Work, Reproduction, and Health in Two Andean Communities

By Anne Larme, 1993.

Chapter 6 - Footnotes

¹ "Heat" and "cold" are placed in quotes throughout my discussion of Cuyo Cuyo ethnomedicine, because they are not necessarily temperatures but inherent qualities of environmental features, foods, drinks, and medicines.

² Cuyo Cuyo Quechua speakers use the Spanish words, débil and debilidad when discussing this ethnomedical concept. They may be direct translations of the Quechua phrase for "weak," kallpa wañuy (Qu., "dead strength").

³ A health scare ca. 1980, when many Puna Ayllu men became sick with diseases contracted in the lowlands, prompted many Puna Ayllinos to stop migrating to Madre de Dios.

⁴ Men are often carrying valuable amounts of gold, or commodities purchased with gold, and are susceptible to assaults by robbers while walking to and from their camps through dense stretches of vegetation.

⁵ Sp., a non-specific category of illnesses contracted in Madre de Dios, including symptoms such as lack of energy, changes in appetite, weight loss, yellowing of the skin, and food cravings. Also called mal de la sangre (Sp., blood sickness).

⁶ Cambio de clima was considered to be a problem only upon their return, following scientific knowledge of adaptation to hypoxia (Chapter 4). After long sojourns at sea level the human body needs time to adapt to hypoxia. In the reverse direction, this is not a problem.

⁷ I learned this in a very personal way through comments about my appearance and health when I gained and then lost 25 pounds during the course of my research.

⁸Several Puna Ayllinos, for example, expressed the opinion that eating a "dry" segundo without a first course of soup contributed to a young man's death in Ancoccala, although he most likely died of pulmonary edema (Chapter 5).

⁹ This belief reflects religious syncretism. Roman Catholicism holds that the age of seven years is the "age of reason." Because children are incapable of sin before the age of reason, Cuyo Cuyo children who die before this age are thought to proceed directly to heaven after death. Their corpses are dressed as angels, complete with cardboard wings, and brief night-time funerals are held, which are thought to facilitate their entry into heaven. Such beliefs about child death are widespread in Latin America.

¹⁰ It should be noted that the time allocation data in Table 5.2 represents adults aged 20-54, however. Aggregate analyses of adults aged 20-54 and elderly aged 55 and above were not available at the time of this writing.

¹¹ To make ch'uñu, potatoes are frozen overnight and stepped on by barefooted women after they defrost to squeeze out the moisture. Qhaya-making involves soaking oca in pools of water for several weeks, then pulling them out and drying them.

¹² Cuyo Cuyeños often resort to biomedical practitioners only after Andean and patent remedies have failed. According to practitioners I interviewed, their illnesses are often too advanced to be treated when they arrive at MINSA clinics.

¹³ Qella onqoy (Qu., lazy sickness) is a moral judgement, blaming an ill person for causing his or her own symptoms by not following community norms of hard work, and reflecting the suspicion that sick people are just trying to get out of work. According to his father, who gave me these data, G3 was lazy and irresponsible. At age 25 he was still not married, he hung out with his friends in the streets every evening, and did not work hard in agricultural or community labors.

¹⁴ In 1980 a tree fell on G3 while clearing vegetation in Madre de Dios, resulting in a compound fracture of his femur. He was flown to a hospital in Cusco where his leg was repaired with a metal pin and plaster cast. Cuyo Cuyeños' general doubts about the efficacy of biomedicine, and suspicions about the long term iatrogenic effects of its procedures are reflected in this account. Although G3's cast was promptly replaced with a lizard meat poultice when he returned to Ura Ayllu, it was apparently not sufficient to counteract the negative effects of the operation.

¹⁵ An indirect indication of women's responsibility for child care is reflected in causes given for children's and adult males' health problems. Although a relatively infrequent explanation for children's symptoms, Ura Ayllu women blamed themselves a total of 14 times, and a husband blamed his wife once, for causing children's health problems. Three Ura Ayllu men blamed mothers or other female caretakers they had had as children for health problems they suffered as adults. Mothers, for example, are thought to cause children's symptoms through not feeding them properly, or through carelessly exposing them to frío, to larpa, or to kerosene fumes at birth. These data reflect the general responsibility of mothers for children's well-being, as well as Andean notions about the residual effects of illness-causing behavior.

¹⁶ M1 felt compelled to wear uncomfortable mestizo-type shoes in order to be hired for a professional job in the city. The flat, lightweight tire-tread sandals Cuyo Cuyeños prefer to wear mark them as poor "indios" in the city, and would have jeopardized further his chances of finding a job.

¹⁷ As noted previously, I considered fiestas to be "mandatory" and therefore a type of community work if the individual was a sponsor or godparent. Although all Cuyo Cuyo fiestas are in a sense mandatory for social and ritual reasons, other fiesta "risks" are considered below.

¹⁸ The Yanasi (from the Qu., yanapay, "to help") involves guarding sheep penned overnight to fertilize community lands designated for the support of the school.

¹⁹More frequently coca was discussed as a prevention or cure for symptoms. For example, the coca quid is rubbed on sore muscles to ease the pain, and coca chewing is thought to prevent or cure stomachaches and toothaches.

²⁰ Fear, another negative emotion, is not thought to cause illness directly, but only in relation to hap'iqasqa (see below).

²¹All names are pseudonyms.

²² Sebastian's wife purposely, I am convinced, made three PSE workers, including myself, her compadres and comadres. She formed these relationships by means of contrived godparent events -- her daughter's birthdays -- that she created in order to protect herself. As compadres, PSE workers had serious discussions with Sebastian on two occasions after he had beaten her severely, asking him to stop his violent behavior.

²³ It was well known in the community that she had a chronic cough, possibly tuberculosis.

²⁴ This "bargain" does not represent a devaluation of Bernaldina, rather, a realistic appraisal of her family's chances for success in pressing charges. Bernaldina's family was not as economically and socially powerful as her husband's family. Thus, they opted first for the minimum satisfaction of rescuing their lands.

²⁵ Pregnancies occurring late in field work may not have been detected.

²⁶ Women sleep with a kerosene-wick lamp while pregnant and for a few weeks after giving birth to prevent evil spirits from entering the fetus or infant.

²⁷ "Born dead," as noted in Chapter 4, includes babies who die shortly after birth.