THE BORDER VALLEYS OF THE EASTERN ANDES
[Illustration: FIG. 41--Regional diagram of the eastern aspect of the
Cordillera Vilcapampa. See also Fig. 17 of which this is an enlarged
section.]
On the northeastern border of the Peruvian Andes long mountain spurs
trail down from the regions of snow to the forested plains of the
Amazon. Here are the greatest contrasts in the physical and human
geography of the Andean Cordillera. So striking is the fact that every
serious student of Peru finds himself compelled to cross and recross
this natural frontier. The thread of an investigation runs irregularly
now into one border zone, now into another. Out of the forest came the
fierce marauders who in the early period drove back the Inca pioneers.
Down into the forest to escape from the Spaniards fled the last Inca and
his fugitive court. Here the Jesuit fathers sowed their missions along
the forest margin, and watched over them for two hundred years. From the
mountain border one rubber project after another has been launched into
the vast swampy lowlands threaded by great rivers. As an ethnic boundary
the eastern mountain border of Peru and Bolivia has no equal elsewhere
in South America. From the earliest antiquity the tribes of the
grass-covered mountains and the hordes of the forested plains have had
strongly divergent customs and speech, that bred enduring hatred and led
to frequent and bloody strife.
[Illustration: FIG. 42--Rug weaver at Cotahuasi. The industry is limited
to a small group of related families, living in the Cotahuasi Canyon
near Cotahuasi. The rugs are made of alpaca wool. Pure black, pure
white, and various shades of mixed gray wool are employed. The result is
that the rugs have “fast” colors that always retain their original
contrasts. They are made only to order at the homes of the purchasers.
The money payment is small, but to it is added board and lodging,
besides tobacco, liqueurs, and wine. Before drinking they dip their
finger-tips in the wine and sprinkle the earth “that it may be
fruitful,” the air “that it may be warm,” the rug “that it may turn out
well,” and finally themselves, making the sign of the cross. Then they
set to work.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43--The floor of the Urubamba Valley from Tarai. The
work of the glaciers was not confined to the lofty situations. Mountain
débris was delivered to all the streams, many of which aggraded their
floors to a depth of several hundred feet, thus increasing the extent of
arable soil at elevations where a less rigorous climate permits the
production of crops and encourages intensive cultivation.]
On the steepest spurs of the Pampaconas Valley the traveler may go from
snow to pasture in a half day and from pasture to forest in the same
time. Another day he is in the hot zone of the larger valley floors, the
home of the Machigangas. The steep descents bring out the superimposed
zones with diagrammatic simplicity. The timber line is as sharply marked
as the edge of a cultivated field. At a point just beyond the huts of
Pampaconas one may stand on a grassy spur that leads directly up--a
day’s journey--to the white summits of the Cordillera Vilcapampa. Yet so
near him is the edge of the forest that he is tempted to try to throw a
stone into it. In an hour a bitter wind from the mountains may drive him
to shelter or a cold fog come rolling up from the moist region below. It
is hard to believe that oppressive heat is felt in the valley just
beneath him.
In the larger valleys the geographic contrasts are less sharp and the
transition from mountains to plain, though less spectacular, is much
more complex and scientifically interesting. The forest types
interfinger along the shady and the sunny slopes. The climate is so
varied that the forest takes on a diversified character that makes it
far more useful to man. The forest Indians and the valley planters are
in closer association. There are many islands and peninsulas of plateau
population on the valley floor. Here the zones of climate and the belts
of fertile soil have larger areas and the land therefore has greater
economic value. Much as the valley people need easier and cheaper
communication with the rest of Peru it is no exaggeration to say that
the valley products, are needed far more by the coast and plateau
peoples to make the republic self-supporting. Coca, wood, sugar, fruit,
are in such demand that their laborious and costly transportation from
the valleys to the plateau is now carried on with at least some profit
to the valley people. Improved transportation would promote travel and
friendship and supply a basis for greater political unity.
A change in these conditions is imminent. Years ago the Peruvian
government decreed the construction of a railway from Cuzco to Santa Ana
and preliminary surveys were made but without any immediate practical
effect. By June, 1914, 12.4 miles (20 km.) had been opened to traffic.
The total length of the proposed line is 112 miles (180 km.), the gauge
is to be only 2.46 feet (75 cm.),[8] and the proposed cost several
millions of dollars. The financial problem may be solved either by a
diversion of local revenues, derived from taxes on coca and alcohol, or
by borrowed foreign capital guaranteed by local revenues.
A shrubby vegetation is scattered along the valley from the village of
Urubamba, 12,000 feet (3,658 m.) above sea level, to the Canyon of
Torontoy. It is local and of little value. Trees appear at
Ollantaytambo, 11,000 feet (3,353 m.), and here too are more extensive
wheat and maize fields besides throngs of cacti and great patches of
wild geraniums. On our valley journey we camped in pleasant fields
flanked by steep hills whose summits each morning were tipped with snow.
Enormous alluvial fans have partly filled up the valleys and furnished
broad tracts of fertile soil. The patient farmers have cleared away the
stones on the flatter portions and built retaining walls for the smooth
fields required for irrigation. In places the lower valley slopes are
terraced in the most regular manner (Fig. 38). Some of the fans are too
steep and stony for cultivation, exposing bare tracts which wash down
and cover the fields. Here and there are stone walls built especially to
retain the rush of mud and stones that the rains bring down. Many of
them were overthrown or completely buried. Unless the stream channels on
the fans are carefully watched and effective works kept up, the labor of
years may be destroyed in a single slide from the head of a steep fan.
Each group of fans has a population proportioned to its size and
fertility. If there are broad expanses a town like Urubamba or a great
hacienda like Huadquiña is sure to be found. One group of huge stony
fans below Urubamba (Fig. 180) has only a thin population, for the soil
is coarse and infertile and the rivers deeply intrenched. In some places
the tiny fans perched high upon the flanks of the mountains where little
tributaries burst out of steep ravines are cultivated by distant owners
who also till parts of the larger fans on the main valley floors.
Between the fans of the valley bottoms and the smooth slopes of the high
plateaus are the unoccupied lands--the steep canyon walls. Only in the
most highly favored places where a small bench or a patch of alluvium
occurs may one find even an isolated dwelling. The stair-like trails, in
some places cut in solid rock, zigzag up the rocky slopes. An ascent of
a thousand feet requires about an hour’s travel with fresh beasts. The
valley people are therefore walled in. If they travel it is surely not
for pleasure. Even business trips are reduced to the smallest number.
The prosperity and happiness of the valley people are as well known
among the plateau people as is their remarkable bread. Their climate has
a combination of winter rain and winter cold with light frosts that is
as favorable for good wheat as the continuous winter cold and snow cover
of our northern Middle West. The colder grainfields of the plateau are
sowed to barley chiefly, though there is also produced some wheat.
Urubamba wheat and bread are exported in relatively large quantities,
and the market demands greater quantities than the valley can supply.
Oregon and Washington flour are imported at Cuzco, two days’ muleback
journey from the wheat fields of Urubamba.
Such are the conditions in the upper Urubamba Valley. The lower valley,
beginning at Huadquiña, is 8,000 feet (2,440 m.) above sea level and
extends down to the two-thousand-foot contour at Rosalina and to one
thousand feet (305 m.) at Pongo de Mainique. The upper and lower
sections are only a score of miles (30 km.) apart between Huadquiña and
Torontoy, but there is a difference in elevation of three thousand feet
(915 m.) at just the level where the maximum contrasts are produced. The
cold timber line is at 10,500 feet (3,200 m.).[9] Winter frosts are
common at the one place; they are absent altogether at the other.
Torontoy produces corn; Huadquiña produces sugar cane.
These contrasts are still further emphasized by the sharp topographic
break between the two unlike portions of the valley. A few miles below
Torontoy the Urubamba plunges into a mile-deep granite canyon. The walls
are so close together that it is impossible from the canyon floor to get
into one photograph the highest and steepest walls. At one place there
is over a mile of descent in a horizontal distance of 2,000 feet. Huge
granite slabs fall off along joint planes inclined but 15° from the
vertical. The effect is stupendous. The canyon floor is littered with
coarse waste and the gradient of the river greatly steepened. There is
no cultivation. The trees cling with difficulty to patches of rock waste
or to the less-inclined slopes. There is a thin crevice vegetation that
outlines the joint pattern where seepage supplies the venturesome roots
with moisture. Man has no foothold here, save at the top of the country,
as at Machu Picchu, a typical fortress location safeguarded by the
virtually inaccessible canyon wall and connected with the main ridge
slopes only by an easily guarded narrow spur. Toward the lower end of
the canyon a little finer alluvium appears and settlement begins.
Finally, after a tumble of three thousand feet over countless rapids the
river emerges at Colpani, where an enormous mass of alluvium has been
dumped. The well-intrenched river has already cut a large part of it
away. A little farther on is Huadquiña in the Salcantay Valley, where a
tributary of the Urubamba has built up a sheet of alluvial land, bright
green with cane. From the distant peaks of Salcantay and its neighbors
well-fed streams descend to fill the irrigation channels. Thus the snow
and rock-waste of the distant mountains are turned into corn and sugar
on the valley lowlands.
[Illustration: FIG. 44--The snow-capped Cordillera Vilcapampa north of
Yucay and the upper canyon of the Urubamba from the wheat fields near
Chinchero. In the foreground is one of the well-graded mature slopes of
Fig. 123. The crests of the mountains lie along the axis of a granite
intrusion. The extent of the snowfields is extraordinary in view of the
low latitude, 13° S.]
[Illustration: FIG. 45--Rounded slopes due to glacial action at
Pampaconas in the Pampaconas Valley near Vilcabamba. A heavy tropical
forest extends up the Pampaconas Valley to the hill slopes in the
background. Its upper limit of growth is about 10,000 feet (3,050 m.).
The camera is pointed slightly downhill.]
[Illustration: FIG. 46--Hacienda Huadquiña in the Salcantay Valley a
short distance above its junction with the Urubamba, elevation 8,000
feet (2,440 m.). The cultivated fields are all planted to sugar cane.
The mountain slopes are devoted to grazing.]
The Cordillera Vilcapampa is a climatic as well as a topographic
barrier. The southwestern aspect is dry; the northeastern aspect
forested. The gap of the canyon, it should be noticed, comes at a
critical level, for it falls just above the upper border of the zone of
maximum precipitation. The result is that though mists are driven
through the canyon by prolonged up-valley winds, they scatter on
reaching the plateau or gather high up on the flanks of the valley or
around the snowy peaks overlooking the trail between Ollantaytambo and
Urubamba. The canyon walls are drenched with rains and even some of the
lofty spurs are clothed with dense forest or scrub.
Farther down the valley winds about irregularly, now pushed to one side
by a huge alluvial fan, now turned by some resistant spur of rock.
Between the front range of the Andes and the Cordillera Vilcapampa there
is a broad stretch of mountain country in the lee of the front range
which rises to 7,000 feet (2,134 m.) at Abra Tocate (Fig. 15), and falls
off to low hills about Rosalina. It is all very rough in that there are
nowhere any flats except for the narrow playa strips along the streams.
The dense forest adds to the difficulty of movement. In general
appearance it is very much like the rugged Cascade country of Oregon
except that the Peruvian forest is much more patchy and its trees are in
many places loaded with dense dripping moss which gives the landscape a
somber touch quite absent from most of the forests of the temperate
zone.
The fertility of the eastern valleys of Peru--the result of a union of
favorable climate and alluvial soil--has drawn the planter into this
remote section of the country, but how can he dispose of his products?
Even today with a railway to Cuzco from the coast it is almost
impossible for him to get his sugar and cacao to the outside world.[10]
How did he manage before even this railway was built? How could the
eastern valley planter live before there were any railways at all in
Peru? In part he has solved the problem as the moonshiner of Kentucky
tried to solve it, and from cane juice makes aguardiente (brandy). The
latter is a much more valuable product than sugar, hence (1) it will
bear a higher rate of transportation, or (2) it will at the same rate of
transportation yield a greater net profit. In a remote valley where
sugar could not be exported on account of high freight rates brandy
could still be profitably exported.
The same may be said for coca and cacao. They are condensed and valuable
products. Both require more labor than sugar but are lighter in bulk and
thus have to bear, in proportion to their value, a smaller share of the
cost of transportation. At the end of three years coca produces over a
ton of leaves per acre per year, and it can be made to produce as much
as two tons to the acre. The leaves are picked four times a year. They
are worth from eight to twelve cents gold a pound at the plantation or
sixteen cents a pound at Cuzco. An orchard of well-cultivated and
irrigated cacao trees will do even better. Once they begin to bear the
trees require relatively little care except in keeping out weeds and
brush and maintaining the water ditches. However, the pods must be
gathered at just the right time, the seeds must be raked and dried with
expert care, and after that comes the arduous labor of the grinding.
This is done by hand on an inclined plane with a heavy round stone whose
corners fit the hand. The chocolate must then be worked into cakes and
dried, or it must be sacked in heavy cowhide and sewed so as to be
practically air tight. When eight or ten years old the trees are mature
and each may then bear a thousand pounds of seed.
[Illustration: FIG. 47--The Urubamba Valley below Paltaybamba. Harder
rocks intruded into the schists that in general compose the valley walls
here form steep scarps. It has been suggested (Davis) that such a
constricted portion of a valley be called a “shut-in.” The old trail
climbed to the top of the valley and over the back of a huge spur. The
new road is virtually a tunnel blasted along the face of a cliff.]
[Illustration: FIG 48--Coca seed beds near Quillabamba, Urubamba Valley.
The young plants are grown under shade and after attaining a height of a
foot or more are gradually accustomed to sunlight and finally
transplanted to the fields that are to become coca orchards.]
If labor were cheap and abundant the whole trend of tropical agriculture
in the eastern valleys would be toward intensive cultivation and the
production of expensive exports. But labor is actually scarce. Every
planter must have agents who can send men down from the plateau towns.
And the planter himself must use his labor to the best advantage.
Aguardiente requires less labor than cacao and coca. The cane costs
about as much in labor the first year as the coca bush or the cacao
tree, but after that much less. The manufacture of brandy from the cane
juice requires little labor though much expensive machinery. For
chocolate, a storehouse, a grinding stone, and a rake are all that
are required. So the planter must work out his own salvation
individually. He must take account of the return upon investments in
machinery, of the number of hands he can command from among the “faena”
or free Indians, of the cost and number of imported hands from the
valley and plateau towns, and, finally, of the transportation rates
dependent upon the number of mules in the neighborhood, and distance
from the market. If in addition the labor is skilfully employed so as to
have the tasks which the various products require fall at different
periods of the year, then the planter may expect to make money upon his
time and get a return upon his initial investment in the land.[11]
[Illustration: FIG. 49--Fig tree formerly attached to a host but now
left standing on its stilt-like aërial roots owing to the decay of the
host.]
[Illustration: FIG. 50--A tiny rubber plant is growing under the tripod
made of yuca stems tied with banana leaves. Growing yuca is shown by the
naked stalks to the left and right of this canopy, and banana plants
fill the background. A plantation scene at Echarati.]
The type of tropical agriculture which we have outlined is profitable
for the few planters who make up the white population of the valleys,
but it has a deplorable effect upon the Indian population. Though the
planters, one and all, complain bitterly of the drunken habits of their
laborers, they themselves put into the hands of the Indians the means of
debauchery. Practically the whole production of the eastern valleys is
consumed in Peru. What the valleys do not take is sent to the plateau,
where it is the chief cause of vicious conduct. Two-thirds of the
prisoners in the city jails are drunkards, and, to be quite plain, they
are virtually supplied with brandy by the planter, who could not
otherwise make enough money. So although the planter wants more and
better labor he is destroying the quality of the little there is, and,
if not actually reducing the quantity of it, he is at least very
certainly reducing the rate of increase.
The difficulties of the valley planter could be at least partly overcome
in several ways. The railway will reduce transportation costs,
especially when the playas of the valleys are all cleared and the
exports increased. Moreover the eastern valleys are capable of
producing things of greater utility than brandy and coca leaves. So far
as profits are increased by cheaper transportation we may expect the
planter to produce more rather than less of brandy and coca, his two
most profitable exports, unless other products can be found that are
still more profitable. The ratio of profits on sugar and brandy will
still be the same unless the government increases the tax on brandy
until it becomes no more profitable than sugar. That is what ought to be
done for the good of the Indian population. It cannot be done safely
without offering in its place the boon of cheaper railway transportation
for the sugar crop. Furthermore, with railway improvements should go the
blessings that agricultural experiments can bestow. A government farm in
a suitable place would establish rice and cotton cultivation. Many of
the playas or lower alluvial lands along the rivers can be irrigated.
Only a small fraction of the water of the Rio Urubamba is now turned out
upon the fields. For a large part of the year the natural rainfall would
suffice to keep rice in good condition. Six tons a year are now grown on
Hacienda Sahuayaco for local use on account of the heavy rate on rice
imported on muleback from Cuzco, whither it comes by sea and by trail
from distant coastal valleys. The lowland people also need rice and it
could be sent to them down river by an easier route than that over which
their supplies now come. It should be exported to the highlands, not
imported therefrom. There are so many varieties adapted to so many kinds
of soil and climate that large amounts should be produced at fair
profits.
The cotton plant, on the other hand, is more particular about climate
and especially the duration of dry and wet seasons; in spite of this its
requirements are all met in the Santa Ana Valley. The rainfall is
moderate and there is an abundance of dry warm soil. The plant could
make most of its growth in the wet season, and the four months of cooler
dry season with only occasional showers would favor both a bright staple
and a good picking season. More labor would be required for cotton and
rice and for the increased production of cacao than under the present
system. This would not be a real difficulty if the existing labor
supply were conserved by the practical abolition, through heavy
taxation, of the brandy that is the chief cause of the laborer’s vicious
habits. This is the first step in securing the best return upon the
capital invested in a railway. Economic progress is here bound up with a
very practical morality. Colonization in the eastern valleys, of which
there have been but a few dismal attempts, will only extend the field of
influence, it will not solve the real problem of bringing the people of
the rich eastern territory of Peru into full and honorable possession of
their natural wealth.
The value of the eastern valleys was known in Inca times, for their
stone-faced terraces and coca-drying patios may still be seen at
Echarati and on the border of the Chaupimayu Valley at Sahuayaco.
Tradition has it that here were the imperial coca lands, that such of
the forest Indians as were enslaved were obliged to work upon them, and
that the leaves were sent to Cuzco over a paved road now covered with
“montaña” or forest. The Indians still relate that at times a
mysterious, wavering, white light appears on the terraces and hills
where old treasure lies buried. Some of the Indians have gold and silver
objects which they say were dug from the floors of hill caves. There
appears to have been an early occupation of the best lands by the
Spaniards, for the long extensions down them of Quechua population upon
which the conquerors could depend no doubt combined with the special
products of the valley to draw white colonists thither.[12] General
Miller,[13] writing in 1836, mentions the villages of Incharate
(Echarati) and Sant’ Ana (Santa Ana) but discourages the idea of
colonization “... since the river ... has lofty mountains on either
side of it, and is not navigable even for boats.”
In the “Itinerario de los viajes de Raimondi en el Peru”[14] there is an
interesting account of the settlement by the Rueda family of the great
estate still held by a Rueda, the wife of Señor Duque. José Rueda, in
1829, was a government deputy representative and took his pay in land,
acquiring valuable territory on which there was nothing more than a
mission. In 1830 Rueda ceded certain lands in “arriendo” (rent) and on
these were founded the haciendas Pucamoco, Sahuayaco, etc.
Señor Gonzales, the present owner of Hacienda Sahuayaco, recently
obtained his land--a princely estate, ten miles by forty--for 12,000
soles ($6,000). In a few years he has cleared the best tract, built
several miles of canals, hewed out houses and furniture, planted coca,
cacao, cane, coffee, rice, pepper, and cotton, and would not sell for
$50,000. Moreover, instead of being a superintendent on a neighboring
estate and keeping a shop in Cuzco, where his large family was a source
of great expense, he has become a wealthy landowner. He has educated a
son in the United States. He is importing machinery, such as a rice
thresher and a distilling plant. His son is looking forward to the
purchase of still more playa land down river. He pays a sol a day to
each laborer, securing men from Cotabambas and Abancay, where there are
many Indians, a low standard of wages, little unoccupied land, and a hot
climate, so that the immigrants do not need to become acclimatized.
The deepest valleys in the Eastern Andes of Peru have a semi-arid
climate which brings in its train a variety of unusual geographic
relations. At first as one descends the valley the shady and sunny
slopes show sharply contrasted vegetation.
[Illustration: FIG. 51--Robledo’s mountain-side trail in the Urubamba
Valley below Rosalina.]
[Illustration: FIG. 52--An epiphyte partly supported by a dead host at
Rosalina, elevation 2,000 feet. The epiphyte bears a striking
resemblance to a horned beast whose arched back, tightly clasped
fingers, and small eyes give it a peculiarly malignant and life-like
expression.]
[Illustration: FIG. 53A--The smooth grassy slopes at the junction of the
Yanatili (left) and Urubamba (right) rivers near Pabellon.]
[Illustration: FIG. 53B--Distribution of vegetation in the Urubamba
Valley near Torontoy. The patches of timber in the background occupy the
shady sides of the spurs; the sunny slopes are grass-covered; the valley
floor is filled with thickets and patches of woodland but not true
forest.]
The one is forested, the other grass-covered. Slopes that receive the
noon and afternoon sun the greater part of the year are hottest and
therefore driest. For places in 11° south latitude the sun is well to
the north six months of the year, nearly overhead for about two months,
and to the south four months. Northwesterly aspects are therefore driest
and warmest, hence also grass-covered. In many places the line between
grass and forest is developed so sharply that it seems to be the
artificial edge of a cut-over tract. This is true especially if the
relief is steep and the hill or ridge-crests sharp.[15]
[Illustration: FIG. 54--Climatic cross-section from the crest of the
Cordillera Vilcapampa down the eastern mountain valleys to the tropical
plains.]
At Santa Ana this feature is developed in an amazingly clear manner, and
it is also combined with the dry timber line and with productivity in a
way I have never seen equaled elsewhere. The diagram will explain the
relation. It will be seen that the front range of the mountains is high
enough to shut off a great deal of rainfall. The lower hills and ridges
just within the front range are relatively dry. The deep valleys are
much drier. Each broad expansion of a deep valley is therefore a dry
pocket. Into it the sun pours even when all the surrounding hills and
mountains are wrapped in cloud. The greater number of hours of sunshine
hastens the rate of evaporation and still further increases the dryness.
Under the spur of much sunlight and of ample irrigation water from the
wetter hill slopes, the dry valley pockets produce huge crops of fruit
and cane.
The influence of the local climate upon tree growth is striking. Every
few days, even in the relatively dry winter season, clouds gather about
the hills and there are local showers. The lower limit of the zone of
clouds is sharply marked and at both Santa Ana and Echarati it is
strikingly constant in elevation--about five thousand feet above sea
level. From the upper mountains the forest descends, with only small
patches of glade and prairie. At the lower edge of the zone of cloud it
stops abruptly on the warmer and drier slopes that face the afternoon
sun and continues on the moister slopes that face the forenoon sun or
that slope away from the sun.
But this is not the only response the vegetation makes. The forest
changes in character as well as in distribution. The forest in the wet
zone is dense and the undergrowth luxuriant. In the selective slope
forest below the zone of cloud the undergrowth is commonly thin or
wanting and the trees grow in rather even-aged stands and by species.
Finally, on the valley floor and the tributary fans, there is a distinct
growth of scrub with bands of trees along the water courses. Local
tracts of coarse soil, or less rain on account of a deep “hole” in a
valley surrounded by steeper and higher mountains, or a change in the
valley trend that brings it into less free communication with the
prevailing winds, may still further increase the dryness and bring in a
true xerophytic or drought-resisting vegetation. Cacti are common all
through the Santa Ana Valley and below Sahuayaco there is a patch of
tree cacti and similar forms several square miles in extent. Still
farther down and about half-way between Sahuayaco and Pabellon are
immense tracts of grass-covered mountain slopes (Fig. 53). These extend
beyond Rosalina, the last of them terminating near Abra Tocate (Fig.
15). The sudden interruption is due to a turn in the valley giving
freer access to the up-valley winds that sweep through the pass at Pongo
de Mainique.
[Illustration: FIG. 55--Map to show the relation of the grasslands of
the dry lower portion of the Urubamba Valley (unshaded) to the forested
lands at higher elevations (shaded). See Fig. 54 for climatic
conditions. Patches and slender tongues of woodland occur below the main
timber line and patches of grassland above it.]
Northward from Abra Tocate (Fig. 55) the forest is practically
continuous. The break between the two vegetal regions is emphasized by a
corral for cattle and mules, the last outpost of the plateau herdsmen.
Not three miles away, on the opposite forested slope of the valley, is
the first of the Indian clearings where several families of Machigangas
spend the wet season when the lower river is in flood (Fig. 21). The
grass lands will not yield corn and coca because the soil is too thin,
infertile, and dry. The Indian farms are therefore all in the forest and
begin almost at its very edge. Here finally terminates a long peninsula
of grass-covered country. Below this point the heat and humidity rapidly
increase; the rains are heavier and more frequent; the country becomes
almost uninhabitable for stock; transportation rates double. Here is the
undisputed realm of the forest with new kinds of trees and products and
a distinctive type of forest-dwelling Indian.
At the next low pass is the skull of an Italian who had murdered his
companions and stolen a season’s picking of rubber, attempting to escape
by canoe to the lower Urubamba from the Pongo de Mainique. The
Machigangas overtook him in their swiftest dugouts, spent a night with
him, and the next morning shot him in the back and returned with their
rightful property--a harvest of rubber. For more than a decade
foreigners have been coming down from the plateau to exploit them. They
are an independent and free tribe and have simple yet correct ideas of
right and wrong. Their chief, a man of great strength of character and
one of the most likeable men I have known, told me that he placed the
skull in the pass to warn away the whites who came to rob honest
Indians.
The Santa Ana Valley between the Canyon of Torontoy and the heavy forest
belt below Rosalina is typical of many of the eastern valleys of Peru,
both in its physical setting and in its economic and labor systems.
Westward are the outliers of the Vilcapampa range; on the east are the
smaller ranges that front the tropical lowlands. Steep valleys descend
from the higher country to join the main valley and at the mouth of
every tributary is an alluvial fan. If the alluvium is coarse and
steeply inclined there is only pasture on it or a growth of scrub. If
fine and broad it is cleared and tilled. The sugar plantations begin at
Huadquiña and end at Rosalina. Those of Santa Ana and Echarati are the
most productive. It takes eighteen months for the cane to mature in the
cooler weather at Huadquiña (8,000 feet). Less than a year is required
at Santa Ana (3,400 feet). Patches of alluvium or playas, as they are
locally called, continue as far as Santo Anato, but they are cultivated
only as far as Rosalina. The last large plantation is Pabellon; the
largest of all is Echarati. All are irrigated. In the wet months,
December to March inclusive, there is little or no irrigation. In the
four months of the dry season, June to September inclusive, there is
frequent irrigation. Since the cane matures in about ten months the
harvest seasons fall irregularly with respect to the seasons of rain.
Therefore the land is cleared and planted at irregular intervals and
labor distributed somewhat through the year. There is however a
concentration of labor toward the end of the dry season when most of the
cane is cut for grinding.
The combined freight rate and government tax on coca, sugar, and brandy
take a large part of all that the planter can get for his crop. It is
120 miles (190 km.) from Santa Ana to Cuzco and it takes five days to
make the journey. The freight rate on coca and sugar for mule carriage,
the only kind to be had, is two cents per pound. The national tax is one
cent per pound (0.45 kg.). The coca sells for twenty cents a pound. The
cost of production is unknown, but the paid labor takes probably
one-half this amount. The planter’s time, capital, and profit must come
out of the rest. On brandy there is a national tax of seven cents per
liter (0.26 gallon) and a municipal tax of two and a half cents. It
costs five cents a liter for transport to Cuzco. The total in taxes and
transport is fourteen and a half cents a liter. It sells for twenty
cents a liter. Since brandy (aguardiente), cacao (for chocolate), and
coca leaves (for cocaine) are the only precious substances which the
valleys produce it takes but a moment’s inspection to see how onerous
these taxes would be to the planter if labor did not, as usual, pay the
penalty.
Much of the labor on the plantations is free of cost to the owner and is
done by the so-called _faena_ or free Indians. These are Quechuas who
have built their cabins on the hill lands of the planters, or on the
floors of the smaller valleys. The disposition of their fields in
relation to the valley plantations is full of geographic interest. Each
plantation runs at right angles to the course of the valley. Hacienda
Sahuayaco is ten miles (16 km.) in extent down valley and forty miles
(64 km.) from end to end across the valley, and it is one of the smaller
plantations! It follows that about ten square miles lie on the valley
floor and half of this can ultimately be planted. The remaining three
hundred and ninety square miles include some mountain country with
possible stores of mineral wealth, and a great deal of “fells”
country--grassy slopes, graded though steep, excellent for pasture, with
here and there patches of arable land. But the hill country can be
cultivated only by the small farmer who supplements his supply of food
from cultivated plants like potatoes, corn, and vegetables, by keeping
cattle, mules, pigs, and poultry, and by raising coca and fruit.
The Indian does not own any of the land he tills. He has the right
merely to live on it and to cultivate it. In return he must work a
certain number of days each year on the owner’s plantation. In many
cases a small money payment is also made to the planter. The planter
prefers labor to money, for hands are scarce throughout the whole
eastern valley region. No Indian need work on the planter’s land without
receiving pay directly therefor. Each also gets a small weekly allotment
of aguardiente while in the planter’s employ.
The scene every Saturday night outside the office of the _contador_
(treasurer) of a plantation is a novel one. Several hundred Indians
gather in the dark patio in front of the office. Within the circle of
the feeble candlelight that reaches only the margin of the crowd one may
see a pack of heavy, perspiring faces. Many are pock-marked from
smallpox; here and there an eye is missing; only a few are jovial. A
name is shouted through the open door and an Indian responds. He pulls
off his cap and stands stupid and blinking, while the contador asks:
“Faena” (free)?
“Si, Señor,” he answers.
“Un sol” (one “sol” or fifty cents gold). The assistant hands over the
money and the man gives way to the next one on the list. If he is a
laborer in regular and constant employ he receives five soles (two fifty
gold) per week. There are interruptions now and then. A ragged,
half-drunken man has been leaning against the door post, suspiciously
impatient to receive his money. Finally his name is called.
“Faena?” asks the contador.
“No, Señor, cinco (five) soles.”
At that the field _superintendente_ glances at his time card and speaks
up in protest.
“You were the man that failed to show up on Friday and Saturday. You
were drunk. You should receive nothing.”
“No, mi patrón,” the man contends, “I had to visit a sick cousin in the
next valley. Oh, he was very sick, Señor,” and he coughs harshly as if
he too were on the verge of prostration. The sick cousin, a faena
Indian, has been at work in another cane field on the same plantation
for two days and now calls out that he is present and has never had a
sick day in his life. Those outside laugh uproariously. The contador
throws down two soles and the drunkard is pushed back into the sweating
crowd, jostled right and left, and jeered by all his neighbors as he
slinks away grumbling.
Another Indian seems strangely shy. He scarcely raises his voice above a
whisper. He too is a faena Indian. The contador finds fault.
“Why didn’t you come last month when I sent for you?”
The Indian fumbles his cap, shuffles his feet, and changes his coca cud
from one bulging cheek to the other before he can answer. Then huskily:
“I started, Señor, but my woman overtook me an hour afterward and said
that one of the ewes had dropped a lamb and needed care.”
“But your woman could have tended it!”
“No, Señor, she is sick.”
“How, then, could she have overtaken you?” he is asked.
“She ran only a little way and then shouted to me.”
“And what about the rest of the month?” persists the contador.
“The other lambs came, Señor, and I should have lost them all if I had
left.”
The contador seems at the end of his complaint. The Indian promises to
work overtime. His difficulties seem at an end, but the superintendent
looks at his old record.
“He always makes the same excuse. Last year he was three weeks late.”
So the poor shepherd is fined a sol and admonished that his lands will
be given to some one else if he does not respond more promptly to his
patron’s call for work. He leaves behind him a promise and the rank
mixed smell of coca and much unwashed woolen clothing.
It is not alone at the work that they grumble. There is malaria in the
lower valleys. Some of them return to their lofty mountain homes
prostrated with the unaccustomed heat and alternately shaking with
chills and burning with fever. Without aid they may die or become so
weakened that tuberculosis carries them off. Only their rugged strength
enables the greater number to return in good health.
A plantation may be as large as a principality and draw its laborers
from places fifty miles away. Some of the more distant Indians need not
come to work in the canefields. Part of their flock is taken in place of
work. Or they raise horses and mules and bring in a certain number each
year to turn over to the patron. Hacienda Huadquiña (Fig. 46) takes in
all the land from the snow-covered summits of the Cordillera Vilcapampa
to the canefields of the Urubamba. Within the broad domain are half the
climates and occupations characteristic of Peru. It is difficult to see
how a thousand Indians can be held to even a mixed allegiance. It seems
impossible that word can be got to them. However the native “telegraph”
is even more perfect than that among the forest Indians. From one to the
other runs the news that they are needed in the canefields. On the trail
to and from a mountain village, in their ramblings from one high pasture
to another, within the dark walls of their stone and mud huts when they
gather for a feast or to exchange drinks of brandy and _chicha_--the
word is passed that has come up from the valleys.
For every hundred faena Indians there are five or six regular laborers
on the plantations, so with the short term passed by the faena Indians
their number is generally half that of the total laborers at work at any
one time. They live in huts provided for them by the planter, and in the
houses of their friends among the regular laborers. Here there are
almost nightly carousals. The regular laborer comes from the city or the
valley town. The faena laborer is a small hill farmer or shepherd. They
have much to exchange in the way of clothing, food, and news. I have
frequently had their conversations interpreted for me. They ask about
the flocks and the children, who passed along the trails, what accidents
befell the people.
“Last year,” droned one to another over their chicha, “last year we lost
three lambs in a hailstorm up in the high fields near the snow. It was
very cold. My foot cracked open and, though I have bound it with wet
coca leaves every night, it will not cure,” and he displays his heel,
the skin of which is like horn for hardness and covered with a crust of
dirt whose layers are a record of the weather and of the pools he has
waded for years.
Their wanderings are the main basis of conversation. They know the
mountains better than the condors do. We hired a small boy of twelve at
Puquiura. He was to build our fires, carry water, and help drive the
mules. He crossed the Cordillera Vilcapampa on foot with us. He
scrambled down into the Apurimac canyon and up the ten thousand feet of
ascent on the other side, twisted the tails of the mules, and shouted
more vigorously then the arrieros. He was engaged to go with us to
Pasaje, where his father would return with him in a month. But he
climbed to Huascatay with us and said he wanted to see Abancay. When an
Indian whom we pressed into service dropped the instruments on the trail
and fled into the brush the boy packed them like a man. The soldier
carried a tripod on his back. The boy, not to be outdone, insisted on
carrying the plane table, and to his delight we called him a soldier
too. He went with us to Huancarama. When I paid him he smiled at the
large silver soles that I put into his hand; and when I doubled the
amount for his willingness to work his joy was unbounded. Forthwith he
set out, this time on muleback, on the return journey. The last I saw of
him he was holding his precious soles in a handkerchief and kicking his
beast with his bare heels, as light-hearted as a cavalier. Often I find
myself wondering whether he returned safely with his money. I should
very much like to see him again, for with him I associate cheerfulness
in difficult places and many a pleasant camp-fire.