THOSE Who Have Journeyed Across the Highlands of Bolivia, South Of

HOSE who have journeyed across the highlands of Bolivia, Tsouth of Lake Titicaca, can never forget the strange "villages" that loom over the horizon along their road, either perched on mountainous slopes or scattered along barren plains. The modern Indians avoid these places, and, if forced by necessity to approach them, they never fail to re- cite a prayer or to present as an offer- ing their acullico, a quid of coca leaves taken from their mouth. Seen from a distance, the structures are not terrifying. They are small, square towers with low doors, invari- ably turned to face the rising sun, and their construction shows the care of men who have worked long and hard. ' Age has left the towers intact, and though made of adobe, they appear neat and clean. Were they not so geo- metrical, a casual observer might con- fuse them with huge termite hills. The industrious, stern-faced people who built these structures are still there, wrapped in heavy woolen garments and huddled in the grim cham- bers, as if driven there by a sudden storm. But they are silent, for they are only chullpas—the dried mummified remains of the folk who once owned the land. A A CORNER of a "ghost" village. Modern * A CHIPAYA HUT, home of Bo- Indians try to avoid these towers, because livia's people of the past. Mod- they contain the dried, mummified re- ern Indians call these people mains of the people who once owned the "the leftovers of the mummies" land • THIS CHIPAYA BOY'S woolen bonnet and woolen tunic are typical of garments worn in pre-Hispanic times It /I < EVEN the J remain unci Before she the womar part of the i of the cup ground in li the gods 426 NATURAL HISTORY, NOVEMBER, 1945 These people were the ancient Col- dered them to bring every year to the shall put the doors of our houses in las or Aymaras, whose descendants Cuzco, tubes filled with their own the east.' As soon as they had uttered form the bulk of Bolivia's population. lice. They lived mainly around Titi- this wish, the sun altered its course Modern Indians, however, deny any caca, subsisting on fishing and build- and rose in the east. All the men, relationship with the "gentiles" clus- ing the reed balsas on rafts which women, and children died in the huts. tered in these burial places, for they have become so famous. They are the present-day chullpas. believe the chullpas were heathens Today, the last Uro are a handful But one man and one woman escaped who were banished from life by a di- in the village of Ancoaqui, near the by diving into a river. They went vine curse. Strange legends circulate mouth of the Desaguadero. The Chip- downstream walking under water. about them. It is rumored that the aya are another group of Uro that Finally they arrived at a barren and "antiguos" (the ancient ones) had had remained unknown until Max desolate plain, where they built a vil- fabulous treasure hidden somewhere in Uhle mentioned their existence to- lage. They labored at night as other the crevices of the mountains. But few ward the end of the last century. The people work by day. At length they are those who succeed in gaining access first scientist to visit them was Dr. were discovered by an Aymara In- to it. The dead "gentiles" are danger- Posnansky of La Paz. He brought dian, who summoned a priest. The ously vindictive and always ready to back from this trip a short vocabulary latter came and sprinkled the village inflict misfortune on the poor Indians. which proved beyond doubt that the with holy water. The spell was shat- To the Aymara Indians of the re- Chipaya were closely related to the tered and the children of darkness gion of Carangas and of the Poopo, Uro of Ancoaqui. Dr. Rivet of Paris once more could enjoy the beauty of the race of the "gentiles" is not en- attempted to demonstrate that their light and the warmth of the sun. Now tirely extinct. They know that in the language was related to the Arawakan these people live as everybody does, south of the Department, near the dialects of the tropical lowlands and but being the children of the dead, Salinas of Coipasa, there is still a vil- that the Uro were perhaps the rem- they wear the costume of the chullpas lage inhabited by their descendants. nants of an old population that had and still put the doors of their huts They call them chullpa puchu, "the come from the eastern forest and oc- toward the east. The language they leftovers of the mummies." These liv- cupied the valleys and plateaus of the speak is the same as the one used by ing mummies are not a mythical peo- Andes. the 'gentiles.' " ple ; they are the isolated Uro-Chip- The poor Chipaya themselves ad- "The barren and desolate plain on aya whom I studied during two mit that they occupy a strange position which we live ..." I still remember anthropological expeditions in 1932 in the world. They readily recognize the bitterness with which this phrase and 1939. They are the last repre- the differences between themselves was uttered by one of my informants. sentatives of a primitive people who and the Aymara Indians of the region, I know of no other region that causes occupied large areas of the Bolivian and they comprehend that they share such an overwhelming impression of Highland in remote ages, but who some common heritage with the grin- isolation and emptiness. A flat im- were already on the decline when the ning "mummies" they have glimpsed mensity, patched by white saline de- Spaniards arrived. The conquistadores in the darkness of the adobe chullpas. posits, is dominated by unnamed heard strange stories about them: They explain their presence in the mountains towering over the 12,000- they were reputed to be so primitive deserts by a myth, which I shall sum- foot plateau. Life here is brutally and so filthy that the Inca, unable to marize: "Long ago, the sun would harsh. One awakens in the morning obtain any tribute from them, had or- rise in the west. Man said: 'We with limbs numbed by cold and heart V AN ARTIFICIAL FLOOD is created by the people during the rainy season when the river is high. This fertilizes the barren and desolate F LLAMAS pasturing near Chipaya village, plain and enables the people to maintain their meagre pastures The people also raise sheep and pigs 4 "NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION." A BUILDING THE HOUSE. The In- A. THE SOD WALLS of the houses There is not a single tree, not even a cactus, from dians heap the sods to form round sometimes have thatched roofs which to construct a house, and the soil is unsuit- huts somewhat like Eskimo snow- made of arched bundles of tola, a able for making sun-dried brick, so the Chipaya houses though structurally different shrub that grows on the highlands make huts of sods cut from the marshy ground • CHIPAYA RELIGION is a blend of old * THE CHIPAYA worship a host of * CONSECRATION of a llama before sacrif Andean beliefs and rites with some spirits, or mallkus, represented by cones The animal is decorated with woolen tu Catholic practices. The tower of their of sod built on low platforms in isolated exposed to the smoke of incense, sprink church is worshipped as a powerful fetish spots about ten miles from the village with alcohol, and covered with coca lea 428 NATURAL HISTORY, NOVEMBER, 1945 oppressed by the thin atmosphere. had exhumed just a few days earlier What has been called Inca com- Only at noon, when the sun burns in- in some chullpas of the region of munism still prevails in Chipaya. The tensely and one dozes lazily against Huachacalla. Even the folded cloth pastures belong to all members of the the wall of a hut, does one feel rid of worn by the women on their heads two moities into which the village is the night's spell. On these highlands had been depicted on Inca pottery. divided. In the village itself the indi- a feeling of emptiness seizes the mind, Miniature bronze idols jingled in vidual owns nothing except the little and wherever the eyes turn they are their braided hair. These were an- patch of land upon which are built his caught by a gray expanse, relieved tiques that the Chipaya had adapted house and corral. The arid lands cul- only by the ardent blue of a midday to their own use and were exactly tivated by the Chipaya are divided in- sky. Grimmest of all is the great si- like those discovered in the ruins of to long strips 30 feet wide and are lence, an iced, unearthly stillness Tiahuanaco, the mysterious city of redistributed each year among the dif- which is never interrupted and to the Titicaca, which was already a ferent families. which one can never become quite heap of ruins when Columbus discov- January and February on the high- accustomed. It is a silence unbroken ered America. lands are months of storms and rain. by human voice, or even by the re- Indeed, all the objects about me Swollen rivers flood the sandy plains, mote cry of a bird or animal. seemed to have been rescued from the and the entire territory becomes a vast Here, in the midst of a cursed archaeological past.

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