By Jorge Recharte, 1993.

Chapter 4 - Footnotes

¹The dossiers formed during the lengthy processes followed by Ayllus to obtain corporate legal status contain valuable human and animal population censuses, maps (usually drawn by the comuneros themselves depicting their own perception of Ayllu territories), and information of a general nature concerning the resources of each community. The number of animals of each species per adult male in each community will be used to provide an approximate measure of change in the agricultural resource base of the communities, despite the fact that this ratio is affected to some extent by other factors: differences in population density, quality of the land, importance of off-farm activities. These and other complicating factors limit any clear-cut correlation between animal mixes and agricultural resources. Nonetheless, the general outline of such a relationship is apparent.

²The location of the two residential centers (Pinta Pascana and Tinco Palca) on the border with Puna Ayllu may also have the political function of protecting their agricultural resources from Puna Ayllino encroachment.

³Although agricultural systems in both communities are similar, access to coca lands among Cojeneños is probably one of the factors that explains why they have fewer alpacas and llamas than do Puna Ayllinos.

⁴In my first visit to Kapuna in 1978 I was told that comuneros of this community have more and bigger corn plots than those owned by the comuneros who live in the communities above them. Moreover, their corn plots are less dispersed than the tuber plots of farmers living in the upper communities. This difference is probably due to the fact that corn terraces are below the frost line and in a zone of higher rainfall, and thus are not subject to the same degree of risk that characterizes tuber production.

⁵In fact, Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu were chosen as PSE study communities because they represent two quite different production systems arrayed on the upper end of the Andean escarpment.

⁶These exchanges involve only small quantities of products. According to old comuneros, the exchange of agricultural goods was more important in the past, when they traded for cheese, bread, and animal products to complement locally produced foods. This type of exchange was called trukay in Quechua. Ch'ala, the exchange of small piles or hand-full amounts of products, is more common nowadays.

⁷According to the 1969 agrarian census, 45 percent of highland farms in Peru had less than two hectares and their average size was 0.97 hectares. Therefore, Cuyo Cuyeño farms rank among the poorest in terms of land holding within the group of small farmers of rural Peru (Caballero 1981: 62, 98). In the sample of twenty families studied in 1985-1986 by the PSE Project in Cuyo Cuyo, measurements show that separate plots can be as small as 0.002 ha and as large as 0.39 ha.

⁸I am not familiar with any cycle shorter than six years in the valley of Sandia. The relation of years of production to fallowing, the crop sequences, and their names also vary throughout the region. See Orlove and Godoy (1986).

⁹Not only do mandas units have names, but so do smaller areas within them, including rocks and other objects of the landscape. Places are identified by unique names that evoke different qualities of the landscape. These might include its magical potency (Anchanchuniwasi is the house of Anchanchu, an evil spirit), historical events (Mistizawañusqa names the place where a misti woman, a member of the local, non-Indian elite broke her neck as she fell from her horse some three generations ago), or natural features of the environment (Wayrapunku, is a windy place.) In addition to the hundreds of collectively recognized names, each household has unique names for its plots. The density of personalized names spread over the landscape helps to explain why it is so difficult to have two individuals agree on the exact geographical location that constitutes each manda.

¹⁰The main set is located in both communities around the main settlement; Puna Ayllu has a second set in Awi Awi, and Ura Ayllu in Aripo.

¹¹In other words, the puka palta potatoes from the mandas of Estancia in Puna Ayllu are kept separate from the puka palta potatoes that come from the mandas of Awi Awi. A woman from Puna Ayllu told me that in the 1985 harvest she, as well as other women, had a high number of rotten potatoes among the thuruña cultivars planted in the mandas of the Estancia. In the 1986 season, the thuruña from Awi Awi were used as seed in the mandas of Estancia and it produced very well.

¹²Manda systems have complementary production calendars as well as different sets of cultivars.

¹³The inverse relationship between cloudiness and the occurrence of frosts is well documented in the scientific literature on Andean climatology (Winterhalder and Thomas 1978), as is the direct correlation between cloudiness and the development of late blight.

¹⁴Interviews with several comuneros made it clear that there would be no community-sponsored redistribution of land. Restructuring the mandas would simply permit each household the opportunity to increase the number of plots that follow a synchronized annual crop rotation.

¹⁵Although I was unable to identify any liwa in Puna Ayllu, it seems that in this community the mandas of Awi Awi have been extended upwards into comunal pastures that are environmentally fit only for the production of bitter potatoes. In 1984 Sayaca annex performed a liwa redistribution in Cancha Tuone. In Aripo there are at least two places which are liwas: Kanchayoq and Rukipata. One of them was distributed among the comuneros about seven years ago. In Ura Ayllu I know of four liwas: Wayllani, Lukani, Paqchani and Paqchapata.

¹⁶The study of native concepts related to plant life and ecology might offer insights in peasant cosmology and moral economy (e.g., Arnold [1986]). Potatoes in Cuyo Cuyo, for example, happen to be conceived as living entities capable of sensing and knowing. This belief is reflected in certain peeling taboos and prohibitions limiting the circulation of certain cultivars outside the community or family groups.

¹⁷Partial collection of Cuyo Cuyo potato cultivars and species, with identifications according to Torres (1984). My identification of species is tentative. Carol Goland (Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) is completing a doctoral dissertation on the agricultural systems of Cuyo Cuyo.

¹⁸Ruki, or bitter potatoes, are found almost exclusively in Puna Ayllu, while chauchas grow only in Ura Ayllu.

¹⁹In a few cases it is possible that different names describe the same or very similar cultivars. The number of cultivars noted for the District of Cuyo Cuyo is based on plant collections performed in 1978 by Alejandro Camino (personal communication).

²⁰Izaño is always planted in association with illaco. The latter is sometimes sown alone, a sign of its greater importance.

²¹A reason mentioned is strong comunero attachment to their own seed. Perhaps this jealousy is one of the reasons why households favor redundant planting of key species in complementary mandas within their community.

²²Mink'a sowing is most prominent in the corn-producing communities located in the lower sections of the Sandia valley where terraces are wider and oxen-plowing is more common. The term mink'a is also used in Cuyo Cuyo in association with tuber harvests. It consists of a payment in produce and food but it is not associated with the festive atmosphere of mink'a planting in the corn terraces.

²³Sheep are moved from the central village to the corrals of Awi Awi only when the household is able to commit an adult person to this task. Widows and widowers care for the larger herds of sheep. These herds include animals that are owned by other households, shepherded in exchange for a percentage of the offspring or for a payment that includes cash and products (cocawi.) Most of the rustic houses and corrals used by these shepherds are located in Chejelele, Chuqutullo, and Waraqullo creeks.

²⁴I observed one such ritual that involved a father and his married son's animals. On the eve of the celebration of San Juan (23 June), households that want to mark the ears of their animals for the first time conduct a ritual to insure the fertility of their cattle and horses.

²⁵Natural forests occur in sheltered areas where humidity is particularly high, mostly along steep brooks. Forest resources are under extreme pressure in Ura Ayllu and the remaining stands are increasingly inaccessible. Several young Ura Ayllinos referred to the fact that nowadays they have to walk longer and climb into more dangerous places to get wood than when they were children. Cutting firewood is a demanding activity that can be dangerous on wet and steep slopes. I once observed that three hours of intense work yielded three atados or packages weighing a total of 63 kilograms of wet firewood. An atado lasted in this house for about seven to ten days, depending on the amount of cooking. Firewood is also sold in Cuyo Cuyo for 20 Intis per arroba (25 kilograms). Mules are used to transport large loads of firewood.

²⁶In 1986 a group of households from Ura Ayllu bought camelids and grasslands close to Lake Soracocha in what used to be an hacienda of the Guillén family (see Figure 1.3).

²⁷In August of 1985 the rent for a four ton truck was approximately U.S. $45.00 per round trip.

²⁸Dry dung from alpacas is favored as kitchen fuel because these animals defecate within small, clearly limited territories (ch'uyno), thus reducing considerably the time that people must devote to collecting the fuel. Except for the grasses and sticks used to start their fires, Puna Ayllu comuneros have no other natural fuels for their hearths. I observed a man in his early thirties spend two and a half hours collecting 25 kilograms of dry dung. This supply was expected to last for at least one week, but the man was cooking only for himself. Dung collection requires less effort than would be required to obtain firewood.

²⁹More specifically, herders explained that animals are not left in the lower cordillera pastures during the rainy months from November through March, because high humidity in this zone causes the animals severe diarrhea. Moreover, poor visibility due to fog makes it more difficult to prevent predator attacks. Also, newborn llamas and alpacas, which are born mostly between December and January, drown easily in swampy areas. The upper cordillera is sunnier and drier than the escarpment below during this time of the year.

³⁰This Empresa Comunal is located on the western shore of Soracocha Lake (see Figure 1.3). At the end of 1985 it had 91 alpacas and 37 sheep, a modest holding. The empresa was run by a herder who was a former employee of Pío León Cabrera, the owner of hacienda Soracocha-Amayani that the officials of Agrarian Reform expropriated and gave to Puna Ayllu.

³¹The notion of territorial "annexes" is found in individual agricultural properties, in the case of mandas, and in outlying settlements of the main communities. This appears to be a native notion of landuse, perhaps related to verticality (Murra 1972).

³²It also is possible to obtain the services of herders for a payment that may consist of a combination of cash, local agricultural produce, some staple commodities (such as flour, kerosene, rice, and vegetable oil) and access to pastures for the herder's own animals. During the sixteen months of my residence in Cuyo Cuyo, I found that only two relatively affluent Puna Ayllu households used such services.

³³Farmers prefer to do business with herders they know to avoid running the risk of returning with an empty truck or difficulties in the negotiation of price and quantities. A reliable transaction therefore involves the maintenance of social relations with the herder or even the establishment of compadrazgo ties.

³⁴According to tradition no one is allowed to plow personal fields before Qollana. Qollana consists of the ritual plowing of community lands during Easter festivities. These lands are called yanasin in Quechua (see Chapters 2 and 3) and serve to finance communal institutions.

³⁵Men can be seen planting tubers in extraordinary cases, but they are said never to plant broad beans. Planting corn is forbidden to women.

³⁶A related method by which early, medium, and late plantings are chosen was explained as follows by a comunero from Puna Ayllu: "We must [go to the manda to] see. For example if you plant in Awi Awi after more than half of the manda is already planted, then that is late; if you plant before the first half of the manda then you are early." In other words, the "earliness" or "lateness" is redefined every year by the actions of the community.

³⁷This second early harvest of potatoes is called yanasin (defined for me literally as "the help"), and it comes some 30 days before the main harvest period begins.