The agrarian Indian communities of highland Bolivia

UC-NRLF

B 3 E^fi 1ST

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
RESEARCH SERIES NO. 5

W. L. G. Joerg, Editor

THE

AGRARIAN INDIAN COMMUNITIES

OF HIGHLAND BOLIVIA

GEORGE McCUTCHEN McBRIDE

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THE AGRARIAN INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF
HIGHLAND BOLIVIA

The republic of Bolivia consists of three great natural divisions:
the eastern lowland; the long valleys reaching westward into,
and, in some cases, beyond the eastern range of the Andes; and
the highland plateau, or altiplano, and its bordering ranges.
Each of these regions is characterized by distinctive soils, climate,
vegetation, products, and human distributions. A varying
relation to the soil from region to region is manifested in a cor-
responding diversity in systems of agriculture and land tenure.

Bolivia an Agricultural Country

Highland Bolivia, consisting of the plateau and of the valleys
lying above some 6,000 feet, is distinctly an agricultural country.
Though Bolivia is renowned principally for its mineral products
— gold, silver, copper, and tin — most of the people are occupied
in tilling the soil. According to the last census (1900) 564,009,
or 32 per cent, of the inhabitants were engaged in agriculture,
whi'e only 399,037 were occupied in "general industries," and
but 12,625 m mining.1

Since the earliest times the people of this region have been
farmers. Mining, stock raising, commerce, fishing have been
merely incidental. Tilling the ground, irrigating the fields,
planting and harvesting their crops have been the occupations
about which grew up laws, government, social customs, and
religion. The Inca, some centuries before Columbus, found about
Lake Titicaca sedentary tribes of Indians, who already for ages
had practiced agriculture. He extended over them his rule,
making them a part of his empire, Tahuantinsuyo, itself a
politico-agrarian institution. When the Spaniards entered this

1 Geografia de la Repiiblica de Bolivia, official edit., Oficina Nacional de Inmi-
gracion, Estadistica y Propaganda Geografica, La Paz, 1905.

Censo general de la poblacion de la Repiiblica de Bolivia, Septiembre i° de
1900, Vol. 1: Resultados Generales, ibid., La Paz, 1902.

015

2 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

region, though they came in search of gold, many of them soon
abandoned the quest for such treasure and settled down, appro-
priating land and people alike to form their great rural estates.

Distribution of the Population

Though constituting only about one-third of the territory of
Bolivia, the plateau area contains some three-fourths of the
population. In the five upland departments, La Paz, Oruro,
Potosi, Cochabamba, and Chuquisaca, are located all of the large
cities and most of the towns of the republic. Here, too, are found
nearly all of the white and mixed races and all of the civilized
Indians, the Quechuas and the Aymaras, who are the agricul-
turalists of the country.

Yet large tracts of the highlands are utterly unfit for cultivation
or for human habitation. The lofty mountain regions (above
14,000 feet) are thinly peopled, as are also great expanses on the
altiplano where deposits of salt, borax, and other mineral sub-
stances are located in an almost absolute desert. This has
crowded the inhabitants into certain closely restricted areas, in
which sufficient soil exists to render agriculture possible. Some of
the high valleys from 8,000 to 12,000 feet above sea level and
selected spots about Lake Titicaca show from 40 to 100 persons
per square mile, being in many cases made up almost entirely of
rural inhabitants.2 These thickly settled centers of population
are usually far separated from each other. They are divided one
from the other by high ridges, insurmountable ranges, almost
impassable torrents, or on the altiplano by extensive semi-desert
wastes. About the shores of Lake Titicaca great irregularity of
the coast line has contributed to the isolation of the individual
settlements located there.

Attachment to the Soil

With compactly settled districts such as these, dependent from
the very earliest times upon agriculture, there could but result a

2 Isaiah Bowman: The Distribution of Population in Bolivia, Bull. Geogr. Soc.
of Philadelphia, Vol. 7. 1909. PP- 74~93.

ATTACHMENT TO SOIL 3

strong attachment to the soil and well-established forms of land
tenure. It is no surprise to find that to the Bolivian aborigine
"land is the very breath of life." If he holds it as free property it
is his "pearl of greatest price." So dear is it to him that, in time of
famine, he will sell his child rather than part with his diminutive
parcel of ground. He fences it with a wall of stones or mud. He
carefully guards the boulders that mark its bounds. He looks
upon every traveler with a suspicious eye for fear the stranger
may covet his tiny holdings. If, as is usually the case, the land
belongs not to an individual, but to a group of persons who hold
it collectively, it is no less dear. Every member of the body is
per se a defender of its holdings. No greater perfidy can be
committed than to violate or fail to support the ancient custom of
guarding the common holdings.

The Indians not only love their land; they cling to it genera-
tion after generation. Most of the families have lived on their
present holdings from time immemorial. Nothing will induce
them to move. There is far more fertile soil in the valleys east of
the Cordillera. A milder climate may be found in the valleys
which the Indian traders visit from time to time. But these facts
do not entice them to abandon the lands upon which their
fathers lived. Even the inducement of good wages in the cities,
at mines, or upon the railroads can seldom uproot these devoted
farmers from their little plots of ground. Even if, as often
happens, the land be absorbed by an adjoining hacienda and
passed repeatedly from one owner to another, the Indian remains
on it, being transferred with the soil. Only by the use of violence
and by the demolition of his humble cottage, the destruction of
his sheep corral, and the appropriation of his fields can he be
driven from the place. Centuries of occupation have fixed him
fast to the soil.

It is easily seen that only the most meager subsistence can be
secured from such diminutive plots of land as those held by the
community Indians. To supplement the scanty living obtained
from the soil they must engage in various other pursuits. Those
who live on Lake Titicaca or the Desaguadero River build boats

4 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

of the totora, a kind of bulrush that grows in the shallow margins
of the water, and, with nets of their own making, catch fish which
they sell fresh in the markets near by and dried in those more dis-
tant. Others carry on a number of home industries: weaving
blankets from the wool of sheep, llamas, alpacas, and vicunas;
making crude pottery, plaiting grass mats and baskets, or manu-
facturing hats, sandals, bags, and other such things that their
neighbors need. Still others, with their droves of llamas, gather
llama dung (the principal fuel used on the plateau) or act as
carriers between regions not yet reached by the railroads. Even
so, most of the Indians, though with few wants and well schooled
in thrift by hard necessity, are constantly on the verge of starva-
tion, and the failure of a single year's crops brings them face to
face with actual famine.

Organization of the Communities

Under the geographical conditions already mentioned it was
but natural that there should grow up a system of communities,
where each separate valley or secluded corner of the plateau
developed its individual life, centered about the cluster of
thatched dwellings where lived the closely related members of a
clan. Such a social organization, with its inevitable agrarian
character, seems to have existed on the highlands of Peru and
Bolivia from the very earliest times. The old Spanish historians
describe this communal system and the collective ownership of
land that prevailed throughout the Inca Empire. Early Indian
tradition records the belief that their first rulers established this
common possession of the soil. That it was in no sense an inno-
vation of the Incas is maintained by those who have studied the
Aymara civilization which preceded the Quechua dynasty.3 It
seems rather to have dated from the very beginnings of Aymara
culture and to have been the foundation upon which the social

* Bautista Saavedra: El Ayllu, Paris, 1913.
C. R. Markham: The Incas of Peru, New York, ioio, pp. 150-172.
Heinrich Cunow: Die soziale Verfassung des Inkareichs, Stuttgart, 1896.
T. A. Joyce: South American Archaeology, London, 1912, pp. 99-143.
A. F. Bandelier: The Islands^of Titicaca and Koati, New York, 1910.

COMMON LANDS 5

and political, as well as the agricultural, organization was built,
both among the Quechuas and the Aymaras.

This communal system had as its base the ayllu, or clan, of the
Aymara and Quechua tribes. Originating probably as a purely
social organization the ayllu took on an agrarian character as the
people became more sedentary in their life, the land replacing
the family as the bond of union. As a result the communities
usually contained several ayllus banded together by the common
possession of the land. The village or vicinity occupied by this
group of closely related families was known as a marca, a term
said to be of purely Aymara origin and preserved in many of the
place names of the Andes, but curiously enough almost the
identical word used among the ancient Teutons (with a different
original significance) to designate their community, the mark.

A peculiar feature of the ancient community organization,
surviving in many places today, was the division of each clan
into two groups, the aransaya and the urinsaya. This division
of the people is said to have originated at the time of the founding
of Cuzco as the capital of the nascent Inca Empire. In that city
the inhabitants were separated into these two groups, the terms
meaning upper and lower divisions. Just what significance this
distinction carried with it is uncertain, but the aransaya people
were in some way considered superior. Whatever the significance,
this division was preserved throughout the history of the Inca
dynasty, survived the reconstruction attendant upon the Spanish
conquest, and marks many of the communities in Bolivia and
Peru even yet, with but slightly modified name.

Common Lands

The lands held by the ayllus were of at least two, probably
three, kinds. There was the grazing land which was free to all
members of the clan, and upon which the guaccliallama, or
common flocks of llamas and alpacas, were herded by a designated
representative of the community. There was also the agricul-
tural land, which was distributed annually among the heads of
particular families. In addition to these two kinds of common

6 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

holdings, the plot of ground upon which each house was built
seems to have been held almost as private property that de-
scended from generation to generation as a possession of the
family. This, however, could probably not be alienated, at least
to persons outside of the ayllu.

In the yearly allotment of tillable land each head of a family
received what was known as a sayana. This consisted of one
tupu, or "measure," of ground, equivalent approximately to a
Spanish fanega and a half, or to about 24 acres.4 The individual
allotment, the sayana, did not always consist of a single parcel
but was made up sometimes of several widely separated plots in
order that the choice lands might suffice to go around in the
distribution and in order that each might have a piece of the
various kinds of ground. On Lake Titicaca, for example, an
Indian might receive a small plot in the rich alluvial soil at the
border of the lake, another back upon the piedmont slope, and
another upon the cold summits of the near-by ridges. Each of
these parcels would be planted in a different kind of crop. The
one near the lake would yield corn, those farther back quinua
(Chenopodium quinua), while the rich but cold soil on the hilltops
would serve only for potatoes, ocas {Oxalis tuber osa), or other
equally hardy crops. Besides the one "measure" that each
paterfamilias received, an additional tupu was assigned him for
each son, and half a tupu for each daughter. The son if marrying
within the clan would retain his tupu, or rather his right to a
tupu in the annual allotment. The daughter did not have this
privilege, her measure reverting to the father or the ayllu.
Inheritance in ancient times was probably by the female line, but
in post-Conquest days it was through the son.5 Childless couples
sometimes adopted a child, called uta-guagua, who might per-
petuate their rights in the ayllu, for, like the Hebrews, they were
very solicitous that their heritage should not lapse.

In the cultivation of the land, that dedicated to religious uses
was given precedence. All joined in preparing this, planting it,

4 Garcilasso de la Vega: First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas,
Vol. 2, pp. 9-1 1, Haklnyt Soc. Pubis., ist Series, Vol. 45, London, 187 1.

5 Bandelier, The Islands of Titicaca and Koati, pp. 84 and 146.

MODIFICATIONS BY THE SPANIARDS 7

and reaping the crops. This, and the similar service rendered on
the imperial lands, seems to have constituted the principal
taxation imposed by the Inca upon his people. After the prepa-
ration of the land set aside for the Sun, that of widows, orphans,
the infirm, and the wives of soldiers on duty was next cultivated
in the same manner. The individuals' sayahas were next planted.
Even here the spirit of co-operation prevailed, for many worked
together voluntarily, helping each other on their respective
parcels. Finally the land of the nobles and that of the emperor
were cultivated, all joining in the task.

In spite of the demands of a population so great that they could
barely subsist upon the products of their lands, the Indians
scrupulously allowed certain parts of the ground to lie fallow
during much of the time. Opinions differ as to how often they
cultivated the individual fields. At the present time Bolivian
farmers say about one-eighth of the poorer land is cultivated each
year. The better lands may be planted yearly. Senor Alfredo
Sanjines, in a report6 on agricultural conditions in the Depart-
ment of Oruro, calculates that in the Province of Carahgas each
field is tilled only once in twenty or thirty years. Dr. David
Forbes, in his excellent study of the Aymara Indians,7 states that
land is cultivated every five years, being allowed to rest the other
four. This probably represents a fair average for present as well
as ancient times, since much of the land on the mountains and on
the altiplano is extremely poor in quality and, being plowed to
the depth of only a few inches, would yield little if planted more
frequently.

Modifications Introduced by the Spaniards

Though during the growth of the Inca Empire some modifi-
cations were introduced, it would appear that the basis of the
land system remained almost unaltered until the advent of the
Europeans. The land hunger of the Spanish conquerors caused

6 Alfredo Sanjines G.: Seccion de Agricultural Informes varios, Rev. del Minist.
de Colon, y Agric, Vol. 3, 1907. PP- 358-364; reference on p. 363.

7 David Forbes: On the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru [communicated.
June 21, 1870, to the Ethnological Society of London], London, 1870.

\/

8 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

many of the communities to disappear and brought about certain
changes in those that remained, though the Crown decreed
numerous measures for the protection of the Indians and their
lands.8 During the colonial times the ayllu was supplanted in
some respects by a secondary unit which reveals its origin in its
Spanish name. This is the estancia, introduced as a subdivision
of the ayllu. Originally signifying merely the common pasture
allotted to the flocks of a small group of families, the term came
to be applied to this smaller group itself and to the parcels of
agricultural land held by the families composing it. With the
loss of the political significance of the ayllu and the partial
replacing of the community head by representatives of the
colonial government, this smaller unit assumed some of the
attributes of the ayllu, such as the obligation of keeping up
irrigation ditches, preserving and defending the ancient land-
marks, as well as the oversight of the common pasture.

Modifications Introduced by the Bolivian Republic

Since colonial days far-reaching changes have been decreed
at various times but without greatly affecting the agrarian
features of the communities, though their political character has
been modified. The office of cacique, or chief of the Indian
communities, was entirely abolished in 1825 by decree of Sim6n
Bolivar, the "Libertador" of Bolivia. The alcalde, who took his
place as the head of each communal unit, receives his appoint-
ment from the correjidor (local representative of the Bolivian
Government), but probably often in accordance with suggestions
of the Indians themselves. His duties are the maintenance of
order; he is virtually the sheriff of the community. Under him,
but in a different capacity, is the ilacata, appointed in the same
way, upon whom rests the responsibility of collecting the tax
paid by the communitylndians to the Bolivian authorities (Fig. 2).
For either of these positions the correjidor would scarcely select
a person whom he did not feel sure to be persona grata with the

8 Recopilacion de leyes de los Reinos de las Indias, 5th edit., 4 vols., Madrid,
1841; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 217-309.

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MODIFICATIONS BY BOLIVIAN GOVERNMENT 9

Indians themselves. Two alcaldes de campo who regulate such
matters as the cultivation of fields, the distribution of water for
irrigation, the collecting and care of crops, and the rendering of
personal service complete the executive and administrative force
of the community. The jurisdiction of each of these officers is
coterminous with the individual community. Bandelier9 notes
the existence of a council of elders (princi pales), composed of
those who have served in the above capacities. He considers
that this council is the de facto government of a community,
though its operation is so silent and its deliberations so carefully
guarded that its existence is seldom even suspected.

The republic, continuing colonial custom, exacts a land tax
from each comunario. The amount varies according to his
holdings, which in turn depend upon his relation to the various
classes into which membership in the community is divided. In
a community there exist the following classes: originarios,
forasteros, reservados, and proximos. Sometimes the last three are
grouped together under the term agregados. Not all communities
contain all of these different classes. As the names are all
Spanish it is thought that they owe their origin to colonial times,
though it is known that some such system existed in the days of
the Incas. The Aymaras' use of their own term yanapaco to
describe one whose relation to the community corresponds to
that of the three last classes gives strength to the belief that they
may have existed under other names in ancient times. The
originarios are those who from the remote past have belonged to
the community and received their yearly assignment of lands.
They generally receive double the amount of land held by the
other classes. The agregados (including the three classes referred
to) are those who in more recent times have become attached to
the community, from outside the circle. Being allotted about
half the amount of land held by an originario they pay about
half as much in land tax. While their contribution territorial (as
the land tax is called) is from Bs. 3.00 to Bs. 5.00, the originarios

9 Mr. A. F. Bandelier had collected materials for a work on the ethnology of the
Bolivian Indians. His widow, Mrs. Fanny Bandelier, very kindly placed these notes
at the disposal of the writer during the preparation of the present paper.

io INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

pay the yearly sum of Bs. 10.00. (The boliviano is equal to about
40 cents American money.) No other land tax is imposed upon
the Indians who belong to communities. However, keeping up
the customs of the Inca and colonial regimes, the comunarios are
required to contribute certain personal services to the government
or its representatives. These consist chiefly in supplying pro-
visions for any troops that may be in the vicinity, providing
messengers when needed by the local authorities, and furnishing
mules for travelers when demanded by the correjidor. This
custom gives rise to great abuses on the part of the local author-
ities, who often use this obligation as a cloak for securing many
personal services.

Aside from this general oversight and the exaction of the land
tax the Bolivian government leaves the communities very largely
to their own control. Even the police of the republic seldom
interfere in the internal affairs of the community except in case of
serious disorder.

In 1866 President Melgarejo promulgated a decree by which
the communities were abolished and the lands were declared to
belong to the Indians in severalty. An immediate result was that
many of the Indian holdings passed into the hands of whites or
mestizos. After the overthrow of Melgarejo's dictatorship these
sales were annulled (1871), the bona fide buyers being reimbursed
by the government, which still carries a part of the cost of this
act of justice as an item in its internal debt. The size of this
item (Bs. 338,037.41) shows how rapidly the Indian lands began
to pass into other hands during the five years in which the
legislation of Melgarejo was in force. Succeeding legislation has
aimed to protect the aborigines, while at the same time recog-
nizing the Indians as owners, in severalty, of their portions of
communal land.10 Officially the term employed now is always
excomunidades. The Indians may dispose of their holdings by
appearing before the proper authority (the notario de hacienda),
establishing their titles, and asserting their willingness to sell.

10 Manuel Ordonez Lopez: Constitucion politica de la Republica de Bolivia:
Leyes y disposiciones mas usuales, 2 vols., La Paz, 1917; reference in Vol. 1, pp.
584-619.

DISTRIBUTION OF COMMUNITIES u

They have no written deeds, of course, but prove their ownership
by the testimony of their neighbors, particularly the older
members of the vicinity. Much of the community land has thus
passed out of the Indians' hands since that date. However, the
cohesion is so strong in these time-honored agrarian groups that
many of the so-called ex-communities have as completely dis-
regarded the Republic's statutes as they did those of the Spanish
colonial authorities and continue to maintain their communal
ownership as in times gone by.

Distribution of Surviving Communities

The distribution of these still surviving communities is
determined largely by certain geographical factors. Location —
chiefly with respect to travel routes — the depth and character of
the soil, and climatic conditions are the influences that have been
most potent in the preservation or destruction of these "ex-
communities."

Communal ownership is seldom encountered along the main
routes of travel, particularly the older routes. Here the land is
chiefly in fincas, free holdings, survivals in most part of those
great estates granted as encomiendas or repartimienlos by the
Spanish Crown. Along the principal roads and railroads of today
there have grown up also many large farms of recent creation
composed of lands once held by community Indians but either
bought or "acquired by other means" by men of white or mixed
blood. It is in out-of-the-way corners of the country that
community lands are still found: among the mountains where
whites seldom penetrate, in secluded angles of the piedmont
slopes, among the isolated peninsulas that border Lake Titicaca,
on high, inaccessible ridges, and out in semi-desert wastes on the
open altiplano.

As to soil, the Spanish sought that of the valleys, where,
either on the flat valley floors or upon the rich and well-watered
alluvial fans, most of the Bolivian farms are located. The
mountain ridges with their scantier and less fertile soil were left
to the Indians, as were also the salt-impregnated lands of poorly

12 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

drained areas on the plateau, and the tiny, though fertile pockets
at the high valley heads.

Climate was a determining factor, largely because of the
penetrating cold at that great altitude. Where a softer, milder
temperature was encountered, as in the many valleys that dissect
the eastern Andes, the Spaniard not only found that he could
better withstand the cold himself but that the European plants
and animals which he introduced could more easily become
acclimated. So upon the colder heights and the wind-swept
altiplano the Indians were usually allowed to retain their land.
While rainfall appears to have influenced less the distribution
oifinca and community than it has the size of individual holdings
in both, categories, the supply of water for irrigation has been an
important factor in determining whether a community should be
permitted to survive. The easily irrigated lands have generally
passed into the hands of whites.

DEPARTMENT OF LA PAZ

Though Indian communities exist in all the highland depart-
ments of the republic (Figs. 4 and 5), La Paz, with its large pro-
portion of Indian population — 75 per cent, according to the
census of 1900 — contains the greatest number. In this depart-
ment every province, and probably every canton,11 is represented
by aboriginal agrarian groups. Omasuyds has always been
known as the center of all that is aboriginal, and in the number
of Indians who belong to these communities it is far ahead. Paca-
jes, Sicasica, and Munecas follow. These are all distinctly
plateau provinces, few of them having any land below 12,500
feet. (The recently created provinces of Camacho and Ingavi
from parts respectively of Omasuyos and Pacajes have been
ignored as separate units in this study because almost no statistics
are available since the date of their establishment, 1908 and
1909.) The valley provinces, Larecaja, Inquisivi, Yungas, and
Caupolican, have far fewer communities. The plateau provinces

11 The territorial subdivisions of Bolivia are designated, in descending order of
rank, as follows: departamentos, provincias, cantones.

DEPARTMENT OF LA PAZ 13

combine the geographical factors already referred to, of isolation,
poverty or scantiness of soil, and severe climate.

Provinces of Omasuyos and Munecas

Omasuyos and Munecas lie along the northeastern border of
Lake Titicaca. This has been from Inca times the stronghold of
the Aymaras, and here their ancient customs are best preserved.
In these districts weaving is done on the primitive loom (Fig. 3).
Plowing and harvesting follow the time-honored ancestral
methods. Quechua and Spanish, the tongues of the conquerors,
are rarely known, while, as about the southern end of the lake,
the Aymara language is preserved in great purity. Religion is
here nearer to paganism than to Christianity. Education is
rare. The native blood of Collasuyo, as the Incas termed this
Titicaca region, is freer from admixture than elsewhere. Char-
acter is cruder, rougher, but more moral, with typical Aymara
traits, utterly unlike the mild-natured Quechua of Cuzco or of
southern Bolivia. This is distinctly a region of Aymara survivals.
Its primitive communal land tenure is in keeping with this
heritage from the remote past.12

Isolation and an extremely hard environment account for
much of the backwardness of this region. Routes of travel, in
ancient as in modern times, have left these provinces . far to one
side. The movement of armies and of trade has followed the
southwestern shore or has crossed the lake from northwest to
southeast, but seldom has passed along the northeastern side.
The southwestern route is more level, the shore line more
regular. Along the northeastern side of the lake the land
surface is broken by spurs of the Andes and by numerous rapid
streams, while a series of peninsulas juts far out into the water,
and numerous corresponding bays make both land and water
travel along this shore circuitous. Thus these provinces have
lain completely out of the current of important events and
constitute one of the most secluded sections of the country.

12 Rigoberto Paredes: La Altiplanicie: Descripcion de la Provincia de Omasuyu,
Bol. Direcc. Gen. de Estadist. y Estudios Geogr., Vol. 10, 1914. pp. 51-123- La Paz.

i4 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

On the peninsulas of this northeastern shore are located some
of the strongest Indian communities in the country. In this
isolated environment they have held their own for centuries
against any encroachments. A description of one of these will
suffice, as a type of the community in its least modified forms.

On the peninsula of Achacache that reaches far out into the
lake to meet the opposing peninsula of Copacabana, thus forming
the Strait of Tiquina, there exists the strong independent com-
munity of Calaque. Composed of some three hundred families
who occupy several small villages of neatly thatched adobe
houses, they hold and cultivate this land in common, as in ancient
times. An area of some fifty square miles is included in their
possessions, and their well-tilled fields are estimated to be worth
about 500,000 bolivianos ($200,000). As chief, or alcalde, they
have an ex-service man from the Bolivian army, a pure Indian,
one of their own number. Under his leadership they have been
able to resist all attempts to encroach upon their land. Though
legally each member of the community holds his own sayana, so
strong has been the cohesion in this group that few have dared to
part with their holdings. On one occasion when a member of the
community yielded to the inducement of a flattering offer for
his sayana, the Indians en masse took up arms and, attacking the
adjoining farm whose owner had bought the parcels, they forced
the return of the deed of sale, only, however, after a stubborn
fight in which a number of the farmer's Indians were killed. On
another occasion some "jaimas" (tax-free holdings of a former
Indian noble) were sold, also with the result of a battle, in which
the community regained its land.

The Community of Collana

Another community where political control remains almost
entirely in the hands of the Indian ayllu is that of Collana, not
far from La Paz. Though within some ten miles of the city this
little community has seldom been seen by any of the white
inhabitants, for it lies high up among the hills that close the
southeastern end of the La Paz gorge. Consisting of only a few

DEPARTMENT OF LA PAZ 15

square miles, and numbering not more than six hundred souls,
this tiny settlement in its isolated site, where difficulty of travel, a
rigorous climate (for it is on the cold heights over 13,000 feet
above sea level), and scarcity of tillable soil make intrusion of
the whites unlikely, has maintained its organization throughout
the centuries — this, too, in spite of the fact that almost from
their doorways, though their secluded village itself is well-nigh
invisible from the neighboring hills, one can look down upon the
whole valley and the city of La Paz. From this secluded eerie
they have watched four centuries of white generations come and
go, with all the vicissitudes of political and economic changes,
but have not been affected in the slightest degree. Each year
there takes place the re-allotment of the land; each day the cattle
go out to pasture upon their common grazing land; each season,
as in former times, the planting and the harvesting is carried on
in voluntary co-operation. Bound up with their communal land
system is a complete social and political organization. They
elect annually an alcalde from their own number and a cabildo
(or council) to assist him. To these, their own officers, are
referred all questions of public administration. They direct the
distribution of the land. They regulate the use of the meager
springs that supply the community with water. They even sit in
judgment in civil and criminal cases, imposing at times the
penalty of death. So jealously do these Indians guard their
sacred rights to the land and to their independence that it is said
they permit no outsider to remain overnight in their com-
munity.13 The settlement is typical of many others that are
hidden away in such inaccessible nooks of the Andes.

Province of Sicasica

In the Province of Sicasica, which lies on the eastern edge of

the altiplano about halfway between Oruro and La Paz, many

Indian communities survive very much in their pre-Conquest

form. Here the cantons of Aroma, Umala, and Curaguara

13 Rigoberto Paredes: Description de la Provincia del Cercado [of La Paz],
Bol. Oficina Nad, de Estadist., Vol. 6, 1910, pp. 614-667; Vol. 7. 191 1. PP- 1-18.
La Paz,

16 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

contain the largest number of communities, having 12, 14, and 14,
respectively. Illustrative of how lightly the Indian regards any
measures taken by the Republic of Bolivia is the fact that, though
the town of Umala was separated from Sicasica by the govern-
ment and was made into a pueblo with distinct jurisdiction, the
aboriginal population of both towns refuse to recognize the
partition, keeping up their original communal arrangement,
administering their lands as a unit, and feeding their flocks on
common ground as formerly.14

In this province there is an example of the odds against which
the Indians have to contend in the tenacious effort to cling to
their lands. In 1718 and again in 1744 the Indians of the canton
of Ayoayo bought back from the Crown of Spain the lands of
which they had been despoiled by the conquistador es, paying a
handsome sum into the King's treasury. In recognition of the
transaction they were freed from obligation to pay the contribu-
tion territorial. In spite of this they have gradually been brought
under taxation again, until now only two of the seven communities
remain free from the usual payment. In 1729 the Indians of
Sicasica, composed of the two customary divisions, aransaya and
urinsaya, with their eleven communities, also bought back their
lands in a similar manner and purchased, too, a few adjoining
haciendas. The latter have now been lost to them, however, by
the encroachment of white or mestizo neighbors.

Province of Pacajes

There are many strong Indian communities in the Province
of Pacajes at the southeastern end of Lake Titicaca. This is a
typical altiplano province. None of it lies lower than the lake,
12,544 feet above sea level. Most of the territory consists of
flat, unproductive plateau, but there are also a number of low
hills and ridges that serve to break the unity of the province and
that separate the different communities.

A unique group of South American Indians is situated in this

14 Rigoberto Paredes: Descripcion de la Provincia de Sicasica, Bol. Oficina Nad.
de Estadist., Vol. 6, iqio, pp. 403-426. La Paz.

DEPARTMENT OF LA PAZ 17

province. These are the Uros that dwell beside the Desaguadero,
the river that drains Lake Titicaca. Subsisting chiefly by hunt-
ing and fishing, they ply their reed boats (balsas) among the wide-
extended swamps that here border the river. Their houses are of
rude construction, being built of mud and thatched with straw
or totora, the bulrush from which their boats are made. They
appear to be among the oldest occupants of the plateau. Appar-
ently stranded in this inhospitable place, they have continued to
exist as a distinct tribe, with a language all their own — a survival
perhaps of some conquered people, too weak in numbers or in
energy to seek a better abode. They enter any discussion of land
tenure only in a negative sense, as they are almost entirely land-
less. They practice little if any agriculture, though some of them
now own small herds of cattle and llamas. They form the rare
example of a highland Indian tribe which is not markedly
attached to the soil, in contrast to the agricultural people that
surround them.15

On all sides of the Uros are strongly organized and desperately
maintained agrarian communities of Aymaras. On the plain and
among the hills of this province exist some of the most refractory
of the aborigines of Bolivia. They are frequently at war, on a
small scale, usually over a question of land. Neighboring fincas
encroach upon their communal holdings, or some white man or
mestizo attempts to gain a foothold in their midst, and soon there
is a call for troops to quell an Indian uprising. In a few cases
they have realized the futility of further struggle and have
invited some trusted Bolivian to become their patron, turning
over to him their lands to form a finca and they themselves
becoming his virtual serfs. They are careful, however, to stipulate
that ancient customs are to be preserved, and, since among the
finca Indians of Bolivia as well as in the communities custom
is far stronger than law, they are perhaps safer than if they were

15 Jose Teribio Polo: Indios Urus del Peru y Bolivia, Bol. Oficina Nad. de
Estadist., Vol. 6, ioio, pp. 481-517. La Paz.

D. G. Brinton: Observaciones sobre la lengua puquina del Peru, transl. from
the English, with an introduction, by Manuel Vicente Ballivian, Bol. Soc. Geogr.
de La Paz, Vol. 16, 1918, pp. 65-85.

18 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

the unprotected prey of the land-hungry, and often entirely
unscrupulous, Bolivian cholo (half-breed). By such procedure
they free themselves, too, from the burdensome oppression
exercised by the petty officials of the government. On such
fincas, and in fact on many others, there persist many of the
communal features from days when they were independent.

DEPARTMENT OF ORURO

In the Department of Oruro, Indian communities still hold
much of the land lying west of the Desaguadero River, particu-
larly in the Province of Carangas. There the parcialidad is the
prevailing unit. It corresponds to the holdings of a community
and has come to be recognized as a political as well as an agrarian
unit. Each canton is divided into so many parcialidades, usually
two or three, and each of these, in turn, contains a group of ayllus
(from two to ten). In many cases, as on other parts of the
plateau, the ancient division of the people into aransaya and
urinsaya (upper and lower town) is still retained.

In the Province of Abaroa many communities exist, particu-
larly in the far western section of the altiplano, on the piedmont
beyond Lake Coipasa. In this region, far removed from roads
and railroads, and in the secluded mountain valleys and basins
westward to the Bolivian-Chilean boundary, are timid and
primitive Indian groups which preserve their ancient customs,
and white people seldom visit them.

In the Province of Cercado, especially in the canton of Paria,
there are also found many surviving communities, though here
contact with the whites along roads leading from Oruro to La Paz
and Cochabamba has favored the absorption of communities
by adjoining fincas.

In Poopo, about Lake Poop6, communities hold a large share of
the land. The inhabitants here divide their time between farming
and mining, receiving good wages in the silver mines near by
and returning to their fields only for planting and harvesting.16

18 Pedro Aniceto Blanco: Diccionario geografico de la Republica de Bolivia,
Vol. 4: Departamento de Oruro, La Paz, 1904.

DEPARTMENT OF CHUQUISACA 19

DEPARTMENT OF POTOSI

The Department of Potosi, all of which lies high on the
altiplano or among the elevated ridges of the eastern cordillera,
has a big representation of Indian communities. The aboriginal
population is there large. According to the last census (1900)
there were 189,947 Indians in the department, the larger part
of whom are probably still living in communities. Every one of
its provinces in 1877 showed an important number of contri-
buyentes, that is, of community Indians who paid their tax on
the basis of communal holdings. In this respect Potosi ranked
next to La Paz, as it does also in the total Indian population at
present. Porco, perched high upon the mountains and over-
flowing onto the altiplano, was largest payer, 10,872 Indians from
that province contributing the sum of Bs. 76,862, in the year
referred to (1877), as contribution territorial. The Province of
Frias, a distinctly industrial region surrounding the celebrated
silver mines of Potosi, was the province that showed the smallest
number of community Indians.

In the Province of Charcas, which projects fartoward the north,
forming a transition zone between the valley provinces of
Cochabamba and the highland areas of Oruro, the communities,
though struggling hard to hold their own, are rapidly giving way
before the inroads of mestizos, who seek the Indian lands. Here
practically all the land that is sheltered and well enough watered
to make maize cultivation possible has already passed out of
aboriginal possession. The Indians retain little except the cold,
less productive heights above some 10,000 feet, where only pota-
toes, ocas, and barley can be raised.17

DEPARTMENT OF CHUQUISACA

The old, well-settled Department of Chuquisaca with its
capital, Sucre, the intellectual and cultural hub of the Bolivian
world, contains certain provinces where the aboriginal system of

17 L. S. Sagarnaga: Diccionario geografico del Departamento de Potosi fincom-
plete], Anuario Nad. Estadist. y Geogr. de Bolivia, La Paz, 1017, pp. lxxxiii-cclxlii
[sic: i.e. ccxcii].

20 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

land tenure still holds its own. In the Province of Yamparaez
are some of the strongest communities in the republic. Tarabuco
and Quilaquila, cantones whose farthest borders are not more than
thirty miles from Sucre, contain many of these independent
settlements. They occupy the high ridges — 10,000 to 12,000 feet
above sea level — that separate the many valleys of these prov-
inces. The comunarios here are of Quechua race, as are almost
all of the Indians of the southern half of the highlands. On their
cold, bleak heights, all that is now left to them of the extensive
lands they held under Inca sway, they cultivate the characteristic
upland crops and provide the capital of the republic with much
of its food supply. A sharp distinction is made, as in other places,
between the originarios and the various classes of agregados.
Here, too, may occasionally be found the ancient designation of
aransaya and urinsaya already noted as preserved on the alti-
plano. Because of its valley character most of the land in
Chuquisaca has long since become the property of white owners,
excepting the more elevated districts already referred to, the far
eastern plains, and the adjoining lower valleys that are inhabited
by uncivilized Indians.18

DEPARTMENT OF COCHABAMBA

Cochabamba long ago ceased to be an Indian country. Trav-
ersed as is the department by many fertile valleys, some of them
of considerable width, it early became the focus of Spanish
settlement. These productive regions, from 6,000 to 9,000 feet
above sea level, enjoy an almost ideal climate of constant spring,
and so rapidly were they filled with Europeans that the aboriginal
race in its purity soon disappeared. As a consequence communal
holdings are now rare in any except the higher parts of the
department. But in the Provinces of Arque and Tapacari that
lie in the hill country adjoining the Departments of Oruro and
Potosi there are localities where Indians retain their land in
common as upon the altiplano. The industrial activity of recent

18 Diccionario geografico del Departamento de Chuquisaca, Sociedad Geografiea
Sucre, Sucre, 1903-

NUMBER OF COMMUNITY INDIANS

21

years that has accompanied the construction of railroads has
brought its menace even to these regions.

Number of Indians Living in Communities
Such are the characteristics and the distribution of the
community-held lands in these highland provinces of Bolivia.
Statistics showing the amount of land so owned and its exact
distribution by political divisions of the country are hard to
obtain and at best are fragmentary. Since legally the community
no longer exists it finds no recognition in government reports.
The most comprehensive figures available bearing upon the
extent of communal land are those contained in the "Revisitas
indigenales" from 1850 to i877.19 These statistics give the
number of Indians who, in the specified years, paid the contri-
bution territorial. From these data we can obtain not only some
light regarding the number of community Indians in each prov-
ince and department but also a basis for estimating the amount
of land they held and cultivated. According to these statistics
the number of Indian contributors to the land tax, that is the
number of Indians occupying parcels of community land in 1877
(or the last year for which data are given), was, by departments
and categories, as summarized in Table I.

Table I — Indian Contributors to the Land Tax in 1877

Department

Originarios

Agregados

Total of
Contributors

La Paz

73.989

13.439

87,428

Potosi

14,612

28,493

43.105

Oruro

15.636

11,663

27,299

Cochabamba

7.295

4.377

11,672

Chuquisaca

1.647

6,689

8,336

Five highland departments

113. 179

64,661

177.840

19 Cuadros estadisticos de las revisitas indigenales de la Repiiblica desde el afio
1850 a 1877, Bol. Oficina Nad. de Inmigr., Estadist. y Propag. Gcogr., Vol. 1, 1901,
PP. SI3-S23- La Paz.

22 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

If we allow three persons for each Indian who paid the
contribucion territorial — the basis which is probably most cor-
rect for the sedentary tribes of the highlands — we find the
Indian population living on community land in these de-
partments to have been about 500,000. The census of 1854
gave the total Indian population of the five departments under
consideration as 796, 004.20 Since the different censuses taken
show that the Indian population on the plateau does not vary
rapidly we may accept that figure as approximately correct for
1877. This would indicate that about 67 per cent of the highland
Bolivian Indians were living in communities.

Extent of Community Holdings

The contents of the tupu, or measure of land, assigned to each
Indian seems to have varied considerably. In pre-Conquest and
early colonial times, we have seen that this measure was equal
to i>2 Spanish fanegas, or 2.4 acres. But according to the decree
of President Acha (dated Oruro, February 28, 1862), upon which
Melgarejo's decree of 1866 seems to have been based, a tupu is
specified to contain 2,000 square varas, or 15,456.8 square feet
(0.35 acre). In declaring that the comunarios should henceforth
possess their holdings rent free, Acha specified that each
originario should receive three tupus of good or irrigated, or
six tupus of poor or unirrigated land: that the forasteros (evi-
dently including all the agregados) should receive two or four
tupus, according to the quality.21 This assignment no doubt was
intended to include the usual proportion of fallow land but not
the pasture and was intended to represent approximately the
extent of tillable land corresponding to each individual in the
common holdings. While the former size of the tupu (2.4 acres)
may have been that employed in Inca times, the latter (0.35
acre) is probably a more accurate measure of the holdings today.
It gives us a basis upon which to calculate, approximately at
least, the amount of community land in the different provinces

20 Carlos Bravo: La patria boliviana: Estado geografico (Series: Biblioteca
Boliviana de Geografia e Historia), La Paz, 1894, P- II8.

21 Coleccion oficial de leyes de Bolivia, La Paz (n.d.).

EXTENT OF HOLDINGS

23

and departments at the date referred to (1877). On this basis,
allowing an average of five tupus (1.75 acre) for each originario,
since most of the land left them is poor, and three tupus (1.05
acre) for each agregado, the figures given in the "Revisitas in-
digenales" indicate the amounts of agricultural land as being
held by communities in the year 1877 (or the last year given) as
summarized in Table II.

Table II — Extent of Indian Community Holdings in 1877
(in acres)

Department

By Originarios

By Agregados

Total

La Paz

129,470

25.571

27.363

12,766

2,882

14,110

29,917

12,246

4.595

7,023

143.580
55.488
39.609

17.361
9.905

Oruro

Cochabamba

Chuquisaca

Five highland departments

198,052

67,891

265,943

Probably at least an equal area was occupied for grazing
purposes. This would make the entire communal holdings
amount to about half a million acres. Senor Luis Crespo,
one of the leading Bolivian authorities in geography and statis-
tics, estimates that some 10,000,000 acres in the entire repub-
lic are suited to agriculture and that about 5,000,000 acres are
actually under cultivation.22 This would indicate that about
one-twentieth of the land under cultivation in the republic is in
community holdings. Such is probably an underestimate rather
than an exaggeration, since the estimate of 5,000,000 acres for
the whole country seems excessively large, and since many
Indians are said to escape the land tax by evading registration
for the contribution territorial.

22 Monthly Bull. Internatl. Bur. of the Amer. Republics, No. 159, Vol. 23, 1906,
p. 1467.

24

INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION

COMMUNITY INDIANS

IN BOLIVIA

1854

O 20 40 60 80 IHOM

Fig. 4 — Map of highland Bolivia showing the number of community Indians in
each province in 1854. Scale 1 : o.ogo.ooo. One dot represents 1,000 Indians in
round numbers. For sources used, see footnote 23.

Province boundaries are based on the official map of Bolivia by Ondarza. Mujia,
and Camacho, 1 : 1,550,000, published in 1859.

The provinces, grouped by departments, are abbreviated on both maps as
follows, the names on the 1900 map which differ from those on the 1854 map being
enclosed in brackets: Department of La Paz: Cau, Caupolican; Mu, Munecas;
La, Larecaja; Yu, Yungas; [N Yu, Nor Yungas; S Yu, Sur Yungas]; Om, Oma-
suyos; Ce, Cercado (of La Paz); Pa, Pacajes; Si, Sicasica; [Lo, Loaiza]; In,
Inquisivi; Department of Oruro: Ca, Carangas; Ce, Cercado (of Oruro); Par,
Paria; Department of Cochabamba: Ay, Ayopaya; Tap, Tapacari; Ar, Arque;
CI, Cliza; [Ta, Tarata]; Pu, Punata; Ce y Ch, Cercado (of Cochabamba) y Cha-
pare; [Ce, Cercado: Ch, Chapare]; To, Totora; Mi, Mizque; Department of

PRESENT TENDENCIES

25

Fig. s — Map of highland Bolivia showing the approximate number of com-
munity Indians in each province in 1900. Scale 1 : 9,000,000. One dot represents
1,000 Indians in round numbers. For sources used, see footnote 23.

Province boundaries are based on the official map of Bolivia by Eduardo Idia-
quez, 1 : 2,000,000, published in 1901.

PoTOsf: N Cha, Nor Chayanta; [Char, Charcas]; S Cha, Sur Chayanta; [Cha,
Chayanta]; Po, Porco; [Lin, Linares]; Ce, Cercado (of Potosi); [Fr, Frias]; Li,
Lipez; [N Li, Nor Lipez; S Li, Sur Lipez]; S Chi, Sur Chichas; N Chi, Nor
Chichas; Department of Chuquisaca: Ci, Cinti; Tom, Tomina; [Az, Azero];
Ya, Yamparaez.

The figures for 1854 were taken from the "revisitas indigenales" referred to in
footnote 19, the number represented on the map being the total of comunarios
(originanos, reservados, forasleros, and proximos) as given in that enumeration for
the year 1854 or the nearest year thereto, multiplied by three.

26 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA

Present Tendencies

These figures must be taken to represent only approximately
the population of the communities today and the amount of land
now occupied by them, as their number has decreased con-
siderably since 1877. The extinction of the communities is
becoming more rapid each year, particularly since the con-
struction of railroads has stimulated the development of indus-
tries, commerce, and agriculture, increasing the demand for
farming land. There is, too, a constantly growing population of
landless mestizos, who, failing to inherit rural property but eager
to own fincas, are setting themselves, often absolutely without
scruple or compassion, to secure the parcels of land now held by
Indians. The economic income from land is still not great, but
, under the peon system prevailing in Bolivia possession of a farm
gives the owner the personal services of his Indian tenants and
thus adds materially to his comfort and social standing.

An attempt is made in Figures 4 and 5 to show the number
and distribution of community Indians in 1854 and in 1900.23
It will be observed that there has been a decrease in every
province of three departments (La Paz, Oruro, and Chuquisaca)
and in all but four provinces of the other departments (Cocha-
bamba and Potosi). The decrease has generally been very
marked, in most cases reaching more than 50 per cent, and, in

I a few instances, being over 75 per cent, e. g., in the valley
provinces of Nor Yungas, Inquisivi, and Caupolican of the De-

23 Since no figures of the same character exist for 1900, because the legal status
of the communities is no longer recognized, we have been compelled to calculate
the number of comunarios from the land tax (contribution ten itorial) , paid by the
community Indians, in distinction to the contribution predial, paid by the hacienda
holders. The census gives the amount of contribution territorial paid in 1900, by
departments, and also gives the total Indian population by provinces (Censo gen-
eral de la poblacion de la Republica de Bolivia, Tomo II: Resultados definitivos,
La Paz, 1904, pp. xlvi, ff.).

In calculating the number of comunarios from these figures it has been assumed
that the proportion of originarios to the other classes has remained the same
as in the "revisitas." Hence the tax of 1900 may be divided among these classes
in the same proportion, thus giving us the number of originarios and other classes
in each department. We then find the percentage of community Indians in the
total Indian population of each department and, applying the same percentage
to the figures for the total Indian population of each province, we find the approx-
imate number of comunarios in each province.

PRESENT TENDENCIES 27

partment of La Paz, in the far-eastern foothills province of
Tomina of the Department of Chuquisaca, and in the Cerecado
(and Chapare) of Cochabamba.

The Indian well understands how his white neighbors covet
his lands. He is always suspicious of any visitor in the neighbor-
hood of the community. Occasionally he enters an emphatic
protest against the persistent pressure of whites upon the border
of his inherited domain, and the Bolivian people live in ill-
concealed fear of a general uprising. Only a few years ago alarm-
ing rumors were circulated throughout the highlands of a care-
fully prepared insurrection by which the Indians hoped to regain
their lost lands. There was ground for the rumor, for the owners
of many farms were either threatened or actually attacked by
their own tenants, and a considerable army of Indians gathered
on the hills overlooking the city of La Paz. Troops were required
to quell the uprising, and some hundred or so of the most auda-
cious spirits were rounded up for a few months of prison life,
which proved sufficient to smother the threatened outbreak.

But the unrest still exists both among the communities and
on the large farms where the Indian lives attached to the estate
as a kind of serf. For there is no matter that so vitally concerns
the aborigine of these highlands as the little parcel of soil which
has come down to him, either as an individual or as a member of
the clan, from uncounted generations of his fathers.

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