house of his love they prepared dinner. Imbabura Old Man dined. 

Told by Rosita Lema. 

** The Indians' name for Cotacachi. A heavy rain in the valley means a snow cap on 
Cotacachi. 



128 PEGUCHE 

They ate baked turkey. Then later after dinner Imbabura Old Man felt a pain in 
his stomach. He almost died. Then they doctored him. When they gave him medi- 
cine, he vomited everything. He vomited snakes, serpents, lizards, frogs. 

Imbabura said he was frightened; never again would he eat turkey, 1 * nor would 
he ever come back. He and Snow Woman ceased being friends. It was ended. 

The remedy Snow Woman gave him was urine. So it is customary to this day to 
take urine for stomach ache. The pain goes. Urine is Imbabura 's remedy. 16 It is 
a sure remedy. 

THE MOUNTAINS PLAY BALL 17 

Chuso Longo 18 had very long hair. He had a little bit of a poncho. He had a little 
staff of shining gold. 19 He was strong, strong. Nobody could fight him. He lived 
on Yanaurco, Black Mountain. 

Imbabura Taita, Father Imbabura, went to look for Chuso Longo to play ball. 
It was not truly a ball they had; it was a rock as big as this house. Chuso Longo 
was to throw it to Imbabura, and Imbabura was to throw it to Chuso Longo. Chuso 
Longo succeeded in throwing it. Imbabura could not throw it. 20 The ball fell half- 
way, at Jatunyacu, "Big Water." 21 Imbabura was unsuccessful in throwing it; he 
lost the game and Chuso Longo won. Because Chuso Longo won, Black Mountain 
has everything^ water, wood, trees of all kinds, tillable land. Having lost, Imbabura 
has nothing, no water, no wood, no trees; he stayed poor. 

Cayambe version.- 32 When it lights up from one point to another [heat lightning 
on the horizon, a frequent phenomenon J. L. G.], 23 the natives say that the Moun- 
tains are playing ball, gambling with a golden ball, one against the other, betting 
their fortunes. 

"When a mountain starts to play with another mountain, if one of the mountains 
loses, they say that the mountain that has won takes from the other all the animals 
that exist on it, rabbits, deer, wolves, that is to say all the animals that live on the 
pfaamos; and for this reason there is nothing, and it is hard to find rabbits, deer, 
and birds. But when the mountain has won from another mountain, it has animals 

15 Was turkey once a sacrificial bird? Wild turkey is found in the Jibaro-peopled forests to 
the south (Karsten 4:68). Domesticated turkeys are kept on the haciendas but not in the 
farcialidades. 

** Inferably, if Imbabura cures he also causes disease. In Jibaro belief, hills and mountains, 
the dwelling-places of deceased sorcerers, send disease; disease from the mountains is a wide- 
spread Andean belief (Karsten i :282, 4:382, Mishkin, p. 235). 

x Told by Rosita Lema. 

xl Chuso is slang for "little"; longo is a term for "Indian" young Indian. Used by a White, 
ckuso tango is an abusive term, comments a Cholo of San Pablo. 

** This detail was contributed by die maestro of Riobamba and Ibarra, who was listening to 
the familiar story. Have we here a reminiscence of the famous scepter of gold of the Inca emer- 
gence myth? (Garcilasso, I, 64; II, 236). 

* Cf. the throwing contest between the Sun or Inca and another culture hero recorded in 
Kauri, an Andean village seventy miles east of Cuzco (Mishkin). 

" The outlet of the Laguna de San Pablo. It flows through the hacienda of Peguche and 
supplies power for a cotton mill at the southwest corner of the Indian settlement. 

M Written by Jose* Antonio Maldonado Cabezas. 
9 3juanL.GorrelL 



LORE AND TALES 129 

in great quantities. For this reason, when one says to the inhabitants of a. paramo, 
'Why do you not bring in rabbits?' he may tell us that the mountain has lost in 
gambling with another mountain, and for this reason now there is nothing on the 
pdramo y or that such and such mountain must have won; there must be rabbits there, 
because it has won. If one brings many rabbits to sell, one may say, 'Taitico mlo (my 
little father) has favored our little mountain so that it might win, and for this 
reason now there are lots of rabbits. There are times when there isn't time to go 
out and catch them. Deer are going around just like sheep.' They speak with joy, 
but, when the mountain loses, they speak sadly." 

THE INHERITANCE OF THE MOUNTAINS AND HILLS 34 

There was a father.^ He had a lot of children, and he summoned them to give 
them their inheritance. The next day early in the morning they were to get up. 
Yanaurco, Black Mountain, got up earliest, then Huarmi Rasu, Snow Woman,* 6 
and went to where their father was in order to receive their inheritance. Then came 
Imbabura, then Pucarl Loma,** then Cotama Loma.** They all went to ask for their 
inheritance. The first one, Black Mountain, got a fall inheritance. Then came Snow 
Woman; she got very little. Imbabura, because he was behind, got nothing. That 
is why he is poor, because he overslept. Pucara* Hill was more lazy and so is bare, 
has no fruits, nothing. Cotama Hill, laziest and last of all, has nothing, nothing, 
nothing. Their father gave him nothing. 

THE GIANT AND THE LAKES 29 

There lived a man near the sun (cerca de Uegar el sol), a very tall man. This man 
made a bet with another one that he would go into the lake [Lake of San Pablo] to 
see who was higher, deeper. He went into the lake at Companfa (on northeast side 
of lake), and the water came up between his ankle and his calf; no further. (He was 
very tall, wasn't he?) Then he went into Yana Cocha, Black Lake,* the lake of 
Yanaurco, Black Mountain. The water reached to his knees. Then he went into 
Cuicocha, the lake south of Cotacachi, and the water reached to his waist. He went 
into Yawar-kocha,* 1 the lake near Ibarra, and the water reached only to his ankles. 
He went into Cunro Cocha, on top of Imbabura. It is a small lake and he thought 

* Told by Rosita Lema. 

35 His name is forgotten; cf. the Cafiar "mountain father" (p. 90, n. 46). 

a6 Cotacachi. 

High hill just south of Peguche. 

* H3I1 just west of Peguche known as La Bolsa. 

* Told by Rosita Lema. 

3 Known usually as Mqjando. 

" Yahuar-cocha> "blood lake." After the Inca Conquest the province of Caranque [Ibarra] 
rebelled against the "yoke of the Ynca." On an appointed day "they killed the officers of the 

Ynca with much cruelty, and offered their heads, hearts, and blood, to their gods They 

ate the flesh of the murdered people with much pleasure and voracity, swallowing it without 
chewing, in revenge for having been deprived of this enjoyment for so long a time Thou- 
sands of men fell on either side Two thousand of the Caranques and their allied tribes 

[unconquered tribes to the north] were executed by drowning them in the lake" (Garciiasso, 
II, 448-49). 



i 3 o PEGUCHE 

it would not harm him, but when he went in he disappeared. 32 The handholds and 
footholds he made in climbing Imbabura are still there and may be seen plainly 
from Cusin. 

VARIANT 33 

In the past, they say, a man was going around called Sanson Giant. He went 
around comparing various lakes, both full and sunken* He entered the lake of 
Mojanda and then the lake of San Pablo and Yahuar Cocha, and he crossed other 
lakes before and after San Pablo. He was going to enter the little lake of Cunro, 
and, on entering, he said it was nothing, since he had entered other larger lakes and 
"the water came up only to the shins and as the others did not make me afraid much 
less will this little one which I will go through running and making fun of." So he 
entered die lake at a run with the idea of crossing to the other side, making fun of 
the lake. When he least expected it, he felt he was sinking to the bottom of the lake, 
and he was frightened. Trying to get out, he managed to cry out at Imbabura and 
Pesillo to save his life because he was sinking to the bottom. He got hold of them. 
After he got out, he testified (eonfcso, confesses) that the little lake was connected 
with Hell and that the devils were dragging him by the feet. Since then to this day 
they say that the little lake of Cunro connects or communicates with Hell, and this 
idea is held at present by all the inhabitants of these places. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE LAGUNA DE SAN PABLO 34 

At a certain epoch Jesucristo was walking along in the province of Imbabura, 
asking alms from house to house. South of Otavalo he came to a hacienda belonging 
to a Seiior San Pablo. It was midday and the owners were having lunch. At the 
door Jesucristo begged for charity. Two furious dogs came out to bite him, but 
the servant protected him from the dogs and gave him a little piece of bread. Jesu- 
cristo told the girl to take a purse of money and leave in the afternoon for a place 
very far away, otherwise death would surely befall her. Hearing this, she turned 
cold and did not know what to do, but she said nothing to herpatrones and did what 
Jesucristo told her. 

In the afternoon in the middle of the house there appeared two azafates (? batcas) 
filled with water that began to form a lake into which sank the hacienda and then 
the whole property. It formed the kke that exists today and that is why it is called 
San Pablo. 

THE MAN ON THE WHITE HORSE 35 

One from here, from Quinchuquf, went to round up cattle, for there is a lot of cattle 
on Imbabura. When he was halfway up the mountain, there appeared to him a 
man mounted on a white horse. 36 The man said, "Let us go to my house to give 

** Cf.Kauri beliefs about the lord (apu or aukf) of the mountain who lives in a palace under 
a lake in the mountain and sucks down anyone venturing to take his food floating up from his 
granaries on the lake (Mishkin, p. 227). Kauri people also refer to four lakes, of different 
colors. 

33 Written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas of Juan Montalvo, Pichincha Province. 

Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado, as heard from Jose* Maria Andrango of Cangahua, 
Cayambe Canton, Pichincha Province. 

** Told by Segundo Lema, aged nine. This is a true story, said his older sister, Rosita, "Es 
cierto, no es cuento." It happened seventeen years ago. The man's name was Juan Males. 

a* In Peru (Mishkin) and by the Keresan Pueblos the sprit on the white horse is specified 
as Santiago. Cf. Zapotec, Parsons 2:363, 364; also, for the mounted "devil," ibid., p. 296. 



LORE AND TALES i 3I 

you grain, for I have all kinds of grain." They went. There appeared a large pueblo, 
as big as Otavalo: a plaza, market, shops, pretty horses, pretty cows, bullocks, dogs, 
pretty houses, one house covered with gold with a door of gold, with windows of gold, 
pure gold." There were even pretty pastures, pretty alfalfa, standing corn, barley, 
wheat. There was a great deal of grain on Imbabura; in every room grains of all 
kinds were stored. In this pretty house lived Father Imbabura (eltalta Imbabura), 
the owner of Imbabura (el dueno del Imbabura) ,3* 

The man from Quinchuquf lived here for one year. Then he returned to his house 
in Quinchuqui. He stayed there one month and then returned to the mountain. He 
did not come back. He disappeared. Whether he is alive or dead who knows! 

RAINBOW SEDUCES 39 

A couple had been married a few months. The woman was simpdtica and had let 
a spirit (duende) make love to her. After his conquest he obliged the beloved to eat 
lizards and frogs cooked at twelve noon, instead of the usual hour, at seven in the 
morning or at seven in the afternoon. 40 As the man was a hacienda peon, he break- 
fasted at seven and went off. The woman cooked for him only; she did not even take 
a bite. But at supper, they say, the man would say, "#(/*, daughter, why don't 
you eat?" They say she would answer, 'Til eat later"; but she did not. This went 
on for several days until the husband flared up, "What's the matter with you ? Am I 
not worthy of you?" [As she would not eat with him.] Well, this passed. Then he 
thought he would not go to work but return at midday. When he returned to the 
kitchen at midday, he found his wife cooking all kinds of repugnant little animals, 
fat ones because, they say, the broth he saw was pure grease. He said nothing to the 
woman, but at once he informed the padrinos [? wedding godparents] about sepa- 
rating and went to the judges to get a divorce. 

Fifteen days after the divorce, on his way to work, he met the woman walking in 
the country with the duende. He waited for them to pass by, then he intercepted 
them and gave some dirty words and a strong blow (sopapo) to the duende^ who fell 
into little pieces. His blood transformed into various colors which went up into the 
sky to form the rainbow (cuichic). The blood of the duendt, they say, was trans- 
formed into cuichic. 

CHIPICHA* 1 

A man was left a widower with two little children, a boy and girl. He married a 
widow, who also had two children. This woman treated the man's children very 
badly and made so much trouble about them that she finally convinced her husband 
to abandon them (botor) in a quetrada (ravine) where there was a lot of bears and 
tigers, a long way from the house. The father took the children there and told them 
to wait for him while he loaded his wood. They waited for him until five o'clock in 
the afternoon, when they went to look for him, but they did not find him because he 



3? Belief in the existence of mountain palaces is widespread in the Andes (Mishkin, p. 238). 

3* Guatemala "owners of the hills" appear dressed like Whites and lure people to their hill- 
)s to kill them (Siege!) . 

w Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado as heard from Jose* Maria Andrango of Cangamuu 

[From this I infer these people were conciertos who % 
back from work. 5. F. M.] 

Told by Rosita Lema. See pp. 133-34 for variant. 



* [From this I infer these people were conciertos who go early to work and cook when they 
come back from work. S. F. M.] 



13* PEGUCHE 

had sneaked home (se habia rcgresado escondido). So they slept all night in the ra- 
vine.* 3 

The next day they ate some roots and fruits. Finally, the little girl took her 
brother on her back and set out to look for people. She walked and walked and came 
to a straw house, where they found an old woman dressed like an Indian, with long 
breasts, thrown back one over each shoulder. There was the Chipicha; an old woman 
of the brush who knows how to eat people, una sicja de montana que ha sabido comer 
gent*.** She took the little boy into the house to sleep with her and had the little 
girl stay outside. During the night the little girl heard her little brother screaming 
and asked what was the matter, and Chipicha answered that she was bathing him 
and that the little boy was afraid of the water and for that reason was screaming. 
About four o'clock in the morning Chipicha left the house to go to take care of her 
potato field and told the little girl to bathe her little brother. The little girl went 
into the house and called for Manuelito and could not find him anywhere. She 
looked into the bed and found a lot of blood and bones. 44 Chipicha came back and 
asked the little girl to delouse her head. As she was debusing, the little girl dis- 
covered at the back of the neck another mouth, with bits of flesh between the teeth. 
Chipicha had been eating her little brother with this mouth, while she talked to her 
with the mouth in front. While Chipicha was asleep, the little girl gathered up the 
bones of her brother, put them on her back, and ran away. 4 * She reached the house 

4 * Version from Cangahua, Cayambe Canton: The stepmother starved the children, spilling 
food on their chests to make their father think they had eaten. The father hung a large cracked 
gourd to a thick tree so that, as the wind blew the gourd against the tree, it sounded like an 
axtrac trac trad "Papacito is still cutting wood/' said the children. 

"That Chipicha must have been Hibaro (Jibaro)," commented Jose" with a grin. (Cubeo, 
I would say, but, of course, Jose* has never heard of them.) "Ybaros de montana, que comen 
gente," said Rosita, referring to a picture of an Indian with a ring in his nose and feathers on 
his head, copied by little Lucila from a book in the house of Uncle Segundo. Cannibalism by 
savages is a familiar idea to Jose" and Rosita, as it was to Garcilasso (see Royal Commentaries^ I, 
55-5<$, 130, 284). In speaking of burial customs, Jose* told me in derision that there used to be 
people who did not know how to bury the dead so they ate them; as Garcilasso said, "They 
buried their dead in their bellies" (/, I, 56; II, 276). Secondary burial was a common 
practice by the tola builders, but it would be far fetched to say it pointed to ritual cannibalism, 
although, of the Caranque (Ibarra), Garcilasso writes that they waged war with their neighbors 
to take prisoners to kill and eat as "they were very greedy after human flesh" (II, 350). 

Neither Jose nor anybody in Peguche has any lore about the tolas (tub, which in Quechua, 
after Rosita, is pucard, "hill," "mound"). They know that pottery (olla de Inea) has been 
taken out of these mounds there is a large group in the neighborhood of Human, Carabuek, 
and the haciendas of Quinchuquf and Chichi (kunihu tula, Rosita) but, unlike the Whites 
of Otavalo, they seem not to think of the tolas as burial mounds. 

44 Cangahua: The children see smoke coming out of a chocita. Two Chifichas. The male 
says, "I am your father"; the female says, "1 am mother for you two." They decided to fatten 
the children for fifteen days. When they went to bathe and gather wood, una hada (a fairy) 
warned the children not to obey the Chifichas and enter the oven to get out the charcoal. The 
children told the Chificha man to get the charcoal out himself. They shut him into the oven, 
build a fire under it, and ran away. Chificha woman recaptures them. These little boys were the 
two who were to save the ancient world, to free the world of these two monsters (fieras) [the Pueblo 
Twins!]. 

4 * Cangahua: Chificha cooked a lot of human flesh and served herself through both mouths, 
the one in front and the one at the nape of the neck, another sort of face. When the boy saw 
this one as he was delousing her, fast asleep in the middle of the room, he was frightened and 
talked to his brother about it. [From here on cf. pp. 133-34.] They locked the door and set the 
house afire. They heard a loud melancholy voice saying, "No matter that I die burnt, my 



LORE AND TALES 133 

of some good people where she stayed and grew up. She married the son of the 
house. < 6 

VARIANT 47 

Once a child (guagua) nine or ten years old was walking in front of a straw house, 
some distance from the tribe. Then an ugly woman of many years, with disheveled 
hair, dressed like an Indian, with large breasts thrown back over her shoulders, was 
sitting in the patio y who with special kindliness, they say, called her: "Shamuylla, 
nuca churigua, shamushun, mica churigua I For diopac pallay peles mica huamapi ! 
[Come to me, little daughter,* 8 come on, little daughter! For the love of God pick 
the lice from my head 9" The little girl shyly drew near (la guambritd)f* they say, 
and sat down to hunt lice (peles) when, as she is about to touch the nape of the neck, 
the Chificha said not to touch that because it was sore. After this the Chificha, they 
say, slept as one dead on the lap of the little girl, making herself comfortable for 
sleep. When the Chificha had fallen asleep as one dead, the little girl, they say, 
looked at the nape of the neck and what was her surprise to find another face, with 
a large mouth and crooked tusks full -of bits of meat in the crevices of the teeth. 
Then the little girl, horribly frightened, just quietly removes her from her lap and 
puts her lying on the ground. Once free, she just raced away. On a flat, they say, 
they had just finished building a house; toward that the little girl ran, turning to see 
the Chificha, thinking she might be following behind. She arrived frightened, at 
last, at that new house, where she told the mingueros what happened to her. 

After a moment, the mingueros, they say, saw at a distance a woman coming at 
a trot: then they talked over what they should do to the Chificha. When the Chi- 
ficha arrived, they all received her, they say, with the greatest kindliness. Then as 
the house was just finished and for the pleasure of it, they started to dance, and 
chicka, they say, was not lacking. The Chificha, already a bit drunk, began to 
dance, throwing back her breasts, and she was stone drunk (earth drunk, chumada 
hecka tiara) ; they say she just fell *'pum," and, they say, she remained snoring in 
the middle of the room. Then the mingueros all silently locked the door and set 

spirit mil pursue." The children gathered up the little pile of ashes into a sack which they 
gave to a stutterer who happened along, saying, "Throw this in the middle of the river and be 
careful you don't go opening it nor go resting along the road, either." Just as he was getting 
to the bank of the river the silly one opened the sack, and out came numberless insects of all 
kinds that attacked the poor fool, leaving only his skeleton. This is the origin of all the para- 
sites in the human being. 

46 In telling this story to Mr. Gorrell, Rosita varied the conclusion: Chipicha's house was a 
hacienda, full of gold and silver. After Chipicha perished (?), the little girl got all this wealth. 
Her stepmother was very envious (enmdiosa) of her stepdaughter's good luck and wanted the 
same for her own children, so she sent her husband to leave her own children in the same 
quebrada. But when she went to look for them the next day she found nothing but their bones 
because the bears and tigers had eaten them during the night. "And this goes to show that 
envy never pays," concluded Rosita. We recognize the familiar Spanish tale of the Good Child 
and the Bad. The opening episode of the abandoned children is likewise Spanish. In one ver- 
sion of Chificha from Cayambe the same episode is given (see below); in another (see p. 153) 
it is lacking. 

Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado of Juan Montalvo. This "oldest of tales" is tra- 
ditional in his family. "My mother says her grandmother's grandmother (la abuelo. de l& abueti) 
knew how to tell it." The tale is familiar, writes Maldonado, to many elderly Indians. 

& So translated by Segundo, but ckuri means son. 
Guambra means boy or girl in Quechua. 



i 34 PEGUCHE 

fire to the house. Feeling the fire, the Chificha woke up and wanted to run out, but, 
as there was no way out, they say she jumped, hopped with screaming cries, thinking 
someone would save her, but no one came near. Then, seeing that nothing was pos- 
sible, she said revengefully, they say: "Peles mi tucushca, peque mi tucusha, moras 
mi tucusha bunga mi tucusha ["I shall make lice, I shall make fleas, I shall make 
brambles (moras, blackberry brambles), I shall make hornets (moscard6n)]" When 
the house finished burning, they say, they went to look in the room and found her 
only a little pile of ashes. This ash they did not leave but gathered it all in a jar, 
mahfta. Covering it well, they sent one of their number to throw it, jar and all, into 
an irrigation ditch. But he who went to throw it, not heeding the counsel not to un- 
cover it, on arriving at the ditch uncovered it to see what was inside and had not 
time for anything because the ashes had turned into lice, fleas, brambles, into hor- 
nets,* and all these covered his whole body and left the curious one in bones. An- 
other went to see, and him also they left a pile of bones.* 1 

They say that since then there have been parasites, hornets, and brambles,* 2 and 
that before that there were none. 

SPIRITS OF MUSIC AND DRUNKENNESS 53 

The night of Sunday, July 5, for the Octavas of San Pedro we went out to dance 
in mask, Carlos Mosquera, Leonidas Quimbiulco, another boy, and I, Carlos with 
a guitar, Leonidas and I with rondin. 

We made the rounds of several houses, and as the night wore on we went from 
house to house. In the houses they gave us chicha y what they call the diezmo y the 
tithe that they pay from year to year; also they gave us papas enteras [whole or un- 
skinned potatoes] with meat, wheat empanadas, potato omelets, cooked chochos that 
we call capon, choclotandas called humitas [cake of maize and sugar, Peru], fried 
meat and boiled meat. 

Having made the rounds of the whole place, we had only the house of Pedro Acero 

5 * Cf. the belief, widespread in South America, that the dead may become insects (Karsten 
3:292-93), and the belief of the Canelos Indians that a sorcerer may send a black wasp and 
chonta thorns against his victim (ibid., p. 293). 

51 According to an early Peruvian legend, sarampitn, "measles" (probably smallpox) 
reached Quito from Cuzco. A messenger came in a black mantle and gave the Inca Huayna 
Capac a covered pot (pputi) from which, when the Inca opened it, there flew things like butter- 
flies (considered "souls," wakani, by Jibaro and other South American tribes [Karsten 4:378]; 
also Guatemala belief [Siegel, p. 70] and suggested among Zapotec [Parsons 2:321]) or bits of 
paper which spread abroad until they disappeared. This was the pestilence. Within two days 
many Inca chieftains died, their faces covered with scabs. The Inca hid himself in a stone house 
and died in it. "After eight days they took out the body quite dried up, and embalmed it, and 
took it to Cuzco on a litter, richly dressed and armed as if it had been alive" (Salcamayhua, 
pp. HO-II). This tale of the origin of epidemic is curiously like that about the plague from 
which Marcus Aurelius and an untold number of Europeans died. It was said to have started 
in a military campaign in the East from a chest in a temple looted by the soldiers. 

An epidemic of smallpox in 1558 is recorded (Quito, 1573, p. 61). In 1928-29 eastern Ecua- 
dor was being ravaged by measles, and Whites were more or less shunned as disease-bringing 
enemies (Karsten 4:71-72). 

**The term for spine in Aymara* is phichaca. or phecacha (Nordenski6ld2:i28). Possibly 
Chificha is Spine Old Woman, and possibly some Aymara" colonist from Titicaca introduced 
the term if not the tale. 

Canelos and Rio Napo Indians call a sorcerer chunta sUtoc runa y chonta, "[diorn]-throwing 
man" (Karsten 3:305). 

& Written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas of Juan Montalvo. 



LORE AND TALES 135 

to visit, so we headed for this place, and we danced in the corridor. In one of the 
dances he gave us chicha. While we were drinking, Leonidas went out and yelled, 
"Compancros, run!" We ran out and we heard some pretty music of guitar and 
rondin played in good tempo. A large party of masks appeared to be going along. 
They were not persons but spirits (duendes\the kind that accompany drunken people. 
One of them went after my companion Carlos, giving him a hand "and inviting him 
into the ravines. I came out in time to see two of them running away in the form of 
Indians. As we ran after them, they suddenly disappeared. 

The next day my companions and another man who ran with us after the duendes 
suffered severe accidents. Nothing happened to me, although I had behaved in the 
same way that proved so disastrous to them. 

Such accidents one cleans with tobacco, eggs, and hot trousers, with rooster and 
other things; and the man who rubs the things on one must be a strong man. 

LED ASTRAY BY A SPIRIT 
IS4 

There was a man who never went to confession or to Mass. ["Runa ton to!" ex- 
claims Rosita.] Then the devil took him to a precipice where he fell down and was 
killed. ["Misericordia!"] They told the padre he was dead. The padre ordered him 
to be dragged to the cemetery by a cord around his neck like a dog because he was 
not a Christian. ["Misericordia!"] 

IIss 

A true case that happened to an Indian woman of Juan Montalvo Parish, called 
Abelina Cabezas. When this woman was in a drunken condition, the duende carried 
her off. Now I write everything as this woman expressed it in her own words. 

She said that she was coming from Cayambe, and this was on a Sunday, as I 
happen to know myself. She was going along somewhat tipsy, and it was already 
six-thirty in the afternoon, the moment when she was already dose to the house 
because she lives close to the mill of Chaguarpungo. She was with her husband, 
Camilo Andrango. She did not feel like taking another step, just as if someone were 
holding her back, and that with the house only one hundred meters away, and even 
though her husband wanted to carry her she would not let him and threw herself 
on the ground. Before her eyes appeared a person who resembled a senor cura who 
was holding her back (he was the duende). Now, as the husband was not able to re- 
move his wife, he left her there, and immediately went off to tell the family to help 
him carry her. Now, what should happen: hardly had the husband gone off when 
the duende carried her off. 

The woman was conscious, at the moment when the duende was resting, as if in 
a dream, that she was in Palmira [a hacienda in Juan Montalvo] because the duende 
had become tired and dropped her to rest. Once more he carried her off, but from 
Palmira to the bridge called La Isla she had no consciousness of how or where she 
might have walked. The duende rested "for two times" (she means for the second 
time) at the bridge. She was hardly conscious, she knew only that she was scratched 
by some pampas grass and chilcas [a thorny bush] within a ravine halfway up a cliff. 
Soon the duende began to carry her off again; this time she was aware of going with 
a very kind man who carried her by a pretty and wide path with flowers on either 
side, and the ground seemed to be of glass. (She says that the path to hell is like 
that; and to go to heaven it is a path of thorns.) 

54 Told by Maestro Orgenio Huam&ng. 

ss Written by Jos6 Antonio Maldonado of Juan Montalvo. 



136 PEGUCHE 

The duende rested for the third time, and she was conscious as if in a dream that 
she was on a cliff full of chilcas y thorns, and rocks, all of which are to be found in 
that ravine of Yasnan [dividing Cayambe from Juan Montalvo]. She felt that she 
was wet because she was sunk in water. Shortly before arriving at the Granobles 
River and in a very deep ravine for the fourth time the duende started to carry her 
off,, but here she was not conscious of anything, the beautiful path no longer pre- 
sented itself; 'she was conscious of nothing. She was conscious only of the point 
where she rested for the fifth time. She was conscious that she was in a grassy pasture 
and that she herself was all wet but not in her full senses; she was conscious merely 
as in a dream. Soon she lost all her senses, and, when she was conscious again, she 
was in a field without grass but with water. The eighth time the duende carried 
her off, she heard a cock crow, and at this moment the duende dropped her, and she 
recovered all her senses and realized that she was climbing a gate to pass into the 
road from a field in front of La Maresca. Here, she said, crying, that the little rooster 
was from God; that if the rooster had not crowed, they would have taken her, body 
and soul, to hell; the duende was going to carry her to the cave below La Maresca; 
the duende was going to take her, body and soul, to that cave.* 6 She realized that 
she was dripping wet, scratched by thorns, cut by pampas grass, bruised on the 
stones a complete wreck. 

On hearing of this, and because it was a novelty, my mother went to visit this 
woman and later told us everything the woman talked about and how she cried as 
she talked. The strange thing was that her dress was complete, that she had dropped 
nothing in the ravine, that the duende took care to carry her off with everything 
without dropping anything along the path. 

This woman has been sickly to this day. Her belief is that she has been con- 
demned in her very lifetime, and for this reason she has tried to send for the priest 
to bless her and to confess her sins. 

From this story and from like experience by others the Indians believe that the 
duende has affable manners, behaves with kindness, and carries people by an excel- 
lent path, until at a moment least expected they realize that they are on a cliff 
where there is no way up or down, at a highly dangerous point. 

Ill" 

A few years ago three men went out to look for cattle in the mountain called 
Sayaro. The sky was completely clear and very beautiful, and the sun so strong 
that in any direction one could see the snow peaks and ravines and thickets. One of 
the men, Einiliano Navas, said, "The day is very good." The others answered, 'We 
have had good luck, to be able to go anywhere." One of them said, "Let's go in dif- 
ferent directions." So the three separated in search of the cattle. 

Emiliano Navas went toward a lake. About five cuadras from the lake he saw 
some pretty ducks. He thought, "I'll go in that direction to see if I can catch at 
least one." When he was getting close, about one cuadra from the lake, there ap- 

* 6 Although this cave is not ancient but formed recently through an irrigation or power proj- 
ect, it is believed to be the haunt of a spirit. In it is a pool, and sunlight on the water dripping 
through the roof refracts the colors of the rainbow. Montalvefio laborers once refused to clear 
the entrance of underbrush (Gorrell). See Appendix, p. 215, for another account of this 
place and its spirit, a water spirit. The wet condition of Abelina also suggests that her kid- 
napper is of the water. 

Based on account written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 



LORE AND TALES 137 

peared a beautiful white macho** that was a deer." When Navas drew closer, the 
macho did not move. As Navas was half-blinking at the sight, the macho disappeared 
completely and a black automobile appeared circling the shore of the lake. 60 "What 
patr6n may have come in this car?" said Navas. As the car came closer to him, he 
saw through the window of the car that it was the devil who was driving and that 
he had horns on his head. At that moment Navas became unconscious. 

When the other companions met at the place agreed upon, Navas did not appear. 
The others went on to the hut where they always slept. At nighttime, when Navas 
still did not appear, they thought: "Maybe Navas has gone home." The next day 
the companions came down to their houses and as soon as they arrived inquired for 
Navas. They answered that he had not arrived yet. They let two or three days pass, 
and still he did not appear. Then the two companions and some others who wanted 
to go along set a day to search for him. 

Meanwhile the devil carried Navas in the air past hills, ravines, thickets, and 
three immense rivers. At dawn Navas came to and found himself in a little hole in 
an enormous cliff, and a dog was at his side. He lost his senses again; then in full 
daylight he went wherever the devil took him. About midday he passed through a 
a great river, not swimming but dragging painfully on the rocks. Night came, and 
at dawn of the next day he came to again and saw that he had been sleeping on top 
of a tree. Angry and shivering with cold, he saw that he was accompanied by a dog 
and a big man with a little green stick. From that moment he was conscious of 
nothing until the next day, when he found himself in the mountain hut. From there 
he came down with all his senses to where those who were looking for him met him. 
They found him perfectly healthy, but he was so frightened that he kept glancing 
around from one side to the other until he arrived at the house. All of them were 
afraid, and immediately they took him to Ibarra to be blessed, and this way they 
had him sound again, 

MULE-WOMEN 61 

An urcucama, caretaker of hacienda cattle in the pdr&mo, who made his rounds 
continually, found that a black bull had disappeared. He notified his patr6n. The 
pafr6n said, "Look for him right there. He may be there or he may have died." 
The herder looked for some days, then returned to the patrtin. The patr6n said, 
"You as caretaker will deliver to me the lost little bull at a trot. I am not responsible. 
It is for that I have placed one there to be responsible to me." 

Fifteen days passed as he searched. On the sixteenth day on a p&ramo far off he 
saw a man in a green suit. "What potrtn may have come to the pdramo?" He drew 
nearer, he saluted, "Buenos dias, patr6nl" Green Suit responded, "Don't call me 
patr6n y call me friend. What are you doing around here?" 

"Friend, I am in search of a black little bull belonging to my patrdn; it has been 
lost for fifteen days." 

"For fifteen days the bull has been in my hacienda. Let us go there so you may 
identify him and take him away." Then the herder was happy. 

After walking some distance, they arrived at a great waterfall (paccha). Green 

s' Male, but refers commonly to a mule (Gorrell). 

The deer, we recall, was a magic animal in early Ecuador, as elsewhere in South America 



60 In another version the car ran on the surface of the lake (Gorrell). 

61 Written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 



138 PEGUCHE 

Suit 6 * said, "On passing by here, you must shut your eyes." As the herder wanted 
to find the bull and not get into debt in the hacienda and not appear badly in the 
eyes of the patron, he shut his eyes on passing by this spring. Then he realized that 
he might fall into the spring, and he opened his eyes. He found himself walking in 
another place unknown to him; he found himself entering a populous hacienda and 
reaching a pasture. Green Suit said, "There is that bull; look at it." 

"My friend, it is the same." 

"Well, do you want to take the bull today?" 

'Yes, my friend." 

"Well, but you are going to do an yanapa (exchange favor) on taking the bull 
away." 

"What is it I am to do?" 

"Pass thirty quintals of lime to another hacienda." 

"Anything, so you give the little bull up to me. I'll do anything, my friend." 
Then Green Suit said, "Go bring the mules that are back there." The herder went 
looking for the mules but found nothing. "They are right down there, look care- 
fully/' said Green Suit. The herder returned to look for the mules and found noth- 
ing; he saw only some naked women bathing. "Those are they," said Green Suit. 
"Yell to them 'mulas putasf and see how they come running." Frightened, the 
herder yelled, "Mxdas putas!" and they came out running. Green Suit said, "Just 
like that without anything else one makes them carry." The herder loaded them all 
and went on the trip. On the road one of the mules no longer managed to carry 
the load, and the herder beat it as Green Suit had ordered. In beating it, he broke 
the side of the eye. Seeing that the mule was useless, the herder went off with the 
other loads, leaving it behind. After leaving the loads of lime, the herder reported 
that one of the mules was hurt in the eye when he beat her. Green Suit answered, 
"You have done well, my friend, and now take your little bull." 

"Many thanks, my friend," answered the herder. He went off with the little bull. 
Very happy, he arrived at his house and then he went to visit a comadre who had 
served as amiga de mda (living companion) or as a muchacha de cama (bedfellow). 
On arriving, he saw that his friend had her eye burst. It was not a mule whose eye 
had been burst but his own friend's. 

THE GIRL WHO TURNED INTO A MULE 63 

In Colombia there was a girl who was behaving very badly, and her mother 
warned her against continuing with her lover. The girl had a bad temper and took a 
stick and beat her mother and left home. Some people walking considerably ahead 
of her saw a flash of lightning and heard thunder and turned around to see where it 
had struck. They saw the girl sinking slowly into the ground, and crying out that 
God was punishing her for the way she treated her mother. She begged these people 
to run for her mother so that she might forgive her. When the mother arrived, the 
girl had sunk into the ground as far as the waist. The mother said that in so far as 
it was in her power she would forgive her and did forgive her but that God would 

fa My term. The author writes "man," and the two men get confused. Green appears to 
be characteristic for spirits (see Appen., p. 215). 

** Told by Rosita Lema and recorded by Juan L. Gorrell. The conclusion of this tale has a 
decidedly Indian flavor, and I surmise a made-over myth or tale. In the Sipaya myth the girl 
who detects her incestuous brother by the well-known paint trick (Eskimo, Taos Pueblo, 
Guaranf, Sipaya) is hurled down from the sky by her brother and changes into a tapir (Lowie, 
P- 



LORE AND TALES 139 

not forgive her so easily and that a priest must be sent for. By the time the priest 
had arrived with his book, the girl had sunk completely into the ground. After 
the priest had pronounced forgiveness, the mother thrust her hand into the ground 
to grab what should have been the girl's shoulder. Instead she found that she had 
taken hold of a rein, and she pulled out, not her daughter, but a mule with headstall 
and reins. Her daughter had turned into a mule, and she went off to eat alfalfa and 
maize. 

MAN-FOX ("RUNA ATOC") 



A man who wanted to bewitch others from envy used to sing day after day for 
witchcraft, but he was unable to accomplish anything, so he decided to go to the 
Oriente to satisfy his unnatural heart. On walking many days alone with his bad 
heart, he arrived and found a wild Indian (indie sahaje) who was a sorcerer (hechi- 
cero). Taking him some food and clothes as a present, he begged him to do evil to 
a person he indicated. The wild Indian of the Oriente answered, "This I cannot do 
because our God does not order it." The man wanted to give a drink to the sorcerer, 
but the sorcerer would not take it. The man persisted, and, on seeing him so set, the 
sorcerer turned him into a fox (atoc) 6s and sent him to wander wherever he might go 
for a year. 

The man-fox went back to his people but not to the houses, only to the ravines 
where he cried like a. fox and like a mule. Half his body was mule and half human, 
and he would appear in different forms. He fed on the meat of animals and, if he 
found them, on people. After a year the wild Indians, they say, rounded him up and 
turned him back into a human being. Then the poor man returned to his house no 
better off, but rather worse off. And he died without having even a pair of pants to 
his backsides or anything to eat. This happened to him for having been envious of 
his neighbors. 

II" 

In the hacienda of Santo Domingo thirty-five years ago an Indian by the name 
of Camilo Farinango went to the Oriente to learn witchcraft (kichicheria) with the 
Jibaros, that he, too, might learn how to cure illnesses. 

But this Camilo Farinango fell in love with an Oriente Indian (Yumba), and, on 
knowing this, the husband of the woman cursed (rnaldice) Camilo Farinango that 
he should turn into a wolf in punishment for having betrayed the Jfbaro woman. 
Once cursed, the man had to come to his own land (pats), and my father tells that 
he turned into a fox every eight or fifteen days, into a ferocious animal that made 
the dogs and other animals tremble with fear and that went screeching (chillando) 
along the road from La Maresca to Cayambe and elsewhere and that pursued the 
animals, especially sheep. 

One night, my father tells, the man-fox, runa ato, passed by the house and on 
hearing the screeching the little dog of the house ran out to bark. On seeing such a 
ferocious animal, the dog was terribly frightened. They found him hiding in a pas- 
ture and trembling from fear. On seeing his master, the dog drew close, trembling 
from fear, but on approaching the house the dog held back. All said that by night 
the runa ato walks (anda). 



6 < Written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

'5 Red with a long tail, a chicken thief, atoj : 
ana both translate in Spanish, kbo, "wolf." 

66 Written by Jose* Antonio Maldonado. "A true story" told him by his father. 



'5 Red with a long tail, a chicken thief, atoj, a fox (Middendorf), but Cabezas and Rosa 
Lema both translate in Spanish, kbo, "wolf." 



140 PEGUCHE 

The curious thing was that, when he saw any person, immediately from a fox he 
turned himself into a rock, into chikos, a lump of earth, or into anything and dis- 
appeared. Occasionally, they tried to trap him into taking a sheep; but, when the 
owner followed, immediately from a fox he converted himself into a rock or a Mlco 
and disappeared. He was not a fox every day, but every eight or fifteen days he 
turned into one, for five or eight hours, according to how the Yumbo [Jibaro] had 
bewitched him. It was to be a punishment forjivt years. 

When the man was not a fox, he conversed, and Papa says that he had shifty 
eyes, a little frightened, and he talked explosively. He would talk a little and then 
move on. He had no fixed dwelling; he was a wanderer. He had a monstrous head, 
and his extremities were well developed with terrible claws; he was a real monster. 

This lasted for five years, and then the man returned to the Oriente so that the 
same Yumbo might return him to what he was before. A little while after he had 
gone to the Oriente, they heard, he died. 

This is all that is told about the runa ato, and it is the truth because my father 
and many others tell it the same way. 

HOW HAWK. IS PAID 67 

In times and years back of years, they tell until today that in (the times of) our 
grandfathers and back grandfathers (y atrds abuelos) back to the first forebears the 
hawk talked and could express himself. One of our grandfathers found himself in 
need of money; he hadn't a single media. Then our grandfather asked Hawk to 
make him a loan for a month. Hawk made the loan. When the day arrived for re- 
payment, Hawk went to ask for the medio from our grandfather. He said that just 
then he did not have the media and begged him to wait. So Hawk said, "I'll wait for 
just a few days, because by then you will have it. I too need it because I am going 
to do some business and that money is necessary to me." Later, Hawk kept on 
asking for the money. Finally, because Hawk kept following him, asking him to 
pay up, our grandfather said, "Because I can't find the medio, better I pay with one 
of my children (mas bien pagart con uno de mis hijitos)" But before he paid, our 
grandfather died, and for this reason, they say, until today the hawk takes off 
chickens in repayment. 

FROG QUARRELS WITH BEETLE OLD MAN 68 

Frog (Sapo) and Rat (Okucha) wanted to dance. Rat made a new house for Frog 
because Rat is the master house-maker (Q. lani)& Frog is the houseowner (dutno 
de casa). They finished the new house and danced fandango, Frog with Rat. Then 
they got drunk. Beetle (Q. catso) Old Man came to visit them in then- new house. 
They began to fight, Frog with Beetle Old Man. Beetle Old Man asked Frog, "Is it 
going to rain?" Frog got rough (sepone bravo) and answered, "Why do you want to 
know ?" Then Beetle got rough. "Why are you getting rough, Boc6n (Big Mouth) ?" 
he said. "Why don't you want to tell me, Oj6n (Big Eyes) ? Why don't you want to 
tell me if it is going to rain, Barrigfa (Big Belly)? You are bad." Frog answered, 
"I don't know, Bolsa de coca (Bag-of-dung)." 

*? Written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

"ToJdbyRositaLema. 

** An obsolete term for thatched house-maker "Inca talk." 



LORE AND TALES 141 

They got rough and so they became enemies. From this, because Beetle Old Man 
fought with Frog, the waters dried up and Beetle Old Man died." 

BUZZARD ("GALLINAZO") 71 

They say that a buzzard was going, very handsome, to the feast of Ibarra and a 
man greeted him with: "Maimanta ringi, adonde va? (Where are you going?)." 
Arrogantly and rudely, Buzzard answered, "Villa fiestaman (To the 'fiesta of Ibar- 
ra)." On his return from Ibarra, he met on the road the same man, who greeted him 
with, "Maimanta shamungui? (Where do you come from?)." Buzzard, they say, 
sick with mal am of Ibarra, rejoined very sadly, "Villa fiestamanta (From the 
fiesta of Ibarra)." 

BEAR OLD MAN STEALS A WOMAN 73 

A married woman who was menstruating^ went to the mountain to gather wood. 
A bear came after her. She climbed a tree, but the bear climbed up, put his arms 
around her, and dragged her down. (It is bad for a menstruant to go to the moun- 
tain. That is why the bear got her, stole her.) 74 

The bear carried her to his house. In a few days she gave birth to three children. 
One was like its mother (mama); two were bear children (guagua oso). The bear 
brought her all the fruits of the mountain. Then he stole a whole beef from the 
hacienda. To maintain the woman he stole wheat, lentils, morocho y maize. 

After a time, when the bear was out pilfering, the woman came out of the cave, 
leaving the children behind, and ran away to a family to hide from the bear. Within 
an hour the old bear came back to the cave. With all the children he went after the 
woman. The children were crying for their mother. The family where the woman 
was came out to kill Bear Old Man (osu ruku) and the children. The bear children 
cried, "Why do you kill me? Don't kill me. I have come only to get my mother." 
Nevertheless, they killed them. The little bears they buried; Bear Old Man they 
threw into Rio Grande. 

Bear Old Man revived in the water and went back to the mountain. He sum- 
moned all the other bears to join him and kill the family where die woman was. 
The bears came like flies, male and female, a world of bears. 75 They fought with 
the servants of the hacienda. The servants, men and women, fought with guns and 

7* It was explained that the beetle lives off wet earth; also that Frog dried up die waters. 
Among the Tapirape of central Brazil the dead may become reincarnated in frog, toad, or other 
creatures. Toad is the spirit of a chief (Wagley 1 1258). 

71 Written by Jose* Antonio Maldonado. Familiar to every Indian. It makes little sense 
unless it refers to the bad airs from the great slaughter of the Lake of Blood, too much even 
for the great scavenger to stomach or to resist. 

79 This "cuento de oso," bear story, was told by Rosita Lema, who heard it from an "uncle" 
of her father before she was married. 

73 Se eitferma de mes con el sangre. 

74 If a Napo or Canelos menstruant goes alone into the forest, she may meet a supat, a 
demon, who will seduce her. She will give birth to a supai guagua, demon child, monstrous 
with hair over his body, or defective in some way. The demon father would come after his 
child, so the child is buried alive (Karsten i :6o). Menstruants who go into a canoe or even 
approach the river will be killed (?) by the anaconda, it is believed by the Cubeo of southwest- 
ern Colombia, and after parturition the anaconda threatens the family (Goldman, p. 246). 

Of. Jibaro tradition about tribal organization and warmaking among the animals (Kar- 
sten 3:284). 



14* PEGUCHE 

axes, with stones, with sticks, with their fists. The bears fought with the sticks of 
the mountains. A lot were killed on both sides, but the people defeated the bears. 
They beat Bear Old Man on the belly, so he got a lot of straw and stuffed it into his 
belly and felt no pain. He had five wounds, and into all of them he put some straw. 
Bear Old Man said, "I'll not die from the wounds you give me with sticks and your 
fists, but if you hit me in the forehead with an ax, I'll die." On hearing this, they 
gave it to him on the forehead with an ax. Then he fell over on his back and died. 
Bear Old Man. Seeing him lying there dead, the other bears fled to the mountain. 
They burned up Bear Old Man with piles of straw. 

The body of the woman was covered with hair, like a bear. They burned off the 
hair, and then they took the woman to church to be baptized again. ^ She lived again 
with her husband. 

THE LADY AXD THE CAT 77 

A lady was married. She never knew how to bring up a child. Her husband died; 
she was left a widow. She had a cat. With him she lived. She treated him like a 
husband. She was very fond of him. She fed him well, she gave him milk, she gave 
him meat. The lady was rich, but she gave so much to the cat that she became poor. 
She sold her house; she sold her land to maintain the cat. She had enough money, 
but she spent it all. She became so poor she could not feed the cat. The cat was with- 
out milk or meat and went wild. The kdy was accustomed to sleep in the same bed 
with the cat, like a husband. The cat tempted the lady. The cat and the lady com- 
mitted sin because he was the devil. But, when the lady no longer fed him, the cat 
became capricious and did not want to sleep with her any more. The lady called to 
the cat to come and sleep with her. "Why don't you want to sleep with me?" The 
cat would not come, and the lady was left to sleep alone. The cat went wild and left 
the house. The lady followed, searching for him. She saw a fire 78 coming from Im- 
babura. It appeared like a whirlwind. Frightened by this fire, she returned to her 
house and went to bed and slept. The cat returned and went to bed with the lady, 
but she did not know it because she was sound asleep. Then the cat twisted his tail 
around the lady's neck and strangled her. 

Since the lady had no family she lay there dead until midday when a comadre 
came to call. Noticing that the lady had not gone out, the comadre came to see her 
and found her abed "Comadre! Comadre 1" she called, "get up, it is day." The 
lady did not answer as she was dead. The comadre began to carry on, calling to the 
people, "The lady is dead! Come and see!" People came to see why she was dead. 
The cat stood alongside the lady. They wanted to drive the cat away, but the cat 
would not move. They went to the church to inform the padre. The padre came 
with his book to pray, to drive out the devil, but the cat would not leave. (It was a 
black cat, very black with red eyes and red mouth.) So the padre went to the school 
to fetch the children to recite the litany. The children prayed in the name of Our 
Lord. Then the cat burst like a clap of thunder, like a bomb (camareta). He dis- 

i* Yaqui who have been impersonating Fariseos go through a baptismal rite. Rebaptism 
was forbidden in Yucatan (Landa, p. 157). This idea of rebaptism for purification from pagan 
contamination is an early Christian one. Christians among the Mongols would not drink 
mare's milk, the common Mongolian drink, for "they consider themselves to be no longer 
Christians if they drink it, and the priests have to bring them back into the fold as if they had 
denied the faith of Christ" (Rubrack, p. 87), i.e., they had to be rebaptized. 

"Told by Rosita Lema. 

78 Cf. association between fire and cat at Cayambe (Appen. p. 205). 



LORE AND TALES 143 

appeared; he vanished. Like a wind the cat left the room, and none knew whither 
he went. 

The padre ordered them not to bury the lady in the cemetery but to cast her 
away in the ravine because she was a companion to a cat that was the devil. They 
were to drag her by a cord around the neck, like a dead dog. 

This really happened. It happened twenty years ago at a pueblo called Atun- 
taqui (near Ibarra). 

A WITCH DIES 79 

A fine witch 80 died at Punto de Jukut. Then they held a wake, praying with 
a maifro and a lot of people. A lot of the family were present at the prayer wake 
(vehrio rezado). The last day, the eve of the burial, during the middle of the night, 
after the prayers, there was a windstorm. Soon all the candles were put out by the 
wind. The family could not light the candles until they tried three times. They 
stayed in the dark. For an hour the wind would not let them light the candles. 
Then they found the dead man with arms outstretched and mouth open, 81 without 
tongue. The devils had taken out the tongue. ["Misericordia!" exclaims Rosita.] 

In the morning they put the dead man into the coffin to carry to the cemetery. 
On the road to the cemetery they passed over a bridge. On the other side the coffin 
felt light. They tapped on it. It sounded hollow. They opened the coffin. There 
was no corpse in it. The devils 82 had taken him away. 

They arrived at the church for a good singing Mass (misa cantadd}. They entered 
the church with the empty coffin. They were not able to reach the priest to tell him 
what had happened. So for the empty coffin a good Mass was said, as the padre 
did not know about it. [Laughter.] He went along with them to the cemetery and 
blessed the grave with holy water (agua bcndita}. The witch, soul and body (alma 
con todo dcuerpo), was lost. 

A BAD DEATH 83 



My great-grandparents, also my mother's father-in-law, told my mother that 
many years ago a woman died, Petrona Manang6n, who had done many evil deeds. 
At the moment of death the devils harassed her to take her off, body and soul. All 
the family and neighbors and relatives were present at the moment of death, and, 
they say, just as she was in her death throes, the devils started to fly into the patio 
over the roof of the house and into the room. Beating their wings, they put out the 
light, and a world of cats, they say, miaowed. The people were so frightened they 
were not able to go outside. Full of fear, they set to reciting the whole rosary, but, 
they say, the devils did not leave. The most frightful thing for the people present 
was that they were not able to talk, from fright. The corpse was still in the bed, be- 
cause from fear they had not been able to carry it to the table. They had a lot of 
candles lighted and, they say, a black cat was seen lying on the corpse. That, they 
say, was the diablo may or ^ the chief devil. Among the devils, they say, were several 

" Told in Peguche by Orgenio Huamang, maestro de captUa from Riobamba and Ibarra. 

80 Una brujafina, but the reference is to a male. 

81 The narrator enacts this. 

88 Possibly river spirits, owners of the river (see p. 215). 
to Written by Jose* Antonio Maldonado. 



144 PEGUCHE 

vultures, 8 * who put out the lights. The people remained almost dead from fear in 
the dark room for a few moments until one of them, quite brave, made a light. 
Imagine their surprise when they no longer found the corpse in the bed; it had dis- 
appeared, body and soul. 85 

Many such cases of a bad death (una mala muerte) have occurred in connection 
with a person who has done an evil to another person or committed adultery (c on- 
traen amoresfa/sos entre par de casados) or carried on a love affair with a compadre. 
For this reason they are right in believing in devils and in hell. 

IF 6 

There was a married older woman, concitrta^ in a hacienda called Ancholac who 
with her husband adopted an infant boy and brought him up "as if he were a son of 
her own stomach/' When the boy she had reared was grown, "she took him as a hus- 
band and looked upon her own husband as a stranger who was nothing to her al- 
though he was a young man" and behaved himself well. Years passed and death 
came suddenly to this bad woman. 

As the house was small and far from the village, they could not hold the wake 
(velar) there, so they asked for lodging in the house of friends in the parish of Juan 
Montalvo. 

During the wake about eleven or twelve at night at the top of the roof there was 
a noise as if there were two birds calling cuscungo, as if they were kicking each other 
and rolling around and screeching loudly. Also they heard some cats crying and 
rolling and rolling, all around the house. Of the people who were accompanying, 
some were awake and others sound asleep. They woke them up. Some gave prayers 
to the saints and clamored as loud as they could. All knelt down in prayer, some 
more than others. A man dressed in black came in. He said he was the overseer 
(capataz mayor) or chief devil (diablo mayor), and behind him came in some black 
tomcats and some tabby cats with eyes that looked like red flames of charcoal. The 
chief devil put out the light of the candles and dragged out the dead woman, and 
in the darkness the company acted as if they had taken narcotics, and trembled 
from fright. One of them had the courage to light some matches, and they saw that 
the devils were dragging the dead woman out to the street. One of the company ran 
out to take the dead woman from the hands of the devils; others accompanied him, 
men and women, taking prints and saints and praying and throwing medals and 
throwing rosaries, and in this way they were able to get the dead woman away from 
the devils and the cats. They say they screamed as she was taken from them, and 
that then they disappeared This happened, they say, because the woman had 
amused herself with the boy she had raised as a son. 

THE ROBBER OF TIOPULLO 87 

A robber lived on the mountain called Tiopullo. 88 He had a lot of money. He 
could kill thirty persons, forty persons, at a time. He killed a woman who was very 

In Jibaro opinion the vulture is one of the demoniacal birds (Karsten 4:377-78). The 
souls of dead women are particularly incarnated in the owl (ibid., p. 378). 

8s Among Tapirape the dead who have become incarnate in beasts and birds may cluster 
around a bier to carry off the soul as soon as die body is buried (Wagley 1 1258). Jibaro belief 
also. 

** Based on an account written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 
*7 Told by Rosita Lema. Near Quito. 



LORE AND TALES 145 

good, very generous, very fat. He abducted her into a cave and cut off her legs at 
the knees. 

They sent a troop of soldiers to capture this robber. Two or three persons could 
not get him, so they sent the troop. They took the robber to Quito. There he said 
he had killed ten thousand persons. Why had he killed so many, the police asked 
the robber. "First I stole a chicken, then I stole a pig, then I stole a bullock, then 
I robbed a house, then a person, then I went to a secret place to deposit the money 
and goods. From there I went out to kill, and since then I have had the habit of 
killing." 

Then they imprisoned him three nights, three days, and every hour they made 
him confess to a padre. At the last confession they killed him, by shooting. Putting 
him in the middle of the plaza, they shot him. After he died the doctors examined 
him to see what was in his heart. From his heart came out a black cat this size 
[outspread arms]. The eyes were all fire, the tongue was fire. The cat jumped into 
the mouth of one of the men there and went into his heart.* 9 This man they did not 
kill but took him to the church, where the padre prayed for him. He burst open and 
the cat vanished. It was a devil, wasn't it? That's the end. Frightful, no? It fright- 
ens me. 

THREE ROBBERS 90 

At Otavalo they caught three robbers, Remachi, Cepeda, and Minde (Mendez), 
the first two, Indian, the third, a Cholo. They had killed a man on the road near 
La Companfa. 91 After they caught the men they sent the Cholo to Quito, and they 
killed the Indians in the plaza at Otavalo. There was a crowd to look on. First 
they crucified them, and then the soldiers shot them. It took three shots [volleys] 
to kill them. 

With the Cholo they took to Quito they took members of his family and im- 
prisoned them. Later these people returned to their home on Black Mountain, at 
the lake. Natalia Mendez, a daughter is still living. The whole family knew how 
to eat people and to sell human flesh. 

Yes, there are robbers today, Indians; but they no longer kill people. They steal 
cattle and they rob houses. So we do not leave our houses unlocked. 

ADAM AND EVE 9 * 

Our Lord aroused (ha puesto) Adan first. He was alone; there were no other 
people. Then Our Lord aroused the lady, Mother (mama) Eva, companion to Adan. 
They were without clothes, naked. They walked in Our Lord's orchard. In the 
middle of the garden they found a fruit forbidden by Our Lord. In this fruit there 
was a serpent. He tempted them, he made them eat, he made them sin through 

** The idea of opening the body to see what was in the Heart and the idea that an evil crea- 
ture might enter by die mouth and lodge in the heart seem Indian; they are identical with 
Pueblo Indian notions. Hie fiery black cat of this tale and die following appears to be derived 
from European witchcraft. On the other hand, in contemporary Peruvian belief a wildcat 
(koa y same for domestic cat), striped black and about five feet long, lives on a mountain peak 
and controls hail and the lightning which causes disease (Mishkin). 

90 Told by Jos6 Ruis. His mother told him about the execution which she witnessed. 

91 See p. 118. 

91 Told first by Maestro Orgenio Huamang but not recorded, then told as recorded by Rosita 
Lema, who said she knew the story before she heard it from the maestro. The story was told 
when I asked for a story about how die -world and people began. Apparendy there is no Indian 
origin myth. Nor is there any among Jibaro (Karsten 4: 503). 



146 PEGUCHE 

eating the fruit. Now they knew they had no clothes. They were ashamed. They 
gathered some fruit leaves and covered themselves. 

One afternoon Our Lord came down. He said, "Adan, Eva, come here! How do 
you know you have no clothes? Why are you ashamed? Why are you covered with 
leaves?" Then Adan answered, saying, "Eva ate and gave me to eat also. Eva 
went to the middle of the garden. There the serpent tricked her into eating." Then 
Our Lord said to Eva, scolding her, "And why did you eat that fruit? I told you 
not to eat it. You disobeyed in eating it. Why did you eat it? I told you never to 
eat it because it is a sin. Because you ate the fruit you have to suffer, you have to 
suffer blood [menstrual]. You have to suffer with your husband because you were 
disobedient. You have to suffer bearing children. You have to die," said Our Lord. 
With this benediction 3 he said, "You have to languish in this world, going on having 
a lot of children (flene que dtjar en este mundo Ikgando de tentr tastanW* hijo)" To 
Adan Our Lord said, "Adan, why did you eat that forbidden fruit? You have been 
disobedient. You ate; you fell into sin. From now on you have to live in pain, 
sweating for people. You have to work to be able to maintain your family." This 
was the benediction Our Lord gave to Adan. And so on account of Adan, on ac- 
count of Eva, we are the sons of Adan, we are the daughters of Eva. 

[The climax of the maestro 9 * version was different]: When Our Lord came down, 
Adan was eating the rest of the fruit and a piece stuck in his throat. Because of 
Adan's sin, men have carried it [Adam's apple] in their throat ever since. Women 
do not have it only men. 

THE JESUS CHILD LAYS A CURSE 95 

The Virgin was walking along with the child Jesus. They came to a house. In 
this house a lady was making dough. The lady had two children, a girl and a boy. 
They sat down the little Jesus in the corridor. The Virgin entered the room to help 
make the bread. The children began to play with the child Jesus. Then they began 
to fight Jesus with a stick of this size [about five inches long]. The stick went into 
the eyes of the child Jesus. Hearing Jesus crying, the lady said, "With these little 
ones (chiquillo) I can do nothing!" She put her children into another room. The 
Virgin left with the little child. Then the lady went to take out her children and 
opened the door, saying, "Come out, chiquilla, chiquillo"** Instead of the children 
out came an immense sow and an immense pig." The lady was frightened. "Why 
do my children (guaguas) come out pigs?" Said the pig, "You called chiquilla, chi- 
quilk, and through the blessing [curse] of Jesus chiquilla, chiquillo [pigs] we became." 
And so [still]' 8 today to call a pig to feed it people say, "Chiquillo! Chiquillo! 

* 



w %endi6n (?) meaning maldici6n, "curse." This may be only a verbal confusion, and yet 
from the Christian point of view whatever Our Lord does should be accounted a blessing. 

w Local usage: a lot, many. 

95 Told by Segundo Lema. 

96 The call to pigs (see below). 

97 See Appendix, p. 204, for the abandoned unbaptized bastard turning pig. 

98 Obviously the time sequence or the causal relationship was confused by the little narrator. 

99 Pigs were called cucte in Quechua by post-Conquest Peruvians because they heard the 
Spaniards say eoche, coche when they called them (Garcilasso, II, 475). See Appendix, p. 198. 



LORE AND TALES 147 

JESUCRISTO ORDAIN'S 100 

One time in the month of harvests, they say, all the grains were gathered in one 
place, as if in a trough. And all living beings were gathered there. Then, they say, 
Jesucristo came to give to each being the proper grain: potatoes for the man, maize 
for the woman, quinoa, millocos, and mdshua for the children, wheat and barley for 
the dogs. But Dog said to Jesucristo, "The wheat and barley I cannot eat. I go on 
four feet, how can I work and harvest?" Then, they say, Jesucristo answered, 
"What you say is true. But let me say this. You can share with man who will be 
your master and give you food of different kinds. This food you will like, and you 
will help man in any way you can." 

"Good," said Dog, "I shall be at man's disposal." 

Afterward a little mouse presented himself and, they say, he said to Jesucristo, 
"I will open the sepulcher so you may get out when the enemies kill you and bury 
you." Jesucristo said, "If you do me this favor, you shall live forever as the master 
of every grain and hidden almost always in the house of man." 

Afterward, they say, all the winged animals presented themselves from the tiniest 
fly to the condor, king of the birds, that anciently, they say, had three legs to be 
able to walk on the ground. These said to Jesucristo, "We want to live in the air 
where there is no danger, no enemies to bother us." Jesucristo said, "I will do this 
for you: the two hands (legs) shall form wings, the third shall form two feet. Then 
you can be of the air and of the earth. You shall eat what you wish, without anyone 
protesting." 

This is how it was all arranged. 

DEVIL BRIDEGROOM 101 

All things, it seems, have their owner, however small. 

In Aloag, a village-parish in the canton of Machachi there lived a girl, muy sim- 
p&tica. She admired herself, her enchanting face and body, and she was very 
haughty. Many were interested in her, but she deprecated diem all. Her parents 
wanted her to get married, but no youth in the village pleased her. Then on a cer- 
tain occasion there appeared a boy such as she desired, and at once she accepted him. 
The parents allowed him into the house, he made his gastos (expenses), his pcdidos. 
The wedding day arrived. They were married first civilly and then in the church. 
Gratified that the girl was married to one she desired, the parents made many prepa- 
rations. Returning from the church, they made a great boda in the house, with un- 
limited chicha. They had a good harpist. From the pleasure they felt, all danced all 
the time. 

The bride had a little brother standing between his father's legs. Like all especial- 
ly intelligent children, he let nothing escape his eyes and kept looking all around the 
room and at the feet of the dancers. He saw that the groom's feet were turned back- 
ward and were just the same as the feet of a duck. The child was stirred; he thought 
the groom was not really a man, and, as he watched, he felt the house was moving, 
toward the mountain El Coraz6n. At once the child (guagua} told his father, who 
was surprised and hiza gente y made a great row. All the people got up, and at this the 

zoo Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado as heard from Jos6 Maria Andrango. Jesus in the 
Indian role of culture-hero transformer! 

101 Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado as heard from Jose* Maria Andrango. "Marriage 
with a duendej ' Segundo F6Iix calls the tale which is generally known by the title I have given 
it. This version of the familiar Negro and European tale is well acculturated. 



148 PEGUCHE 

dtunde fled with his bride. It was midnight, twelve o'clock, and but for the child 
they would all have gone, house and all. They remained accidentados (? overcome). 
The next day they found that the house had been on the edge of a precipice. 

The novios, they say, on rare nights go out to a ravine to bathe, with a golden 
gourd. 

BRIARS FOR BEANS: A STONE FOR A GOAT Ioa 

Parlasha atupa kwintuta, tell a little tale of Fox. 10 * Let us follow a tale of old 
things in the life of Fox, a practical joke. 

Fox was married. The wife of Fox was pregnant, and Fox Old Man (atu ruku) 
went out to look for sustenance for his wife, for food for the woman. He went into 
the highlands to look for beans of all kinds. He spent a day looking for them. Then 
in the afternoon, returning to the house where the woman was, he met a nephew (a 
rabbit). The nephew said to him, "Uncle, I will help you carry home." Then Fox 
said, "All right, dear nephew, help me. Pity me! I am working this way because 
my wife is sick. Please help me because you are my nephew." 

<c Yes, uncle. You are my dear uncle. I am sorry I have to help you because your 
wife is very wild; for that reason I do not wish to go up to your house." Then the 
rabbit loaded himself, helping his uncle. The rabbit went ahead, and the fox behind, 
being old. Then the rabbit put briars in place of tjie beans in the loaf before Fox 
caught up with him. Fox got tired catching up with him. Then he said, 'Take it, 
uncle. I have helped you enough. Take your load. It is near your house. Whenever 
you wish you can reach your house. Your wife will be fretting. Now I give you 
your load. Goodbye, uncle." 

"Thanks, nephew. Tomorrow let us meet again for help at the same hour." 
Then he said goodbye. Fox went to his house. Then he handed over the load to his 
wife. The woman was glad to get the beans he said he brought. She opened the 
load. In it were only mountain briars. Then she quarreled with Fox Old Man say* 
ing, "Why do you bring only briars? You come set on a practical joke." Fox Old 
Man answered, "It is not my fault. I brought only beans. That nephew helped me 
carry them. He played me this joke." 

Fox Old Man went out again to look for a living. He met Rabbit again. He got 
mad against Rabbit. Rabbit greeted him in a kindly way. Fox Old Man got mad, 
saying, "Why did you play me this joke? Because of you I quarreled with my wife. 
What thanks you give me, nephew dear! From now on I have no friendship for 
you. I don't like you." Then Rabbit answered, "Why, uncle, you are my own uncle. 
I said nothing to you. Better we both go looking for a living. Better I give you a 
lamb I have in my house. Let me go and give it," said Rabbit. And Fox Old Man 
believed him. So they made good day (? shook hands). Then they went to Rabbit's 
house. Before arriving at the house of Rabbit, Rabbit said, "Wait here. I am going 
to bring you a pretty lamb and take care not to go to get it on the other side." Fox 
Old Man believed him. Then instead of sending him down a lamb, from the top of 
a hill Rabbit sent down a big stone. Fox Old Man, thinking it a Iamb, was anxious 
to get it. He stood ready to catch it, thinking it was a lamb. It was not a lamb; it 
was a big stone. The stone killed Fox Old Man. 

xea Told by Rosita Lema. Heard from her mother's mother and from her father's aunt. 
"3 Atu (atoe) y "fox," but translated hfa or ellobo, "wolf." 



CHAPTER IX 
IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 



Rosita Lema is thirty years old. She married Jos6 Ruis, the son of a 
neighbor, when she was sixteen. Jose was nineteen. They lived in the com- 
paratively spacious house of Rosita's parents for five years until together, 
as weaver and spinner, they accumulated enough to buy a piece of land and 
became independent householders. Meanwhile they contributed to house- 
hold and field activities and helped Rosita's father in caring for stock, in 
butchering and selling meat, and in general farm and house work. They 
were valuable and needed helpers because they were both good workers 
and because Rosita's two sisters were still little girls and Segundo, her only 
brother, now only nine years old, was born a year after her own eldest child. 

Although the households are now separate, family relations are still close 
and co-operative. Jose's father-in-law, Manuel Lema, will lend Jos a horse 
and ride with him to the hacienda of Cusin to make purchases, cattle for 
himself or wool for Jos6. Rosita and her sisters, who are now married, still 
sell the fixings of meat liver, cooked blood in the little Saturday meat 
market at the railroad track in return for the bowlful of meat their father 
gives them from the Friday slaughter. Segundo picnics with Lucila and 
Alberto during the school lunch period, Rosita sending her servant to meet 
the children in a quiet field out of town. 

Segundo (Rosita's brother) goes to the Christian Brothers' school; Lucila 
(Rosita's daughter), to the school of the Sisters of Charity the only In- 
dians in these schools. The parents of both children are comparatively de- 
vout Catholics. A concrete cross stands in the middle of the roof of Manuel 
Lema's house, the only roof cross 1 in Peguche. Rosita and her mother each 
wears a scapulary, a tiny piece of cotton with a cross embroidered in red. 
This means, according to Rosita, that they belong to the Third Order of 
San Francisco. 2 During her confinement Rosita kept fastened to her bed- 
post a piece of palm and a rosary such as White Catholics use. Rosita 
feasts the Sister when, with some of her older pupils, she pays parochial 
visits, and the Franciscans depend on Rosita and Jose", who is an alcalde of 
their church, when they desire to assemble a minga, a work party, for re- 

1 Seen now and then elsewhere (cf. Gilkn, Angochagua, PI. 27). 

2 This was once the Order of the Penitentes, but Rosita knows nothing about Penitences or 
their practices. Nor does anyone else I have met in Ecuador. Why did the Third Order "take" 
in New Mexico and not in Mexico or Ecuador? 



150 PEGUCHE 

pairs in their establishment. Rosita is more sympathetic and far easier to 
converse with in Spanish than anyone else in Peguche. 

Rosita's contacts with White people are by no means confined to repre- 
sentatives of the Church. She trades with Whites in Otavalo and in Quito, 
and she chooses \Yhites rather than Indians as compadres. One of her corn- 
padres is the municipal comisario in Otavalo, another is a well-to-do produce 
merchant whose wife was reared on the hacienda of Quinchuqui, and 
another is the leading surgeon in Quito. White connections seem worth 
while to Rosita, and more than anyone else in Peguche she understands how 
to make and keep them. 

Rosita learned Spanish or rather began to learn it through her father, who 
had a Cholo forebear, probably a maternal grandparent. Rosita's hair is 
dark brown 3 and fine. Josh's hair is black and coarse. He has some hairs 
about his mouth, too few for a mustache or to bother about. The idea of 
plucking out face hairs is quite unfamiliar. Now and again an Indian will 
go to a barber in Otavalo. Imbabura men have scanty beards. 4 

Jose and Rosita wear their hair conventionally and dress conventionally 
except for Rosita's jewelry. She piles on the gilt beads, but she does not 
wear the rosary necklaces. To her gilt beads is fastened a tiny gilt hand, 
the Spanish higa, "amulet," but to Rosita it is merely an ornament. In- 
stead of the usual brass rings she wears three or four seal rings in silver with 
initials, not her own. She was told that these rings were amulets like the 
brass rings, against witchcraft, but she does not believe it. She is extremely 
fond of jewelry. That I did not wear any seemed to her, I believe, the 
strangest thing about me. 

Rosita is extraordinarily alert, observant, and curious about her world, 
about whatever comes to her attention. She is an herbalist, knowing the 
names of a vast number of plants and experimenting with them as medi- 
cines. She insists that she did not learn about remedlos from her mother or 
anybody else; she taught herself. But the illusion that all she knows is self- 
taught is one of her few foibles. It is also a source of her self-assurance. She 
is a self-made woman. 

In curing, "if my first remedio yields no result, next day I try another, 
and then another," said Rosita. Rosita experiments similarly with the 
medicines of the Otavalo drug store, and she begged me for a laxative she 
saw in my room. Also after I had described the watermelon she asked me 
to send her some seeds. About foreign fabrics or dyes she has a like interest, 
in this case a professional interest, since she and her husband market a not 
inconsiderable part of the textile output of Peguche. Rosita is more intelli- 
gent and alive to the outer world than Jos6, but both showed the kind of 

3 As was 5 per cent of the Imbabura group observed by Gillen. 
Gillen,p. 184. 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 151 

wonder over innovations that Garcilasso considered so characteristic of the 
Peruvians. 5 It was a simple wonder too. Once, when I was describing the 
skyscrapers of New York, Jose asked, "Is it true, too, that the Ingles can 
understand the language of animals and birds?" Another time I happened 
to mention the Chinese and Japanese. "Blancos, White people :"asked 
Rosita. 

"No." 

"Then they are Indians?" 

"No." 

"Are they baptized?" 

"No." 

"Then they are Masons?" 

"No, they have another religion." This amazed her. 

"How is that possible?" 

"They have other gods." 

"How is that possible! Are they married in the church?" 

"Married, but not in the church." Further mystification must have 
seemed futile, for at that she returned to the always fascinating subject of 
the high buildings of Nueva York, an equally extraordinary but more in- 
telligible matter. "Fifteen to twenty stories! Three thousand more than 
everybody in Peguche in one house!" 

Because of her comparatively close relations to the Church, of her trading 
relations abroad, and of her fluent knowledge of Spanish, Rosita is becoming 
more and more aware of White culture and more and more critical of several 
aspects of her Indian culture, for example, of the validity of dreams or of 
witchcraft. And yet she is far from being aloof from neighbors. She has 
many visitors within and without the family connection, and in our visits 
to other houses she was pleasant and very talkative. "You talked a lot to 
them," I remarked one day on our way home. "Yes, they like that," said 
she. Her personality and her prestige as a trader render her conspicuous, I 
surmise, to her neighbors, a telling example. Rosita furnishes an illustration 
of the opportunities for acculturation through unusual personality; indeed, 
one of the most outstanding instances I have ever observed. 

Rosita is quite well aware that in her own community she is exceptional, 
and it gives her a sense of superiority which to me at least she was ever 
ready to express. It was along this line that her factual statements required 
most checking. About whatever enhanced her prestige, and in her own eye 
uniqueness did this, she was unreliable. In other connections there was 
usually no motivation for not describing things as they were, at least none 
I could not keep from developing the situation an ethnologist has to watch 
with any people. 

s Garcilasso, I, 229. 



154 PJEGUCHE 

The rest of the household children, servants, and the maestro seemed 
quite unconcerned about the storm. I asked Taita Orgenio what he would 
do against lightning. "Say three Corazon de Jesus:' 

I asked the maestro how many priostes there were at Riobamba. "I will 
tell you, Patronita. There are San Juan, San Juan de Noche Buena, Afio 
Nuevo, Dia de Los Reyes, Corpus, De las Almas." 

The maestro was starting for Agato. After a few words to "Mamita 
Rosita," standing in the corridor, he formally blessed the house: "Que le 
reciba la benedicion del cielo!" Taita Orgenio makes the sign of the cross 
in priestly fashion, with fingers and thumb straight. 

Three days later the maestro is back again, lying on a mat in the bedroom, 
not his neat and composed self at all, but jabbering incoherently. "What is 
he saying, Rosita?" 

"He is saying that it is bad to drink. People should not drink," smiled 
Rosita; "and he talks this way while he is drunk himself." 

"Chistozo, Rosita!" "CAistozo, Senora!" 

IV 

Baby Matilde is five days old, and her mother seems quite herself again. I 
find the little boys, Rosita s brother and son, sitting on the end of the bed, 
making finger rings of palm leaf. Rosita makes a cruz de ramos, a palm leaf 
cross, which, by the way, is in form exactly like the prayer stick of the Cora- 
Huichol Indians that Lumholtz called "god's eye." Segundo gives me a 
ring; it is too small, he sees, and he makes another. "We are married now," 
I joke, which, of course, does not seem funny to Segundo but gets a laugh 
from Rosita. 

After Segundo goes on home, Lucila takes his place on the bed, and 
mother and children begin to teach me to count in the Quechua decimal 
system. Alberto, aged seven, can count just as well as his seniors. 

1 = s hu 10 = chunga 

2 = ishkai n = shungashu, etc. 

3 = gimpsa 20 = ishkaichunga 

4 = chusko 30 = gimpsachunga, etc. 

5 = picha ioo - patsa 

6 = sukta i >0 oo = waranga 

7 = kanchis 1,000,000 = mili6n (no Quechua term 

8 = pusa unless waranga waranga} 

9 = isku 

I have watched adults count on their fingers. The palms are held in- 
ward, and the count begins on the little finger of the left hand, each finger 

ish, the practice may be related to some such practice of offering incense to God to moderate 
storm, as was suggested by an Armenian monk in the Mongol court (Rubruck, pp. 210-11) 
To Rosita palm means "adoraci6n del Senor." However, I surmise that in general the ritual 
smudge is an instance of Indian exorcism by smoke. 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 155 

bent down by the index finger of the right hand, and then the fingers of the 
right hand are similarly checked. 

In Cayambe the unschooled keep numerical records by marks on their 
ox goads. 

V 

I am sitting alongside Rosita's bed when we hear Alberto singing out- 
side, first in Quechua, then in Spanish, as he beats out a rhythm on an in- 
verted basket with a stick. Tke rhythm is good, and there is a bit of melody 
in the songs which, according to his mother, he is improvising. The first is 
about a mother and two children (guaguas) : She fights with them and they 
cry. The second song starts: Ando como un perito, "I am going along like 
a little dog," with each of the following lines beginning: "I am going along 
like ," but we missed the last words. 

I admire, and Rosita looks pleased. Jos6 steps in and says that Alberto 
is circling the house as he sings. Jos looks pleased also; both parents are 
highly gratified by the little fellow's musical performance, and Rosita in 
particular by his song in Spanish. "I never speak to the children in Span- 
ish," she says; "but even Alberto is learning it, even to singing it." 

After a while Alberto comes in. On request he shows me his flute. Of 
course, I resist the temptation to ask him to sell it to me; but as Rosita had 
been showing me the bread figurines Alberto was given at All Souls by his 
godmother I suggest that he give me one of them. Alberto kept them in a 
little pail with other small treasures. All but one had been nibbled by the 
mice. Without a word of protest or any hesitation, Alberto picks out one 
and offers it to me. It is the sound unnibbled one. 

Another day I bring with me to the house a banana for Lucila. Alberto 
and his little uncle, Segundo, are there and Rosita says in an undertone to 
Lucila, "Divide 1" Lucila breaks the banana in two and gives half to Al- 
berto, the other half she divides again and gives this half to Segundo. Di- 
viding by three is too difficult but not the injunction to share. 

In Rosita's family parental injunction or call to render some little service 
is heeded as a matter of course. Even when Lucila was having a lovely, 
excited time playing at Negrit with the boys and was called to bring the 
baby to her mother she did not demur. The only time I ever saw her balk 
was when the adults were picking over wool and she declined an invitation 
to join the work circle and slipped away not before she overheard a re- 
mark on girls who were not industrious. There was no remark or repri- 
mand for Alberto when he gave over rubbing out quinoa seed on the grind- 
ing-stone placed for him end to end with Juanti's stone so that they could 
rub facing each other. Alberto was too little to be expected to concentrate 
very long on anything, either work or play. One of die secrets of Rosita's 
successful training is not to insist after interest lapses. Another secret, as I 



156 PEGUCHE 

said before, is lack of exclusiveness; the children are expected to share in 
every possession or to participate as far as they can in anything that goes 
on in the household. I learned a lot from Rosita about bringing up children. 
The children rarely quarrel. Indeed, I saw only one quarrelsome scene, 
over an improvised cardboard cart that both wanted to drag around at the 
same time. Alberto cried, as he still did now and then for something he 
wanted to have or to do; Lucila never cried. The quarrel ended, after quite 
a little discussion between the parents, which, unfortunately, I could not 
follow, by Alberto's getting the cart. In so far as they were stern at all, the 
parents, at least Rosita, were sterner with Lucila than with Alberto, due 
no doubt to the difference in their ages. To be sure, Rosita once told me in 
connection with the arrival of baby Matilde that she preferred boys to girls. 

VI 

Manuel Lema, Rosita's father, has just called. He shakes hands with 
me today for the first time without covering his hand with his poncho, in 
the old-fashioned way. He has come to borrow a pencil for the man who 
has just sold him a cow to write out a bill of sale. 

As I am giving him the pencil, Alberto and three other little boys his 
two first cousins (maternal) and their first cousin (paternal) troop out 
from the cornfield trail, single file. Each boy carries a bamboo pole to which 
is stuck a paper flag yellow, red, and blue, the national flag. They begin 
to circle the yard, antisunwise. "Soldados [soldiers]?" I ask Rosita. "No, 
Negrit."' 

Manuel and I shout to them to dance, "Baila! Baila!" and they form a 
circle and begin to march aound, again antisunwise. They whistle, and 
Alberto picks up a stick, improvising a flute which he pretends to play. 
Now they move around, stamping, bending forward from the waist, and 
shouting. They shout (in Quechua, of course) whatever comes into their 
head: "We are all brave! We are handsome! We are men (Q. haricuna)!" 

In the corridor we are all much amused and laughing. Grandfather Man- 
uel is delighted and shouts encouragement. Little Lucila, who is not one to 
be left out, takes his flag from one of the boys and joins the dance circle, 
leading them when they break between dances and run around the house, 
always antisunwise, nor, unlike their prototypes, do they ever reverse the 
cirde. Proof here for the antisunwise circle, and its establishment at an 
early age! 

Manuel goes off to attend to his bill of sale and returns to give me the 

^Evidence here that the character of the Ncgrit as warrior is forgotten, little boys playing 
soldier and not knowing it. Psychologically from them to the Jibaro youngsters, who were 
told every day by their fathers about kinsmen whose killing they were to revenge and who were 
taken on mmderous raids (Stirling, p. 51), seems a far cry, yet formally Alberto and the others 
were performing a Jibaro or Oriente war dance. Sic transit gloria belli! And ritual is seen to 
outlive motivation. 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 157 

pencil and show the bill which contains a full description of the cow color, 
ears cut, branded A but no mention of the price! (Which is two hundred 
sucres.) "Is it good?" he asks. And when I say, "Very good," he looks 
pleased. We leave the children still dancing Negrit. 

VII 

Rosita's confinement means a holiday from school for Lucila. When Rosi- 
ta is about, she takes Lucila into Otavalo, combining the trip with market- 
ing, and she or Andrea will fetch her home in the afternoon. Andrea has 
also to take lunch to the children. But, with the new baby, Andrea has 
more household work to do, cooking and washing single-handed. Besides, 
Lucila is useful at home, too, particularly in bringing the baby to their 
mother to be nursed. And when the children do not go into town their 
hair does not have to be rebraided every day. 

Lucila has three braids, one on each side of the head, which have to be 
gathered into the braid at the back, and Alberto has five braids. To comb, 
delouse, and braid a little head takes from half an hour to an hour. With 
the comb, which is constantly dipped into a bowl of water, the hair is neatly 
separated on the top of the head. The girl's side braids are gathered into a 
single braid at the back and tied at the neck with a string. Then a strand 
of yarn is started into the single braid and tied near the ends of the braid. 
For a woman a hair belt (Sp.-Q. cinta) is similarly used and the braid is 
doubled back, wrapped and tied with the belt into a firm club like that of the 
Pueblo Indian. The only part of the hair that is ever cut is a lock on each 
temple which is kept about two inches long. 10 

The boy's side braids are gathered into the braid off the forehead on top 
of the head, and this threefold braid is then gathered into a back braid, 
which is in turn gathered into the fifth or neck braid, into which is braided 
a tie cord {chimba). For a man the two side braids are omitted, and this 
part of the head is generally disheveled. 

VIII 

This is the last day of Rosita's thirty-day confinement. She has taken 
her bath and washed her head, and now for an hour in the corridor Jos6 has 
been combing and debusing her hair. She nurses the baby, and we talk 
about lice (Sp. piojo \piojos]; Q. usa). Jos6 shows me one. He chews it and 
throws it away. He chews it to kill it, he says, not to eat. Interesting, 
if credible. Interesting anyhow. Jos6 certainly knows about eating lice, or 
he would not have made this reference, and he must know that the practice 
is subject to criticism. 

He shows me an egg (tsia). Lousy is tsiuso. Body lice (piKs) cause itch 

10 This hair-cutting is burned, not against witchcraft, says Rosita, but from what notion 
she will not say and changes the subject by her usual device of giving me some irrelevant Que- 
chua vocabulary. It is a clever and effectual device for the time being. 



158 PEGUCHE 

(Sp. comezon; Q. sbiskt). All these words seem amusing to Jos6 and Rosita 
and to the servants. The whole subject is fanny, much as it is to us. "Come 
and delouse me," says Rosita in Quechua for my edification, and everybody 
laughs. 

Rosita asks if there are fleas (Sp. purga \pulga\i Q. pikf) in the hotel. 
"Not one, unless I bring it in." 

"From here? There are always fleas where there are guinea pigs." From 
pigs and chickens there are tiny red ones (Q. ino-nihua) ticks? Garrapata 
(Sp. and Q.) are cattle ticks. Pig ticks cause fever. I tell them about the 
cattle tick that once lived for a month in my ear; it amuses them. Rosita 
sneezes and Jos6 exclaims, "Ave Maria Purisima!" 

"Sin pecado concebida Gracias!" says Rosita. 

Now the hair is finished, in a single braid, left hanging, and we all par- 
take of some parched corn kernels. As Jos6 puts some into my left hand, he 
says, "Come choclo, se habla Quechua [Eat maize, speak Quechua]," and 
Rosita adds, "Si .come chagras (chagra), se hace chagras [If you eat (off) the 
farm, fanner you become]." 

Along comes a little girl, Victoria Ruis (see Chart III, No. 59), Jos6's 
niece, and Rosita takes a five-sucre bill from her customary till, her chemise, 
and gives it to the child, for some weaving job by the child's father, but 
whether in payment or as an advance I could not learn. Rosita likes to keep 
the full significance of all these little pecuniary transactions with her rela- 
tives or neighbors pretty much to herself. 

IX 

This afternoon we have no end of callers. First a blind Cholo beggar, a 
young man, and the girl who leads him by a cord. Rosita tells him to pray 
for Taita Jos6, Father Jose, the deceased father of her husband," and the 
beggar says a prayer three or four minutes long, in Spanish. Rosita does not 
listen to it but talks on to the maestro^ who has just returned from a trip. 
At the conclusion of the prayer she gives the beggar two ears of corn." 

Another beggar, the half-wit, middle-aged Cholo I have often seen on the 
outskirts of Peguche. Prayers are not his line; nevertheless, he is given 
some food, a handful of toasted corn. He stands humbly at the far corner of 
the corridor and is not invited to draw closer. Among most Indians any- 
where it is customary to offer food to visitors from a distance. But this is 
something more; it is given to casual callers, and as charity, as in the early 
English village when houses were of wattle and daubed mud, thatched, and 
as at Peguche without window or chimney. "Charity died when chimneys 
came in," was an English saying. 

1 x "Among many Indian tribes in Ecuador and elsewhere there prevails the custom that the 
surviving relatives offer a special cult to the deceased family father" (Karsten 4:366, 460). 
See Appendix, pp. 199-200. 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 159 

Now at Rosita's a woman arrives with a small pail of milk. She is the 
dairy peon from the hacienda of Peguche, and she is peddling some of the 
milk she has received for milking. She is given a gourdful of soup, the milk 
is poured out of her container, and she promptly leaves. The next caller is 
on business, too, but she lingers to talk after drinking the proffered soup. 
She has brought a skein of brown yarn given her by Rosita to card and spin, 
also the carders that were loaned her. Rosita and Jose farm out a good many 
little weaving jobs to their less-well-to-do neighbors. 

Jos6 himself had dyed this wool, with walnut, which curiously enough is 
called nopal 13 (Q. tukti). The walnuts are well boiled. Jose got his walnuts 
from a tree growing in the yard of his father-in-law, Manuel Lema. Walnut 
trees are said to bear twice a year, in April and August, and the rind of the 
nut yields a dozen different shades, from deep brown to a pale fawn. The 
wool is dyed before it is spun. 

Soon after the spinner neighbor has left, Alejandro Ruis calls to borrow 
the cultivator (shaiyapala). Alejandro is the husband of Rosita's youngest 
sister. The young couple have two children, and they are still living with 
Alejandro's parents, Paula Lema and Mariano Ruis (see Chart III, Nos. 
12 and 13). Mariano Ruis is the older brother of Jos, so Alejandro has a 
double relationship to our family brother-in-law to Rosita, nephew to 
Jos6, a case of familial intertwining not uncommon in Peguche. Alejandro 
wants the tool to help his father-in-law cultivate their cornfield; there is only 
one cultivator in the family. 

One day while Rosita was still in childbed Alejandro's mother, Paula 
Lema, called on her, bringing her a confinement gift of some buns and a 
sopa de duke. With Paula came her little grandson, who throughout the 
long chat between the women sat on the mat a little behind his grandmother 
perfectly speechless and quiet. You hardly knew he was there. 

The next day I proposed to Lucila to accompany me to Paula's house, 
quite a distance on the northern edge of Peguche. Lucila was afraid of the 
dogs there, muy bravos; however, she went with me, gpd we stood on the 
further side of the conduit and called until Paula came out and restrained 
the dogs that were indeed the fiercest barkers of all the alarming curs one 
has ever to face in Peguche. 

Paula welcomed us, spread a mat in the corridor, apologizing for the 
lack of a chair, and gave us each an ear of roast corn. Paula's Spanish was 
extremely limited so she did not sit down to talk but went on collecting bits 
of kindling in the yard to cook supper for her household. I noticed that 
her two chicha jars were planted not in a corner of the kitchen but in the 
yard. 

" In Mexico the purple cochineal dye from the parasite of the tuna or prickly pear is called 
nopal. 



i6o PEGUCHE 

X 

Yesterday Rosita was visited by Father Samuel, a Franciscan friar who 
was born at Burgos, Spain, thirty-one years ago and came to Ecuador when 
he was eleven years old. Juanti had seen the Father and a youthful com- 
panion approaching on the railroad tracks and ran home to notify Rosita, 
just as he or Andrea or one of the children used to do when I began to call. 
Unusual visitors of any importance should be prepared for. A basket of 
trash was hastily removed, the pegged-down hen repegged at a distance, 
and a chair set out. Rosita looked pleased and was all aflutter. 

Father Samuel has the narrow face, long nose, and small, full-lipped mouth 
of the ascetic which the Spanish masters loved to paint. The American is 
introduced. Does she live at Agato, asks the Father. "No, Father, I have 
never been in Agato," and I quickly mention my well-known Catholic friends 
in Quito and speak of having lived in Mexico. "A very backward country, 
fall of bandits, suffering from constant revolution," comments the Father. 
From the wide sleeve of his brown habit he produces a tin of biscuits for 
the children, and we all eat some, and then he takes out a package of the 
cheap yellow-paper cigarettes the Indians smoke and, a little to my sur- 
prise, offers me one. Later he accepts one of my cigarettes. By the grace of 
God, as Garcilasso might have said, smoking is not one of the pleasures of 
life ruled out by our ascetic visitor. Finally, the padrecito, as Rosita ad- 
dresses him, comes to the object of his call, which is to arrange with Rosita 
about a minga to repair the yard of the monastery. Jose, Rafael Lema, and 
Antonio Cotocachi are alcaldes of his church, as well as of the chapel of 
Peguche, but the preliminaries for the minga> deciding what day of the 
week to hold it, etc., are easier to talk over with Rosita than with her hus- 
band or the other men. 

Soon after Father Samuel and his silent acolyte leave, our maestro ap- 
pears, returning from another trip to Agato. He tells Rosita that he met the 
Father outside and the Father asked him if he had ever seen me at Agato. 
Ethnologists are not the only ones who check up on information! 

For the past decade a Protestant mission has been stationed at Agato, in 
a foothill of Imbabura, about five miles southeast of Peguche, a place I 
would have liked to visit it is notable for the belts the men weave but 
never dared. For some time in Otavalo I was under suspicion of belonging 
to the Agato Evangelistas. Both Cholos and Indians are forbidden by the 
Church to enter the house of the Evangelistas, an American man and 
woman who keep a small school and about whom fantastic stories circulate. 
"They went to Agato because nobody in Otavalo would rent them a house. 

. * * . They say Mass without a priest They put a child on a table to 

represent Jesucristo 'Why do you believe in images ?* they ask. They 

are only wood/ " Why do Protestant missionaries go to highly Catholicized 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 161 

countries to become a source of scandal and dissension, a fifth column, a 
Trojan horse indeed? 

The maestro is a missionary of another kind. He has made several trips to 
Agato, to tell the rosary in homes or in the chapel where San Antonio lives. 
Possibly the maestro was directed by his ecclesiastic authority to pay special 
attention to Agato, as a counterinfluence to the "foreign devils" there, in 
Catholic terminology the "Masones," a more recent term for heretics than 
"witches." The maestro tells us that on this trip he had declined to tell the 
rosary in the house of an Agato couple who had remated after a divorce. 

On his way back the maestro picked up a burr in the sole of his sandalless 
foot. Andrea starts to get it out for him with a steel needle, but in a moment 
or two she discards the needle and uses a large thorn instead. 13 After the 
little operation is over, Rosita and I tease the maestro by telling him God 
has been punishing him for going to Agato where the Masons live. 

XI 

Rosita is a close, indeed, a sharp, trader. This afternoon as she sits in 
the corridor making a rag doll for Lucila a young man and a lad come down 
from Agato to sell a skein of purple wool. It is Friday, and the hillman may 
think he can get a better price from Rosita than in the next day's market. 
For one hour he and Rosita haggle over the price, he asking thirty-five 
sucres, and she willing to give only twenty-five. At times the argument is 
quite lively, but there are quiet interludes of general conversation, and 
throughout both parties address each other as tio and tia and wear a smile. 
Am I related to the Evangelistas, asks the Agato man. Reassured, he says 
he doesn't like those people. 

The lad from Agato carries a wooden ox goad, a leather thong through 
the perforated head and the foot consisting of a twisted and pointed bit of 
metal. He sits removed from us and silent, taking no part whatsoever in 
the conversation. Nor, of course, does Rosita's little brother Segundo, who 
is making a ball, stitching blue and red yarns over a wat of white cotton 
thread. He is as intent on his needle as any woman on her spindle, indeed 
more so, having a precise job to finish; but he is listening to the bargaining 
and learning a lesson in trade. 

It is plain enough that Rosita will not budge from her price; but Agato 
cannot bring himself either to come down or to leave. Finally, Jos6 arrives 
and the matter is reopened for him. He is far less assertive than Rosita and 
more amiable, but he holds to the price she set, and after a few unavailing 
minutes the two from Agato depart. 

Jos6 had come in with his alcalde cane, a stick of light-colored wood with 
a leather loop through the perforation at the top. It is a replica of the sticks 

"The early Peruvians used thorns to sew (Garcilasso, 1, 203). They also had copper 
needles. 



162 PEGUCHE 

carried by the topiles, sheriff of Indian Mexico, and after the Agato couple 
departs I ask Jose if it is a bora of office. "No," he says, a little too ve- 
hemently. He does not know that I know he is serving as an alcalde de 
capilla. Why should he be secretive? 

Now another visitor arrives, Antuka Cotacachi (Chart II, No. 7), the 
aunt who lives in Quinchuqui. It is her formal visit after the birth of Ma- 
tilde, 14 and she is bringing Rosita, her sister's daughter, a little gift of buns 
and of barley, a large basketful. After quite a chat with mamaita, it occurs 
to Rosita that I might buy her "little mother's" two necklaces or rosarios 
of brass and coral beads, silver coins, and crucifix. 

"How much?" I ask. 

"Seventy sucres for both together." 

Although I do not know how these necklaces are valued they are not 
sold in the market that price seems high, and I suggest buying one neck- 
laces only. "No; she says if she sells she must sell both." I speak of some- 
thing else, and presently Antuka goes off, leaving the necklaces. I resume. 
"Well, I will pay seventy sucres." 

"Which do you prefer?" asks Rosita. 

"But I am paying seventy sucres for both." * 

"No, only for one. She asks thirty sucres more for the other." I am so 
surprised by this shift on the stipulated asking price and so interested in 
Rosita *s evident excitement about the bargain her face has flushed and 
her eyes are lit up that I pay out one hundred sucres on the spot to see 
what will happen. Rosita takes the money into the bedroom and when 
Antuka returns gives her, I can but infer, seventy sucres and keeps thirty 
sucres for herself. 

"You got them very cheap," Rosita reiterated two or three times later on 
after Antuka said "Ripanimi [I am going]," and it was then, as an emotional 
aftermath of such a satisfactory deal and perhaps as compensation to me, 
that Rosita told me about the most effectual cure for Rainbow sickness. 
The usual price of a necklace-rosary, I learned later, was from ten to fifteen 
sucres. But that information about Rainbow was priceless. 

XII 

For four years Rosita and Jos have kept two servants, a married couple 
who came "from a distance," says Rosita, gente de cerro, "people of the 
mountain." They receive no wages, only their clothes and food. Juanti's 
working pants, shirt, and poncho are dilapidated, but he has a good festive 
poncho; Andrea's clothes are in good condition; she is short merely on 
jewelry. Rosita directs their work, and they sleep in the kitchen apart from 
the family, but they share in the family meals, and from our point of view 

x Childbed visits were customary in Inca Peru (Gardlasso, 1, 305). 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 163 

they are treated more like "poor relations" than as servants. Rosita ad- 
dresses them as compadre and comadre Cumpa Juanti and Cuma Andrea. 
She in turn is addressed as cumare, also by Andrea as madam. Madam 
Rosita will delouse, cut, and dress Andrea's hair. 

Like everybody else, Juanti was extremely curious about what I paid 
Rosita for "teaching" me, and one day when we were alone he grasped the 
opportunity and asked me forthright: "What do you pay Rosita Lemar" 
I pretended not to understand him, of course. Indeed, his Spanish is very 
limited. Maria Andrea Panamd knows no Spanish. They were born at 
Sigsicunga, Juanti told me, the other side of the valley. 

Rosita's parents also keep a couple of servants on the same terms. In 
other Peguche households, Rosita insists, there are no servants. She and her 
parents keep servants not because they are rich, only por carino, from 
kindliness. "Other families would not keep servants because they would be 
loath to feed and clothe them." All I make out of this is that Rosita wants 
to be thought charitable, but not rich. That others in Peguche who can 
afford servants or retainers do keep them I think not unlikely, but whether 
this is in comparatively recent imitation of Otavalo practice or comes down 
from the Peruvian-Quito servitude of the Yanacona, the Blacks, 15 I have 
no idea. It seems probable, however, that the Yanacona status was like 
that of Rosita's servants, which is the characteristic status of so-called 
"slaves" in many primitive societies. 

Rosita has an embryonic sense of class, and it would not be difficult for 
her to think of herself as an Inca lady, if she knew anything about the Inca 
or a class-stratified Indian society. And when I picture the Inca ladies, I 
see Rosita. (I also see Flora Surni of Zuni.) 

It is primarily from her sense of distinction, not from toadying, that 
Rosita associates easily with White gentry. To be sure, there are other 
reasons, as the following anecdote indicates. Nobody from Rosita's house- 
hold attended the Otavalo street-opening minga, and so the agent of the 
comisario municipal came and in the absence of Rosita and Jos confiscated 
from the line in the yard a swaddling cloth worth about 6 sucres. Rosita 
asked me for a lift into town, and from the comisorio y her compodre, she got 
a note ordering the manager of the minga to return the piece of cloth. Rosita 
gave the note to a relative at the minga to give to the manager and get back 
the cloth. The next morning the cloth was around Matilde. 

15 According to Garcilasso, this class (Indians not Negroes) who performed personal services 
was constituted of Incaic subjects who had rebelled and then been reduced to hereditary en- 
slavement. The class existed in early Quito. An "Anacona" man would take care of a riding 
horse and carry a letter from town to town. Boys served as pages (pajes). An "Anacona" 
woman employed in housework got two manias, two chemises (camtsefas), and two pesos a 
year (other Indian women got four mantas, two liquidas [lUcllas], two anacos, and two pesos) 
(Quito, 1573, P- 95)- 



164 PEGUCHE 

XIII 

Rosita is still working over Albes, as she sometimes calls Alberto, when 
her neighbor and cousin, Maria Cotacachi calls to arrange about something. 
Maria is the wife of Antonio Cajas, the weaver who has been away three 
months at San Cristobal in Colombia. Maria was left a widow when very 
young, and Antonio is her second husband. He was the first cousin of her 
deceased husband. Maria and Antonio have five children. 

After Maria leaves, little Lucila asks her mother for some money. Rosita 
refuses, but Lucila keeps at her, and finally she takes the coin from her red 
bead bracelet. "What does she want it for?" 

"To buy a candle at Julian's store." 

"What for?" I can be persistent, too. 

"For San Antonio." And then Rosita opens the door to the bedroom, 
closed today but generally left open. On a table in the middle of the room 
sits the saint, a small painted plaster image in a glass case, with a slot in 
front for coins. A small white candle stands lit on the table, nothing else, no 
flowers. I was so surprised by the unexpected presence that I forgot to 
make the sign of the cross. 

San Antonio has been sent forth by the Franciscans, by Father Samuel, 
on a novena of sixty days, two rounds of overnight visits in thirty houses, 
the houses of those who have signed up as hosts, de voto, "for a vow." The 
households burn a few candles, drop one sucre in the collection box, and in 
the evening on the arrival of the saint say what prayers they. may know. 
If they know none, they summon a maestro. Rosita knows prayers, and 
probably little Lucila wanted the candle to say a prayer she had learned in 
school from the Sisters. No doubt it would afford her, too, some sense of 
achievement and security. 

Little San Antonio began his rounds in the house of Manuel Lema, Rosi- 
ta's father, and this evening about six o'clock he is to move on to the house 
of Maria Cotacachi. That is what Maria came to arrange for. She will 
fetch him herself to her house. Had it not been for her visit and little 
Lucila 's importunity, I doubt if Rosita would have told me anything about 
her supernatural guest. Indians can be as secretive in behalf of the Church 
as against it. 

The following list of persons to entertain the saint pictures vividly the 
family tissue so characteristic of life in Peguche. Rosita gave the list with- 
out hesitating a moment to remember a name. 

I. Manuel Lema (i) and Andrea Cotacachi (2) 
II. Julian Muela (3) and Carmen Lema (4), daughter of (i) 
HI. Jos Ruis (5) and Rosita Lema (6), daughter of (i) 
IV. Antonio Cajas (7), great-nephew of (10), and Marfa Cotacachi (8), first 

cousin of (2) 
V. Jos Conejo (9), maternal uncle of (3) 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 165 

VI. Josefa Cajas (10) widowed mother of (5), and Rafael Ruis, her son (11) 
VII. Jose Quimbo (12), first cousin of (5), and Santos Ramirez (13) 
VIII. Jose Maria Lema (14), kin of (i), and Tomasa Cachumuel (15) 
IX. Jesus Lema (16), kin of (i) 
X. Jos6 Manuel Lema (17), kin of (i) 
XL Antonio Cotacachi (i8)' 6 

XII. Daniel Ruis (19) and Josefina Lema (20), niece of (i) 
XIII. Francisco Kachiwango (21) 
XIV. Pablo" Rimachi 18 (22) 

XV. Antonio Lema (23), kin of (i) 

XVI. Manuel Teran (24) and Juana Lema (25), kin of (i) or (2) 
XVII. Rafael Cotacachi (26), first cousin of (2) 
XVIII. Jos6 Manuel Cotacachi (27), kin of (2) 
XIX. Manuel Pichamba (28) 
XX. Jos6 Pichamba (29) 
XXI. Francisco Campo (30) 
XXII. Manuel Lema (31), kin of (i) 
XXIIL Antonio Maldonado (32) 
XXIV. Martina Cachumuel (33) 
XXV. Rafael Cotacachi (34) first cousin of (2) 
XXVI. Rafael Lema (35), nephew of (i), and Rosa Teran (36) 
XXVII. Jos6 Maria Ruis (37), kin of (5) 
XXVIII. [Overlooked] 

XXIX. Mariano Ruis (38), brother of (5), and Paula Lema (39) 
XXX. Carlos Cotacachi (40), kin of (2) 

From these thirty households the saint will move on for another "no- 
vena" in another group of relatives and neighbors, and in this way the saint 
will keep moving in Peguche throughout the year. These "novenas" were 
introduced only fifteen years ago on the arrival of the Franciscans, but they 
are evidence of how the Church makes use of Indian social organization and 
enriches it as well as itself. 

XIV 

Today we visit Josefina, who lives with her husband and five children in 
a "straw house." The five little girls are seated around a mat in the corridor, 
or, rather, porch, eating supper. Their mother passes out a bowl of bean 
soup to Rosita, who offers it to me and, when I decline it, gives it to the 
"little orphan" with us. The child lives with her maternal grandmother, a 
neighbor of Rosita, and often comes to play and be given something to eat 
by Rosita* 

16 Had his wife's name been recorded and the names of the wives of the other six men not 
noted as connected with the Lema-Cotacachi lineages, I surmise that additional family con- 
nections would have come out. 

*i Married into Peguche from Pucari on the lake of San Pablo. 

18 Name of fifth legitimate son of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, who initiated the conquest 
of Quito (Garcilasso, II, 353). 



166 PEGUCHE 

Josefina must find it hard at times to feed her own children. She spins, 
and her husband weaves ponchos. Wires are strung from tree to tree in the 
very small yard. 

XV 

On my return to Peguche in 1941, I found Rosita lying bundled up in 
bed, weaker than just after the birth of the baby eighteen months before. 
She was listless, and even the gilt brooch I brought her aroused little in- 
terest. (Later she told me she planned to make it into earrings, since 
brooches were not worn. Yet in 1940 she had begged me several times to 
give her my brooch.) The expression of her face was quite altered; had I 
met her, say, on the road, I might not have recognized her. For a year, she 
said, she had been sick, on and off. She had violent headaches, particularly 
above the back of the neck, she had no appetite and ate little, and she 
retched or vomited during or after nursing. I suggested that it would be 
better for herself and for Matilde, now eighteen months old, to wean the 
child. c< Matilde does not want to separate," Rosita replied, and she held 
to this until she had a severe collapse two months later. Then Matilde was 
"separated" 'by being sent to live with Rosita's mother, where she ate what- 
ever the others ate. Even before the weaning, for several months Matilde 
had been given anything she wanted to eat. She was not sick at any time 
during my visit, but she looked somewhat undernourished. 

On my second call, the next day, Rosita was up, sitting in the corridor. 
During the following weeks she would now and again go out walking some- 
where in Peguche or into Otavalo, and she even took a few motor trips 
with me. She had given up carrying anything because she was subject to 
back pains, and instead of the heavy hard felt hat she wore a soft fedora. 
The children were not sent to school Lucila was very helpful in waiting 
upon her mother, looking after Matilde, and going around with me, and 
Alberto spent most of his time in his grandmother's house or visiting cous- 
ins. To her usual chores of cooking and fetching water Andrea, the servant, 
had added the family wash. Rosita was doing no work of any kind and little 
or no trading. Her interest and attention were very much centered on her 
sickness and how to cure it. She and her callers talked mainly about her 
sickness, and remedies were suggested or contributed. Michi, her cousin, 
came in one day to cook her a stew of guinea pig and potatoes on the little 
hearth improvised in the middle of the room. Everybody in Peguche knew 
Rosita was sick, and wherever I visited I would be asked how she was, 
especially after a collapse when she had taken the last sacrament. That, of 
course, was public notice of imminent death. There was indeed a twofold 
notice, for, eclectic to the last, Rosita had sent for a Franciscan to confess 
her and the next day for her parish priest to give her the sacrament. When 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 167 

I left Peguche, a week later, Rosita had recovered somewhat, and, although 
she was keeping to her bed (people had been telling her she had been suffer- 
ing from being in the sun), she was planning to make the pilgrimage to the 
Virgin de Quinche, a hard trip by train, two weeks later, "whether I die 
or not." The family would not let her drive in with me to see a Quito doctor 
(our earlier plan) because she would die in Quito; besides, she did not want 
to go to the hospital "because there were too many sick people there." 

In Otavalo all three White doctors as well as the Sisters who keep the 
apothecary shop had been visited. They had given Rosita prescriptions for 
anemia, without blood test or general examination. One doctor had told 
her to drink milk and eat eggs, but these upset her, said Rosita, and like 
other Indians she would sell her eggs, sometimes carrying a couple in her 
bosom on the chance of selling to a White passerby. Nor would Rosita try 
the cascara I brought her as a remedio for her exceedingly sluggish elimina- 
tion at one time I thought this might be the source of her ailment, and it 
must have been a contributing factor. The pills were a purge, and the purge 
an Otavalo doctor gave her had upset Matilde. Besides as she was eating so 
little, Rosita thought, elimination was unnecessary. 

But with other remedies Rosita was more experimental. One day after 
visiting the miraculous Virgin in the new municipio of Andrade Marin, 1 * 
lighting two candles for her and saying a long prayer, Rosita kneeling on a 
prie-dieu and Lucila standing next, we picked up on the Ibarra road Mama 
Dolores, an old woman returning home to the Hacienda Palestina. Dolores 
was well known as a curer of fright, espanto^ and did not Rosita have all the 
symptoms of that affliction pains in head, neck, and back, no appetite, 
lassitude? 

Instead of returning to the hacienda or to the roadside house of the old 
woman's daughter, we all go into another house on the road, where Mama 
Dolores has some connection, a filthy house where, although Spanish is 
spoken and the young women flirt with our driver, the anaku is worn, also 
a single braid, and somebody spins from a distaff. I remove the distaff from 
a little chair and sit down, as in any proper Indian house I would not have 
done until invited. Rosita and Mama Dolores sit on a dirty mat. 

Rosita removes her two belts so that Dolores can reach up her back to 
massage. "How long sick?" 

z The church was built here in 1932 after the Virgin had appeared to a shepherdess at a 
stone (aparccid en una piedra) . (The rough stone reredos of the high altar represents this stone.) 
The story was told Rosita by an Indian who was also worshiping at the altar of the Virgin 
who "helps you in any work you are doing." This familiar legend was borrowed from the 
Virgin of Las Lajas in Colombia soon after the church at Las Lajas was built, but the Imba- 
bura church and the Indians near by localized the legend in less than a decade. Now Rosita 
would carry it in an elaborate form to Peguche. All she had known before was that the Virgin 
was "born at a stone.' 1 Note that it is not in a COM but at a stone, just as the first Inca appeared. 



168 PEGUCHE 

"A year, and no doctor can cure me." Dolores says a little prayer to La 
Santisima, and begins a vigorous massage, as Rosita sits with her back to 
her. It hurts somewhat, not enough to groan but enough to indicate espanto. 
("Si hay dolor, hay espanto; si no hay dolor, no hay espanto.") Then Dolo- 
res holds Rosita at the waist and jerks her up and down as she sits, saying 
"Rosita, elevante, elevante! Shungo! 20 Shungo!" 

From her carrying basket Dolores takes some leaves of granadilla and 
applies some lard to make them stick together in pairs. Then she removes 
the leaf plaster Rosita had been wearing on her head under her headcloth, 
and around her neck, under a bandage, massages the temples a little and 
blows from the lips, three times, on top of Rosita's head. When the fresh 
leaf plaster is applied, she gives Rosita a punch in the back, quite a good 
punch, and then makes the sign of the cross over her back. 

Throughout the treatment Dolores talks away, in Spanish, telling Rosita 
to take a bath in one of the three springs at San Juan, a cold spring. Also to 
drink water and lemon, and water and naranjilla. She is to come to Rosita's 
house Friday morning this is Tuesday and treatments should be given 
Tuesday and Friday. Meanwhile she gives Rosita a little lard for the leaf 
plaster. If the granadilla leaves dry up, you are recovering; otherwise you 
stay sick. The leaves Rosita removed were very dry. Dry leaves and a little 
pain, these were what encouraged Rosita to think that the diagnosis was 
correct and that the treatment would be efficacious. 

Rosita asked Lucila to lend her a sucre to pay Dolores, and the little girl 
took the coin from under her bracelet, the coin she had received from me the 
day before. I am fairly certain that Rosita repaid the loan, so here was a 
neat bit of evidence that offspring may retain earnings. 

Friday passed without a visit from Mama Dolores, but a few days later 
as I was leaving the house of Josefina Terin, midwife and curandera^ she 
said she would go with me to visit Rosita. It was an unsolicited visit and 
not wholly welcome. I learned later that Josefina had been midwife at the 
birth of Lucila and had scalded Rosita with her fluids. Since then Rosita 
had not called her in. Almost at once Josefina began her treatment diag- 
nosis and exorcism by guinea pig followed by massage for fright. 31 For this 
treatment Josefina was well paid, but for two others which she volunteered 
and from which Rosita was benefiting "there should be four or five treat- 
ments" Josefina was not paid, she told me after she heard that Rosita was 
worse. "Why didn't she pay me?" she asked. "Perhaps she will die." Jose- 

* Heart (see p. 196), bat Rosita thinks it refers to liver or gall bladder, and she has a theory 
that from rough bus travel her liver has been shaken down, and the words which elsewhere are 
supposed to refer to the lost soul (heart) are an order to the liver to raise up. 

See p. 68. 



IN PEGUCHE HOUSES 169 

fina was as annoyed as any doctor whose patient, after beginning to im- 
prove, goes back on him. 

On my last visit to Rosita I find her sitting up in bed because she "got 
tired lying down," and on a chair next the bed her saints' pictures are 
propped, the candle butts in front indicating that prayers have been said, 
probably the night before. At the moment Rosita's sister Carmen is fumi- 
gating near the bed with palm and romero against a source of sickness they 
do not mention. Mai aire? Or, given the family feud, have they suc- 
cumbed to fear of witchcraft? 

Poor Rosita! Pobrecita, perhaps she is "the most intelligent Indian in 
Ecuador," as a European friend in Quito described her, but there are situa- 
tions native wit or personal wisdom cannot cope with; and maybe one of 
these is severe anemia given no adequate medical attention or direction or 
common-sense nursing and given cultural pressures that would handicap 
even an able and devoted doctor or nurse, particularly if uninformed about 
them. Judging from Rosita's experience, an out-patient dinic without 
knowledge of Indian home life and without the services of the district nurse 
will remain somewhat ineffectual in Indian Ecuador. 



CHAPTER X 
PROVENIENCE OF TRAITS 

Indian traits in Imbabura are, as in various Indian groups of Mexico, for 
the most part economic; but there are also, as in Mexico, many other aspects 
of life which suggest that pre-Spanish ways of behaving and thinking may 
survive, particularly in home life (see Table i). 

The "straw house" with peaked thatched roof and low walls of uncut 
stone set in clay or mud is aboriginal; so are in both straw house and tile- 
roofed house the rough earth floor, lack of window and of smoke vent, hearth 
of stones, use of corners, and ground plan of two noncommunicating rooms. 
The origin of the "corridor," or outdoor shelter, is problematical. The aborig- 
inal house, like the early Peruvian house, may have provided a shade for out- 
door activity. 1 To be sure, I have seen weaving and pottery-making carried on 
in a "straw house" without any provision for outdoor shelter. Many thatched 
houses have none. 3 Lack of cutting implements and of timber may have 
precluded the idea of protection against the sudden showers of the region. 
The Indian loom is easily moved indoors. Even today, when almost 
every house has some kind of open-air shelter, whatever is hanging on the 
line in the yard, also the mats spread with wool or grain, are quickly 
gathered up and taken in against rain. If the aboriginal house had no out- 
door shelter, if the "corridor" is wholly Spanish, we may see in the low-walled 
shelter of some houses a transition to the more spacious, pillared "corridor" 
of the high, tiled-roof house. Indeed, the variety of arrangement in the 
"corridor" suggests that it is a late, borrowed feature. 

The hearth complex fire stones, fire-pokers, lack of chimney or smoke 
vent, lack of stove is Indian, and so are cooking, fermenting, and water 
vessels, the clay grill, grinding- and rubbing-stones, gourd cups and bowls, 
wooden spoons almost all the kitchen furnisliing. Cookery is consistently 
Indian: by boiling, stewing, and toasting. All the staple foods are pre-Con- 
quest: maize, beans, quinoa, potatoes, squash. Preparation and distribu- 
tion of food by the women, eating in a circle on the ground, the use of mat 
instead of table or chair (and the use in general of mats), eating only twice 
a day, drinking only after eating, offering food to visitors, great emphasis in 
general upon die social importance of eating and drinking in company, in- 

1 Cf. the famous early Chimn (Means, Fig. 2, p. 466). In these shades there is even an 
amusing resemblance to the lathe-turned Spanish post. For purpose of design the irregular 
tree trunk has been straightened. Let me suggest, by the way, that the weavers are women, 
since they sit with legs tucked under. 

Cf. houses in Angochagua (Gillen, Pis. 19-21), but see, too, ##., Fig. I. 

170 



PROVENIENCE OF TRAITS 171 

eluding the religious importance of offering food to the dead and to the gods 
or their representatives all these are characteristic Indian ways or atti- 
tudes. Although drunkenness has been encouraged for economic reasons by 
the Whites, and hard liquor added to the native intoxicant and this intoxi- 
cant itself rendered more potent by adulteration, 3 intoxication was un- 
doubtedly a pre-Spanish trait. The contemporary attitude of irresponsi- 
bility for conduct during drunkenness is also aboriginal. 

All the processes of making pottery, together with its being a hereditary 
craft, are aboriginal Spinning and weaving are, of course, aboriginal, as is 
the assignment of the spindle to women, and the loom to men. All the wool- 
en garments of both men and women appear to be aboriginal, although the 
black wrapped skirt so widespread among Spanish Indians has undergone 
some adaptation to Spanish requirement: When the Spanish chemise was 
adopted, the anaco was no longer hung from the shoulders; the thigh was 
covered by a second skirt or by a chemise. Although the chemise is Spanish, 
the embroidery has something of an Indian look, both in design and in the 
way it is placed. We may note, too, that no thimble is used. Backcloth and 
carrying cloth are certainly aboriginal. Discarding the backcloth at home, 
like Peruvians and Zuni Pueblos, and like them, too, not undressing to sleep 
are Indian ways. So are long-hair modes and probably in women the love 
of jewelry and its prescriptive usage. Prescriptive, standardized, and com- 
paratively unchanging styles 4 are characteristically Indian. 

Plowing by bullock and metal harvesting implements excepted, the agri- 
cultural complex is aboriginal: fertilizing, sowing, and the use of wooden 
implementsdigging paddle-stick and crotch-stick hoe (with or without 
iron strip)* The form of the iron spade, the blade nearly in line with the 
long handle, like the Mexican coa, is aboriginal. In hoe and spade, iron 
merely took the place of copper. 

The distribution of fields and houses is pre-Conquest, together with the 
lack of any proclivity for concentrated town life. The pre-Conquest popu- 
lation lived in rancherias* rather than in pueblos. This accounts for the In- 
dians' attachment to their lands in the face of tremendous pressure to dis- 
possess them. It may account also in part for their submission to the en- 
comienda system and to the present-day hacienda system, where, like cats, 
as one hacendado put it, they ding to the place they are used to. 

3 Adulteration began early, in Mexico, probably in Ecuador. In 1529 a Spanish law for- 
bade mixture, distillation, and infusion, by certain roots, boiling water, and lime in connection 
with pulque for the Indians of New Spain (Vasquez, pp. 80 n 7 .). 

Cf. Garcilasso, II, 08: "The Indians wonder much at the way the Spaniards change the 
fashion of their dress every year, and attribute it to pride and presumption." 

s "The most civilized" of non-Inca peoples lived without plazas or order in their streets and 
houses, as in "a lair of wild beasts" (Garcilasso, I, 53). 



172 PEGUCHE 

The work party in field or in house building 6 is aboriginal. 7 Minga for 
White town or priest or hacendado may be of Spanish provenience, but the 
habit of communal labor necessary for the persistence of the minga among 
independent Indians is aboriginal. The same may be said of co-operative 
activity in various other religious forms set by the Church. 

Attitudes toward property seem to be Indian-likeconstant loaning 
within family or compadre circles, together with such contempt for a thief 
in their own community that boundary stone and watchdog are adequate 
protection. (And dogs serve rather against being taken by surprise by any- 
body, not only by the marauder.) Comparative lack of specialization and 
self-sufficiency in the household, self-support, are of Indian character. 

There are many other psychological attitudes, many manners and prac- 
tices, that appear Indian-like or are known to be Indian. 

Analysis of distinctively Peruvian traits or of lowland Forest traits is 
more difficult than recognizing generically Indian traits. Peruvian analysis 
is difficult because we know so little about the pre-Peruvian culture there 
is no early chronicler for Ecuador such as were Garcilasso for Peru, Landa 
for Yucatan, Las Casas for Guatemala, and Sahagfin for Aztec Mexico, and 
archeological leads in Ecuador are very meager. Besides, Peruvian culture 
may have spread in the Andean highlands long before Peruvian conquests. 
Along this line Garcilasso is not much of a help, so anxious is he to prove 
the inferiority of the conquered populations. However, the Incas appear not 
to have had any system of commercial travelers such as helped to spread 
Aztec ways long before Aztec conquests. Then, too, traits common through- 
out western South America undoubtedly existed long before the Inca em- 
pire or the Kingdom of Quito and other Ecuadorean states took form. Our 
analysis of Peruvian parallels is inevitably speculative. 

As Peruvian parallels were suggested, they have been given in footnotes. 
Let me now summarize in tabular form (Table i) and then discuss the hy- 
pothesis that Peruvian culture may have been introduced into our valley by 
Peruvian colonists. 

Language. The Inca conquerors were clever in spreading their language. 
The sons of conquered chiefs were brought to Cuzco and taught Quechua, 
and all officials in subject territory were expected to learn it. But this 
achievement could not have taken place overnight, and in the northernmost 
region, disrupted as it was by long fighting, the time was too short. In 
Quito some progress in language substitution may have been made, but not 
much north of Quito, and even that was impaired after the Spanish Con- 
quest. And yet it is here today, at least in Imbabura Valley, that Quechua 

' Cf. Bandelier, p. 96. 

* The descriptions of building and agricultural work parties among Caddoan tribes in our 
Southeast given in the seventeenth century by Fray Francisco Casanas Jesus Maria and Henri 
Joutel (Hatcher, XXXI, 155, 156; Joutel, pp. 363-64) are applicable today in Peguche. 



n 

"3 fa 

tf o 



J& lllll 
a* Isi^v 



x 

C 




P^ 



2 
2 

- 1 

M ^ 

^ s 



I 







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ll 1 



J1 I 111 ** 

ill i 

,*8* -5-i 





174 PEGUCHE 

is most firmly established. Peruvian colonization is indicated. The colonists 
kept the'Quechua language alive, and then, well after the Spanish Conquest, 
Quechua may have spread from the colonists to the Chibcha-speaking 
people. The Peruvian colonists had prestige and were closer to the Church, 
which encouraged the "general language" and ignored other languages. 
Squeezed between the Quechua-speaking padres andfrailes, the Quechua- 
speaking colonists and ever growing Spanish-speaking White population, 
Chibcha languages or dialects began to lose out. 

The bulk of the Peruvian parallels group around domesticity, the life of 
the women. This also points to colonization. Male garrisons, occupation 
soldiery, could not have established such traits as childbed visiting, swad- 
dling infants, blanket pins, guinea-pig breeding, funeral wailing, and sui- 
cidal gesture, or close co-operation between the sexes and between kindred. 

Nor could Spanish state and Church have built up their systems of serv- 
ices and taxes and preserved them to this day had they not been dealing 
with groups already well conditioned to like systems. The encomendero felt 
himself to be a proper successor to the curacy and some, if not all, of the 
Indian tributaries may have agreed to this point of view, particularly if 
their encomendero was married, as was Rodrigo de Salazar of Otavalo, to a 
lady of Inca lineage. Intermarriage to cement ties between conqueror and 
conquered was a marked Incaic practice. Peruvian empire paved a way for 
Spanish empire. The prestige of the Peruvian priest or sorcerer contributed 
to the acceptance of Spanish priest orfraiJe. 

Divination was important in Inca Peru; divination persists in Imbabura 
by omen and dream, by fire and guinea pig, the sacrificial animal. 

Certain departures from Peruvian ways call for discussion. In Inca Peru 
young people served their parents until marriage, when the groom was 
given a prescriptive piece of arable land by the state and became an inde- 
pendent householder. Youths did not marry until the age of twenty-five. 8 
In Peguche, since the state does not distribute land, endowment falls upon 
parents, or the couple must earn enough to buy land. Meanwhile they live 
with parents and serve them. They marry young, but, as in Peru, they do 
not become independent householders until about the age of twenty-five. 
Theoretically, marriage still determines status; practically, it does not, since 
it is not accompanied by independent householding. As marriage did not 
greatly affect parental service and as the Church probably encouraged 
youthful marriage in accordance with its usual policy, it is clear why the 
age at marriage was reduced. 

Not all variations from Peruvian practice can be as readily explained. 
Why did not the Peruvian cradleboard, with its peculiar drainage, persist? 
Why are there no potsherds indicating Peruvian influence? A premature 
query perhaps, since no adequate potsherd collections have been made. 

* Garcilasso, I, 82. 



PROVENIENCE OF TRAITS 175 

The Peruvian "foot plow" was established, near Quito at least, in the six- 
teenth century, but there is no use of it today in Ecuador. It yielded to 
the Spanish plow and bullock (although in small holdings it might be more 
useful than plowing by animals). 

Excepting for attitudes toward the Mountains, toward Thunder and 
Lightning, toward Rainbow and, in Cayambe, at least among the women, 
toward the Moon if not toward the Sun, the Inca pantheon seems not to 
have been well established or enduring. Nor was it enduring in Peru; prob- 
ably it was never as well established throughout the empire as Garcilasso, 
for one, would have us believe. Between present-day Peruvian and Ecua- 
dorian supernaturals there are in myth fragments some striking parallels. 
The lord of the mountain lives in a richly provided place under a lake in 
the mountain, one of four sacrosanct lakes. Trespassers are sucked down 
into the waters or disappear. The mountain spirits engage in a throwing 
contest. They send disease and are associated with supernatural animals 
who are the patrons of sorcerers. 

In the world of spirits our Andean Valley culture seems dose also to that 
of lowland eastern Ecuador 9 (see Table 2). In common we find a belief in 
hill or mountain spirits; mountain waterfalls lived in by spirits who impart 
power to bathers; female fire spirit; intense apprehension about disease or 
death from spirits or soul capture by spirits, including a Cat demon, spirit 
birds, and Rainbow; danger to menstruants from impregnation spirits; 
divinatory and spirit birds; association of cosmic spirits with spirit fauna 
(Rainbow with swine, Fire with Cat); witch or sorcerer complex which in- 
cludes transformation into animals, 10 possession by animals, and intoxicar- 
tion by rum or tobacco (as substitute for narcotics); intoxication by all 
adults as a means of self-assurance; interpretation of hallucinations as 
actual experience; dancing by men and women the character of which sug- 
gests that it may be derived from conceptualism similar to that back of 
Jibaro dancing, i.e., protection against spirit attack; designs on Imbabura 
food gourds which are out-and-out Jibaro and suggest that they, too, are to 
protect against spirit attack; the association of spirits with hair; cult of 
the dead." 

'Or to Indian Brazil. Note the relation between fauna and cosmic spirits (Thunder and 
wild pig), between animal familiars and shamans, the shamanisdc dream travels, the intoxica- 
tion of die shaman by tobacco, blowing smoke on patient in exorcism, supernatural danger in 
food, and soul capture after death by sprit animals or birds. 

10 Note especially the story of the Man-Fox (pp. 139-40) and that the transformation is 
made by a witch in the Oriente visited by a highlandcr. Canelos and Napo River Indians are 
in communication with the highlanders (Karsten 3:335)> "* &e far-flung Jibaro have had 
contacts with Canelos and Napo River people. Ecuadorian Jibaro and Peruvian Jibaro are 
alike (Karsten 4:80). 

11 "Among the Jibaros as among other South American Indians, all gods, spirits and demons 
seem to be nothing but departed human souls" (Karsten 4:366). Indeed, religion is a cult of 
the dead, of ancestors who become incarnate in nature, some good, some evil (itid., p. 455). 



I 7 6 



PEGUCHE 



Saint's day dancing name (Negro or Negrito), formation, flute-playing 
by dancers, braggadocio, and possibly female impersonation suggests sur- 
vival of some Jibaro-like war dance complex. The lack of dancing par pro- 
mesa in sickness is negative support of the interpretation of saint's day cele- 

TABLE2 

iMBABURA-JlBARO PARALLELS 



Implement*; Design; Pottery; , Intoxication; Disposition; 
Headdress, Jewelry j Games; Music 



Sickness, Death; Dreams and Hallucinations; 
Supernatnrals; Ceremonial 



Chonta wood spindle 

Blowgun (obsolete); bow 
and arrow unknown 

Designs incised on gourdj 
food bowls 

Designs on pottery from 
mounds; negative 
painting; red and 
black 

Pottery coiled, sun dried, 
fired; made by women 

Hair in braids (3, female; 
5, male); great impor- 
tance attaching to Hair; 
"devils" attracted into 
women's hair 

Jewelry as amulet; tight- 
fitting bracelets; red 
beads (stone) 



Intoxication for 
self-assurance 

Fighting in intoxi- 
cation, women 
mediating 

Dancing for self- 
assurance 

Cleanliness and 
sense of order 

Independent, fight 
ing disposition 

Games at wake 
iDurninc cotton 
game), at All 
Souls 

Flute, pngullo* 
panpipes, drum 

3 favored 



Through bewitchment; curing by witch at 
night, spraying herbal juice, sucking, ob- 
ject (specially a worm) sent back into be- 
witcher, intoxication of curer 

Soul capture at death 

Wailing 

Dreams prophetic 

Belief in hallucinations 

Intense apprehension about capture by spir- 
its and about disease or death from spirits, 
including the dead, Cat demon and Rain- 
bow 

Rainbow associated with spirit water-serpent 
or spirit swine 

Danger to menstruants from impregnating 
spirits Bear, Rainbow 

Hill and mountain spirits, disease-sending 

Possession by spirit animals and by Rainbow 

Female fire spirit (Fire Mother, the owner of 
the hearth) 

Ritual bath; waterfall spirits imparting pow- 
er to bathers 

Divinatory and spirit birds 

Night wandering spirits 

(?) Spirit deer (early Quito), taboo on eating 
deer (Jibaro) 

Cult of the dead 

Medicine men had prestige and following (be- 
fore 1582) and at huaca talked with spirits 

Baik dt Negro, war dance 

Dance formations 

Lack of political organization 



bration as a former war celebration. For the two-faced bogey-down dance 
mask we have found a parallel in northeastern Colombia., among the Cubeo 
Indians. 

Among Jibaro there are war leaders, but chieftaincy, political organiza- 
tion, is very little developed, and a clear field is left to the influence of the 
shaman. We recall the emphasis placed on the influence of the shamans in 



PROVENIENCE OF TRAITS 177 

the Relaci6n of Otavalo in 1582. There is no indication of any urge to political 
organization in Imbabura today or at earlier periods. Of course, politi- 
cal urge may have been suppressed together with leaders or chiefs by con- 
quest, by Spanish conquest if not by Peruvian; but I surmise that the urge 
did not exist in any large degree and that war leaders and shamans con- 
trolled the pre-Conquest population somewhat as they do today in the low- 
lands. 

In this connection it is of interest that a group of Indians from settle- 
ments near Otavalo, from Agato and San Roque, have shown in their physi- 
cal type, more affinity with Arawak Peruvian tribes living in the Upper 
Amazon drainage the Machiganga and Machiyenga than with Quechua 
and Aymard Indians of Bolivia or Peru or with Cayapa of the Ecuadorian 
coast. 1 * Gillen suggests very tentatively that "since these peoples live dose 
to the mountains and there is some reason to believe that they may have 
had access to the highlands and vice-versa, it is conceivable that the Otavalo 
and the Machiganga-Machiyenga represent marginal peoples of an earlier, 
physical strain of the Inca area, modified or pushed back in later Inca times 
by other elements from the Peruvian highlands." 13 

So much for what is or may be aboriginal. What has been taken on from 
the Spaniards? 

The tiled roof is, of course, Spanish and, in Peguche at least, of compara- 
tively recent introduction. Manuel Lema lives on the same site his father 
lived but not in the same house. His father's house was thatched, and the 
Lemas, we recall, are among the most progressive people of Peguche. Earth- 
en walls, at least as they are constructed today, are Spanish, and so are field 
walls, whether constructed in the same way as house walls or with earth 
merely piled up and planted on top with maguey. Manuel Lema's wall and 
lockable gate is distinctively modern, although his wall is only on one side 
of his property. The ample pillared portico is Spanish, but there are only a 
few such in Peguche. In every house there are some modern kitchen uten- 
sils, and some wooden chests of antique Spanish style, and some benches; 
chairs and modern tables are scarce. Bedsteads, although they may be abo- 
riginal, are not found in every house, and children and guests always sleep 
on mats on the ground. 

Among Old World introductions into the New World, the wheel always 
receives emphasis, but in our valley, aside from its recent use in spinning, it 
has not been introduced into Indian culture. Wagons are not used at all. 
All transportation is by back or by burro. 

Ass, bullock, horse, swine, sheep, goat all the domestic animals, except- 
ing dog and guinea pig, are of Spanish introduction. Also fowls and pigeons, 

"Gillen, pp. 192-93. 
. 192. 



i?8 PEGUCHE 

which are scarce in Peguche. Scarce, too, are horses, burros, and bullocks 
for the plow. Inferably, the Peruvian foot plow was once in use, but it has 
been completely superseded by the Spanish metal-tipped plow. A few other 
metal tools are in use ax, machete and aboriginal hoe and spade are 
fortified with iron. 

Barley, wheat, and various vegetables and fruits are the important Span- 
ish contributions to crops and diet. All these are eaten in Peguche, sparsely 

TABLE 3 

IMBABURA-SPANISH (OR WHITE) PARALLELS (OR LOANS) 



Housing, Furnishing*; Domestic 
Animals, Fowl; Crops, Imple- 
ments; Crafts; Trade 


Family; Godparents; 
Language; Count; Music 


Sickness; Supernatural; Ritual, Calendar; 
State-Church Organization 


Concrete-like house walls 
roof tiles; corridor, 


Patrilineal descent 
Marriage restricted 


Through bewitchment, "bad air"; curing 
by "scapegoat" 


lathe-turned posts 


through third degree, 


Measles, smallpox 


Wooden chest; bench; 


both lines 


The Dead 


some kitchen utensils 


Ritual for baptism, 


The Saints 


Burro, bullock, horse, 


marriage, funeral 


Demons 


swine, sheep, goat, fowl, 


(adult and child) 


Yus (Dios) 


pigeon 
Plow, ax, machete, sickle 
Barley, wheat, vegetables, 


Godparents important 
Spanish and hybrid 
terms in speaking 


Ritual: masking, dance dramatization; 
confession, prayer, crops (growing) 
blessed 


fruits 


Quechua (15-20 per 


Ceremonial calendar: saint's day, Holy 


Rum 
Spanish loom, aniline 


cent) 
Decimal count; 3 fa- 


Week, New Year, Cross Day, Corpus 
Cristi, All Souls; Sunday 


dyes 


vored 


Padre, maestro (rezador) alcalde de capilla 


Steel needle, sewing ma- 


Brass band (fa fiesta) 


Mayardomia (cqfradia) system 


chine 
Cotton suit (men), che- 


(Whites hired), vio- 
lin, harp (child funer- 


Early Spanish village government adapt- 
ed to religious organization 


mise (women) 


al, wedding) 


(?) Early local chieftaincies tncamen- 


Felt or straw hat 




dero or hacendado 


Felt hatmaking (oven) 




(?) Service or tribute to chief service 


Money; wage system 
Recorded land tides 




or tithes to tncomendero y hacendado^ 
Church 



excepting barley, but none except barley is grown there. A little sugar cane 
is grown, but sugar and rum are imported. Corn chicha and intoxication are 
undoubtedly aboriginal traits which in earlier days may have been dis- 
couraged by both Inca and Spanish 1 * administrators, but in recent periods, 
probably from the time the state began to derive revenue from licensing 
or taxing liquor vendors, consumption and intoxication among Indians have 
certainly increased. 

** In 1582 the Corregidor reports his Indian population to be in general inclined to the vice 
of drinking, and among them much drunkenness "although at present there is less opportunity 
for it than formerly" (Relacitn de Otooalo, p. 109). 



PROVENIENCE OF TRAITS 179 

In costume the men's cotton pantaloons and shirt are of Spanish intro- 
duction, but the shirt is worn Indian fashion. The felt hats of both men and 
women are Spanish; also, of course, the straw hats worn at weddings or as 
part of dance costume. The women's embroidered chemise is Spanish. Prob- 
ably the use of an underskirt was due to Church influence. 15 Then there are 
the steel needle and the modern sewing machine, which only a few women 
in Peguche can afford. 16 

Not only is Spanish a more or less supplementary language but a con- 
siderable number of Spanish words or phrases have found a place in Que- 
chua: kinship and numerical terms, political and religious terms, terms for 
various objects or- processes that have been borrowed from the Spanish 
economy. As in the case of other Indian languages that are borrowing from 
Spanish (or English), a close linguistic study would be of great interest, 
ethnologically as well as linguistically. 

In Quechua, as in Zapoteco and other Indian languages, the first native 
kinship terms to disappear seem to be the uncle-aunt terms. I have long 
wondered why this is. Why do not the uncle-aunt terms hold their own as 
well as the brother-sister terms, which are also based on principles of classi- 
fication distinct from the Spanish? 

Marriage restrictions are Spanish, although they may correspond in part 
to pre-Spanish restrictions. What these were we do not know, but in Peru, 
at least, they were not identical with the Spanish, since Garcilasso states, 17 
referring to the Inca Pachacutec, "Reformer of the World": "He enacted 
many laws, all of which have been confirmed by our Catholic kings, except 
those relating to idolatry and to forbidden degrees of marriage" 

Family rituals baptism, marriage, and, in greater part, funeral are 
Catholic. In general, ritual, ceremony, participation in religious organiza- 
tion, and religious ideology are all of Catholic provenience and usually of 
antiquated Catholic character. 

However, in religion, as elsewhere, Spanish combined or fused with In- 
dian, in the cult of the dead, perhaps in concepts of heaven and hell, and in 
dualistic ideology of good and evil spirits. At death the Incas returned to 
their father, the Sun, and continued to benefit their people, 18 much like 
the saints. Indian and Catholic ritual for the dead offering and prayer 

15 In the sixteenth-century reports on eastern highland Ecuador it is stated that die vest- 
ments (? kilts) of the men, originally very short so as not to hamper in warfare, are now (15 80) 
made to the knees (Stirling, p. 33). 

** Price, up to three thousand sucres, but more now, since the tariff has been raised on it 
very unwisely it would seem. 

x * II, 204* 

18 Cf. Garcilasso, 1, 131. 



i8o PEGUCHE 

is much the same, although the Indian prays to the dead and the Catholic 
prays/or the dead. The idea of punishment by torture was rendered familiar 
by the Inca torture dungeon so that the conceptualism of the Church pic- 
tures of hell was not unfamiliar. 1 * The Church dogmas about afterlife ap- 
pear to have taken hold much better in our valley than among the Zapotec 
of Mexico or the Pueblos of our Southwest, the other Catholicized Indians 
I know best. Possibly this is because indigenous concepts of the life after 
death were different, Zapotec and Pueblos having a continuity concept not 
found in Andean circles indeed, not characteristic of South America. Re- 
incarnation in birds or beasts, soul loss or capture, are concepts lending 
themselves to beliefs in Hell or Purgatory. Generally, in Indian ideology 
the same spirit works for good or for evil, whereas in the Christian pantheon 
there is a dichotomy of good spirits and evil spirits. Since the Church habit- 
ually classified all non-Christian spirits as evil spirits, devils, it is difficult 
to be sure that any aboriginal spirit was actually an evil spirit in pre-Con- 
quest days. Supay may have been an ambivalent spirit acting to the dis- 
advantage of man until placated by him. Indeed, this was the concept 
held in early Quito, where they had great fear of Supay, and they made him 
sacrifices and offerings, they said, because he was angry, and that he might 
do them no harm. 20 (Again offerings might be made merely as a kind of 
tribute to the spirit owner, as in Cayambe today.) 21 

The idea of a ceremonial calendar, solar and lunar, is both Spanish and 
Indian, as is the habit of punctuating time by festivals. It must have been 
easy for the Church to substitute its feasts for Indian feasts similarly peri- 
odic. Even historic continuity may be inferred in the feast of San Juan or 
feast of San Pedro in lieu of Raymi. At these celebrations dramatization, 
dance, procession, and music were in order for Spaniards and Indians. We 
noted very specific forms of acculturation at these feasts. The cult of the 
saints through thepriostt or mayordomia system seems wholly Spanish both 
in Ecuador and Mexico, until you read how in pre-Conquest Yucatan par- 
ticular men were chosen for the year to carry out festivals, of how each guest 
was obligated "to return an invitation to his host," and of how they would 
spend on one banquet all they made by many days of trading or scheming. 22 

Among both peoples a few ritual or other patterns were enough alike to 
fuse readily: decimal count; three as a favored numeral; inhalation and kiss; 

x Indeed, it may have been aboriginal. "They also believed that there was a place of 
punishment for bad men, where they were tormented by demons called Supay. They said that 
those who went there, suffered much hunger and thirst, and that their food was charcoal, 
snakes, toads, and other things of that kind" (Molina, p. 48). I surmise missionary influence 
but it was effectual very early. 

"Quito, 1 573, p. 93. 

See Appendix, p. 215. Landa, pp. 35, 71, 78, 79. 



PROVENIENCE OF TRAITS 181 

masking; downing; 13 offerings; shrine; use of the cross. 24 Placing a Catholic 
cross at an Indian shrine, an act of acculturation common elsewhere in 
Spanish America, seems unfamiliar in the valley. But there are few crosses 
anywhere, the one in front of the Peguche chapel and the roadside cross 
near Cotocachi are those I best remember. The roadside cross where the 
Indians cleanse against fatigue and the Whites burn a candle for a traveler 
murdered is a conspicuous, although superficial, instance of acculturation. 
There is no market cross. 25 

In Mexico the market is an institution both Indian and Spanish. That 
it is Indian as well as Spanish seems uncertain in Ecuador. 

The Church and state system is Spanish, but there was much in pre- 
Conquest organization allowing for fusion. Thirds are due the Inca, 26 tithes 
and first fruits are due the Church. The Spanish ecomienda system in which 
men were tied to the land and were obliged to render special services 37 
coincided with the Yanacona near-peonage of Cuzco and Quito, if not with 
the general Incaic system of landholding or working on roads, bridges, or 
ditches. Indeed, in the royal edicts regulating encomiendas the women peons 
are called mita, a Quechua term referring to public work by families mita- 
chanacuy, to take turns according to families. 28 

In early times the great house of the chief was a place to meet in and 
drink; the house of the Spanish overlord did not meet this need, of course, 

Cf. Parsons and Beals. The Negritos clown very little. But they and their capitanes 
are not unimportant personages. My guess is that they represent the executive messengers of 
the pre-Spanish curaca and his "capitanes" the cacha who summoned to work (just as do the- 
masked clowns of the Pueblos). 

The two Society attendants of the Serente of northern Brazil have many Mexican and 
North American clown traits. Each represents one of the moieties. Like Mayo-Yaqui 
"clowns," they fetch firewood for ceremonies, provide drinking water, and carry clothing or 
weapons for participants. They may give Society members nicknames and make them ridicu- 
lous. Like a Hopi "downing" society, they are exposed to ribald jests by a woman's society 
(Nimuendaju and Lowie, pp. 412, 414). 

** Garcilasso, I> iio-n. 

3 As there used to be, I think, in Mexico, and as there was in the early English village 
market, to mark the "market peace." 

26 Division by thirds was practiced even in early Spanish Ecuador in connection with the 
flocks held by a community and representing restitution from their encomendcro for failing to 
indoctrinate them. The wool was made into cloth, blankets, sack cloth, mattresses (jerga), 
' and hats, and these were stored in a box with three keys, one for the friar or priest charged 
with indoctrination, one for the corregidor if there were one, otherwise to the "alcalde of the 
work," and the third for the cacique (Quito, 1573, pp. 97-98). 

** As in the early English system of villeinage some of these services were performed indi- 
vidually, others, by work party. There were also fcmr, bean days (cf. "bee" for work party), 
when the workers were given food and drink and the work was over early in the afternoon 
(Homans, pp. 260 ff., 273). Inferably, the minga today for town arkaccndado and thtymapa 
work system derive through the encomienda manorial system. 

a8 Garcilasso, II, 33. 



182 PEGUCHE 

and the houses of the rotating capitanes orpriostes sufficed only infrequently. 
The chicheriasy the estencos, became the makeshift; in these public yards 
owned and run by Whites we see, somewhat to our surprise, ancient Indian 
practices going on, ceremonials of dance and song and ritual feasting. 

The encomendero, later the hacendado^ took the place of the curaca. 
Fights between hacienda peons at festivals may represent both earlier in- 
terchieftain conflicts over boundaries as well as the parish fights which were 
not only Spanish but early English or European. 29 Possibly the droit du 
seigneur y now in a changed form taken over by the priests, and other less 
formal claims upon Indian girls, were yielded the patrdn readily enough by 
those accustomed to chiefly polygyny or to Houses of the Chosen Virgins. 
For humble folk, Indian or Spanish, monogamy was required. 

In the folk tales there has been for the setting of the tale the background 
considerable fusion of Spanish and Indian, as might be expected; but only 
in one tale, "Chipicha," are Spanish and Indian tale episodes or elements 
combined. "Chipicha" begins as a Spanish tale and concludes as an Indian 
tale. We may suppose that the Spanish introduction of the hateful step- 
mother, the abandoned children, and the cannibal was drawn into the tale 
because it supplies so neatly circumstances for encountering the cannibal. 
The cannibal who would bake the children is Spanish, but the cannibal of 
two mouths is Indian. I think Chipicha and her likeness the dual-faced, 
clown-bogey mask are paralleled by, if not derived from, the two-headed 
bogey spirit and mask of the Cubeo people of Colombia. 

In our Indian Spanish tales there is the same sort of stratification into 
old layer and new as occurs among other Hispanicized Indians, the Rabbit 
cycle and the Saint or Jesucristo tale being older than novelistic tales such 
as Blanca Flor. However, from Cayambe the tale of the spirit or devil 
bridegroom is well acculturated. It is an African version, one more instance 
of how folk tales may precede other traits where contacts are slight; in this 
area there were and there are very few Negroes and, as far as I know, no 
other Negro influence. 

29 In medieval England congregations formed by separation from an older parish went in 
procession to honor the mother-church on the saint's day or "wake," and in 1236 the Bishop 
of Lincoln forbade that in these processions "any parish fight to go before another parish with 
its banners, since thereof are accustomed to arise not brawls only, but cruel bloodshed" (Ho- 
raans, pp. 372-73). This seems to answer the question about the provenience of the saint's day 
fighting in Mexico barrios (Parsons 2:6) and elsewhere. 



APPENDIX 



NOTES ON THE PARISH OF JUAN MONTALVO' 
CANTON OF CAYAMBE, PICHINCHA PROVINCE 

A. POPULATION AND ECONOMY* 

In 1938 a census was taken, and 2,627 persons were enumerated, living in 317 
houses, 306 with tile roof and 1 1 with thatched roof over seven persons to a house- 
hold. On the two streets there are seven two-story houses. Two of these are owned 
by Wenceslao Farinango, the "Gobernador," who is also one of the cabecillas or 
headmen for the haciendas. Another two-story house is owned by Felix Maldonado, 
father of two of our informants. Off the streets there are walled lanes, and from 
house to house, through the fields, a network of paths. As usual, the homes charac- 
terized by White culture and the two chicherias are on the streets, and the homes of 
Indian culture are on the lanes or unwalled, one from the other. 

The house is placed in a corner or in the center of a man's lot (cuadra), on the 
highest spot so he can overlook his holding, also for drainage in the rainy season and 
so that the winds may blow through, "taking with them all the bad.'* The lot is 
inclined from east to west (the long axis), and the house generally. faces west, so 
that the strong southeast winds of the dry season (July-September) do not beat 
upon it. 

Every house has two rooms. The rooms of the tile house are noncommunicating, 
each opening onto the corridor. There is but one outside door in the "straw*' house, 
and the rear room opens into the front room (Fig. 3). There are no windows, and 



_J 

n 



Tile house 



FIG. 3 



Thatched house 



only a small perforation for the sun's rays. The rear and middle walls of the tile 
house are about 3 J meters, the front wall, 2 meters. The front wall of the "straw" 
house is much lower. In housebuilding, the cabestro, the halter, is used as a measure; 
for land, the bara^ the Spanish yard. 

In many houses the large room serves as kitchen and bedroom. It has a loft for 
grain. The guinea pigs stay in this room. In other houses the small room may be 
used as a bedroom for the married people or exclusively as a kitchen. In the center 

1 The settlement Has neither church nor chapel and depends on the one church in the 
municipality of Cayambe for religious service. It is therefore only a parish, by courtesy, an 
embryonic parish. The plaza site where the people expect to build a chapel and a school was 
pointed out to me. It seems probable that the settlement was made within a few generations, 
say a century ago, or even less, by hacienda Indians who managed to acquire land and a meas- 
ure of independence. 

* From report written by Segundo Felix Maldonado and partially checked by . C. P. 

183 



i8 4 PEGUCHE 

of the hearth there is a pit to preserve the embers often there are no matches, and 
neighboring houses may be at a little distance. (In the Maldonado house there is a 
roughly built cook stove or oven, besides the oven used for dyeing. Guinea pigs 
have been banished.) 

In front of every house is a court with a little "cherry" tree or a eucalyptus. Here 
people thresh their barley or wheat, and here they dance on feast days. As elsewhere, 
much of the household activity goes on in the corridor. Here the loom is set up, and 
here meals may be eaten. 

Everybody farms, men plowing and women sowing, generally in October, No- 
vember, and December, and women and girls gleaning. During the three months 
from July through September all are occupied with the harvests maize, wheat, 
barley, beans some on their own lands, some on the haciendas, working on shares 
or for money. They also thresh for the hacienda and carry grain. The rest of the 
year men may work on the haciendas or elsewhere or for the municipality of Ca- 
yambe, or they work for themselves. 

There is some specialization in handicrafts. All the women can beat wool and are 
accomplished (maestras) spinners, but some women are more distinguished for skill 
and dexterity than others; one out of a hundred can run a sewing machine. Men 
weave but not every man, and among weavers there is specialization. Master weav- 
ers (maestros) and dyers (in black and in colors) arc Felix Maldonado and three 
others. They can weave ponchos, bayetas (blankets), bayeton (coating), panolones 
(shawls),/*?;* (coarse cloth), and anything else. Four other men can weave ponchos 
and blankets. Three other men can weave blankets and only blankets. Seven other 
men can weave ponchos and only ponchos. Two men weave saddle blankets. One of 
these is one of the weavers of ponchos and blankets. One man has learned in school 
to make hooked rugs as saddle blankets. Only the Indian loom is used, although 
Felix Maldonado has the Spanish loom on which he first learned to weave when he 
was growing up on a hacienda. Felix is one of the eight dyers. He has a dyeing oven, 
and cloth is brought him to dye. He weaves for a town factory or for White mer- 
chants that supply thread or wool, a very different system from that of Peguche, 
where middleman practice as far as it exists is still in Indian hands except possibly 
for some end transactions in Quito. 

On the lower street lives and works a felt hatmaker, a White man. Here, too, 
lives Francisco Andrango Cabezas, our informant, who learned cabinetmaking as an 
apprentice in Quito. There are a carpenter of the bench, and his sons, and seven 
sawyers and squarers of timber, of whom two are weavers. There are eight tile- 
makers, of whom two, including Felix Maldonado, are weavers. There are four 
adoberos who are all tile-makers. There are ten master-masons, maestros tapialeros, 
who build field walls (corridas^ divisions) and house walls, of whom one is also a tile- 
maker; one, a sawyer and squarer of timber and a weaver; and, a third, a weaver. 
There are six master-stonemasons and stonecutters who make millstones, posts 
(pilarei), malones, sittares, tapacanos y pilones (troughs), umbraks (lintels). Inferably, 
these stoneworkers are White. 

Two itinerant traders, of whom one is an adobcro and tile-maker. 

Three White women and two men keep chicherias or canfinas (chicha and trago). 
Five other women work on chicha (selling only on Sundays). Three women work in 
stores in Cayambe, and two men work there making pottery. 

When children, both boys and girls, are not in school, they are sent out to herd the 
animals cattle, horses, sheep, goats. Girls will go spinning in the field. Parents 
want to keep the children under their control by sending them out to herd. When 
children are in school, parents "have hours of great despair." Parents are not in- 



APPENDIX 185 

terested in the school. "They say that taking care of animals is the primary aim in 
life, that with the school you don't get anywhere; the children won't be worth any- 
thing to them. They want the children to care for the animals with zeal because 
that way they can sell their sheep or pigs, or barter for blouses, shawls, coats, hats, 
and so be content." 

However, about 80 per cent of the younger children have been in school. Since 
the schools, one for boys and one for girls, have been established only a short time, 
most of the adults are unlettered. At fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen boys may go to 
work as day laborers at a small wage; at eighteen or nineteen they earn the wage of 
a man. Girls who do not have animals to take care of or wool to spin do day labor 
for patrones or for the municipality. 

A TYPICAL DAY 

On arising quite early (see below), a man will clean the yard, then he goes to see 
how the animals roped in the corner have passed the night and to take a turn 
around the planting and give grass to the animals, and then he may collect wood. 
By the time he gets back, his wife has ready the lunch (almuerzo) of cracked barley 
and thin potatoes with meal and lard. Sometimes in this dish there is beef or mut- 
ton or, rarely, pork; sometimes cabbage or onions. Generally, there is but this one 
dish. 

After eating, the man will water the animals, change their rope (soga)> and throw 
them grass. Then he may set to sorting wool or to making rope. In the afternoon 
he again visits his animals and changes their places or fastens them well in field or 
corral. 

On arising, a woman prepares breakfast, anything at hand. Then as early as six 
she will clean house. (They do not follow the custom [White custom] of sprinkling 
water to clean.) Then she sets herself to opening hard wool or beating wool. After 
this, she considers what she can prepare in the kitchen. She may say to herself, 
"I must cook quinoa with thin potatoes and pigskin and a lot of cheese." She also 
looks after the animals of the house: guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, doves, and, in 
some houses, turkeys and ducks. After lunch she sits down to spin or sew. 

A girl in the family may say, "Mamita, let's do something!" 
. "What did you say?" the mother asks. 

"Mamita, let's make mondongo (beef trotters) with hulled wheat* for supper." 

"If you are diligent (curiosa) and want to eat, get up and hull the wheat because 
the mondongo was singed last night." 

"Mamita, 1 can't hull wheat," the girl may answer. 

"Useless one, you want to eat, but you do not want to do anything. !" They wash 
the mondongo and put it into a large clay bowl containing boiling water; later they 
put in the wheat. They peel all the mondongo to put in everybody's plate; it is cus- 
tomary to give the skull to the father or husband. He picks contentedly at the bones. 

Usually the supper is a dish of guinea, etc., mixed as above. The wooden spoons 
and wooden or clay bowls are washed before eating. The woman sits down to serve 
the supper to each member of the household, who is seated on a stool with his bowl 
in hand. Each eats three or four bowlfuls. They sit around the mother. Having 
finished supper, which may be as early as six, they go early to sleep. 

They sleep on the floor, spreading out sheepskins or goatskins, a block of wood 
covered with coat or poncho for a pillow, and baytta or poncho for cover. They do 
not undress. As a rule, they sleep from seven to nine hours. 

* Ground only enough to remove the hall. 



186 PEGUCHE 

LAND TENURE AND INHERITANCE 

About 80 per cent of the population (heads of families) own land. If the holding 
is large, it is worked by mingaf and at harvest the mingueros receive what the 
owner allots them. 

To the eldest son or daughter "of advanced age" according to his or her capa- 
bility parents give [intrust] a piece of land to cultivate. In this way they try out 
their offspring, because they believe a son is good, generous or stingy, miserly 
(miserable), according to what he produces. In many cases parents give [loan (see 
below)] a bit of land or an animal to their married offspring for a separate establish- 
ment. If these offspring are intelligent and understanding, they buy this land be- 
fore their parents die and become absolute owners.. 

A dying man may summon the teniente politico to draw up a will or, if this official 
is not available, the schoolteacher or any elder who knows how. There must be two 
witnesses, men, over legal age, to sign the testament Whoever draws up the testa- 
ment will have it in his keeping. The dying father dictates, assigning all the prop- 
erty he is entitled to assign, i.e., half the joint conjugal property. "To Juan I give 
such a piece of land," he will say. "To Manuel such a piece of land," etc. He begins 
with the big things and goes on to the last item. The testator distributes according 
to his or her affection (simpatia) to his or her children or to other beloved persons. 
As indicated, a surviving spouse retains half the joint property. 

A huinachisca, a person brought up from early age in the household, will receive 
for the services he has rendered a fourth or fifth part according to how much he has 
endeared himself to the testator. 

If a person dies intestate, half goes to the surviving spouse and half to the off- 
spring, in equal parts, to the most trivial things. 

Offspring may not be equally close to their parents; some may have served them, 
and others may have left the household at an early age. Others, again, may have 
treated their parents badly. These may be disinherited by testament or given only 
a third (? lesser) part. If the parents die intestate and an absent son returns and 
makes a claim to the inheritance, his brothers may not receive him or, receiving 
him, courteously inform him he has no part in the inheritance or only a fourth part. 
He may say, "But I am a son, the same as the rest of you, and I have a right to an 
equal share." 

"No, senor; you are a son, yes, but you have not served the same way we have; 
for this reason you have no right," the others say. 

"Let me see the will," he will say. If there is no will and if he has neither means 
to contest nor patience to fight his brothers, he will sell to anyone the right of shares, 
derecho de acetones. This purchaser will bring suit and will receive the legal in- 
heritance. 

Formerly, my mother tells as her parents told her, there were not many families 
as today, and only two or three little straw houses. The families cultivated land 
according to their capacity (fuerza), the rest was common land, unfilled, uninclosed, 
an enormous plain, el llano. As the families increased, it was customary to upturn 
(volcar) land as a kind of deed, always with witnesses or the curaca to direct it. This 
made a man owner and lord of this land where he built a house and lived independ- 
ently of his parents. In course of time, ambitious for land, families spread over the 
whole plain, becoming landowners, and there was no longer common land to turn 
up. Then those who had too much land or for other reasons would sell land, a cuadra 
for 5 pesos, 10 pesos, 20 pesos, according to situation or fertility. Today, if the lot 

* See pp. 187-88. 



APPENDIX !8 7 

is located on the main street and the soil is fertile, it costs 1,500 sucres. A lot less 
fertile and far from the main street will cost as little as 400 sucres. 

The main street, running southwest-northeast, is kept in repair sometimes by 
the people themselves, sometimes through money contributions from Don Heriberto 
Maldonado. Other streets are kept open through Don Heriberto. 

Economic inequality, aggressive inequality, is severely condemned, if the follow- 
ing statements are to be taken at face value. 

"The rich: We have a few rich men. Not one of them has sympathy for the 
poor, and unless they are relatives we have nothing to do with these senores. [Eleven 
men are listed, of whom Wenceslao Farinango, the 'governor* and a cabedtta is one. 
The other cabccillas are not among them, but one of the two itinerant merchants is 
listed in this disreputable class, also including two of the owners of a two-story 
house.] Where work is concerned, they are greedy, every day more ambitious. If a 
person is sick, they are incapable of saying, 'You have helped me to work, take this 
money so you may cure yourself with it.' No, this they do not say. They keep on 
saving money, saying to themselves, 'I can buy more land, more and more land.' 
The more they own, the more stingy they become, the more miserable. They neither 
eat or sleep or they sleep only late at night (at eleven) and get up at one or two or 
three in the morning, crazily intent on securing peons by foul means." 

AGRICULTURAL AND COOKING PRACTICES AND LORE* 

On planting potatoes or on finishing the planting, the sharers (partidarios) and 
planters throw curpos, hunks of earth, at one another, hitting each other's hands 
and saying raco papa, "large potato." This means that they will harvest large po- 
tatoes. Once this is finished, they sit down to eat aji de cuy, guinea pig with chili, 
and afterward get drunk on chlcha. All this is to make the potatoes ripen, because, 
they say, when they do not make the aji de cuy, the potatoes do not get ripe. 

If you plant corn without having breakfast or lunch, there will be few kernels 
on the cob. 

Having finished planting, if you start to catch fleas, the ear will be worm-eaten. 
If you take an ear from the field and roast it when the crop is just beginning to ma- 
ture, the standing ears become worm-eaten. 

When squash (zambos) are in flower, gather some blossoms, throw them in the 
road and pile stones on top; in order that squash may be produced, a woman close 
to giving birth should go around the plants while the owner whips the plants with 
nettles. 

When piling grain, maize, barley, or anything into a mound, never sweep upon 
finishing because before a year or before its time the grain will be finished, and you 
will have nothing to eat. 

When digging potatoes, do not peel the plants (take off the tops of the plants) 
before digging on all sides of the mound, otherwise the largest potatoes lose them- 
selves. If you peel any plants before digging the potatoes, die potatoes will become 
thin throughout the field. 

WORK PARTY 6 

For wheat or barley harvest (as for house-building or wall-building), the min- 
gueros on their arrival are given a gourd ofcAicha orguarangOy fermented agave fruit. 
After two hours' work a lunch of whole potatoes with peppers (ajf) or cooked and 

$ Reported by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 
6 Reported by Segundo Fllix Maldonado. 



i88 PEGUCHE 

seasoned beans 7 is supplied and after that a little chicha. If the work is close to the 
house, the workers are taken there; otherwise the woman of the house carries the 
food to the place of work. After the lunch, they return to work with alacrity. The 
owner directs the work, with a mild and friendly voice. But, as people always work 
with good will, there is no need of an overseer, especially when chicha is not lacking. 

As they go cutting with the sickle, a man follows behind playing a horn (bocina) 
to give happiness to all that they may cut with more spirit and valor and enthusi- 
asm (F. A. C). 

The wives of the workers follow behind to glean (chucchir^ "the gleaning," chuc- 
chi).* They do not gather from the ground, only from the heads (gari/tas), because, 
they say, "for this is my husband helping." 

At five the work stops, and the men and women go to the house of the owner for 
supper and then a little chicha. The day the work is concluded they finish up the 
supply of chicha, and all get drunk. Then they say the minga has been very good. 9 
The owner formally thanks the mingueros, who go to their houses carrying their 
chingas, their gleaning. 

The minga is to provide for a reciprocity of services. 

HACIENDA LABOR 10 

There are three classes of peon. A person enters the hacienda as if selling him- 
self. He receives from ihepatr6n a huasipungo or piece of land to plant, the right to 
keep three animals in the pasture, and thirty centavos a day. (Before the govern- 
ment of Eloy Alfaro, thirty years ago, it was five centavos.) This concierto has to 
work very hard in the field and is ill treated by the servants [superintendents]. So 
he may want to leave the hacienda, but he cannot do so because the pa trdn does not 
consent. Besides, he gets into debt with the hacienda in a way he can never pay up. 
At death many leave their children in pawn. If they escape from the hacienda, the 
patr6n will communicate from town to town, capture them, take them back to the 
hacienda and punish them ferociously." That is the reason many went to the coast 
or to Perucho, where they alter their dress and let their hair grow like those of Imba- 
bura. In Juan Montalvo there are no peonts of this class. 

The second class of peon is somewhat free. He receives his huasipungo and can 
have animals in the pasture, but he may leave the hacienda at any time or remain 
as long as he wishes. 

7 Or hominy. The owner calls the workers, saying: "For Dios taiticos bonitos caballeritos 
[For God, little fathers, handsome gentlemen, come.and take one at least!]" The workers sur- 
round the basket and respond, "Dios se lo pague, taita [May God pay for it, father!]" In case 
anyone does not drink from the gourds ofchieha that are passed around, he is whipped into 
drinking (F. A. CJ. 

8 Cf. Homans, p. 372, for the right of the poor to glean in early England; also in Mexico. 

If food and drink are not well provided, the people say that another time they will not go 
because, they say, "food one must throw lavishly, drink one must throw lavishly, otherwise 
you are useless, with no resistance" (F. A. C.). 

Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado. Note that he describes first the concertaje or serf- 
like system, which is now illegal in the Republic, and then die prevailing system for hacienda 
Indian labor, relating it conceptually to the pre-existent system, not to any modern wage system. 

11 Concertaje, "debt servitude," was abolished by law in 1918, but in some parts it is said 
. to survive (Saenz, pp. 105-10). Concertaje existed in Guatemala until 1934, when a vagrancy 
law provided that nonlandowning agricultural laborers must spend a minimum of 150 days 
annually in agricultural work; those owning a specified plot must spend 100 days. This makes 
a large labor supply available, because the Indian holdings are small (Siegel). 



APPENDIX 



189 



The third class can work a week or fifteen days or until they finish the work. 
They have no huasipungo, but they may keep animals in the pasture. If the work 
is not for a hacienda, the owner or overseer pays a diario, a daily pay, higher than 
that paid to those with huasipungo or pasturage. For the haciendas of Hato, the 
mill of Chahuarpungo, Ancholac, and Monjas men work in return for pasture for 
sheep and other animals and for a daily wage. Such work is called yanapa. 

Hacienda labor is arranged for through Indian headmen, cabecittas. Each hacien- 
da is represented in Juan Montalvo by one or two who plan for the labor at mingas 
as well as for seasonal employment. One cabecilla may be agent for several hacien- 
das. Five cabecillas are listed for Juan Montalvo. Francisco Andrango Cabezas 
grumbles about them. They do not defend the rights of a poor man in trouble with 
a hacienda or with the municipality; they merely make presents of guinea pigs, hens, 
and eggs to the judges and others. 

HUNTING 

Hunting is not disparaged, as in Imbabura. Before a fiesta, to get meat, two or 
three men may go deer-hunting, with dogs and guns. In the celebration of San 
Pedro, deer horns are carried by dancers, and the whole pelt and head of a fox (Sp. 
lobo; Q. atu) are worn. 

To the corridor post of every house, deer horns are fastened, just as cow horns 
are fastened in Imbabura. 



Spanish 

Juan 

Antonio 

Alberto 

Manuel 

Miguel 

Francisco 

Nicola's 

Esteban 

Luis 

Alejandro 

Selverio 

Santiago 

Lorenzo 

Segundo 

Vicente 

Maria 

Lucila 

Josefa 

Mercedes 

Andrea 

Dolores 

Matilde 



B. NAMES 

BAPTISMAL 
Indian 

Juanti 

Ando 

Albes 

Manucu 

Migicho 

Pachu 

Nicuchu 

Ishti 

Luchu 

Alejo 

Shilve 

Sandia 

Luri 

Sigun 

Bisi 

Maruja 

Lucil 

Josi 

Michi 

Ande 

Dolor, Lola 

Matika 



Ouvalefio 

Toni 
Panchito 



Maruja, Marika 

Michita 
Lolita 



Baptismal names remaining unchanged are Rafael, Jos6, Pedro, Carlos, Mariano, 
Alfonso, Felipe, Marias, Daniel, Petrona, Paula, Rosa (Rosita), Carmela, Carmen, 
and Tomasa. 



190 



PEGUCHE 



SURNAMES 



Indian 1 ' 

Andrango 

Cabascango 

Cachiguango 

Caluguillin 

Catucuamba 

Charro 

Chicaiza 

Chimarro 

Cuyago 

Farinango 

Gualavisin 

Guaman 

Imbago 

Quiliguango 

Quimbiamba 

Quimbiulco 

Quishpe 

Tituguana 13 

Tuqueres 1 * 

Tandayamo 

Tipanluisa 

Toapanta 15 

Tutillo 

Yagualcota 



Spanish 

Abalco 

Acero 

Biscaino (Sp. Viscayno) 

Cabezas 

Carrillo 

Chavez 

Diaz 

Guzman 

Hernandez 

Maldonado 

Mariscal 16 

Monteros 

Mosquera 

Navas 

Pefiafiel 

Proafio 

Rojas 

Sanchez 

Vasquez 



" Some have changed names to Sanchez, to sound less Indian. Such change goes on quite 
often when a person has acquired sufficient money to think he can and should pass for a Cholo, 
and occasionally some of the poor relatives change names at the same time. 

No doubt some of the Spanish names came in this way, some by "mesalliances" and others 
by adopting the names of patrones, etc. However, none of the names of the great haccndados 
of the section: Bonifaz, Ascasubi, Del Alcazar, etc., appear in the list which perhaps in itself 
means nothing because, where the aristocrats had children by Indian women, they seldom 
would countenance the offspring's bearing the great name. It is perhaps stranger that only one 
of the important names of the White townspeople shows up in the list, as Indians living close 
to town often adopt these names now when they prefer to be considered Cholos. The town 
names are Jarrin (there is an absolute plague of this name there), Espinoza, Zapata, Cartagena, 
Jiron, Hinojosa, and Maldonado. 

The Maldonado family in the town is now wealthy and hobnobs with the "upper crust" 
of Jarrins and Espinozas, and the boys will no doubt marry into these families. However, 
these town Maldonados are close relatives of our Indian Maldonados, of quite Indian type. 
The mother dresses in skirts of bright colored bayeta> as a rich Chola, although there is 
little difference in that region between Indian and Chola costume. These town Maldonados 
acquired money and social position with a flour mill. 

13 From Guachala*, across the river of that name from Juan Montalvo. 

" Name of town in southern Colombia. The name is the scgundo appelido of Felix Mal- 
donado. 

*s "Foreigner" from Guaytacama, south of Quito, married into Maldonado family. 
16 "Foreigner" from Machachi. 



APPENDIX 191 

C. LORE ABOUT MENSTRUATION, CONCEPTION, PREGNANCY 
BIRTH, CHILD-REARING 

MENSTRUATION 1 ? 

They say that it is never good for women to cross the river Guachala because 
something bad happens to them or their menses are checked. 

Sometimes the River Guachala runs as white water (foams), likewise the irriga- 
tion ditches. They say the Mountain Mother (Urco Mama), the owner of the 
mountain (la duena del cerro) is having her monthly (esta con el mes) or, vulgarly, 
esta con la regla. 

MULTIPLE BIRTHS 

The terms of reference for multiple births are: ishcayta cachashca, "two I sent"; 18 
diospa castillaca^ (? cashllaca), "made by God." 21 Some say this is luck (suerte\ 
meaning increase, whether in produce or in money, wealth. Others say the concep- 
tion has been from two begetters among animals (porque ha concebida de dos repro- 
ductores en los animates)) i.e. (?), one begetter is an animal (a spirit animal). 

SPIRIT IMPREGNATION 

Impregnation by Rainbow is implied in the following true story (un caso muy 
veridicd).** 

"Once the mother of my mamacita went to the shore of the Rfo Guachali (or 
Cangahua) about three in the afternoon and the sun lit up some drizzling clouds 
and there was a rainbow. My little grandmother (abuelita) came to a spring. What 
was her surprise to see some baby pigs, pretty and fat, with very luminous hair and 
on their shoulders bands of different colors. The little pigs were grunting and play- 
ing in the water, and, as she watched them, they disappeared in the mouth of the 
spring. My little grandmother became pregnant. The child was born very white, 
with hair blond [red] like the flame of a candle; he was very intelligent and intuitive. 
His mother said she must have been enveloped by the Rainbow (debe serenvuelto del 
cuichic) to have given birth to a child of this kind. The neighbors said the father 
was a White man. The child died when he was about four, of the black smallpox 
which at that time was pursuing children and young people." 

17 Written by Francisco Andrango. 

18 Peguche: ishkaita wachashka, twinning for women and for double ear of maize, which is 
also referred to as wamaiu sara. 

19 ? castigo de Dios. 

'**%, "split" (Middendorf), 

31 Canelos Indians believe that a spirit (supai) is father of the second child, and so they kill 
it. The belief and practice are common in Ecuador except among Jibaro, who welcome twins 
but kill defective children as demon-conceived (Karsten 4:221-22). 

To placate demons attracted to the bride and to prevent twinning, Canelos Indians perform 
peculiar wedding rites. The first night the couple sleep in separate houses; this night belongs 
to the demon, and the bridegroom will be endangered if He sleeps with his bride. The second 
night is also critical, so a twin birth is simulated with bananas representing twins. One of the 
"banana babes" is cast away. For the other a godfather (comparu) volunteers. He names the 
"banana babe" and keeps it until the first child is born, for whom he will be godfather (Karsten 
4:210-11). 

See Avila, pp. 124-31, for a tale of magical impregnation that is closely paralleled in our 
Southwest, where we may note, too, that the Horned Water Serpent impregnates women. 

33 Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 



19* PEGUCHE 

ABORTION" 

Abortion (ma I par to) may be caused by jumping a conduit, by running fast or a 
great deal, by a fall, by a very heavy load, or by the whim of eating something the 
woman cannot afford to get. An abortion at three or four months may cause death. 
So they cure the woman by giving her a drink of very hot water in which the sexual 
organs of her husband have been washed. This procedure they call "the hand of 
God." Many women have died because they did not know about it. 

The same procedure is good when the afterbirth does not fall. 

DETERMINING SEX 2 * 

When a woman has given birth to sons only or to daughters only, in order that 
the next time there may be a change in sex, they turn the afterbirth around. "No 
sabio, no scientific investigator, has discovered the secret of acquiring a child of the 
sex desired. It seems that Indians have in nearly everything profound secrets, based 
on nature." 

BIRTH 35 

A few hours before childbirth the woman feels pain. Although she may not tell 
about it, it is soon apparent to the family, who say "De hacer fregar sera [It might 
be time for her to be rubbed"], and they fetch the midwife. The midwife has the 
woman lie down, then she massages (vacia, "grinds") forward from the flanks (as 
"they are called in the animals") toward the belly. 

The pain continues, and each time it becomes sharper. Now the midwife has 
the woman get on her knees with her legs open. Once the woman is on her knees 
the midwife presses on the base of the spine (rabadilld] and downward from the 
belt at the same time, saying "Pujaylla, pujaylla [Close the mouth]," urging her to 
close her mouth tight. 

In case the birth is not easy, the midwife makes a smudge of straw in the middle 
of the room, and the woman stands over it a few moments. Then they continue as 
before. Also they take her up and shake her a little from side to side, and they give 
her an infusion of lutoyuyo^ "rubbing first with the hand in order that the placenta 
may come out." 

Until the placenta comes down, they do not cut the cord lest it remain in the 
belly, which is very dangerous. They leave a hand length of cord, seven or eight 
centimeters. They believe if they leave it a little long, the organ will grow longer; if they 
cut it less than is natural, the organ will shrink. 

They are careful to make the infant cry so that it may breathe and not be asphyxi- 
ated. They swaddle it quickly so that the blood may not go to its head. 

CONFINEMENT 

After twenty-four hours the infant is suckled. 

For three weeks the mother is fed eggs and broth of chickens and hens, and morn- 
ing and afternoon she is given an inftision of colantrillo de pozo (maidenhair fern) 
with sugar until she is well, that is for "the thirty days, when she can walk more or 
less well." 

* Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 
* Written by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 
*s From a dictation to Segundo Felix Maldonado by his father, Felix Maldonado. 



APPENDIX 193 

BAPTISM 26 

The infant that is to be baptized may be taken feet foremost not out of the house 
door but out of a hole made in the wall of the house. The godparent is waiting out- 
side and has to pay the person who has reached the baby out; if the godparent does 
not pay, the baby will soon die. This custom is followed especially by women who 
cannot suckle their infants and whose infants almost always die. 

DENTITION 2 ? 

The person first to see the first tooth erupting should be paid something, other- 
wise the first teeth will decay. If he is paid, if only a little, the teeth remain sound 
until the second dentition. 

D. BETROTHAL AND WEDDING 28 

.After the preliminary parental visit 29 and after the girl's parents are treated in- 
cidentally to drinks by the man's parents whenever they happen to meet at drinking 
parties, after such tacit acceptance comes the pedido or la obligation, the asking or 
the obligation. The man's parents will visit the girl's parents on three Saturday 
nights, between eight and nine o'clock, taking with them the pedido (a dar [or para 
Hevar] el pedido}, which consists of a jar of chicha compuesta (chicha well prepared), 
baskets of bread, wooden bowls (azafates) of mediano (peeled potatoes, with sauce, 
hard-boiled eggs, and guinea pig), and chicken in hominy (mote) [or sometimes 
hominy]. 30 At the same time the girl's family supplies chicha, at least two jars, the 
big clay jars called pondo (F. A. C). 

At the pedidos it may be decided when the wedding is to take place, generally 
after the harvest. But between the pedidos (which the Maldonados refer to as a 
contract) and the wedding, days, weeks, months, or even years may elapse.* 1 

Once a wedding is decided on, the family of the groom consults about selecting 
the (marriage) godparents, and the groom's parents visit the proposed godparents 
to obtain their acceptance (F. A. C.). When the godparents are White or live far 
away, secondary godparents are chosen (huashca padrinos) to carry communications 
between the parents, to escort the couple to thejefatura, to invite people to the wed- 
ding, and to attend upon them. They also have the obligation of contributing two 
maltas of chicha, 

The day set is generally Sunday, but it may be any day except Tuesday, 3 * be- 
cause of the belief that a marriage on Tuesday would not go well, both man and 
woman would be martyrs (? victims). 

36 Reported by Segundo Felix Maldonado. See also p. 204. 
*i Reported by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 

38 Based on accounts written by Jose" Antonio Maldonado, Segundo Felix Maldonado, with 
comparative notes by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. Some of Cabezas' notes appear to be de- - 
rived from White sources. 

See p. 55, n. 96. 

s A basket of bread, a basket of fruit, cariucho or mediano of twelve guinea pigs, two hens, 
eggs, meat, and potatoes, also a large jar (malta) or barrel of chicha. and two liters of trago 
(F. A. C.). 

3* Thepcdidos correspond obviously to tiutpalabriyai of Peguche, although no maestro func- 
tions and the ritual of rosarios is not observed. 

3 3 See pp. 168,196. 



194 PEGUCHE 

"MANYAY" 

On the eve of the marriage the parents of the bride invite the family of the groom. 
The family is received with good will and affection. All the company dances to the 
guitar or harp." When night has advanced, the family of the groom are called for 
the mazamorra (colada) con tortillas. First, as it should be, they give it to the par- 
ents; to themselves they give plates of colada can tortillas^ naming all that have com- 
posed the family down from the great-great-grandparents, that is to say, all they 
can remember through having been intimate with them. For this reason the women 
carry large jars and gourds (ollas y pilches) to receive the drink and food [and carry 
it home]. 

Happy and full of zest, they go on dancing until dawn, 34 until the time set for the 
wedding. Everyone comes forward to dance with a partner; everyone observes pro- 
priety. They do not get drunk, although they do not lack the gourd vickicha at any 
moment. In the kitchen they prepare a good general breakfast, which usually is 
salted food (comida de sal). They ask blessings from the parents, from all the family, 
from all the elder people, from persons met on the street, inviting all to give strong 
counsels. 

After the wedding, with the harpist they go as far as the hill, some dancing all 
the way, not all, only those who want to be guided by the subconscious (guiadospor 
tl subconciente [i.e., let themselves go]). They go to the house of the groom, where 
people are received with bowls of chicha. Gaily they all sit down to the boda y the 
feast. 

After the circle dance they sing the mashaUa y hachunja (my son-in-law, my daugh- 
ter-in-law) song; then, according to F. A. C., comes a dance called mocha mocha y 
"kiss, kiss," a circle dance with each person carrying a candle. A man has to kiss a 
woman, and a woman, a man. Ten couples take part. They cover the heads of the 
couple with a large white kerchief and in the same way the heads of the godparents 
in order to point out for the godchildren the good example of their godparents. 

After all this comes tiyt-punuchc (F. A. C.), making the couple sleep in a distant 
room, alone and naked. To this room, where there is not the slightest sound of the 
night, the godparents accompany the couple. The godmother undresses the bride; 
the godfather, the groom. The couple remain naked in the same bed. There they 
leave them under lock and key. 

The clothes that have been removed the godparents take to the bride's house for 

" The eve of the wedding the couple go to confession. On their return to the bride's house 
at night the many ay [to eat something between meals (Middendorf), a lunch] is in order. The 
family of the bride entertains the family of the groom, who arrive with a harpist and with two 
attendants or spokesmen, one of them called Angel. They say: "Ya ooy Hegando, mamita. 
Ya toy Uganda* papacito. Recibame mi car'ino y reciba mi voluntary mamita de mi corazdn 
[I am coming, little mother. I am coming, little father. Receive my affection (actually expres- 
sion or gift of affection) and receive my good will, little mother of my heart]." Outside the 
door the Angel gives three lighted candles to somebody inside who extinguishes them. Then 
the groom's party enters dancing, to look for the bride, who is hiding. They ask: "Senora, 
have you perhaps seen Margarita (or) Azucena (lily) or Amapola (Poppy)?" The senora an- 
swers: "A month ago she was in Otavalo" or "In a car she was about to go to Quito." Finally, 
they find one who is hiding away in the bride's clothes, pretending to be the bride. Full of 
happiness they dance with her until they uncover her and find she is not the bride. This mock 
bride they send to gather nettles, and they sting her feet with the nettles. Again they look for 
the true bride. They spend half a botde of brandy (trago) on the godmother (ackimama), and 
then she delivers the bride by the hands of the godfather. They uncover her to see that it is 
really she (F. A. C). 

34 Until four in the morning (F. A. C.), the conventional Spanish phrase for daybreak. 



APPENDIX 195 

the people to play with. A man and a woman pretend to be merchants and to sell 
the clothes. Besides, according to F. A. C., two persons act as burros; others, as 
children; others, as stepchildren (cntenados). Games of this kind are to amuse the 
company, and at a good wedding they usually go on all night. 

The following morning at half past fivers the godparents carry hot water and 
bread to the couple, also their clothes, 36 and they take the couple to the bride's 
house. This day the feast will be very animated (escandalosa). The formidable 
drunkenness (la formidable chuma) will increase. (People will get awfully drunk.) 

,At nine o'clock the novios and all the others go to the irrigation ditch for the 
chaqui maillay, washing the feet, also the hands and face, with herbs of different 
kinds. The groom washes the bride, and the bride washes the groom. The godmoth- 
er spreads out ponchos lent by the company, and on this carpet, so to speak, the 
novios dance to the harp. Then the godparents dance, then the company. In order 
to get back his poncho, the owner is obliged to dance. During the dance the where- 
with to calm weariness (chicha) is not lacking. There is also a basket of food (cariu- 
cho y called mediano). 

Now before returning to the house they look for two strong men to act as burros 
and for two boys to ride. The "burros" act (amanecen) as if they were wild animals. 
The "riders" tame them and deliver them to the godparents to ride and see if they 
are tame and can be mounted by the groom and bride. Then the godafther says, 
"Yes, it is true that the horses are tame, so with the greatest confidence my god- 
children may ride them." Thus mounted, they are carried to the house of the par- 
ents of the bride. However, the mount of the groom may act like a wild horse and 
the groom has to hang on like a man, because the "horse" may get the better of him 
or even throw him over his head unless he is careful. 

Later there is a "bullfight," one of the men offering to act as the bull. They go 
to the lot, and there they have the corrida just as if it were a real bull that the 
aficionados torean (the devotees play), causing a great hullabaloo. 

Formerly, on the day after the marriage, the father-in-law gave the son-in-law a 
penitcncia y such as breaking in a pair of novillos (young oxen) and plowing the side of 
a .hill; and the mother of the groom, they say, ordered her daughter-in-law to wash 
potatoes for cooking, in cold water, pitted potatoes. This is to learn the couple's 
ability to work or to break them into work. 

Two or three days are passed in constant drinking, and little by little the feasting 
concludes. Meanwhile, according to F. A. C., the couple go to the house of the god- 
parents to receive presents: for the bride, that she may feed her husband, a pottery 
jar, two red (?) plates, two wooden spoons, and a tablecloth; for the groom, a plow 
and its fixings to work with. According to Jose Antonio Maldonado, when the par- 
ents have approved the marriage, the respective parents give the couple agricul- 
tural tools, clothes, plates and spoons, for a separate establishment. 

E. SICKNESS AND CURING 

Many think that sickness is caused by a malignant spirit or phantom (espiritu 
malignOyfantasma). When you explain about microbes, people do not understand. 
They ask, "How can any living creature be so small?" Because they do not un- 
derstand this, many are not so clean about their person or dress or food as they 
might be." 

3 At four in the morning (F. A. C.). 

36 Accompanied by the harpist and a crowd (F. A. C.). 

s? Jos Antonio Maldonado. 



196 PEGUCHE 

BAD WIXD ("MAL VIENTO")* 8 

Indications of mal sienfo are lips swelling without having suffered a blow or 
anything; pain in arm, shoulder, or cheek; swelling or pain in either or both legs; 
bloodshot eyes; pain in chest or in the stomach, which is very similar to espanto; 
and pain or swelling in the genital organs. The cure is performed with an egg, with 
a guinea pig, or with a ripe black nettle, also with a belt that has received warmth 
from the body or with a pair of trousers in use. 

With an egg rub the affected part until the yolk and the white become completely 
liquid; simultaneously, say in a soft voice: "Crendios, crendios" (Creo en Dios). If 
curer yawns continuously, they know it is a case of mal i-iento. If it is not much, the 
curer does not yawn much; if it is a hard case, he yawns with greater force. He uses 
tobacco and keeps on smoking as he rubs on the egg. 

The same thing is done with the guinea pig and also with the nettle, which they 
pass through the flame of the fire. When the case is hard, the patient does not feel 
the sting of the nettle; but, if the case is light, the patient feels the sting. 

The same is done with belt or trousers, which must always be somewhat warm, 
not from fire, but from body warmth. 

If the illness is strong, the treatment is repeated, on any day (not necessarily on 
Tuesday or Friday). 

The curandero must \*t formal, vigorous, and bravo [hectoring, bullying]; he should 
not be timid. At the moment of curing, die display of fierceness (bravura) must be 
very marked. 

To prevent mal viento, roll for about five minutes in the place from which a bull 
or a mule (male or female) has got up, roll in the warmth of this place. This pre- 
ventative is a sure thing, I have proved it. I used to suffer from mal vienfo continu- 
ously, but ever since I tried this, now for six years, I have not suffered. 

FRIGHT ("ES PANTO") 

When persons, especially children, lose appetite, lose animation, take no pleasure 
in play or work, have constant nausea and an unquenchable thirst and continue 
drying up (secandose) from day to day, you know they are ill from fright (espanto). 
To cure, you grasp the patient by the feet and body, turning him upside down and 
shaking him hard up and down, at the same time saying: "Shungo, shungo, shungo, 
shungo jatari, jatari, jatari> en que espante, guagrahuan, alauan, gentehuan, atal- 
pahuan? Skungo, shungo, shungo, skungo, jatari, jatari, jatari!) [Heart, heart, 
heart, heart rise up, rise up, rise up! How did you become frightened, by cattle, by 
dog, by people, by a chicken? Heart, heart, heart, heart rise up (levanta), rise up, 
rise up!]" If the fright has been slight, the person is cured; if the fright has been 
strong, the cure must be repeated on the following proper day. The treatment must 
always be done in the morning, on Tuesday or Friday. If it is not done on these days, 
no cure will result. 

Cats and dogs can also suffer espanto. 

The patient may also be asked where he was frightenedat the river, at a con- 
duit, or was it by a cry? Say at a conduit. Then the curer will make a rag doll and 
take it to the conduit. Calling in the name of the child, Vamos! vamos! he acts as 
if he were beating with the doll; he acts as if he were making the soul advance, and, 
beating, he takes the doll to the ailing child, saying that he comes bringing the 

** Reported by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 



APPENDIX 197 

soul (alma), and he delivers the soul. He leaves the doll tied to the child for several 
days. 3 ' The child begins to get better and later feels hungry. (J. A. M,) 

RAINBOW MALADIES* 

"For el cuichic, the rainbow, or cogido cuichic, Rainbow attacked or possessed, there 
are cures. In cuichic Colorado, red cuichic, there are tumors and abscesses, over the 
body, some breaking out, some healing, all the time. First, one asks the owners of 
the house of the sick man for a very white guinea pig which has not a single hair of 
another color. Then one asks for strings of wool of all the colors (red, rose, yellow, 
burgundy, blue, black, that is to say, all the colors of the rainbow [cuichic]). Then 
one ties the strings on the guinea pig (hace cargar alcuy). All this to be in readiness. 

One spreads out on the ground a bayeta (woolen cloth, blanket) a meter wide on 
each side, that is to say, a square blanket. In each corner of the cloth one places an 
egg, tabaco (maquirrandi, yellow paper cigarette), or any kind of cigarette, and a 
handful of herbs, a handful of herbs in each corner. The herbs that serve as a reme- 
dio to cure the mat de cuichic or hierba buena (menta viridis), cuichic ango (vena de 
arcoiris) or hierba vena de cuichic [Boehmeria ca/dasii]), zorro jihua (hierba de zorro 
[Bagetes sp.]). Note that these herbs are of a disagreeable odor. In the center of the 
cloth one places ishpingo (Pyrethrum parthenium), tigrecillo (herb of repugnant odor 
[Piperonia sp.]), congona (Piperonia congona),juyanquilla (? month), and a liter of 
urine, not of the sick person, but of another, a child up to twelve years old, com- 
pletely healthy. 

Now the curador comes close to the sick woman, and she must be covered only 
with a blanket, no clothing, completely nude. He makes her sit up, and with the 
urine he spatters her whole body and also the guinea pig which is decorated with 
colored threads, until the liter of urine is finished. Now he takes the tigrecillo, con- 
gona, ishpingo, that are placed in the middle of the cloth, chews them all, and with 
ram blows them over the body of the sick one and of the guinea pig. The curandero 
serves himself some glasses in order to cure with spirit (animo) and valor (coraje). 
Once the whole body is blown over, he begins to clean with the guinea pig from the 
head to the toes, three times during a quarter of an hour. Once finished cleaning 
with the guinea pig, he skins it. As proof that it is cuichic, one sees the whole body 
of the guinea pig covered or crossed with little white threads; that is the sign that it 
is cuichic. 

Now the curandero takes from two corners of the cloth two eggs. With the two 
eggs he cleans from the head to the feet three times, and while he cleans he smokes. 
After cleaning with all the eggs and smoking all the cigarettes, he takes from each 
corner a handful of herbs: mancharijihua (hierba de espanto), hierba buena, zorro 
jihua, cuichic ango. As these herbs are tied, into each bunch he blows rum and con- 
tinues cleaning, from the head to the feet three times; and, as there are four little 
bunches of herbs, he cleans four times, blowing rum, and serving himself rum in 
order to cure with anger (c6lera). All the things he has cleaned with he places in a 
rag to be thrown away in the river or to be buried behind a rock by one not of the 
family of the sick person. 

After this cleansing he makes the sick one lie down. The cure is repeated in the 
same way, skipping a day, until the sick one has completely recovered. 

3 This appears to be ritual of using an image to retrieve the lost soul similar to that used 
by the Cuna Indians of Panama (Stout). Small clay images have been found in burials in 
Cayambe. It appears as \tespanto in Spanish America were a Hispanicized form of "lost soul." 

4 Written by Jose* Antonio Maldonado as dictated to him by the curador. 



198 PEGUCHE 

In cuichic bianco, white cuichic, the face, hands, and feet are blistered. This is 
easily cured. Rub the whole body with an infusion of squash (zambo) leaves in fer- 
mented urine, the infusion very hot, almost boiling. 

MORE ABOUT RAINBOW MALADIES 41 

The cuichic has taken one (ha cogido el cuichic), it is believed, when one feels 
itchy and welts come out on the body. You collect or buy the following herbs: the 
beards of rocks (moss), jraikjonj* rosemary, laurel blessed with holy water, aji y 
huantos (red-yellow datura), saumerio** mint (hierba buena). These are kindled in a 
large dish, to give out a strong, very pungent smoke. The patient stands in the 
midst of the smoke, covering his face well with a cloth so that he sees nothing, other- 
wise the cuichic will not leave the body. This is the strongest belief of all. 

When a person meets with the cuichic in the shape of a rainbow and it draws 
close to him, he can defend himself by throwing urine 44 into the air, sprinkling it in 
the direction of the cuichic ', or by throwing rocks and making crosses in the air. 

The cuichic may present itself in whirlpools and in large, abandoned dark caves 46 
in the form of swine, sometimes small and sometimes large, crying just like a new- 
born baby pig and appearing in different colors red, yellow, purple, blue, and 
brownish. 4 ? 

If a woman feels ill, as if she had a real baby in her belly, they say it is the cuichic. 
The curandero ichizo (hechizo) has the woman collect white chicha, prepared from a 
handful ofjora (sprouted corn), white corn, black corn, holy water, llama de vena de 
cuichic, wild carrot, wild malka (? Jerusalem artichoke), rodo, garlic, rose leaves, 
mill dust, also chicken droppings, pig dung, and two big guinea pigs tied with rib- 
bons of all colors. All but the last are ground fine and mixed with urine and holy 
water. With this mixture the body of the woman is rubbed all over. What is left 
of the mixture they put in a bag made of a rag and throw it all away in some distant 
and desolate place. With the decorated guinea pigs they clean or rub well the body 
of the woman, then go and throw away the animals. They keep the woman from 
going into the street for three or four days and from eating pork or pork lard or from 
seeing swine, lest the cuichic return to her body. 

"MAL BLANCO," WHITE SICKNESS (BEWITCHMENT) 48 

The treatment is almost the same as for curing the cuichic. One spreads out in the 
same way a square bayeta and in each corner places an egg, a cigarette, and bread. 
In the center one places sweet bread, rose flowers, oranges, a liter of rum, and a jar 
that has four feet, with leaves of&uanto (datura) inside this jar. One makes the sick 

4Z Written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

42 A wooly plant found on the p&ramo, especially near the Colombian bonier, that is sup- 
posed to look like a hooded friar, but really, in large masses, looks more like enormous flocks of 
sheep. It is said to be rich in cellulose. 

A fragrant herb, burned in church censers during Mass. 
44 For urine as medicine see pp. 128, 198. 

"When there is a rainbow, they say that around those places there are sick people" (Se- 
gundo Felix Maldonado). 

46 See pp. 92-93. 

u See p. 146, n. 99. 

48 Reported by Jose* Antonio Maldonado. 



APPENDIX 199 

person be seated naked, and one goes on drinking rum to have greater valor. From 
the heads (?) the curador learns where the malady is, and here he sucks out toads, 
white worms, round and black worms, or lizards, all alive. As he takes out these ani- 
mals, he shows them to the sick one and deposits them in the jar, all the animals 
that he takes from the body of the sick one, bewitched by another person. He may 
take out animals everywhere from the body, even from the toes. Now he cleans 
with eggs, from head to feet, blowing rum on the body of the sick one, on the eggs, 
and on the guinea pig. After cleaning with the eggs, he deposits them in the jar. 
Now he cleans with bread and with the orange. Breads and oranges he deposits in 
the jar. Then at last he cleans with the guinea pig, blowing rum on the guinea pig 
and on the sick one, all over the body. Then the guinea pig is skinned to see if it is 
mal bianco. In the part of the esophagus they see an immense number of little white 
balls; they say it looks like cooked quinoa. This is proof that the sick person has 
mal bianco. Only one who knows how to clean by guinea pig can say this [diagnose]. 

Now the witch (bntjo) who understands looks at the lighted candle and, blowing 
rum, says: "It lacks so many years or months [for the bewitcher] to die," and tells 
about the person who has done the evil and why. He speaks with certainty because, 
he says, he can make clear [? set] the date and the hour when the bewitcher is going 
to die. Also the witch looks in the urine (meado) and likewise makes clear with cer- 
tainty [? sets] the day when the bewitcher is going to die. The witch does not want 
to tell how he knows [? does] this, because he says it is a secret and only he may know 
it. He says he won't tell even if they cut off his neck. These are secrets that cannot 
be discovered. 

All the things that the curer has already cleansed with and placed in the jar he 
sends to bury below a rock or in the trunk of a tree in order that the person may not 
die and that the tree may dry up. 

In this way the curing is continued until the person is better or dies. 
. There are few hechiceros [same obviously as curandero or curador]. Manuel Tuba- 
quingo is one. No women. For this they go to the province of Imbabura. 

F. BURIAL PRACTICES AT SAN RAFAEL, PARISH OF GONZALEZ SUAREZ, IMBA- 

BURA PROVINCE; AT JUAN MONTALVO, PICHINCHA PROVINCE S 

AND AT AMAGUANA IN THE VALLEY OF CHILLOS 

As I was walking from Otavalo to Cayambe, just before reaching San Rafael, I 
heard crying in an Indian yard. My curiosity was so great I came near to see why 
they were crying so much. Imagine my surprise to see the body of the father of the 
family lying in the middle of the patio (yard), on a ladder (c hoc ana) on a table. The 
face was uncovered and the eyes open. Two red flags were at the sides. Around 
the body was everything that he had liked during life, as well as two sprigs of rose- 
mary, which is a weapon in the other life; with these two sprigs he may defend him- 
self from any danger on the road. There was everything he liked to eat, flat bowls 
(azafates) with chicha 9 gourds, a bottle of rum, a little jug c&chicha to drink on the 
road when he got thirsty, a gourd cup, and two candles and a match in his hand that 
he might have light on the road. Two pairs of sandals, ushutasf* for him to wear 
walking, because the road by which one goes to Heaven is believed to be full of 
thorns and stones. There were also several work implements. 

Another surprise. While the body was in the middle of the patio y two Indians 

* This, of course, is black magic. Hence secretiveness. 
s Reported by Jos6 Antonio Maldonado. 
* x Sole of rubber tire, leather top. 



200 PEGUCHE 

passed four children over the body three times from one side to the other, one at a 
time;* 3 this so that the children (sons, hijos) might not miss their father and might 
forget (which they call, "No ha de apasionar por taita"). Besides, they cut the hair 
of the deceased, burn it, and pulverize it and get eggs and put the powder in the eggs 
and suck them "a que no se apasionen por el padre." They also put some of the 
powder in the food or chicha (they are to eat or drink). 

All this happens while the body remains in the middle of the patio y as was ex- 
plained to me by one who could speak Spanish and was acquainted with my father. 
Now they started to carry off the body on the ladder. It was carried by four elderly 
men. They carried him off just as he was in the patio with everything they had 
placed around the body. They took the body to bathe it in an acequia (irrigaton 
ditch) with quite a lot of water." On the road some Indians played pingullo (flutes) 
and drum; another Indian played a violin, in order that the soul might go happy 
with music. 

They bathe the dead man in order that the soul may have cleanliness, that body 
and soul may be clean and pure, and thus go to Heaven, leaving all impurities be- 
hind. The face is uncovered and the eyes open in order that the deceased may know 
the road by which he must go. The red flag means Purgatory, because every soul 
must go to Purgatory before going to Heaven. 

When they arrive at the ditch, they prop the body with much gentleness, seated 
on a table, and then light two candles and start to pray, in Quechua. Then they 
undress the body and bathe it. While they bathe it, an old man leads all those 
present in prayer. 

After bathing the body, they return with it just as they had carried it and place 
it on a table. Then the neighbors take the family things to ezttostado (toasted 
corn), mote (hominy), beans, cooked cabbage leaves, chochos, and chicha. In a level 
place they spread rebosos, ponchos, bayeta^ and on them place everything they have 
brought to eat in the name of the deceased. Before eating, an old man takes charge 
of making all pray in the name of the deceased. Because this is the last time all the 
family and the deceased are united at a meal, they say, "As he is saying goodbye, 
let us all eat together."" 

My father says that the burial customs of Cayambe used to be like those of the 
Indians of Otavalo; but they have been dropping various customs I don't know 
how, my father says and replacing them with other customs. The present customs 
I have seen are the following: When a person dies, they immediately prepare a 
table and on it they place the body, covering it with a white sheet, with a crucifix on 
the body. It is customary for attendants to pass the night playing various games 
appropriate for wakes, 55 such as the game offichilingo (hat), rabbit game (juego al 
conejo), onion game (a la ccbotta), melodian vendor game (al vendedor de melodio), 
marriage game (al casamimtd)^ and the game of selling images (al vendedor de San- 

52 Formerly customary at Juan Montalvo and once done in Maldonado's own family, re- 
ports a brother. 

Cf. the bath in a streamlet given the deceased by the Indians near Riobamba (Karsten 
4:481). 

M Among the Indians near Riobamba the feast after the burial is called mondongo, "the 
last/' The alcalde prays during the dice game. Drinking continues for eight days (Karsten 
4:483-84). 

55 Cf. games played at wakes by Canelos and Napo Indians as well as by Highlanders (Kar- 
sten 4:467 ff.,48o ff.). See, too, Romans, pp. 392-93, for the English lychwake and the Bishop 
of Lincoln's admonishment against making the house of death "a house of laughter and play." 



APPENDIX 



201 



/oj), al curiquinque. They impose forfeits on losers. They play these games just to 
amuse themselves[!]. 

The games are played the second night of the wake. At about eight or nine o'clock 
men and women, young and old, form the play group, playing for about three hours. 

In "El Fichilingo" (Otavalo Canton, pichilingo) the players sit in a circle, then 
get partners, in pairs. They get a little old soft hat, turn it inside out, put it on, and 
the game begins. The one who is wearing fatfichilingo says to his companion: Com- 
panerito mio^ is it just to be burdened with this fichilingo?" Companion: <c \Vhy 
should you be burdened with it?" Wearer: "Who is going to wear it?" The com- 
panion names someone else in the game (it is always the companion who talks). If 
by mistake the person named speaks, they put the hat on the head of the person 
named. Or the companion may say: "You yourself," or "Why is my companerito 
going to wear it?" "Who is going to wear it?" or "Let A wear it!" The companion 
of A immediately says: "Why should my companion wear itr" Wearer says: "Then 
who is going to wear it?" "Let B wear it!" Immediately B's companion answers; 
B doesn't answer. B does not put on the hat.* 6 

All the wearers must give a forfeit to be redeemed. One has to do a hunter and 
the second the bird called licuango; another has to cry, in every corner of the room, 
and another sings; others are sentenced to kiss all the good-looking single girls in 
front of everybody; others are sent with a light to look for a pregnant fly and a male 
fly; others are assigned to bring nettles in their mouth; another has to sit on a bottle 
and light a candle with a wet wick; another has to go out of the house to yell at the 
neighbors who have not come to the wake. (Calling by name all those who have not 
come, he says, "Those of you who have not come, do not think that you are not 
going to die.") Another has to ring the bell twelve times, and another has to bring 
from the kitchen a plate of hominy and ajar ofMcka, and all those who have con- 
tributed to the game serve themselves. 

The forfeit of Hunter and Licuango (this bird lives in the ravines and 



whistles three times, somewhat sadly) 57 



ff 

p 



is for 




KUXtOrtOo- 



men. The Hunter gets a tube, the kind they light a fire with, and some ashes. 
Hunter and Licuango bandage their eyes. Licuango whistles just like the bird; then 

6 This game was played by children in Dublin, New Hampshire, about thirty years ago 
and called "Parson Lost His Hat." The jingle goes: 

"Parson lost his hat, 
Some say this, 
And some say that, 
But I say " 

Speaker names Parson or Man Jack or a color and points to anybody, beginning to count out 
(Olivia Holt). 

s* Corrected by Marco Hidrobo, a White townsman of Cotacachi. 



202 PEGUCHE 

Hunter, with ashes in his tube, pursues Licuango, who keeps on whistling. Some- 
times they bump into each other, and then and there Hunter shoots Licuango from 
his tube [cf. blowgun]. The forfeit of crying and singing in every corner is for a 
woman, who must fulfil it seriously. For the forfeit of lighting a candle, one sits 
on a bottle upside down, each foot on the point of the other foot; then in the left 
hand one holds the light, and in the right hand a candle. One must light the candle 
without falling. This is hard to do and may take a quarter of an hour. For the for- 
feit of the Twelve Hours: They hang on you keys before and behind, from the belt. 
You open your legs and move so the keys act like a pendulum. It is difficult to make 
the keys touch to give the hours. However, in course of time the twelve bell strokes 
are achieved. 

In the game of burnt cotton, the players sit around a sheet which they hold along 
the edges so that it is taut. Onto the sheet they throw little pieces of lighted cotton, 
and all try to blow, making sure that the cotton jumps in the middle of the sheets 8 
If it is allowed to escape past a player, he pays a forfeit. 

There are other games, but I am not up on them, because really Inca they are not; 
they are Spanish games. One is called the "Melodion Vendor." This game is charm- 
ing, and I really like it. But it is not Inca; it is Spanish. First, a person takes charge of 
trying out the piano. He looks for twelve or more to act as the keyboard. They sit 
around, the pianist in the center. Now, the pianist begins to play with his hands on 
their heads. Each one who is played on must utter a sound. One will whistle softly, 
and others will cry out somewhat roughly. To one with a harsh voice they give 
chicha (as if it were oil to soften the voice). The harsh-voiced will be given chicha 
three or four times, until his voice softens. When they are all in equal voice, the 
pianist begins to play on the heads of all. They sing the special tune they all know. 

Another game is "Marriage," in which parts are taken by el Senor Cura, by the 
sacristan, thejefe politico^ the padrinos, the parents of both groom and bride, and 
by another suitor. All this they perform with gaiety, with enjoyment, because they 
play instruments, because they are in a marriage. This, too, is a charming game. 

Most of the games are brought from other lands. Because they have no appropri- 
ate times to play games, the Indians choose to play them at a wake, where it is not 
suitable to play any of these games. 

They say they have known other games, but they go dropping these customs and 
taking up others. 

The day of the burial they sweep the pante6n (not cemetery, but room of death) 
with huanto [red-orange datura], so that all illnesses may go out, and the rubbish 
they throw into the middle of the street so that all the ckiqui may go out, which 
means everything bad that may be in the house. For the burial all the attendants 
bring food to the house in the name of the corpse. 

It is believed that Dios appoints the time of death but that some persons die 
before the time appointed. If, in digging a grave, a fresh coffin is found, they say 
that the deceased was not yet appointed to die. If the coffin has rotted, it shows 
that the deceased died because his very hour had come. Again, when no earth is 
left over after filling in the grave, he died, people say, because his hour had arrived. 
When a lot of earth is left over, it means he died before his time. When the body 
does not stiffen after death, people say, "His time to die had not come yet" 

"A person who throws himself into the grave. If the person who has died has 

s* Played by Canelos and Napo Indians, on a board placed on abdomen of corpse, by Cane- 
los; on a doth, as at Cayambe, by the Napo (Karsten 4:473-75). 

This paragraph and the following are from Segundo Felix Maldonado. 



APPENDIX 203 

been highly appreciated by all the village, the family, principally the wife, the per- 
son who most esteems him, goes off her mind (se trastorna) when they have already 
the body in the grave, and will try to throw herself into the grave. Then, they say, 
the soul of the dead gathers up (acoge) the spirit of the one who has thrown herself 
in and after a little while she dies. For this reason in the case of those who cry or 
suffer a lot, the people at the funeral are careful not to let them throw themselves 
into the grave." 

The day after the burial, comes the tagshai, "washing the clothes." At this tagshai 
the? whole family and near-by neighbors attend in order that all may be clean and 
that everything in the house may remain clean. The clothes are taken to the ditch, 
where one of the chief amusements is to trip people into the water (inferably, people 
formerly took a bath). Chicha and copa (cups, i.e., rum) are served. It is quite a 
festive occasion. 

If they do not wash the clothes, they say the soul suffers. The soul is said to say, 
"Send me all my clothes clean, and if you do not I shall always molest you," which 
consists in accidents or what they also call el malmcnto, "the evil wind" 

A case like this happened to a woman neighbor of ours, Margarita Navas. This 
woman died, and they did not do the tagshai, wash the dirty clothes of the dead 
woman. 60 So the spirit harassed the house so much that the dogs barked all night, 
seeing the spirit. 61 And she made one of the daughters dream that if they did not 
wash the clothes she would not leave the house and would always be with them. 
They had to wash the clothes. The spirit did not appear to them again. 

When a child dies, only the family cries because it is only a child; they even 
dance. It is joyful because all the attendants dance. For the dead child they pre- 
pare an altar because, they say, the spirit of the child is an angel that has not sinned 
and so goes directly to Heaven. The angel begs of God of the kingdom of the heav- 
ens (Dios de los reinos de los ciclos) that the family live in complete harmony, that all 
live happily, and for this reason all try to dance, with harp and violin. Up to the 
moment of burial the compadrc, that is, the padrino, keeps on dancing. The child's 
face is uncovered with a crown on the head, and the clothing is that of an angel be- 
cause the angels in Heaven are dressed according to how they have been sent from 
earth, some better than others as to clothes. 

A mother who has lost her child may not spin for ten years because, they say, 
when they spin, the sigsi (pampas grass) pricks the eyes of the Virgin Mary, and 
the Virgin beats the angel, saying, 'Tour mother is pricking me in the eye." But 
this is a Spanish belief. 

At Amaguana, in the valley of Chillos, the funeral party returns after the burial 
to die house of the deceased, sweeps the floor as clean as possible and sifts ashes over 
it, shuts the house up tight, and then goes to bathe in the irrigation ditch, all 
clothes on. They return and open up the house. El que sabe y "the person who 
knows," examines the floor and finds the footprints of el alma delmuerto que ha ouel- 
to> "the soul of the dead that has returned." The ashes are swept out, a feast, pre- 
pared of all the things the deceased like to cat and drink, is consumed by the party, 
and afterward there is dancing. 62 

60 According to other informants, the clothes of the survivors are washed, not the clothes 
of the deceased. Probably all the clothes are washed, and the idea of sending the clothes to the 
deceased is a bit of secondary personal interpretation by Jose* Antonio. 

61 See below, p. 214. 

* The Aymari of Titicaca strew ashes on the floor inside the doorsill and lock the house 
from the outside. After die burial the "old men*' examine the floor for footprints. Prints of 



204 PEGCCHE 

G. SPIRITS'* 

Huacaisiques or guagua cuco are babies that have been abandoned on the road 
or in a pasture, unbaptized, and, as they have not been baptized, 6 * the spirit of the 
baby becomes a malevolent cuco. This cuco child harasses sucklings or infants until 
they are seven or eight months old (Andrango). For this reason mothers believe 
(and I must confess that my mother also holds this belief) that they should wash 
their baby's swaddling clothes before nightfall. Otherwise, after five o'clock in the 
afternoon the huacaisique may see the child. If the huacaisique sees the child, the 
child will become a crybaby, crying all the time. Then they say "Huacaisique visto" 
(huacaisique, "seen"). To cure the child, the parents take some herbs or plants to 
the priest to be baptized (blessed with holy water). With these plants they make a 
smudge, and two persons at the baby's head and others at his feet hold him for a 
few moments over the smoke. That is the moment when the huacaisique separates 
himself. The child stops his crying. He may cry at times, but not as he cried before 
he was cured. 

My parents have told me that, after the wheat harvest, an escribiente 6 * was going 
down to the hacienda, at six-thirty in the afternoon, the hour when huacaisiques 
abound. As the man was coming down mounted on a horse, close to a ravine he 
heard a tiny baby crying. He drew near and saw a tiny baby abandoned with all 
his swaddling clothes. The man talked coarsely, saying, "These women abandon 
the baby as soon as it is born; they do it only to appear clean." Very pleased, Senor 
Escribiente dismounted, took the baby, placed it within his poncho, and remounted. 
He had gone barely four cuadras [a mile] when, they say, the baby spoke to him, 
"Look at my teeth, what pretty teeth I have." Very much surprised to hear so 
young a baby speak, the man looked at the baby, he said, to see why he should talk 
this way. Within the poncho he saw an ugly swinish face 66 with the teeth of a tiger, 
absolutely a phantom. Quickly he threw him to the ground and spurred his horse, 
but the huacaisique followed him, clinging to the tail of the horse for about a thou- 
sand meters. As he was shaken loose, he said to the man, they say^ that he should 
be thankful he was not mounted on his mule 6 ' because then he would have taken 
him, body and soul, to hell. My mother has heard the huacaisique cry and says that 
it cries just like a newborn baby. 

men or women indicate further deaths in the family. Rooster tracks are of the devil (Bandelier, 
p. 85). In seventeenth-century Peru in certain parts they scattered maize or quinoa flour 
through the house to see from footprints, as they said, if the deceased would return (Bandelier, 
p. 148, n. 79, citing Arriaga). 

fc Reported by Jos6 Antonio Maldonado. 
6 < A living infant unbaptized is called auka. 

65 Hacienda amanuensis, secretary. Every large hacienda has one. 

66 This change of an infant spirit into a pig should interest Karsten, who points out as wide- 
spread in South America the belief that disembodied spirits take temporary possession of other 
beings. Cf. p. 198, where it is implied that Rainbow is transformed into little pigs. 

fi 7 Mules seem to be closer to the spirit world than horses, excepting white horses. When a 
spirit (duende) is mounted, it is always on a mule or white horse. (Also the duende holds his 
head up or thrown back.) 



APPENDIX 205 

FIRE MOTHER AND SPIRIT ANIMALS AT JUAN MONTALVO, CAYAMBE CANTON 68 

When the fire is going or one is cooking and the fire of itself acts as if one were 
blowing into it through a tube, they say it is tulpa mama?* "fire mother,"? the 
owner of the hearth (dueno deljogdn). 

One time a whole family left their room to see a spectacle going on in the neigh- 
borhood. One of the daughters returned to go on preparing the meal. As she en- 
tered the kitchen, she was surprised to see a cadaverous (csquctftico) cat blowing 
furiously on the fire, sacando ckispas y making the sparks fly. The young woman 
remained still without moving, then went out of the kitchen door. When she re- 
turned, she saw nothing. 

She ran, laughing and crying alternately, to where the others were, and before 
the eyes of the family she ran twice around the house. Full of fear (fleno de susto), 
the family grabbed her. With maximum force she threw down all who caught at 
her, and they say she ran toward the quebrada. Without feeling anything, she 
jumped onto the agave hedge and entered a shepherd's hut, trembling and with a 
frightened face.* 1 Almost the whole family had followed, and between two of them 
they took her from the hut into the house. The next day they took her to the church 
in Cayambe, to make confession. * Then the tulpa mama did not persecute them. 

My mother's sister as a child used to pasture sheep on the banks of the river 
Guachali. (She had very long and thick hair, cabettuda!) One day she went with 
her sheep in the company of some other herders to the pasture very dose to El 
Volcan (an almost perpendicular bank, site of the intake of the irrigation ditch of 
thtjtnca "Maresca de los Andes"). About noon she became separated for a moment 

68 Reported by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 

69 At Peguche the cook may be so called. A fire spirit is unfamiliar. See p. 126 for omen 
from sparking. 

7 Among Jibaro the Fire spirit is female (Karsten 4:383), and in Inca Peru there was also 
a Fire Mother (M6traux, XXVII, 333, n. 3, citing Molina). 

? x Possession is suggested. In the account of the first revi valistic cult among Indians, which 
was widespread in the Peruvian population, as reported in 1560 by the priest Luis de Olivera, 
possession was conspicuous. Men trembled and fell to the ground, tearing themselves, their 
faces distorted. Quieting down, they said such and such a spirit had entered their body 
(Molina, p. 61). 

7* In Inca Peru divining specialists called Yacarcaes blew on the fire through copper-silver 
tubes. The "devils" delivered their replies through the blazing-up of the fire. The diviners 
asked about the soul of anybody at a distance, in Quito or anywhere, about what crimes they 
might be engaged in theft, murder, or adultery, Itse-majestf or irreligion. In this way "with 
the help of the devil" the Inca "knew all that passed in his dominions," i.e., the Yacarcaes were 
his Intelligence Service. They "were much feared, as well by the Ynca as by the people, and he 
took them with him wherever he went" It was generally to these Yacarcaes that confessions were 
made (Molina, pp. 14, 15). Here, as in our Cayambe story, which seems reminiscent of early 
practice or attitude, the interpretation of confessions as remedy for disaster caused by a spirit 
is suggested. 

At the Maya initiation of the children which Landa calls "baptism" the older children were 
asked if "they had done any bad thing, or obscene conduct, and if any had done so, they con- 
fessed them and separated them from the others" (Landa, p. 44). The whole ceremony gave 
"protection against being harmed by the devils." 

Rosita of Peguche reports that "the devils come and fall in love with a cabettuda; they 
become entangled in the hair; they hang lizards in it or lizards hang from it (le cuelgan lagtar- 
tijos)i the devil is tempted by hair (eldiablo se tienta dclpch). Cf, Jibaro beliefs about hair, 
p. 28, n. 81. 



PEGUCHE 

from her companions. Then she saw one of her best ewes separated from the herd, 
in the chaparral. She wanted to take the ewe back to the fold. Just as she went 
into the chaparral, a mass of lizards crossed in front of her. She stepped forward; 
the lizards multiplied and crossed more rapidly. 74 As she was looking at the ewe, 
it changed into ugly and strange animals, into a crow, a black cat, then back into 
a ewe. 75 She screamed and her companions ran to her, but they saw only the little 
girl crying and pointing to the ewe. 

MORE SPIRIT ANIMALS AND A HEADLESS RIDER 76 

A few weeks ago Sebastian Hernandez 77 of Juan Montalvo, a concierto or contract 
peon on the hacienda of Ishigto, stayed during the time of potato-digging [Septem- 
ber] to care for the potatoes at night on one of the roads of the hacienda. When 
Sebastian was in a profound sleep, some swine appeared to him, tearing to bits the 
potato sacks. He woke up quickly and met with some black pigs, seven or eight, and 
called "Cuche, cuche!" The animals withdrew. Sebastian lay down again, and the 
animals returned to continue bothering as before and eating chaco, chaco [the sound 
the pig makes crunching his food]. Sebastian knew that these pigs belonged to a 
comadre. He said to himself, "I will kill them if they keep on bothering, even if they 
do belong to my comadre Josefina." 78 Tired of these animals eating the potatoes, 
Sebastian got up again and chased them away. They came back, and he chased 
them again. The fifth time he made all the animals move on and was going to drive 
them into one of the pastures (potreros) when at the zanja (wall of sod topped by 
maguey) they disappeared from sight. He said to himself, "What's going on with 
these animals that they disappear?" Then he went back to lie down where he had 
been before, with the fear that he felt within him. 

When he had lain down and covered himself with the blankets, he heard someone 
coming on horseback. He saw from the poncho and general look that it was Victor 
Vaca, the mayordomo. He was riding strangely in the ditch, not on the road. As he 
came closer, Sebastian saw that he had no head. Sebastian thought to himself, "The 
mayordomo, too, just a joke; he is making the rounds just as if I were stealing the 
potatoes." The rider passed a little way from him, and the bridle curb sounded as 
if it were not that of a real person. When the rider passed on, Sebastian went to 
stand for a long while in an irrigation ditch. A companion of Sebastian called Rafael 
Navas came up on horseback and said very frightened, "Caramba y what's the mat- 
ter with me that I'm so scared?" 

"Carajoy why are you afraid, riding on a good horse and knowing how the ani- 
mal is?" Sebastian asked him. 

74 In Quechua-speaking, highland Ecuador women believe they may be made pregnant by 
lizards. So, when they see a lizard, they jump away from it (Karsten 4:220). 

w Belief in sprit animals and in transformation is very marked in eastern Ecuador (Kar- 
sten 4: passim), as also in peasant Europe the lutins of Picardy, for example, become crows, 
wolves, or domestic animals (Carnoy, pp. 38 ff., 105 ff.). 

76 From accounts written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas of Juan Montalvo. Originally 
the account was given verbally in answer to SeSor Cornell's inquiry about the forms taken by 
duendtS) "spirits." "Duendes take the form of pigs and even of people you know/' answered 
Cabezas and told the story. 

77 He is about twenty-four, a bachelor, a zambo, his mother being Negro-Indian, his father, 
Indian. It is the only family of Negro descent in the parish. The sons have a high temper; 
they have gaiety and humor. The daughters are attractive and "careless." The family has a 
bad reputation for theft (J. L. G.). 

78 A suggestion here of witchcraft See below, p. 216. 



APPENDIX 207 

"Well, I am scared a lot, so I am not going to make the rounds of the potato 
fields," answered Navas. 

"Where is the mayordomo?" 

"He is at this moment in a deep sleep." 

Sebastidn, not to make his companion more. frightened, remained silent without 
telling what had happened. 

The next day, in the morning, they looked over the potato sacks and found them 
as they had left them. 

A COW AND SOME SOULS?' 

On a dark and foggy night while her family was sound asleep, Isabel Hernandez 
(mother of Sebastian Hernandez) heard their cow rubbing against the house wall, 
pulling down the wall vines. "Caramfa, what a thieving cow! She has got loose." 
So the woman, carrying the baby, went out to see if it was really the cow. She found 
the cow tied up as she had left her. 

Coming back, she heard the noise of big boys running and playing. "What boys 
are about at this hour, or is it close to dawn?" Looking back, she saw a man in 
flames with boys around him. She turned cold and begged for mercy. She went into 
the house without consciousness or hope of life to awaken the children to keep her 
company. 

The next day they looked at the place she heard the cow rubbing, and there was 
no trace of anything. The Hernandezes were nearly dead. They found someone who 
could wipe out, clean the accident. The limpiador y the "cleaner," said it was not the 
devil; it was souls going together in a band. The cleaner said the Hernandezes 
should be well cleaned with a big guinea pig. They should make a smudge with 
the things that had been blessed and sprinkle holy water all around the house. Then 
all the malignant spirits would withdraw, said the cleaner [exerciser]. 

H. CHAPEL AND HACIENDA INDIAN OFFICIALS 
AMAGUANA, PICHINCHA PROVINCE 

At the New Year's the parish priest names, besides the priosfes, two alcaldes 
(alcalde mayor and alcalde mtnor) and one alguacil from the peoncs de hacienda of die 
hacienda of San Rafael. They are to serve for one year. Each of the three is given 
a cane of office, that of the alcalde mayor being the most elaborate. It is of chonta 
wood, hard and black, with a silver top and bands of silver. On the top the name of 
the maker and the date, about 1920, are engraved, and pendent are a silver dove of 
the Espiritu Santo, a crucifix, and silver flaming hearts set with colored stones. 
The alcalde takes office by kissing the crucifix on the cane. 80 

The duties of the alcaldes are to see to it that the people attend la dotrina and 
Mass, to inform the priest of faults and lapses, to see that people do not fight 82 and 
injure others when drunk, to take the priest to the sick or dying, and to bury anyone 
who has no family to bury him, getting die money from the pafrones or other 
moneyed persons. Alcaldes and the <z/ * <r/7 walk in the van of dance processions 83 

w From account written by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

* We recall that the Zuni Pueblo governor is called "he who breathes from the cane." 

81 Formerly *t fiestas there was considerable inter-hacienda fighting (see p. 210, n. 92). 

8a As do the war chiefs or captains of the Pueblos, officials who were assimilated with 
Spanish alcaldes. All Pueblo war chiefs have black canes of office, which in some pueblos are 
said to be Spanish canes of office. No "black" wood grows in our Southwest, and the term 



PEGUCHE 

to keep order and decency. It is not obligatory for the alcalde to provide for feasts, 
but he may do so, and for Corpus Cristi an alcalde provides a greased pole (see below). 
This is the same system that is described in 1573. "A principal, the best to be 
found, is to be alcalde de la dotrina and to have an alguacilm every parcialidad whose 
duty it is to bring in absentees or to bring a charge against them if they remain 
away; and, if malignity is notable, to report to the priest, he to inquire into the 
cause of the obstruction and, if it is not proper, to keep them in the stocks a day or 
two, or if they merit greater punishment the alcalde is to order them given two or 
three dozen lashes. 8 * If they persist in not attending the indoctrination, their hair 
will be cut off y which is the greatest outrage that can be done against them.** In such wise 
they are careful to come to listen to la dotrina"** 

I. CORPUS CRISTI CELEBRATIONS IN THE VALLEY OF CHILLOS 
PICHINCHA PROVINCE, MAY, 1940" 

Amaguana is a White village with Quechua-speaking Indians on the outskirts. 
At New Year's, the parish priest appoints priostes to serve for Corpus and other 
feasts, particularly that of San Pedro, the patron saint. The priostes are chosen 
from among landowning Indians neighboring the haciendas in the parish of Ama- 
guana. The priostes serve the Indian peones attached to the haciendas, and their 
number depends on the number of peones that work on the haciendas. For the Ha- 
cienda San Rafael there are two priostes. For Corpus there are four boys called 
"Turcos," who take part in the procession organized by the priostes. Two of these 
Turcos recite has [religious poems]. The celebration of Corpus begins on the Thurs- 
day and carries over through Monday. Each prioste takes charge of two days. 

At las visperas a band from the village plays at the house of the prioste, and a 
boy of ten, in a black felt hat, with a bunch of bananas strung across his shoulders 
and a rifle on his back, dances and jumps in time to the music in the yard in front of 
the house. The prioste hands out a gourd of chicha. Simultaneously, brushwood 
(chamizas) is being gathered in a near-by field to the tune of a pingutto and a drum, 
played by the same man. 



"Black Cane Old Man" for the Isletan war chief has been puzzling. Possibly the friars intro- 
duced chonta wood canes into New Mexico. 

Among Aymara' the alcalde, appointed nominally by the hacendado, is the executive officer 
in cases of violence or warfare, and Bandelier (pp. 82-84) compares him quite properly with 
the annual war captain of the Pueblos, the outside or country or field chief, tsatio hocheni, of 
theKeres. 

Among Pueblos the interrelation of permanent war chiefs and annual war captains has been 
from the historical, acculturative point of view extremely perplexing. South American data 
throw alight. Probably the Ecuador akalde-/*tt7 religious system prevailed in New Mexico 
until 1620, when secularization set in, but the alcsld&atguacil system persisted, merely com- 
bining somewhat with the new secular system. Therefore, in reconstructing the history of the 
Pueblo "war captains," three factors must be considered: pre-Conquest organization for war, 
the alcalde structure of the early Church, and secularization after 1620 and yet retention of 
religious or ceremonial character. 

Here is a good illustration of acculturation at different time levels. 

Alcaldes ordinaries (Whites appointed by the Audiencia, the high court) were to indem- 
nify an Indian in any slight matter or, if he had injured another, to whip him (Quito, 1573, 
P- 9). 

** Italics mine. This hair-cutting is the greatest injury next to death (ibid., p. 99). 
*s Quito, 1 573, p. 91 . fi Written by Juan L. Gorrell. 



APPENDIX 209 

One of the Turcos arrives on a horse, caparisoned neck and rump with cotton 
cloth and ribbons. The Turco himself wears a new linen suit and new felt fedora, 
suit and hat decorated with ribbons and rosettes of colored paper. Led by the Turco, 
a procession forms the band, visitors, and the men loaded with brushwood. The 
band no longer plays, but the man with the pingulh and drum keeps up his tune. 

This group arrives in the village about dark and joins with a group from the 
house of the other prioste in front of the priest's house. The two Turcos who are to 
recite the has are mounted on horseback behind the two other mounted Turcos. 
With the group there are also two bull calves, one carrying two little baskets of 
fruit, the other a mat to which fruit is tied. This fruit is for die priest. 8 * Mats with 
fruit are also carried on the heads of the priostes to be thrown to those in the pro- 
cession after the Sunday Mass. The Mass will cost each of the two priostcs a hun- 
dred sucres. 

After the recital of the has, the priest throws down some money, and the party 
moves on to a canting where the band plays while the prioste buys drinks for the 
whole party. Later in the evening the brushwood will be burned in front of the 
church. This is called quemar las chamizas and is said to be customary in Spain at 
the feast of San Pedro. In Quito on the eve of San Pedro little boys build bonfires 
on street corners. 

The next day, Sunday, late in the afternoon, the peones de hacienda, the priostes 
and their families, and a few other landowning Indian neighbors visit the Hacienda 
San Rafael to dance and feast. Two calves have been killed, and mazamorra has 
been prepared, salt mazamorra and the sweet mazamorra called champuz^ which is 
the traditional dish in Ecuador, as in Spain, for Corpus Cristi. A greased pole, 
castillo, stands in the court. Nailed to the top of this is a mat with fruit attached 
and money in handkerchiefs tied to upright sticks. Besides, thtpatr6n gives doth, 
spoons, earrings, and other presents to the peones de hacienda. 

The Thursday-Friday prioste is the dance leader, guia. He and two others are 
called yumbos (jungle Indians) and carry wooden lances. One is masked, and one 
carries over his back a basket strung with seashells. They are all dressed in brand- 
new, spick-and-span white drill suits. Hanging by the corner, sewn to the pockets at 
either side are bright new bandana handkerchiefs. Ribbons hang from die belt in 
front and from the center of the belt behind and brass bells also hang from the belt 
Two bandanas folded in triangle are stretched across his back from shoulder to hip. 
He wears a blond wig of long flax and a feather crown called voimcha. The feathers 
are cock-of-the-rock (gallo de la pena), peacock, and birdskins, head and all, of 
birds from the Oriente, including a hummingbird. Along the headband 88 are strung 
two-sucre pieces and disused silver coins called soles. The other yumbos are also be- 
wigged, but only the masked one has a feather crown; it lacks the rarer feathers 
and coins. 89 

The yumbos are followed by three masked diablos. [Diablo masks are helmet 

87 I n an ordinance for New Spun and the Windward Islands it is stated that at die cqfradia 
fiestas of the Indians the atfere&> standard-bearers, have each to contribute to the euro, bottles 
of wine, meat, and fruit, after die parties in their houses which lead to drunkenness, wounds, 
and death. The election ofalfcreces is prohibited (Vasquez, p. 324). 

88 In early Quito men wore a banda of wool, shaggy, "worked like a carpet" (Quito, 1573, 
p. 72). 

8 Lance, feather headdress with spangles (coins instead of shells), and even kerchiefs and 
ribbons (instead of trophies) strongly suggest the Jibaro warrior (see Stirling, p. 46). For lance 
see p. 104, n. 20. 



210 PEGUCHE 

shape, double faced, and of dark cotton cloth with embroidered designs, all varying. 
The snake near or in the mouth is peculiarly interesting. Eye and mouth holes are 
fortified with extra cloth and firmly stitched. Both noses and the one pair of ears 
consist of loops which look like jug handles. From the top stands up a bunch of 
stiff, finger-shaped pieces with tassels.] One mask is dark blue; one, black; one, blue 
on one side, white on the other. On one mask near the mouth a coiled snake is em- 
broidered with a cross below it. The diablos pantomime and do not speak. They 
chase children and Indian adults and beat the ground with their whip. They make 
signs for drinks, food, cigarettes. While I am writing notes as I talk to the alcalde, 
one diablo comes up, takes away my pencil, and on the cover of my notebook writes 
his name. He has heard me say I would like to buy his mask.* 

Diablos zndyum&os dance, first a jumping step in single file all around the prem- 
ises, fatyumbos waving their lances. Later, other diablos appear, and a dance circle 
is formed, the dancers holding hands or handkerchiefs. At a call from the guia, the 
circle changes direction. In this dance the yumbo lances are set in the ground. There 
are two other dances: a dance in columns, backward and forward, rather stately, 
with the gtAa calling the turns or shouting remarks, and la trenza> "the braid," by 
four couples, each couple with joined hands held high and a couple passing under 
the raised hands of the others and, having passed and turned around, moving on to 
the end of the line. 

All these dances are to the tune ofpingutto and drum-player. The alcalde trans- 
lates from Quechua some of the remarks shouted by the guia: 

Ano por afio pasamos asf, pasamos pueblo, pasamos Amaguana Con susto, con pena 

estamos pasando De otras haciendas vinieron pegando, hirieron minga, hicieron misa, 

no pudieron pegar Fiesta, fiesta, s61o por fiesta bajamos de los pajonales al pueblo 

Leon, tigre, oso querian comer, escapamos, bajamos por dia de Corpus Manos llenas de 

canela, manos llenas de Apo 91 padre nos ha Uamado, por eso vinimos para hacer fi- 
esta 

Year after year we come like this, passing the village, passing Amaguana Afraid, 

with sadness we are coining From other haciendas they came hitting, they made a 

minga y they said a Mass, but they couldn't hit us * The feast, the feast, only for the 

feast we have come down from the grassy wastes to the village Lion, tiger, bear wants 

to eat us," we escaped; we came for the day of Corpus Our hands full of cinnamon, 

hands full of [various things to eat are mentioned] The lord priest has called us, for that 

reason we have come to make the feast. 

Monday there is to be another castiflo, presented by the alcalde. The tree will be 
freshly cut, because a young tree takes die grease better and is more slippery. The 

9 On an earlier visit to Amaguana, Mr. Gorrell and I did buy two masks (one for 2 sucres, 
the other for 6 sucres, with the assistance of the Cholo maskmaker, who stated that he was the 
sole maker of these "Montero" masks, which are worn at the fiestas of Corpus and San Pedro. 
For thirteen years he has been copying worn-out masks brought him by the Indian wearers. 

* In Quechua apu means "chief," "lord," e,g., hatun apu t "great lord" (Garcilasso, II, 
185-86, 315). The term is applied today in Peru to the Mountain spirits and the respected old 
men (Mishkin, p. 237). 

** Formerly the Indians of San Rafael Hacienda belonging to the Chiriboga family had a 
feud with the Indians of the near-by hacienda belonging to Don Jacinto Jij6n y Caamano. 
Fights still occur, sometimes fatal. Inter-hacienda Indian fights at feasts were as common in 
Ecuador as in Bolivia (cf. Bandelier, pp. 88, 114-15). Dancers from La Compania Hacienda, 
formerly a Jesuit property, would come to "win the square" (ganar la plaza para bailor) and 
then begin to fight with those of Juan Montalvo (luegp comienza la rina con los de Juan Mon- 
taloo) (Segundo Felix Maldonado). 

Possibly a survival reference to attack by spirit animals, to shamanistic attack. 



APPENDIX 211 

mat will be on top with oranges, bananas, and bread, with handkerchiefs sometimes 
with coins tied in them, and with a half-bottle of pun (rum) for the bailarincs, the 
dancers. (Prosperous alcaldes may put guinea pigs and roast chickens on the pole.) 

J. EASTER WHIPPINGS AND VISITS* 

If at any time during the year a boy offends his father's elder brother or other 
kinsman, the kinsman may say, "Well, today I am not punishing you, but at Easter 
you will pay me for what you have done." 

At Easter they prepare chicha and cariucho caldos (broths) and cinnamon water 
as pay for two or three fierce old men whom they invite to come and punish the boy 
or boys. One will carry the boy, another hold his feet, and another beat him hard 
with a rawhide whip six strokes, at each stroke giving counsel about behavior. 
Then they take the boy to bathe in very cold water, pouring water over him and 
rubbing him with nettles. Then they make him kiss the hands and feet of the whip- 
per. After all this punishment they give the boy cinnamon water and broth. 

This punishment is administered at from three to four in the morning. Then they 
continue to eat and drink ivsfelices pascuas, for happy Easter. This custom comes 
down from our fathers and grandfathers from years back and refers to the punish- 
ment taken by our Lord Jesucristo.w 

Also at Easter we pay visits to compadres and comadres and padrinos, to the fa- 
thers, and to the parents of son- or daughter-in-law (consucgros). A mediano is car- 
ried by the visitors: chicha of sprouted maize (jora dt mah), an arroba (barrel) of 
potatoes, a dozen guinea pigs, three or four chickens that are good and yellow, three 
or four sucres worth of eggs, and a liter of puro. 

Boys go from house to house, asking blessings of the elder people. The people of 
the house are careful to offer something to the boys. Each person asks a blessing 
with three alabados. Kneeling before the elder, he says three times, "Bendito, ala- 
bado sea Senor Santi'simo Sacramento del Altar [Blessed, praised be the Lord, Holi- 
est Sacrament of the Altar].'* After giving the blessing, they give the food and 
drink. 

K. DAY OF THE APOSTLES SAN PEDRO AND SAN PABLO 
JUNE 29, AT JUAN MONTALVO* 

The church feast of these patron saints lasts only one day, but the people prolong 
it to at least three days. Besides, they dance every Sunday until the last Sunday in 
July, the feasts of these supplementary days being referred to as octavos.*? 

For two or three months people have been zealously preparing costumes and prac- 
ticing songs and dance. There are several groups of dancers, aruchicosf* from three 
or four to ten in each group. In any house arranged for, a group will be arrayed. 
Then they dance in that house for a moment before visiting the houses of the neigh- 
borhood. 

" Reported by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

Cf. Easter whipping in Mexico to make children grow (Parsons 2:276, 523) and Mexican- 
Pueblo whipping and plunging into water by down or bogey masks (Parsons and Beals, p. 499). 

* Based on report written by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 

w Such festive extensions are common in Mexico and are characteristic of the early Church 
calendar. Bat this San Pedro and San Pablo extension is unusually prolonged. Note that it 
covers some of the period of the Peruvian Raymi celebration. 

** No etymology available, regular term for dancers. 



PEGUCHE 

On entering a yard, "almost as a salute," they dance around the yard about five 
minutes. Then the chief or capitdn addresses the owners of the house. Then, if 
chicha is at hand (in many houses it is not made), the woman of the house will give 
the capitdn the diezmos (tithes): an azafatc (flat bowl) of chicha or of guarango 
(fermented agave juice) to distribute to the dancers. Formerly this was gratis, but 
today they pay for it "according to the friendship they have or according to the 
quality of the drink." 

Following the capitan y they form a circle around the yard, every three or four 
minutes giving half a turn. At every three steps they make a bow, each individually. 
Some dancers take three slow steps, and then three short quick steps and so alterna- 
tively; other dancers stamp "as if making the ground hard with one foot." Each 
dancer carries a flute or a tunda 

For about five minutes before leaving, they dance with special enthusiasm and 
sing their thanks to the ducna. The capitdn sings first, and then the group, repeating 
his words. They sing: 

Na Uugshirine, dueno de casa. Dio selo pague! Agradecene, mamalla comadre, taitalla 
compadre! Cila manta alpacama, agradednche, i u-u-ucu-u! 101 Hay Uugshirishun, guagua, hay 
llugshirishun malqui, tuctulla marquilla. Huatapa ca irinilia sirijungui. 

Now I am going to leave, owner of the house. God only (re)pay you! Thank you, little 
mother comadre, little father compadre! From earth to heaven we are thankful u-u-u-cu-u! 
We are leaving, child, we are leaving malqui (branch of a tree)"all of us marquilla. For the year 
may this be done (que estd echado para tlano). 

In the road they go in file at a moderate trot, the capitan always in front or be- 
hind, displaying his whip. To music or without it they sing: 

Aycha yanurca, mica San Pedro, guataguatapi ay purigunchi, dueno de casa, hay yaycu- 
muni, chungaycuilla hay urmanugpi, chashna purinchi, hay loco cuenta, maimanta lucu, 
dueno de casa, mana lucucho, nuca Ilushaya, hay unauchipi, chasna purine, hay loco cuenta. 
Misericurdiata! Caparichi malqui, hay caymanchayman, iuuuuu! 

Hay richurishun, toro shitian. Santo plazape. Torosho mulato. Suca urmapi, jari jarilla, 
hay shuyaringue, vuelta ta tucushun, reverenshallpa, hay llugshirine, iuuu! Hay guatapaca, 
mana causasha, hay purijuni, ishcay tuctuan, ishcay malquihuan, ima tiyacpi, jari jarilla, hay 
shayarinqoe, nuca urmapi, amaromaringue, vuelta tucushun hay caimanchayman companiata 
(contntrio) jacuricushun hishcay llatapa, jacu-urmariuchun, Luna shirrupan. Misericordiata! 
Caparichi malqui. Intishi guanuy, Misericordiata! 

At last he comes, our San Pedro, after a year, we go, dueno de casa, we enter, happy, falling 
like this we go, we go like crazy things. Where is the crazy man from? Dueno de casa, he isn't 
crazy. We will leave, ay, we go like this, we go like crazy things. Misericordia! We yell like 
this, here and there and everywhere, i uuuuu! 

We shall be seeing each other. There is a bullfight. They are placing the Saint in the plaza! 
The bull is mulato. When I fall down, you stand up like a man, ay, stand up, we'll turn around, 
we'll make a bow. I am going out. i uuu! For a year I won't drink. 103 Let's all make two (?) 
branches. If anything happens, stand up like a man, you will stand up when I fall down, you 

99 A local name. 

^ I0 A large flute, eight to twelve centimeters long, two to four centimeters in diameter, and 
with three holes that are stopped with the fingers, and at one end another hole to blow through. 

101 This prolongation of the they dedicate to the family of the house, to those present, 
and for the ensuing yearone for the huasicama (porter, gatekeeper, caretaker), another for 
the dueno de casa; for each one named they say u u ueuu. 

109 A hint here of ritual abstinence. Cf. the prolonged abstinence of the Jibaro skyer. 



APPENDIX 213 

won't fall down. We go around here and there and everywhere all together (contrario). Let's 
go and see, for two years we are going to fall. The moon give us light. Misericordia! The sun 
has gone out. Misericordial 

Some of the performers dress and dance in Spanish style, using Spanish instru- 
ments. Others wear a cotton mask called diabluma (devil's head). It covers head 
and neck and has two faces, before and behind. A black woolen cloth coat is worn 
and chaps of goatskin with thick long hair. Some wear rattles of gourds; others 
wear, strapped crosswise, a bag (linche) filled with produce, small domestic animals 
or wild animals and birds. 10 * The capitdn, who is the smartest and most intelligent 
of the Indians, will wear this mask and costume, and he always carries a large whip. 

The use of the mask is lapsing. The Indians today do not like it. Formerly it was 
used a great deal, especially by the conciertos, the Indians of the haciendas, of "San- 
to Domingo," "La Companla," "Pesillo," "El Lato," "El Chahuarpungo." (Most 
of these haciendas belonged to the Orders; La Compania to the Jesuits, Pesillo to 
the Mercedarians.) Some say that the Indian first made the mask; others say it 
was the White man who first made it. 

L. OMENS 10 * 
OWL ("CUSCUNGO") 

When there is a sick person in the house who is sure to die, the owl comes from 
the mountains and in the tree next the house and at night cries slowly cuscung6, 
cuscung6 y ending with cotocot6 cotocot6 > a frightening echo. As yet I have not seen or 
heard it, but it is a very strange thing that this mountain bird appears only when a 
person is about to die and sits in a tree near the house of the sick person. 

DOVE 

It is believed by almost everybody that when a dove cries alone in a near-by 
tree, two or three weeks later the person who lives nearest to the tree or the owner 
will die. The dove announces the death of a good person of noble spirit who has 
lived well, almost without intrigue. The dove coos from five in the morning to 
midday, from five to seven in the evening, and at midnight, for two or three days. 105 

HEN 

When a hen crows like a cock, a rare phenomenon, it is announcing the death of 
some member of the family. 106 To preclude the death, the person who hears the hen 
crow must immediately catch and kill her or burn her beak. This offsets the chiqui 
or bad luck for the house. 

HUMMINGBIRD OR BAT 

If a hummingbird or a bat (murritlago) flies into a house, it brings the message 
that the house is to be abandoned. 107 

I0 3 Possibly a substitute for war trophies such as the Jibaros fasten to the belt. 
z 4 Reported by Segundo Felix Maldonado. 

"5 Owl and dove are called witch birds (aves brujas); they are the first to know who is going 
to die. To make the bird leave, you wave burning charcoal or a firebrand through the tree 
(Francisco Andrango Cabezas). 

106 Such a "witch hen'* brings death. When a hen falls at night from her perch, a relative is 
going to die. When cocks crow in the afternoon or at sundown, it is an announcement of bad 
times, such as hunger (F. A. C.). 

"7 Reported by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 



2i 4 PEGUCHE 

DOG 

When a dog belonging to the house digs a hole with his front paws anywhere 
near the house, it is certain that death is over someone in the house. They say, 
"Dog, why are you digging a grave? Dios mio, which of us is to die?" They beat the 
dog, saying that what he has done is chiqui, bad luck, for the house. 

It is a certain sign of death if a dog barks staccato many hours of the night. The 
bark is not the way he always barks. The staccato barking has an echo that is 
frightening and sad. It is au au twice in succession, and after two or three seconds 
he barks the same way again, and again after a few minutes, and after a few minutes 
he barks four or five times in succession rapidly. He keeps up this kind of barking 
three or four hours during the night. 

It is very different from the howl. People say that when the dog howls it is be- 
cause he is seeing a soul (alma)*** 

Dogs bark when they have become separated from owner or master. But a dog 
barks also when he is together with his master in the house; the dog will go out to 
the street and begin to howl. 

GUINEA PIG 

When the guinea pigs in one of the corners of the room begin to complain as the 
sick complain, they are indicating to the owners of the house that just so they are 
going to be sick and complain. 109 

SQUASH AND BARLEY 

If for several years the yield of squash (sambos and zapallos) is too great to harv- 
est or store, it indicates the death of a relative. Death is also indicated when lancha- 
dos > black powder (? rust), is caused by drizzle (lancha) in barley that is head- 
ing up. no 

WOMEN AND MEN 

When a person leaves his house to go on a long trip or on any important errand, 
if on going out of the house or in the street he meets with a woman, it is chiqui. For 
example, if he goes to collect a debt, it is sure that he will not find the debtor or that 
at least the debtor will not pay. If he goes merely for a trip, they will talk m to him 
and run up against him, or some kind of trouble happens. For this reason they say 
that women are chiquis chiquis because something bad always happens. If a person, 
on leaving the house, first meets a man, it is positive [favorable], all business, any 
kind of errand, everything, will go well, and so they are pleased, saying, "First, I 
met a man, so I succeeded in everything and the whole day went happily." 112 

108 Same belief among Tapirape of Brazil (Wagley 1:258). Jibaro, Canelos, and Napo In- 
dians believe that the dead may be reincarnated in dogs (Karsten 4:477). 

109 Reported by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

110 Reported by Francisco Andrango Cabezas. 

lI1 ffMar 9 idiom common among Indians and Cholos for "bawling out." 

" Reported by Jose* Antonio Maldonado, who states that he himself believes in these wom- 
en and men omens. 



APPENDIX 215 

M. SACRIFICES"* 

Always m woris: on Dridges, in tunnels, in caves, 11 * in irrigation ditches or conduits, 
in any dark (tcncbroso) work, always there is a spirit (duende) who obstructs the 
work. For him to consent to easy work and to complete it, the spirit-owner asks the 
engineer and construction boss (sobrestantt) to give him men and women, tools, and 
animals. In order to be allowed to work on and complete the bridge of the Rio 
Guachald that joins with the Grenobles, they delivered to the spirit six combos 
(stonemason's hammers), twelve new-handled shovels, twelve crowbars, twelve 
picks, two sheep, and two young Indians. They had Dionisio throw into mid-river, 
from the center of the bridge, all these tools, and during the work on the bridge two 
young men died. 

In this kind of work one takes great care not to hurt one's self, and, if one does, 
one takes great care to hide the blood, because they say that the overseers and the 
engineers" 5 are on the lookout for those who hurt themselves to get the blood and 
sign the name of the person who is hurt, signing as many names as the number of 
persons the spirit may have asked for. Once the desired number is secured, they de- 
liver them to the spirit. For this, in the middle of the arch of the bridge there is always 
a window, where they leave the signatures signed in blood;" 6 and the men will have 
to die, in some way or other, at this very job. 

It is believed that the spirit that owns the swimming pool of Ishigto has asked 
for three persons and that for this reason people have died in this pool. Until the 
number is completed, there is always danger in bathing there. That's why the in- 
habitants of Juan Montalvo are afraid to bathe in the pool, lest they die. 

Now it is easy to understand what happened in the cave (socab6n) of La Mares- 
ca. u * They say that the owner of the cave, that is, the spirit, asked for a bull, tools, 
a mule, and a pregnant woman, in order to allow die river to pass through the cave. 
Now, as no pregnant woman had assisted at this work, they were not able to deliver 
one or, worse, get her blood; they say they delivered only die rest, less the pregnant 
woman. Therefore, they say, the spirit himself attracted the woman. As it was a 
novelty and a matter of curiosity to see water passing through the cave, many 
persons went to see the river pass through the cave, and among them went a preg- 
nant woman. She was among several ladies who came close to the cave. When they 
left, the pregnant woman fell back a litde and returned alone to look at the cave. 
On returning, she saw a priest" 8 dressed in green who called to her, and she shouted 
from fear, she said, and cried out to her companions, but they did not see the priest. 
A few days later die woman died from fright (cspanto). 

Such is the belief about all persons who die in the construction of bridges, caves, 
ditches the belief that their souls are delivered to the owner of the work, to the 
duendc, the spirit 

"3 Reported by Jose* Antonio Maldonado as general belief and as told him by a neighbor, 
Dionisio Abalco, a young peon. 

114 In pre-Inca belief caves were sacred (Garcilasso, 1, 47). 

"Cf. folk gossip in Mexico about murder by engineers (Parsons 2:467). Here body oil 
for automobiles was the motivation; possibly this derived from some fear of ritual murder. 

1x6 Is this notion derived from "cornerstone" tokens? 
x " See p. 136,^56. 
8 See p. 135. 



216 PEGUCHE 

N. DREAMS 

REPORTED BY JOSE ANTONIO MALDONADO 

i. If a person dreams he is catching fleas or lice or if he dreams of a cat, it is sure 
someone has been stealing. Whether the theft is of animals or of things, it is sure 
someone has been stealing. 

a. If one dreams of a sheep, it is because some wish is not going to be realized; 
for example, if one is ready to undertake a journey and he dreams of a sheep, it is 
because the journey is to be put off. 

3. When one dreams of drinking chicha or rum, it is going to rain. 

4. If a person dreams he is falling off a tree, it is because one of the family is 
surely going to die. If he dreams he is eating any kind of meat beef, mutton, pork 
it is sure that a relative, if not one of the family, has died. 

. If a person dreams of lizards or reptiles or that a pig follows him to bite him, 
it is because someone is bewitching him."' 

6. If one dreams of a halter, it is because he is going to go on a long trip. 

7. If one dreams of water, it is because he is going to cry for some misfortune that 
is to happen. 

8. A dream of eggs is to acquire tumors. 

REPORTED BY FRANCISCO ANDRANGO CABEZAS 1 

9. Dreaming of seeing a wolf or a rat (perricote) or of catching worms or lice means 
someone is going to steal animals or to steal something from the house. 

10. Many sheep means staying home from a trip. 

11. Drinking rum, nevada heavy snow or hoar frost; drinking guarango a 
strong drizzle (paramear from pdramo). 

12. Carrying an image, a funeral procession, finishing an earthen wall fence (con- 
tra zanja) or a house wall, putting out a candle all these dreams mean someone 
in the household is to die. 

13. Death of a relative, weeping for a dead person, or lifting a dead person an 
animal of the house or of a neighbor is to die. 

14. Large plantings of wheat or mounds of wheat you will be asked for what 
you owe. 

15. A planting of barley or mound of barley getting money. 

16. A cat you will see a fight. 

17. Counting or seeing money you are sleeping cold. 

1 8. Hot cooked potatoes you are sleeping warm. 

19. Dancing in costume (jiesta dancing) there is going to be wind. 

20. Gathering flowers in a garden you are going to be made a compadrc. 

21. Catching hen with chickens you are lucky. 

22. Guinea pig, one or more you will be sick. 

Cf. p. 206. 

190 Note that Nos. 9-11 are variants of Nos. 1-3 in MaTdonado's list. 



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Publications in Anthropology, Ethnological Series." Chicago, 1940. 

SCIUIER, E. G. Peru. New York, 1877. 

STIRLING, M. W. Historical and Ethnographical Material on the Jivaro Indians. Bu- 
reau of American Ethnology Bull. 117. Washington, D.C., 1938. ' 

VASQUEZ, G. V. Doctrinas y realidades en la Iegislaci6n para los indios. Mexico City: 
Departamento de Asuntos Indigenas, 1940. 

WAGLEY, CHARLES, i. "World View of the Tapirape Indians," Journal of Ameri- 
can Folk-Lore y LIII (1940), 252-60. 

. 2. Economics of a Guatemalan Pillage. "Memoirs of the American Anthropo- 
logical Association," No. 58. 1941. 



INDEX 



Absentee ownership, 8, ia (n. 21) 
Acculturation, 3, 6, 9, 151, 180, 181, 182, 

190 (n. 12), 207 (n. 82) 
Adoption, 144 

Adultery, 59, 87, 139-40, 144 
Agriculture, 18-20, 171, 184, 187, 195; effi- 

ciency of Indian, 8 

Aire, mat, 47, 64, 89, 141, 169, 196, 203 
Alcaldes: de capilla, 160, 162, 207, 208, 210- 

1 1 ; saint's day, 83; wedding, 57-58 
All Saints' Day, in 
All Souls' Day, in, 155 
Altar, 17, 57, 87, 98, 105, 108-9; sorcerer's, 

75-77 
Amazon Valley, parallels with, iv, 172, 175, 

176 (Table 2), 177 
Animals: domestic, 177, 184-85; in folklore 

and religion, 125-26, 128-29, 131, 134, 

136-37, i3&-44> 146-48, 175, 180, 204-7, 

216; wild, 32, 189 
Archeology in Ecuador, 2 
,f a**, 44, 89, 94 



Aymara 1 Tndians, 3, 44 (n. 44), 66 (n. 150), 
88 (n. 36) x 91 (n. 54), 134 (n. 52), 177, 
207 (n. 82) 

Baptism, 44-45, 81, 85, 142, 152, 179, *93, 

204 
Barley, 12, 18-20, 147, 178, 184, 187, 214, 

216 

Basketry, 16 
Bath, 46, 109, in; baby's, 46-47; after con- 

finement, 46, 157; curing, no, 120, 168; 

after death, 119, 200, 203; eve of San Juan, 

109-10; after wedding, 58, 119, 148, 195 
Beans, 18-20 

Benakazar, Sebastian de, 4 
Birth, 42-44, 192; see also Baptism; Confine- 

ment 

Blowgun, 32 
Blowing and sprinkling rite, 68, 69-71, 74, 

76-77, "9, 197 
Bolshevism, 5 

Brujo, 58, 68, 73, 77, I39--P, 196-99, *O7; 

sec also Curing 
Burial, 77-80, 89, 97, *35, 202-3, 207; for 

unbaptized or bewitched, 44, 143; see also 

Death; Funeral services 

Calendar, 95-112, 180 

Candles, 57, 69-70, 73-75, 77, 98, 105, 109, 
118, 164, 167, 169, 199 



Canes of office, 83, 95, 103, 161-62, 207 
Capitan, 82-84, 99-104, 105, 106, 108-9, IJ 6, 

121, 154, 180, 181 (n. 23), 182, 207, 208, 

212, 213 
Cara Indians, 2 
Caranque Indians, 1-3 
Cardinal directions, 114-15, 183; graves 

oriented in accordance with, 80, 114 
Carrying on back, 16, 43, 46, 51, 52, 61, 166 
Catholicism, 5-6, 149, 179, 180; see also 

Church, Catholic; Religion 
Cattle, 18, 136-38; purchase of, 13, 30 
Cayambe, iv, 1-3, 175, 180, 182, 183-216 

(Appendix) 

Cayapa Indians, 2, 177 
Celebrations, 37, 38, 44, 56, 57-58, 81-84, 

100-104, 10 5~7, 108-11, 1 1 6, 152, 1 80, 183, 

189, 194-95 
Cemetery, 44, 78-80, 89, 96-98, in, 113, 

135,143,20^-3 
Charms, love, 55 
Chicha, 23-24, 57, 75, 99, 106, 108, no, 121- 

22, 134-35, 152, 159, 178, 184, 187-88, 193, 

199-201, 208, 211-12, 2l6 

Cttcheria: introduction of, 9, 182; use of, 
10, 23-14, 56-57, 98, 105, 1 10, 123, 152- 
53, 184, 209 

Chickens, 15, 17, 45, 185, 211 ; as offering, 66, 
121 

Chiefs; see Leadership 

Children, 11,42-53, 131-34, *49, 152, 154"55; 
backwardness in, 50; conceived before 
marriage, 59; at death, 78, 203; expected to 
co-operate, 51, 149, 155, 166, 184, 205; 
permissiveness with, 47^49, 155-56, 166; 
retain earnings, 168; sibling relations, 49- 
50, 149, 155-56; in tales, 131-34, 140-42, 
182, 204 

Cholos, i, 23, 145, 150, 158, 190 (n. 12) 

Church, Catholic: in colonial times, 4, 84, 
174; collections by, 31, 164, 209; Indians as 
officials in, 5, 82-83, 160, 162, 207-8; 
Indians work for, 11-12, 83, 149, 160, 172; 
role as institution, 5-6, 13, 83-85, 160-61, 

.- 179-81; segregation in, 10, 96 

Cinnamon, ceremonial use of, 63, 67, 70-71, 
74-75, 210-11 

Class differences in Indian community, 163, 
1 66, 187, 189, 190 (n. 12); see also Indian- 
White relations 

Colombia: Indians of, parallels with, 118, 
132 (n. 43), 141 (n. 74), 176, 182; knowl- 
edge of, 13; merchants or immigrants from, 



221 



222 



PEGUCHE 



9, 13 (n. 25), 30; Peguche man in, 26, 164; 

in story, 138 
Commerce; see Trading 
Concertajt, 18 (n. 16), 188 (n. u) 
ConciertOy 144, 181, 188-89, 206, 207, 208, 

213; see also Hacienda 
Confession, 56, 120-21, 135, 136, 145, 166, 

I94(n.33), 205 
Confinement, 43-44, 4 6, 149, 152, 157, 192; 

see also Birth 
Confirmation, 81 
Cookery, 15, 21-23, 31, 170, 185 
Corn, 18-20, 147, 187; attacked by dogs, 17; 

preservation of, 15 
Courtship, 55 
Curing, 62-68, 6>72, 135, 150, 166-69, 

195-99; in tales, 128; see also Disease 

Dancing, 52, 114, 115, 133, 134-353 140, 156, 

175-76, 180, 182, 183, 189, 194-95, 203; 

at baptism, 49; on saint's day, 83, 108-11, 

208, 210, 21 1-13; on saint's day and Easter, 

100-103, 104-7; at wedding, 57 
Death, 77-80, 1616, 179; at birth or in infancy, 

44; caused by rainbow, 66; in childbirth, 

49; prediction of, 125, 199, 213-14, 216; 

of witch, 143-44, 199; see also Burial; 

Funeral services 
DiezmoSy 81, 134, 181 
Disease, 62-68, 86, 91, 93, 119-21, 126, 136, 

166-69, i?5, 195-99, 213-14, 2l6 5 n c 0101 "- 

al times, 4; see also Curing 
Divination, 43, 67, 70, 73-77, 125-26, 174 
Division of labor: by household, 25, 54, 184; 

by sex, 19, 22-24, 25, 27, 31, 51, 53-54, 60- 

61, 171, 184; by village, 16, 160 
Divorce, 38, 58, 131, 161 
Dogs, 10, 17-18, 51, 137, 139, 159, 172, 175, 

196, 214 
Domestic service: Indian girls at curacy, 56, 

182; Indians to Indians, 48, 49, 50, 152, 

157, 162-63, 1 66; Indians to Whites, 10, 

137^38 
Dreams, 126, 151, 174, 216; as omens, 126, 

216 
Dress; 27-30, 150, 162, 171, 179; children's, 

49, 51; at wedding, 57 
Drunkenness, 45-46, 54, 57, 60, 69, 77-78, 83, 

88, 90, 99-W4, 106-7, 1 10, 120-24, 133, 

134, 135-36, 152-53, 154, 171, 175, 178, 

194-95,207 

Ecuador, 1-6 

Education: for co-operation in adult tasks, 
5i, 53-54, 149, 155, 166; in religious mat- 
ters, 86, 207-8; sex, 53; see also Schools 



Eggs: at confinement, 44; curing use of, 64- 

66, 135, 196-99; at death, 200 
Encomenderos y 174, 182 
Encomienda, 3-4, 9, 86, 171, 181 
English parallels, early or medieval, 7 (n. 2), 

31 (n. 89), 158, 181 (nn. 25 and 27), 182 

and n. 29, 188 (n. 8), 200 (n. 55) 
European parallels, medieval, 44 (n. 45), 

56 (n. 100) 
Exorcism, 71, 119-20, 136, 137, 142-43, 144, 

168, 198; see also Spirits 

Family, 33-62, 149, *59, 162-63, 164-65, 172; 
see also Marriage 

Fertilizer, 17, 19, 171 

Fields, location of, 14, 18, 183, 186-87 

Fireworks, 83 

"First fruits"; see Primicia 

Flowers, 55, 58, 74-76, 78, 98, xoi, 103, 198 

Folk tales, 127-48, 182, 191-^93, 204-7 

Food: at birth, 192; as charity, 97, 158, 165; 
at death, 77-78, 80, 93, 171, 199-200; as 
gifts, 45, 55, 83, 97, 106-7, in, 121, 134, 
158, 159, 162, 189, 193-94, 200, 209; as 
offerings, 65, 78, 80, 81, 87, 98, in, 122, 
171; origin of, 147; as pay, 11-12, 80, 96, 
102, 158; preparation of, 21-24, in, 120- 
21, 166, 170, 178, 182, 185; sealing friend- 
ship with, 123, 170; and the supernatural, 
131, 216; taboos, 198; at wedding, 57, 194; 
wild, 189 

Funeral services, 81, 179, 199-203; see also 
Burial; Death 

Games, 38, 194-95, 200-203; children's, 
51-53, 114, 154-55, 156; in folklore, 128-29 

Garcilasso de la Vega, 1, 2, 6, 172, 175, 179 

Genealogies, 34-37 

Gesture, 61-62, 98 

Gifts, 155, 159; confinement, 159, 162; for 
godparents, 45, an; at marriage, 55, 193, 
195; for patron saints, 83; from super- 
natural, 130-31 

Godparents, 44-46, 78, 86, 96, 99, 114, 122- 
23, 150, 163, 193; at marriage, 56-58, 99, 
l Z l y x 93-95, 202; at saint's visit, 85 

Guatemalan parallels, 4 (n. 20), 24 (n. 64), 
85 {n. 20), 87 (n. 28), 92 (n. 59), 112 (n. 
49), 114 (n. 5), 123 (n. 71), 131 (n. 38), 

134 (n. 5i) 

Guinea pigs, 10, 16, 158, 166, 174, 177, 183, 
185, 211, 214, 216; curing with, 64-68, 
168,196,197-99, 207; as offering, 65,93, 121 

Haccndadoy 182, 209; in folklore, 137-38; 
introducer of weaving, 25-27; offerings to, 
121 



INDEX 



223 



Hacienda, 8-9, 12-13, 171, 183, 184,188-89, 

205,209 
Hair, 28, 55, 150, 157, i?5> 205; cutting of, 

as punishment, 28 (n. 81), 208 
Heaven, 87-88, 135-36, 179, 199-200, 203 
Hell, 87, 130, 135-36, 179, 180 
Holy Week, 96-99 
Hospitality, 10, 23, 55-56, 124, 130, I34~35, 

151, 155, 158, 159, 160, 165, 180, 194 
House, 14-17, 170, I77> l8 3 building of, 

34, 38, 133, HO,- 183; consecration of, 34; 

ownership of, 38, 183 
Huayna C&pac, 2 

Humor, 62, 72-73, 152, 154, 156, 158, 161 
Hunting, 32, 189, 201-2 

Ibarra, 1, 4, 84-85, Hi 

Illegitimacy, 59 

Ilumin, Indians of, 25 

Impersonation, 101-2, 105, 108-11, 118, 176, 

209 

Impregnation, belief about, 43, 53, r 75, *9* 
Inca Empire, 1-3, 6, 13, 163, 172-75* J 78; 

parallels with, 173 (Table i) 
Indian, definition of, i 
Indian-White differences, 10-13, 20-21, 44- 

46, 81, 96-98, 101-2, 145, 184, 213 
Indian-White menage, 10, 54, 174, 190 (n. 

12), 191 
Indian-White relations, 10-13, 20-21, 26, 

30-32, 44-46, 53, 54, 64, 73, 102, 105, 108- 

9, in, 124, 149, 150-51, 156, 163, 177-82 
Infant mortality, 44 
Inheritance, 38, 129, 186-87 
Insanity, 33 OB- a ), 50, 66 
Irrigation, 8, 19 

Jefe politico, 5, 202 

Jewelry, 29-30, 150, 166; ritual use of, 29-30 

Jibaro: knowledge of, 13, 139; parallels with, 

172, 175-77; see also Amazon Valley 
Jij6n y Caamano, Jacinto, 5, 117, 210 (n. 92) 

Kinship terms, 39-41; use of, 113, 161, 163, 

179 
Kissing, 50, 57, 61, 96, 9*-99> "4, '80, 194, 

201, 207 

Kneeling, 57, 96, 98, 105, H4 

Labor; see Division of labor; Minga 

Land: allotment of, to peones, 9; boundaries 
of, 20, 186-87; for pasture, 8, 188-89 

Land tenure, 8-9, 20-21, 174, 181, 186-87, 
188-89 

Languages, native, spoken before Inca con- 
quest, 2-3, 172, 174 



Leadership: aboriginal, 4-5; among hacienda 
Indians, 12-13, 183, 187, 189; Indian, 174, 
177, 181-82 

Lightning, 153-54, *75 

Literacy, 156-57, 185 

Loom: Indian, 9-10, 25-27, 170, 183-84; 
Spanish, 9, 25-27, 184; see also Weaving 

Love: in folklore, 127; romantic, 55 

Love charms, 55 

Maestro de capilla> 84-85, 86, 88-89, *43, 
153, 154, 160-61 

Maestro de doctrina, 83 (n. 10), 86 

Maestro (maytro) rezador^ 55-56, 77, 80, 84, 
96,113,164 

Market, in Otavalo, 10, 13, 17, 30-32, in, 
161, 181 

Marriage, 33, 53, 54~55, 1*5-26, '47-48, 149, 
174, 193, 194-95, 202; ceremony, 55-58; 
gifts, 55, 193, go-between, 55, 193; im- 
portance of, 59-60, 125; regulations govern- 
ing, 38-39, 54-55, 179 

Mask, 95, 98, 107, 116-18, 134-35, 176, 181, 
209-10, 213 

Mass, in, 135, 160, 207; in colonial times, 
114 (n. 4); after confinement, 47; for 
dead, 81, 143; on Easter, 96, 98; at installa- 
tion of caption, 109, in, 209; for rain, 8, 
19, 1 08; on saint's day, 83, 115 

Matrilocal residence, 33, 149 

Medicine, 30, 166-67; * *&<> Curing; Dis- 
ease 

Medecine man; see Erujo 

Mestizo, i ; see also Cholos 

Mexican parallels, 4 (n- 20), 5-6, 12, 17, 20, 
22, 27 (nn. 61 and 72), 31 and n. 89, 32 
(n. 96), 56 (n. 100), 71 (n. 179), *i, 82 
(n. 2), 83 and n. 7, 84, 85 (n. 20), 86 (n. 24), 
87, 92 (n. 59), 95 (n. 6), 98 (n. n), 104, 
108 (n. 36), jio and n. 39, in, 115 (& 10), 
116 (n. 27), 117 and n. 33, 120 (n. 53), 123 
and nn. 71, 73, 75, and 76, 124, 149 ( 2), 
153 (n- 8), 162, 170, 171 (n. 3), 180, 181 
and n. 25, 188 (n. 8) 

Middle America, parallels with, iv, 24 (n. 64), 
119 (n. 43), 120 (n. 53) 

Midwife, 43, 46, 67, 192 

Minga, 11-12, 20, 32 (n. 5), 74-75, 83, 133, 
149, 160, 163, 172, 181 {n. 27), 186, 187- 
88, 189 

Missionaries, 161 

Mitimaes, 2-3 

Moon, 90-91, 1 12 (n. 50), 175 

Mountains: personified, 92-^3, I2 7-29> J 3Q" 
31, 175, 191; as source of disease, 63 



PEGUCHE 

Music, 30-31, 57, 78, 83, 84, 99-100, 101-3, ness, 129; for murder, 144-45; for sins, 

104-7, 5-i6, 134-35, 155, *76, 180, 188, 87-88, 135, 138-39, ^44, 145-46, 180, 208, 

194, 200, 208-9, 212 211 

Myth, creation, 145-46 

Quechua language: post-Conquest spread of, 

Naming, 45 (n. 49), 46, 18^-90; see also Bap- 2-3, 172, 174; use of, iv-v, 13, 154-55, 

tism. 179,200,208 

Narcotics, 30, 63 Quichinche, Indians from, 16 

Negrit, 52, no, 117, 155-56, 176, 181 (n. 23) Quinoa, i8nzo, 147, *55, 185 

Negro, bailede, 106-11, 121 Quito, kingdom of, i; see also Indian-White 

Negroes, I, 182, 206 (n. 77) relations 

Numerals, favored, 114-15, 180 

Nursing, 47-49 Race> ^ ^ 54 (n . 88)> I?7 

^ Rain, 92, 108, 125, 126, 153, 216 

Offerings, 116, 179, 180, 181; to Rainbow, 92 Rainbow, 63, 64, 65, 66, 91-92, 131, 136 

Omen, 111-12, 125-26, 174, 187, 191, 213- (n. 56), 175, 191, 197-98 

14, 216 Religion, 5-6, 81-94; see also Catholicism; 

Otavalo: in colonial times, 2-4; present-day, Church, Catholic 

iv, 7; see also Indian-White relations; Remedies, 31, 44, 62-64, 166-69, 197-98; see 

Market also Curing; Medicine 

Owl, 125, 213 Rituals, 113-24; Catholic, 5-6; parallels in, iv 



Panpipes, 30-31, 84, 101, 116 

Parallels, cultural, iv, 170-82 

Parcialidad, 4-5, 7, 21 

Patrilocal residence, 33 

Peones, 8-9, 131, 182; see also Concierto 

Peru, modern, unknown, 13 

Physical type; see Race 

Pigeons, 17, 177 

Pigs, 17, 177; identified with Rainbow, 92, 
94,175,191,198,204 

Pilgrimages, 93, 167 

Ponce de Leon, Sancho de Paz, 3 

Population: of Cayambe, 183; of Otavalo 
Province in 1582, 3-4 

Potatoes, 18-19, 147, 185, 187, 195, K>5, 6 

Pottery, 15-16, 24-25, in, 170, 171 

Prayer, 84-86, 91, 93, 96-97, 105, 112, 113, 
118,^143, 153, 158, 167, 169, 179, 200; es- 
sential in curing, 62, 168 

Priests, 5, 44, 56-57, 73, 81, 96, 1 14, 120, 135, 
139, *4*-43, 160-61, 166, 202, 215; in 
colonial times, 4, 84; relations with Indians, 
10, 56, 81, 83-84, 96, 101, 109, 149-50, 
160-61,164,174,207,209 

Primicia, 81, 181 

Prioste; see Capitdn 

Procession, 6, 78, 100, 104, 107, 109, 114-15, 
180, 207, 209 

Protestants, 73, 160-61 

Pueblos; see Parcialidad 

Punishment: for adultery, 139-40, 144; for 
envy, 139; by hair-cutting, 28 (n. 81), 208; 
for lack of hospitality, 130, 146; for lazi- 



Sacrifice, 215 

Saenz, Moises, 5-6 

Saints: cult of, 81-84, 106-11, 180, 211-12; 
images of, 153, 160, 164 

Salt, 30 

San Juan^rte, 93, 106-7, 108-11, 122 

San Pablo, Laguna de, 7-8 

San Rafael, Indians from, 12, 28, 100-104 

Schools, 13, 53, 149, 157, 166, 184-85 

Self-government, nearest approach to, 83-84, 
103-4; see also Leadership 

Servants; see Domestic service 

Sex, 53, 60-61; education, 52; outside mar- 
riage, 57, 58-59, 131, 138, 144; relations 
with animals, 141-43, 191; relations with 
Whites, 54, 59 

Sheep, 17, 109,139,^05-6 

Shrines, 6, 118, 181 

Sickness; see Curing; Disease 

Sin, 70, 73, 87-88, 136, 145-46 

Sorcery; see Witchcraft 

Soul, 44, 8l, 196-97, 200, 203, 207, 214; 
loss of, 180, 196, 197 (n.39), 215; prayed to, 
87,180 

Southwest, North American, parallels with, 
iv, 52 (n. 76), 66 (n. 155), 86 <nn. 22 and 
23), 87 (n-3o), 89 (n. 4*),90 (nn.5i and 53), 
9a (n. 59), 93 (nn. 65 and 7*), 7*, 94 
(n. 76), 98 (n. n), 104, 107 (n. 31), "4 
(n.6), 115 andn.i7,u6 (n.*7), 117 (n.33), . 
125 (n. i), 130 (n. 36), 138 (n. 63), 149 
(n. 2), 157, 163, 171, 180, 181 (n. 23), 208 
(n.82) 



INDEX 



225 



Spanish conquest, 3 

Spanish influence in Indian life, i, 3, 177, 
178 (Table 3), 179-8* 

Spanish terms: knowledge and use of, 150, 
155, 159, 163, 167, 169; Quechuized, iv-v; 
writing of, iv-v 

Spirits, 175, 179, 180, 204-7, 215; accom- 
panying drunks, 135; causing disease, 194; 
as companions of sorcerers, 71-72, 76-77, 
175; haunts of, 93, 203; leading folks 
astray, 135-38, 175; making love to unwary 
women, 131, 147-48; of unbaptized dead, 
89, 204; see also Exorcism 

Stars, 91, 112 

Status; see Class differences in Indian com- 
munity; Indian-White relations 

Sucking treatment, 68, 71-72, 199; see also 
Curing 

Suffrage, Indian, 5 
. Sun, 42, 90-91, 175, 179 

Surnames, 46, 190; see also Naming 

Tanning, aboriginal, 2 

Taxes, 1 1, 24, 178 

Teniente politico, 5, 186 

Theft or robbery, 69, 73-74, 87, 144*45, *?2 

Tithes; see Diezmos 

Tobacco, 70-72, 74-77, 93, "9, *35, 160, 196 

Traders: aboriginal, 5, 180; Indian, 13, 30- 

32,151,159,161,162,181 
Tribal organization, 4-5, 174, 176-77, *8i; 

see also Leadership 
Tribes, aboriginal, 1-3, 7 (n. 5) 
Tributary Indians, 3-4, 174 

Velasco, Juan de, 2 (n. 4) 



Wages forpeones, 9, 188-89 

Wake, 77-78, 97, 143, 144, *74, I99-2O2; 

see also Death 
War, 208 (n. 82); Amazonic parallels, 103, 

176; with bears, 141-42 
Water, cold, belief about, 47 
Water supply, ownership of, 8 
Weaning, 49, 166 
Weapons, 32, 141-42 
Weaving, 9,25-27, 54, H9, 1 S> J 58, 159, 161, 

165, 170, 171, 184; aboriginal, 2, 170 (n. i), 

171; by men, 27, 54, 161, 171; set also 

Loom 

Wedding, 55-58, 194-95; see also Marriage 
Wheat, 12, 18-19, 178, 184 
Whipping, 105, 123, 211 
Whips, 107, 109-11, 210, 213 
'White," definition of, i 
Widowhood, 38, 49, 5 8 , W H* 
Wind, bad; see Aire, mal 
Witchcraft, 64, 68-69, 72-73, 88, 131-34, 

139-40, 143, 150^51, 161,169 
Work; see Division of labor; Ming* 

Yaqui parallels, 78 (nn. 193 and 194), 

82 (n. 5), 85 (nn. 19 and 21), 100 (n. 13), 

1 10 (n. 39), 181 (n. 23) 
Yucatan parallels, 12 (n. 20), 16 (n. n), 63 

(n. 131), 82 (n. 2), 104 (n. 19), 142 (n. 76), 

180,205(^72) 

Zapotec parallels, 15 (n. 8), 16 (n. n), 17, 
27 (* 75), 43 (n- 39), 44 (& 45), 59, 63 
(n. 131), 66, 78 (n. 193), 82 (n. 5), 85 (n. 
21), 86 (nn. 22, 23, and 27), 87 (n. 28), 
89 (n. 40), 112 (n. 49), 117, 123 (n. 71), 
125 (n. 3), 130 (n. 36), 134 (n. 51), 153 
(n. 8), 179, 180 



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