THE GEOGRAPHIC BASIS OF REVOLUTIONS AND OF HUMAN CHARACTER IN THE
PERUVIAN ANDES
Human character as a spontaneous development has always been a great
factor in shaping historical events, but it is a striking fact that in
the world of our day its influence is exerted chiefly in the lowest and
highest types of humanity. The savage with his fetishes, his taboos, and
his inherent childlikeness and suspicion needs only whim or a slight
religious pretext to change his conduct. Likewise the really educated
and the thoughtful act from motives often wholly unrelated to economic
conditions or results. But the masses are deeply influenced by whatever
affects their material welfare. A purely idealistic impulse may
influence a people, but in time its effects are always displayed against
an economic background.
There is a way whereby we may test this theory. In most places in the
world we have history in the making, and through field studies we can
get an intimate view of it. It is peculiarly the province of geography
to study the present distribution and character of men in relation to
their surroundings and these are the facts of mankind that must forever
be the chief data of economic history. It is not vain repetition to say
that this means, first of all, the study of the character of men in the
fullest sense. It means, in the second place, that a large part of the
character must be really understood. Whenever this is done there is
found a geographic basis of human character that is capable of the
clearest demonstration. It is in the geographic environment that the
material motives of humanity have struck their deepest roots.
These conclusions might be illustrated from a hundred places in the
field of study covered in this book. Almost every chapter of Part I
contains facts of this character. I wish, however, to discuss the
subject specifically and for that purpose now turn to the conditions of
life in the remoter mountain valleys and to one or two aspects of the
revolutions that occur now and then in Peru. The last one terminated
only a few months before our arrival and it was a comparatively easy
matter to study both causes and effects.
A caution is necessary however. It is a pity that we use the term
“revolution” to designate these little disturbances. They affect
sometimes a few, again a few hundred men. Rarely do they involve the
whole country. A good many of them are on a scale much smaller than our
big strikes. Most of them involve a loss of life smaller than that which
accompanies a city riot. They are in a sense strikes against the
government, marked by local disorders and a little violence.
Early in 1911 the Prefect of the Department of Abancay had crowned his
long career by suppressing a revolution. He had been Subprefect at
Andahuaylas, and when the rebels got control of the city of Abancay and
destroyed some of the bridges on the principal trails, he promptly
organized a military expedition, constructed rafts, floated his small
force of men across the streams, and besieged the city. The rebel force
was driven at last to take shelter in the city jail opposite the
Prefectura. There, after the loss of half their number, they finally
surrendered. Seventy-five of them were sent to the government
penitentiary at Arequipa. Among the killed were sons from nearly half
the best families of Abancay. All of the rebels were young men.
It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of the hatred felt by the
townspeople toward the government. Every precaution was taken to prevent
a renewal of the outbreak. Our coming was telegraphed ahead by
government agents who looked with suspicion upon a party of men, well
armed and provisioned, coming up from the Pasaje crossing of the
Apurimac, three days’ journey north. The deep canyon affords shelter not
only to game, but also to fugitives, rebels, and bandits. The government
generally abandons pursuit on the upper edge of the canyon, for only a
prolonged guerilla warfare could completely subdue an armed force
scattered along its rugged walls and narrow floor. The owner of the
hacienda at Pasaje is required to keep a record of all passengers rafted
across the Apurimac, but he explains significantly that some who pass
are too hurried to write their names in his book. Once he reaches the
eastern wall of the canyon a fugitive may command a view of the entire
western wall and note the approach of pursuers. Thence eastward he has
the whole Cordillera Vilcapampa in which to hide. Pursuit is out of the
question.
When we arrived, the venerable Prefect, a model of old-fashioned
courtesy, greeted us with the utmost cordiality. He told us of our
movements since leaving Pasaje, and laughingly explained that since we
had sent him no friendly message and had come from a rebel retreat, he
had taken it for granted that we intended to storm the town. I assured
him that we were ready to join his troops, if necessary, whereupon, with
a delightful frankness, he explained his method of keeping the situation
in hand. Several troops of cavalry and two battalions of infantry were
quartered at the government barracks. Every evening the old gentleman, a
Colonel in the Peruvian army, mounted a powerful gray horse and rode,
quite unattended, through the principal streets of the town. Several
times I walked on foot behind him, again I preceded him, stopping in
shops on the way to make trivial purchases, to find out what the people
had to say about him and the government as he rode by. One old gentleman
interested me particularly. He had only the day before called at the
Prefectura to pay his respects. Although his manner was correct there
was lacking to a noticeable degree the profusion of sentiment that is
apt to be exhibited on such an occasion. He now sat on a bench in a
shop. Both his own son and the shopkeeper’s son had been slain in the
revolution. It was natural that they should be bitter. But the precise
nature of their complaint was what interested me most. One said that he
did not object to having his son lose his life for his country. But that
his country’s officials should hire Indians to shoot his son seemed to
him sheer murder. Later, at Lambrama, I talked with a rebel fugitive,
and that was also his complaint. The young men drafted into the army are
Indians, or mixed, never whites. White men, and men with a small
amount of Indian blood, officer the army. When a revolutionary party
organizes it is of course made up wholly of men of white and mixed
blood, never Indians. The Indians have no more grievance against one
white party than another. Both exploit him to the limit of law and
beyond the limit of decency. He fights if he must, but never by choice.
[Illustration: FIG. 56--The type of forest in the moister tracts of the
valley floor at Sahuayaco. In the center of the photograph is a tree
known as the “sandy matico” used in making canoes for river navigation.]
[Illustration: FIG. 57--Arboreal cacti in the mixed forest of the dry
valley floor below Sahuayaco.]
[Illustration: FIG. 58--Crossing the Apurimac at Pasaje. These are
mountain horses, small and wiry, with a protective coat of long hair.
They are accustomed to graze in the open without shelter during the
entire winter.]
[Illustration: FIG. 59--Crossing the Apurimac at Pasaje. The mules are
blindfolded and pushed off the steep bank into the water and rafted
across.]
Thus Indian troops killed the white rebels of Abancay.
“Tell me, Señor,” said the fugitive, “if you think that just. Tell me
how many Indians you think a white man worth. Would a hundred dead
Indians matter? But how replace a white man where there are so few? The
government _assassinated_ my compatriots!”
“But,” I replied, “why did you fight the government? All of you were
prosperous. Your fathers may have had a grievance against the
government, but of what had you young men to complain?”
His reply was far from convincing. He was at first serious, but his long
abstract statements about taxes and government wastefulness trailed off
into vagueness, and he ended in a laughing mood, talking about
adventure, the restless spirit of young men, and the rich booty of
confiscated lands and property had the rebels won. He admitted that it
was a reckless game, but when I called him a mere soldier of fortune he
grew serious once more and reverted to the iniquitous taxation system of
Peru. Further inquiry made it quite clear that the ill-fated revolution
of Abancay was largely the work of idle young men looking for adventure.
It seemed a pity that their splendid physical energy could not have been
turned into useful channels. The land sorely needs engineers,
progressive ranchmen and farmers, upright officials, and a spirit of
respect for law and order. Old men talked of the unstable character of
the young men of the time, but almost all of them had themselves been
active participants in more than one revolution of earlier years.
Every night at dinner the Prefect sent off by government telegraph a
long message to the President of the Republic on the state of the
Department, and received similar messages from the central government
about neighboring departments. These he read to us, and, curiously
enough, to the entire party, made up of army officers and townsmen. I
was surprised to find later that the company included one government
official whose son had been among the imprisoned rebels at Arequipa. We
met the young man a week later at a mountain village, a day after a
general amnesty had been declared. His escape had been made from the
prison a month before. He forcibly substituted the mess-boy’s clothing
for his own, and thus passed out unnoticed. After a few days’ hiding in
the city, he set out alone across the desert of Vitor, thence across the
lofty volcanic country of the Maritime Andes, through some of the most
deserted, inhospitable land in Peru, and at the end of three weeks had
reached Lambrama, near Abancay, the picture of health!
Later I came to have a better notion of the economic basis of the
revolution, for obviously the planters and the reckless young men must
have had a mutual understanding. Somewhere the rebels had obtained the
sinews of war. The planters did not take an open part in the revolution,
but they financed it. When the rebels were crushed, the planters, at
least outwardly, welcomed the government forces. Inwardly they cursed
them for thwarting their scheme. The reasons have an interesting
geographic basis. Abancay is the center of a sugar region. Great
irrigated estates are spread out along the valley floor and the enormous
alluvial fans built into the main valley at the mouths of the tributary
streams. There is a heavy tax on sugar and on aguardiente (brandy)
manufactured from cane juice. The _hacendados_ had dreamed of lighter
taxes. The rebels offered the means of securing relief. But taxes were
not the real reason for the unrest, for many other sugar producers pay
the tax without serious complaint. Abancay is cut off from the rest of
Peru by great mountains. Toward the west, _via_ Antabamba, Cotahuasi,
and Chuquibamba, two hundred miles of trail separate its plantations
from the Pacific. Twelve days’ hard riding is required to reach Lima
over the old colonial trade route. It is three days to Cuzco at the end
of the three-hundred-mile railway from the port of Mollendo. The trails
to the Atlantic rivers are impossible for trading purposes. Deep sunk in
a subtropical valley, the irrigable alluvial land of Abancay tempts the
production of sugar.
But nature offers no easy route out of the valley. For centuries the
product has been exported at almost prohibitive cost, as in the eastern
valley of Santa Ana. The coastal valleys enjoy easy access to the sea.
Each has its own port at the valley mouth, where ocean steamers call for
cargo. Many have short railway lines from port to valley head. The
eastern valleys and Abancay have been clamoring for railways, better
trails, and wagon roads. From the public fund they get what is left. The
realization of their hopes has been delayed too long. It would be both
economic and military strategy to give them the desired railway.
Revolutions in Peru always start in one of two ways: either by a _coup_
at Lima or an unchecked uprising in an interior province. Bolivia has
shown the way out of this difficulty. Two of her four large centers--La
Paz and Oruro--are connected by rail, and the line to Cochabamba lacks
only a few kilometres of construction.[16] To Sucre a line has been long
projected. Formerly a revolution at one of the four towns was
exceedingly difficult to stamp out. Diaz had the same double motive in
encouraging railway building in the remote desert provinces of Northern
Mexico, where nine out of ten Mexican revolutions gather headway.
Argentina has enjoyed a high degree of political unity since her railway
system was extended to Córdoba and Tucumán. The last uprising, that of
1906, took place on her remotest northeastern frontier.
We had ample opportunity to see the hatred of the rebels. At nightfall
of September 25th we rode into the courtyard of Hacienda Auquibamba. We
had traveled under the worst possible circumstances. Our mules had been
enfeebled by hot valley work at Santa Ana and the lower Urubamba and the
cold mountain climate of the Cordillera Vilcapampa. The climb out of the
Apurimac canyon, even without packs, left them completely exhausted. We
were obliged to abandon one and actually to pull another along. It had
been a hard day in spite of a prolonged noon rest. Everywhere our
letters of introduction had won an outpouring of hospitality among a
people to whom hospitality is one of the strongest of the unwritten laws
of society. Our soldier escort rode ahead of the pack train.
As the clatter of his mules’ hoofs echoed through the dark buildings the
manager rushed out, struck a light and demanded “Who’s there?” To the
soldier’s cheerful “Buena noche, Señor,” he sneeringly replied “Halto!
Guardia de la República, aqui hay nada para un soldado del gobierno.”
Whereupon the soldier turned back to me and said we should not be able
to stop here, and coming nearer me he whispered “He is a revolutionary.”
I dismounted and approached the haughty manager, who was in a really
terrible mood. Almost before I could begin to ask him for accommodations
he rattled off that there was no pasture for our beasts, no food for us,
and that we had better go on to the next hacienda. “Absolutamente nada!”
he repeated over and over again, and at first I thought him drunk. Since
it was then quite dark, with no moon, but instead heavy black clouds
over the southern half of the sky and a brisk valley wind threatening
rain, I mildly protested that we needed nothing more than shelter. Our
food boxes would supply our wants, and our mules, even without fodder,
could reach Abancay the next day. Still he stormed at the government and
would have none of us. I reminded him that his fields were filled with
sugar cane and that it was the staple forage for beasts during the part
of the year when pasture was scarce. The cane was too valuable, he said.
It was impossible to supply us. I was on the point of pitching camp
beside the trail, for it was impossible to reach the next hacienda with
an exhausted outfit.
Just then an older man stepped into the circle of light and amiably
inquired the purpose of our journey. When it was explained, he turned to
the other and said it was unthinkable that men should be treated so
inhospitably in a strange land. Though he himself was a guest he urged
that the host should remember the laws of hospitality, whereupon the
latter at last grudgingly asked us to join him at his table and to turn
our beasts over to his servants. It was an hour or more before he would
exhibit any interest in us. When he had learned of our object in
visiting Abancay he became somewhat more friendly, though his hostility
still manifested itself. Nowhere else in South America have I seen
exhibited such boorish conduct. Nevertheless the next morning I noticed
that our mules had been well fed. He said good-by to us as if he were
glad to be rid of any one in any way connected with the hostile
government. Likewise the manager at Hacienda Pasaje held out almost
until the last before he would consent to aid us with fresh beasts.
Finally, after a day of courting I gave him a camp chair. He was so
pleased that he not only gave us beasts, but also a letter of
introduction to one of his caretakers on a farm at the top of the
cuesta. Here on a cold, stormy night we found food and fuel and the
shelter of a friendly roof.
A by-product of the revolution, as of all revolutions in thinly settled
frontier regions, was the organization of small bands of outlaws who
infested the lonely trails, stole beasts, and left their owners robbed
and helpless far from settlements. We were cautioned to beware of them,
both by Señor Gonzales, the Prefect at Abancay, and by the Subprefect of
Antabamba. Since some of the bandits had been jailed, I could not doubt
the accuracy of the reports, but I did doubt stories of murder and of
raids by large companies of mountain bandits. As a matter of fact we
were robbed by the Governor of Antabamba, but in a way that did not
enable us to find redress in either law or lead. The story is worth
telling because it illustrates two important facts: first, the vile
so-called government that exists in some places in the really remote
sections of South America, and second, the character of the mountain
Indians.
The urgent letter from the Prefect of Abancay to the Subprefect of
Antabamba quickly brought the latter from his distant home. When we
arrived we found him drinking with the Governor. The Subprefect was most
courteous. The Governor was good-natured, but his face exhibited a rare
combination of cruelty and vice. We were offered quarters in the
municipal building for the day or two that we were obliged to stop in
the town. The delay enabled us to study the valley to which particular
interest attaches because of its situation in the mountain zone between
the lofty pastures of the Alpine country and the irrigated fields of the
valley farmers.
Antabamba itself lies on a smooth, high-level shoulder of the youthful
Antabamba Valley. The valley floor is narrow and rocky, and affords
little cultivable land. On the valley sides are steep descents and
narrow benches, chiefly structural in origin, over which there is
scattered a growth of scrub, sufficient to screen the deer and the bear,
and, more rarely, vagrant bands of vicuña that stray down from their
accustomed haunts in the lofty Cordillera. Three thousand feet above the
valley floor a broad shoulder begins (Fig. 60) and slopes gently up to
the bases of the true mountains that surmount the broad rolling summit
platform. Here are the great pasture lands of the Andes and their
semi-nomadic shepherds. The highest habitation in the world is located
here at 17,100 feet (5,210 m.), near a secondary pass only a few miles
from the main axis of the western chain, and but 300 feet (91 m.) below
it.
The people of Antabamba are both shepherds and farmers. The elevation is
12,000 feet (3,658 m.), too high and exposed for anything more than
potatoes. Here is an Indian population pure-blooded, and in other
respects, too, but little altered from its original condition. There is
almost no communication with the outside world. A deep canyon fronts the
town and a lofty mountain range forms the background.
At nightfall, one after another, the Indians came in from the field and
doffed their caps as they passed our door. Finally came the “Teniente
Gobernador,” or Lieutenant Governor. He had only a slight strain of
white blood. His bearing was that of a sneak, and he confirmed this
impression by his frank disdain for his full-blooded townsmen. “How
ragged and ugly they are! You people must find them very stupid,” etc.
When he found that we had little interest in his remarks, he asked us if
we had ever seen Lima. We replied that we had, whereupon he said, “Do
you see the gilded cross above the church yonder? I brought that on
muleback all the way from Lima! Think of it! These ignorant people have
never seen Lima!” His whole manner as he drew himself up and hit his
breast was intended to make us think that he was vastly superior to his
neighbors. The sequel shows that our first estimate of him was correct.
We made our arrangements with the Governor and departed. To inspire
confidence, and at the Governor’s urgent request, we had paid in advance
for our four Indians and our fresh beasts--and at double the usual
rates, for it was still winter in the Cordillera. They were to stay with
us until we reached Cotahuasi, in the next Department beyond the
continental divide, where a fresh outfit could be secured. The
Lieutenant Governor accompanied us to keep the party together. They
appeared to need it. Like our Indian peons at Lambrama the week before,
these had been taken from the village jail and represented the scum of
the town. As usual they behaved well the first day. On the second night
we reached the Alpine country where the vegetation is very scanty and
camped at the only spot that offered fuel and water. The elevation was
16,000, and here we had the lowest temperature of the whole journey, +6°
F. (-14.4° C.). Ice covered the brook near camp as soon as the sun went
down and all night long the wind blew down from the lofty Cordillera
above us, bringing flurries of snow and tormenting our unprotected
beasts. It seemed to me doubtful if our Indians would remain. I
discussed with the other members of the party the desirability of
chaining the peons to the tent pole, but this appeared so extreme a
measure that we abandoned the idea after warning the Teniente that he
must not let them escape.
At daybreak I was alarmed at the unusual stillness about camp. A glance
showed that half our hobbled beasts had drifted back toward Antabamba
and no doubt were now miles away. The four Indian peons had left also,
and their tracks, half buried by the last snowfall, showed that they had
left hours before and that it was useless to try to overtake them.
Furthermore we were making a topographic map across the Cordillera, and,
in view of the likelihood of snow blockading the 17,600-foot (5,360 m.)
pass which we had to cross, the work ought not to be delayed. With all
these disturbing conditions to meet, and suffering acutely from mountain
sickness, I could scarcely be expected to deal gently with our official.
I drew out the sleeping Teniente and set him on his feet. To my inquiry
as to the whereabouts of the Indians that he had promised to guard, he
blinked uncertainly, and after a stupid “Quien sabe?” peered under the
cover of a sheepskin near by as if the peons had been transformed into
insects and had taken refuge under a blade of grass. I ordered him to
get breakfast and after that to take upon his back the instruments that
two men had carried up to that time, and accompany the topographer. Thus
loaded, the Lieutenant Governor of Antabamba set out on foot a little
ahead of the party. Hendriksen, the topographer, directed him to a
17,000-foot peak near camp, one of the highest stations occupied in the
traverse. When the topographer reached the summit the instruments were
there but the Teniente had fled. Hendriksen rapidly followed the tracks
down over the steep snow-covered wall of a deeply recessed cirque, but
after a half-hour’s search could not get sight of the runaway, whereupon
he returned to his station and took his observations, reaching camp in
the early afternoon.
In the meantime I had intercepted two Indians who had come from
Cotahuasi driving a llama train loaded with corn. They held a long
conversation at the top of the pass above camp and at first edged
suspiciously away. But the rough ground turned them back into the trail
and at last they came timidly along. They pretended not to understand
Spanish and protested vigorously that they had to keep on with their
llamas. I thought from the belligerent attitude of the older, which grew
rapidly more threatening as he saw that I was alone, that I was in for
trouble, but when I drew my revolver he quickly obeyed the order to sit
down to breakfast, which consisted of soup, meat, and army biscuits. I
also gave them coca and cigarettes, the two most desirable gifts one can
make to a plateau Indian, and thereupon I thought I had gained their
friendship, for they at last talked with me in broken Spanish. The older
one now explained that he must at all hazards reach Matará by nightfall,
but he would be glad to leave his son to help us. I agreed, and he set
out forthwith. The _arriero_ (muleteer) had now returned with the lost
mules and with the assistance of the Indian we soon struck camp and
loaded our mules. I cautioned the arriero to keep close watch of the
Indian, for at one time I had caught on his face an expression of hatred
more intense than I had ever seen before. The plateau Indian of South
America is usually so stupid and docile that the unexpectedly venomous
look of the man after our friendly conversation and my good treatment
alarmed me. At the last moment, and when our backs were turned, our
Indian, under the screen of the packs, slipped away from us. The arriero
called out to know where he had gone. It took us but a few moments to
gain the top of a hill that commanded the valley. Fully a half-mile away
and almost indistinguishable against the brown of the valley floor was
our late assistant, running like a deer. No mule could follow over that
broken ground at an elevation of 16,000 feet, and so he escaped.
Fortunately that afternoon we passed a half-grown boy riding back toward
Antabamba and he promised to hand the Governor a note in Spanish,
penciled on a leaf of my traverse book. I dropped all the polite phrases
that are usually employed and wrote as follows:
“Señor Gobernador:
“Your Indians have escaped, likewise the Lieutenant Governor. They
have taken two beasts. In the name of the Prefect of Abancay, I ask
you immediately to bring a fresh supply of men and animals. We
shall encamp near the first pass, three days west of Antabamba,
until you come.”
We were now without Indians to carry the instruments, which had
therefore to be strapped to the mules. Without guides we started
westward along the trail. At the next pass the topographer rode to the
summit of a bluff and asked which of the two trails I intended to
follow. Just then a solitary Indian passed and I shouted back that I
would engage the Indian and precede the party, and he could tell from my
course at the fork of the trail how to direct his map and where to gain
camp at nightfall. But the Indian refused to go with us. All my
threatening was useless and I had to force myself to beat him into
submission with my quirt. Several repetitions on the way, when he
stubbornly refused to go further, kept our guide with us until we
reached a camp site. I had offered him a week’s pay for two hours’ work,
and had put coca and cigarettes into his hands. When these failed I had
to resort to force. Now that he was about to leave I gave him double the
amount I had promised him. He could scarcely believe his eyes. He rushed
up to the side of my mule, and reaching around my waist embraced me and
thanked me again and again. The plateau Indian is so often waylaid in
the mountains and impressed for service, then turned loose without pay
or actually robbed, that a _promise_ to pay holds no attraction for him.
I had up to the last moment resembled this class of white. He was
astonished to find that I really meant to pay him well.
Then he set out upon the return, faithfully delivering my note to the
topographer about the course of the trail and the position of the camp.
He had twelve miles to go to the first mountain hut, so that he could
not have traveled less than that distance to reach shelter. The next
morning a mantle of snow covered everything, yet when I pushed back the
tent flap there stood my scantily clad Indian of the night before,
shivering, with sandaled feet in the snow, saying that he had come back
to work for me!
This camp was number thirteen out of Abancay, and here our topographer
was laid up for three days. Heretofore the elevation had had no effect
upon him, but the excessively lofty stations of the past few days and
the hard climbing had finally prostrated him. We had decided to carry
him out by the fourth day if he felt no better, but happily he recovered
sufficiently to continue the work. The delay enabled the Governor to
overtake us with a fresh outfit. On the morning of our third day in
camp he overtook us with a small escort of soldiers accompanied by the
fugitive Teniente. He said that he had come to arrest me on the charge
of maltreating an official of Peru. A few packages of cigarettes and a
handful of raisins and biscuits so stirred his gratitude that we parted
the best of friends. Moreover he provided us with four fresh beasts and
four new men, and thus equipped we set out for a rendezvous about ten
miles away. But the faithless Governor turned off the trail and sought
shelter at the huts of a company of mountain shepherds. That night his
men slept on the ground in a bitter wind just outside our camp at 17,200
feet. They complained that they had no food. The Governor had promised
to join us with llama meat for the peons. We fed them that night and
also the next day. But we had by that time passed the crest of the
western Cordillera and were outside the province of Antabamba. The next
morning not only our four men but also our four beasts were missing. We
were stranded and sick just under the pass. To add to our distress the
surgeon, Dr. Erving, was obliged to leave us for the return home, taking
the best saddle animal and the strongest pack mule. It was impossible to
go on with the map. That morning I rode alone up a side valley until I
reached a shepherd’s hut, where I could find only a broken-down,
shuffling old mule, perfectly useless for our hard work.
Then there happened a piece of good luck that seems almost providential.
A young man came down the trail with three pack mules loaded with llama
meat. He had come from the Cotahuasi Valley the week before and knew the
trail. I persuaded him to let us hire one of his mules. In this way and
by leaving the instruments and part of our gear in the care of two
Indian youths we managed to get to Cotahuasi for rest and a new outfit.
The young men who took charge of part of our outfit interested me very
greatly. I had never seen elsewhere so independent and clear-eyed a pair
of mountain Indians. At first they would have nothing to do with us.
They refused us permission to store our goods in their hut. To them we
were railroad engineers. They said that the railway might come and when
it did it would depopulate the country. The railway was a curse.
Natives were obliged to work for the company without pay. Their uncle
had told them of frightful abuses over at Cuzco and had warned them not
to help the railway people in any way. They had moved out here in a
remote part of the mountains so that white men could not exploit them.
In the end, however, we got them to understand the nature of our work.
Gifts of various sorts won their friendship, and they consented to guard
the boxes we had to leave behind. Two weeks later, on his return, the
topographer found everything unmolested.
I could not but feel that the spirit of those strong and independent
young men was much better for Peru than the cringing, subservient spirit
of most of the Indians that are serfs of the whites. The policy of the
whites has been to suppress and exploit the natives, to abuse them, and
to break their spirit. They say that it keeps down revolution; it keeps
the Indian in his place. But certainly in other respects it is bad for
the Indian and it is worse for the whites. Their brutality toward the
natives is incredible. It is not so much the white himself as the
vicious half-breed who is often allied with him as his agent.
I shall never forget the terror of two young girls driving a donkey
before them when they came suddenly face to face with our party, and we
at the same time hastily scrambled off our beasts to get a photograph of
a magnificent view disclosed at the bend of the steep trail. They
thought we had dismounted to attack them, and fled screaming in abject
fear up the mountain side, abandoning the donkey and the pack of
potatoes which must have represented a large part of the season’s
product. It is a kind of highway robbery condoned because it is only
robbing an Indian. He is considered to be lawful prey. His complaint
goes unnoticed. In the past a revolution has offered him sporadic
chances to wreak vengeance. More often it adds to his troubles by
scattering through the mountain valleys the desperate refugees or
lawless bands of marauders who kill the flocks of the mountain shepherds
and despoil their women.
There are still considerable numbers of Indians who shun the white man
and live in the most remote corners of the mountains. I have now and
again come upon the most isolated huts, invisible from the valley
trails. They were thatched with grass; the walls were of stone; the
rafters though light must have required prodigious toil, for all timber
stops at 12,000 feet on the mountain borders. The shy fugitive who
perches his hut near the lip of a hanging valley far above the trail may
look down himself unseen as an eagle from its nest. When the owner
leaves on a journey, or to take his flock to new pastures, he buries his
pottery or hides it in almost inaccessible caves. He locks the door or
bars it, thankful if the spoiler spares rafters and thatch.
At length we reached Cotahuasi, a town sprawled out on a terrace just
above the floor of a deep canyon (Fig. 29). Its flower gardens and
pastures are watered by a multitude of branching canals lined with low
willows. Its bright fields stretch up the lower slopes and alluvial fans
of the canyon to the limits of irrigation where the desert begins. The
fame of this charming oasis is widespread. The people of Antabamba and
Lambrama and even the officials of Abancay spoke of Cotahuasi as
practically the end of our journey. Fruits ripen and flowers blossom
every month of the year. Where we first reached the canyon floor near
Huaynacotas, elevation 11,500 feet (3,500 m.), there seemed to be acres
of rose bushes. Only the day before at an elevation of 16,800 feet
(5,120 m.) we had broken thick ice out of a mountain spring in order to
get water; now we were wading a shallow river, and grateful for the
shade along its banks. Thus we came to the town prepared to find the
people far above their plateau neighbors in character. Yet, in spite of
friendly priests and officials and courteous shopkeepers, there was a
spirit strangely out of harmony with the pleasant landscape.
Inquiries showed that even here, where it seemed that only sylvan peace
should reign, there had recently been let loose the spirit of barbarism.
We shall turn to some of its manifestations and look at the reasons
therefor.
In the revolution of 1911 a mob of drunken, riotous citizens gathered to
storm the Cotahuasi barracks and the jail. A full-blooded Indian
soldier, on duty at the entrance, ordered the rioters to stop and when
they paid no heed he shot the leader and scattered the crowd. The
captain thereupon ordered the soldier to Arequipa because his life was
no longer safe outside the barracks. A few months later he was assigned
to Professor Bingham’s Coropuna expedition. Professor Bingham reached
the Cotahuasi Valley as I was about to leave it for the coast, and the
soldier was turned over to me so that he might leave Cotahuasi at the
earliest possible moment, for his enemies were plotting to kill him.
He did not sleep at all the last night of his stay and had us called at
three in the morning. He told his friends that he was going to leave
with us, but that they were to announce his leaving a day later. In
addition, the Subprefect was to accompany us until daybreak so that no
harm might befall me while under the protection of a soldier who
expected to be shot from ambush.
At four o’clock our whispered arrangements were made, we opened the
gates noiselessly, and our small cavalcade hurried through the
pitch-black streets of the town. The soldier rode ahead, his rifle
across his saddle, and directly behind him rode the Subprefect and
myself. The pack mules were in the rear. We had almost reached the end
of the street when a door opened suddenly and a shower of sparks flew
out ahead of us. Instantly the soldier struck spurs into his mule and
turned into a side street. The Subprefect drew his horse back savagely
and when the next shower of sparks flew out pushed me against the wall
and whispered: “Por Dios, quien es?” Then suddenly he shouted: “Sopla no
mas, sopla no mas” (stop blowing).
Thereupon a shabby penitent man came to the door holding in his hand a
large tailor’s flatiron. The base of it was filled with glowing charcoal
and he was about to start his day’s work. The sparks were made in the
process of blowing through the iron to start the smoldering coals. We
greeted him with more than ordinary friendliness and passed on.
At daybreak we had reached the steep western wall of the canyon where
the real ascent begins, and here the Subprefect turned back with many
_felicidades_ for the journey and threats for the soldier if he did not
look carefully after the pack train. From every angle of the zigzag
trail that climbs the “cuesta” the soldier scanned the valley road and
the trail below him. He was anxious lest news of his escape reach his
enemies who had vowed to take his life. Half the day he rode turned in
his saddle so as to see every traveler long before he was within harm’s
reach. By nightfall we safely reached Salamanca, fifty miles away (Fig.
62).
The alertness of the soldier was unusual and I quite enjoyed his close
attention to the beasts and his total abstinence, for an alert and sober
soldier on detail is a rare phenomenon in the interior of Peru. But all
Salamanca was drunk when we arrived--Governor, alcaldes, citizens. Even
the peons drank up in brandy the money that we gave them for forage and
let the beasts starve. The only sober person I saw was the white
telegraph operator from Lima. He said that he had to stay sober, for the
telegraph office--the outward sign of government--was the special object
of attack of every drink-crazed gang of rioters. They had tried to break
in a few nights before and he had fired his revolver point-blank through
the door. The town offered no shelter but the dark filthy hut of the
Gobernador and the tiny telegraph office. So I made up my bed beside
that of the operator. We shared our meals and chatted until a late hour,
he recounting the glories of Lima, to which he hoped to return at the
earliest possible moment, and cursing the squalid town of Salamanca. His
operator’s keys were old, the batteries feeble, and he was in continual
anxiety lest a message could not be received. In the night he sprang out
of bed shouting frantically:
“Estan llamando” (they are calling), only to stumble over my bed and
awaken himself and offer apologies for walking in his sleep.
Meanwhile my soldier, having regained his courage, began drinking. It
was with great difficulty that I got started, after a day’s delay, on
the trail to Chuquibamba. There his thirst quite overcame him. To
separate him from temptation it became necessary to lock him up in the
village jail. This I did repeatedly on the way to Mollendo, except
beyond Quilca, where we slept in the hot marshy valley out of reach of
drink, and where the mosquitoes kept us so busy that either eating or
drinking was almost out of the question.
The drunken rioters of Cotahuasi and their debauched brothers at
Salamanca are chiefly natives of pure or nearly pure Indian blood. They
are a part of the great plateau population of the Peruvian Andes. Have
they degenerated to their present low state, or do they display merely
the normal condition of the plateau people? Why are they so troublesome
an element? To this as to so many questions that arise concerning the
highland population we find our answer not chiefly in government, or
religion, or inherited character, but in geography. I doubt very much if
a greater relative difference would be seen if two groups of whites were
set down, the one in the cold terrace lands of Salamanca, the other in
the warm vineyards of Aplao, in the Majes Valley. The common people of
these two towns were originally of the same race, but the lower valley
now has a white element including even most of those having the rank of
peons. Greater differences in character could scarcely be found between
the Aztecs and the Iroquois. In the warm valley there is of coarse
drunkenness, but it is far from general; there is stupidity, but the
people are as a whole alert; and finally, the climate and soil produce
grapes from which famous wines are made, they produce sugar cane,
cotton, and alfalfa, so that the whites have come in, diluted the Indian
blood, and raised the standard of life and behavior. Undoubtedly their
influence would tend to have the same general effect if they mixed in
equal numbers with the plateau groups. There is, however, a good reason
for their not doing so.
[Illustration: FIG. 62--Salamanca, on the floor of the deep Arma Valley
(a tributary of one of the major coast valleys, the Ocoña), which is
really a canyon above this point and which, in spite of its steepness,
is thoroughly terraced and intensively cultivated up to the frost line.]
[Illustration: FIG. 60--View across the Antabamba canyon just above
Huadquirca.]
[Illustration: FIG. 61--Huancarama, west of Abancay, on the famous Lima
to Buenos Aires road. Note the smooth slopes in the foreground. See