By Jorge Recharte, 1993.

Chapter 4 - Verticality: The Political Economy of Peasant Subsistence in Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu

(page 113)

with the upper altitudinal limit of the corn terraces. The fourth species of potato, Solanum juzepczukii, are bitter cultivars that are highly resistant to frosts and are sown in the 4,000-4,200 meter range. They are eaten as muraya and chuñu, prepared by two different processes of dehydration that yield products of different culinary value.¹⁸

The Andean tuber Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) grows between 3,300-3,900 meters within the range of annual potatoes. Oca is considerably more important in Puna Ayllu, where it is processed in large quantities into dehydrated qhaya, than in Ura Ayllu. The illaco or papa lisa (Ullucus tuberosus) and the izaño (Tropaeolum tuberosum) grow at the same altitudes as oca. Illaco is eaten mostly in soups, and in the past it was dehydrated (llinlli). Illaco now is clearly losing ground to ocas and potatoes. Izaño is a crop regarded by the local farmers as highly resistant to infectious diseases, but it is not highly valued as food by most households. It sometimes is fed to dogs. Broad beans (Vicia faba) are fairly important in the diet of Cuyo Cuyeños, especially in Puna Ayllu where to some extent they replace the corn which will not grow on the high elevations lands of the community.

Crop diversification in Cuyo Cuyo District is augmented considerably by intraspecific diversification. For example, in the case of potatoes there are perhaps as many as one hundred and fifty different cultivars, each with a unique name that reflects physical properties of the plant.¹⁹ Some varieties possess singular culinary or processing properties, and some are adapted particularly well to specific micro-environments. Intraspecific diversification in Cuyo Cuyo is related to the importance of each crop in the production system. Potatoes have the largest number of varieties. Oca tubers follow in second place with about fifty named cultivars. There are some twenty-five illaco varieties but only a handful of varieties of izaño, a fact that probably is related to izaños marginal position in the local food system.²⁰ In contrast to the pattern outlined above there is little diversification of broad beans, despite their importance in the Cuyo Cuyeño diet and a history of cultivation in the Andes that dates from the sixteenth century (Leon 1964).

Cultivar diversification is an essential technical aspect of the agricultural system in Cuyo Cuyo. Although many cultivars can be planted in a wide spectrum of soils and environments within the altitudinal range the crop will tolerate, some are highly specialized. For instance, the group of early maturing potatoes (chauchas) thrive mostly in or around Aripo annex. Cultivars also have different culinary and processing

(page 114)

qualities. The group of potato varieties known as Lomu are renowned for their dryness and good flavor as well as their easy preparation; they are boiled and eaten plain in a popular dish called wayk'u. Other potato cultivars are noted for their storage qualities.

Cultivar diversification thus not only provides genetic protection against diseases and plagues but also allows for flexibility in storage and preparation. The mosaic of microenvironments and cultivars allows farmers to combine crop varieties in order to even out the seasonal investment of labor and the flow of agricultural products. Puna Ayllinos for example rely on a number of potato (ruki) and oca cultivars (Kaka uma and yana oca) that are particularly good for dehydration. Dry tubers not only last for years in storage, they also provide a unique texture and flavor to the traditional diet.

Clearly, crop and cultivar diversity in Cuyo Cuyo is fundamental to the resilience of an agricultural system based on field dispersion and the use of household labor in a work calendar made up of multiple, overlapping production cycles. However, despite notable diversification within Cuyo Cuyo, the long term maintenance and development of its highly diversified gene pool depends on intercommunity trade in seeds. An individual household uses only a small percentage of the total universe of cultivars. Some varieties are specific to one or another community and even to a certain manda complex within a community. An effect of this specialization is that each community favors a subset of cultivars of each species. The effects of diversification and the maintenance of diversification are a consequence of suprahousehold patterns.

Comuneros claim that it is desirable and in fact easier to obtain seed from outside the community than from households in their own group.²¹ For example, potato farmers in the corn communities of Sandia, which are located at a lower altitude than Cuyo Cuyo, must import potato seed annually because the warmth and humidity at the low altitudes at which their communities are located create extremely poor storage conditions. Sandia farmers obtain their seed in Cuyo Cuyo in exchange for small amounts of corn. Potato production in Sandia would be virtually impossible if farmers could not obtain these seed tubers. By the same token, from time to time Cuyo Cuyo farmers import frost-hardy potato varieties from Untuca, a community located at a higher altitude.

Corn Lands

Farmers repeatedly explained the patterns of land use in corn production by contrasting them to mandas: "corn fields are not mandas." By this they meant that land used for corn is outside the control of the collectivity.

Corn is consumed by Puna Ayllinos, but its role in that community

(page 115)

pales in comparison with its importance in Ura Ayllu. In Ura Ayllu corn hangs yellow and bright from the second floor rafters and balcony railings of comunero houses after the harvest, symbolizing the well-being of the household to passersby. Virtually all households in Ura Ayllu own corn terraces, but residents of Aripo annex rely the most on this grain. Even though corn lands are managed individually, the production of corn draws on kin-based labor groups in which the owner provides the workers with beer and festive meals as payment (mink'a).²² The basic labor team during planting is made of some ten adults who may come from three or more households that regularly exchange labor and oxen.

Corn plots are used continuously for about seven years. The decision to let the fields fallow rests entirely with each household. The fallow lasts for as little as one year and rarely for more than three. The group of wallis cultivars are used for toasting and are planted during the first years; cultivars of the Qasi group, considered by peasants to be more resistant to infection than wallis, follow. Qasi is boiled rather than toasted.

Ura Ayllinos say "corn is our bread." Women toast wallis in the early morning and serve it to the family together with sweet herbal teas before the full breakfast is ready. At dusk, when the day is over, it again is consumed with herbal teas before the supper is cooked. The cultivars that belong to the group qasi have a harder skin and are boiled as muti, a side dish that is prepared less frequently.

In the fields around Aripo farmers plant a number of other crops in the fields with corn. These include early maturing (and semi-domesticated) varieties of potatoes (korika), broad beans (Vicia faba), yacón (Polymnia sonchifolia), racacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza), and one other species of bean. According to farmers, crop associations tend to be most complex among Ura Ayllinos who reside in Aripo. They are simpler, often including only corn and broad beans, among comuneros who actually reside in the village of Ura Ayllu and who walk to their plots in the annex. This is because only residents of Aripo live close enough to their plots for the frequent visits required in multiple-cropping.

Herding

Puna Ayllinos are constantly shuttling between the cordillera where they keep their herds, and their agricultural fields in the valley of Cuyo Cuyo. Herding is a vital activity for them. In contrast, their neighbors in Ura Ayllu rarely concern themselves with the care of animals in the cordillera. In both communities the composition of herds is closely related to the respective agricultural activities (see Table 4.2.).

Sheep

(page 116)

Sheep are women's business: a women owns them and they usually are shepherded by her children. Older people, particularly widows and widowers, also own and care for relatively large flocks of sheep. Children own sheep too, especially older daughters. Women decide when to shear or slaughter their animals. It is said that men do not know the details of the sheep kept by the women in their own households: how many there are, their nicknames, which ones come from other families and how they were acquired. Such matters are left to women and children. Sheep are raised mainly because they are important sources of fertilizer for the tuber plots and because they provide wool and meat; they are rarely sold.

Sheep are taken from the house compound every day to graze fallow mandas and the uncultivated slopes that surround the village. At the end of April, after most terraces are harvested, children take the sheep to feed in the harvested fields. There are minor differences in sheep herding in the two communities. In Ura Ayllu animals are pastured only around the mandas of the village. In Puna Ayllu, in addition to grazing the village's mandas, the shepherds sojourn in June to their rustic shelters and corrals in Awi Awi. This practice is most common among households which have large herds. Sheep dung is then taken from the corrals in Awi Awi to the nearby fields for the following agricultural cycle. This seasonal movement reduces the physical cost of transporting dung to the fields.²³ In November or December some of the sheep are moved further up to the pastures around the Ancoccala mine, where Puna Ayllu households spend the rainy season mining gold.

Cattle

Ura Ayllinos exert little effort or concern on animals other than sheep. Cattle and equines, mostly mules, range unattended most of the time from September through May in Ura Ayllu and Aripo pastures. Once every several weeks, "when we have a dream" (meaning a threatening omen), a farmer told me, children or adults are sent to check on the animals. At the same time they gather cawa aqa, the dry dung of cattle, which they use as fertilizer in corn plots, and cawallu aqa, the dry dung of equines, which complements the firewood they use as fuel in their kitchens. Cattle, mules, horses, and donkeys are moved down to the corn terraces soon after the harvest has begun. Animals are rotated through a family's fields to fertilize the soil and so that they can feed on the crop residues.

(page 117)

It is at this time of the year, between April and July approximately, that cows give birth. Owners can protect their calves better in the terraces. An important ritual for the fertility of cattle is performed on the day of San Juan.²⁴ Before they are sent back to the cordillera, oxen are used to plow the wider terraces. In this season, it also is advantageous to have the mules at hand in order to help with the transportation of corn and firewood to the household. Although firewood is collected throughout the year, collection intensifies during the period of the corn harvest because most forested areas are located in the vicinity of the corn plots.²⁵

Llamas and Alpacas

Herding llamas and alpacas is an important business for Puna Ayllinos (see Table 4.2).²⁶ These animals spend most of the year in the grasslands above the agricultural zone. Llamas and equines orivude the most important means to transport heavy loads of tubers from fields to store rooms and there is a high demand for these animals during harvest time in Awi Awi. Llama owners lend their animals to other families in exchange for labor, at the rate of six llamas for one day, per day of work. Llamas can be also borrowed in ayni and more rarely are rented.

Llamas and alpacas are important sources of fertilizer. Most comuneros would have little difficulty in purchasing chemical fertilizers sold at government-subsidized prices in Cuyo Cuyo. However, most households choose to apply alpaca and sheep dung (wanu) instead. They regard dung as necessary for the good taste of potatoes and the over all health of the plants during their period of growth. Households that do not own alpaca and sheep in large numbers must buy dung from herders of the

(page 118)

Ananea high plateau and then transport it down the valley, cheaply by llama train or at higher cost by truck.²⁷

In addition to the wanu that accumulates inside private corrals and is used as a fertilizer, alpaca and llama dung is gathered as a fuel (taha) for cooking.²⁸ Dung that is found scattered in private pastures can be collected by any person who "begs" the owner of the land for permission to gather it. The taha found in collectively owned pastures may be gathered freely by any member of the community.

Alpaca and llama herding is more important among those Puna Ayllu families that have children who are old enough to take care of herds. However, there are some young couples who belong to family groups with large herds and pastures who specialize in herd maintenance. Pastures, and particularly highly valued wet lands which suit the delicate alpacas, are mostly privately owned. Land that is open to any member of the community, known as "the common" (el común), includes areas near the Ancoccala mine, the pastures of former hacienda lands in the vicinity of Soracocha and Pacharía lakes, and all fallow agricultural mandas.

Animals rotate annually among three main pasture zones: 1) the agricultural lands subject to sectorial rotation and fallowing (mandas) around the central village and in Awi Awi, which are grazed immediately after the harvest by all animal species; 2) pastures and marshes located immediately above the upper limit of agriculture (4,200 meters), which are used mostly for llamas and alpacas during the dry season (April to November); and, 3) higher altitude pastures (above 4,500 meters) located in the vicinity of the community gold mine of Ancoccala, which are grazed during the rainy period (December-March). Rotation serves both to prevent over exploitation of the pastures and to reduce animal mortality.²⁹

(page 119)

A small number of Puna Ayllu families who do not own or have access to agricultural land specialize in alpaca herding. Some of these families have their principle residences at the Ancoccala mine. They herd their animals in the surrounding punas and they mine small amounts of gold during the dry season (see Chapter 7). Although few Puna Ayllu families devote themselves solely to herding, there is a large number of exclusive herders in the territories to the west of the community. These families formerly were the herders (colonos) of the misti haciendas that the Agrarian Reform of 1969 expropriated. Many are related to Puna Ayllinos and often they herd the comuneros' animals. Puna Ayllu also has several hundred hectares devoted to raising community-owned alpacas.³⁰

Private landholdings (michina or estancia) are composed of a central residence, surrounding pastures and a number of satellite territories and shelters (cabañas). The cabañas are a modest shelter with adjacent corrals; they are used temporarily in order to rotate the use of pastures. A michina includes cabañas at low (4,200-4,500 m) and high (over 4,500 m) altitudes that are linked to it as "annexes."³¹ Large areas of pasture apparently are associated with specific family groups, for example the grasslands around Apacheta are said to be owned "by the Choques", Islacucho "by the Calsinas" and so on. In fact, these areas often are shared by first and second generation bilateral descendants of the former owners.

Most private pastures are owned and exploited by several related households who engage simultaneously in agricultural and pastoral activities. In the past these pastures were owned by a single household or a sibling coalition, but now they typically are used collectively by many households belonging to larger, less sharply defined descent groups. Each household has a separate residence and corral. Low-altitude pastures (4,200-4,300 m.) are usually small basins with watery ground surrounded by rock outcrops and creeks that impede the movement of animals from one basin to the other. These pastures are shared by all households of the family group. Animals that belong to other families are chased away whenever they wander onto the property.

Herd ownership may begin in childhood, when some boys and girls are given a ewe or alpaca by their padrinos de corte de pelo (first hair-cutting godparents). More commonly parents give animals to their children when they marry. Alternatively, young adults may begin their herds by investing their own capital. Puna Ayllinos say that they can start thinking about herding on a larger scale when their children are old enough to help them with the work. Before that time they are usually too busy

(page 120)

fulfilling political obligations and helping older couples to whom they owe service (Chapter 3). A young couple who wants to start a herd and has rights of access to a family pasture must approach a relative with residence in the property and "beg" him or her to take care of their animals. The supplicant brings some coca and alcohol as gifts. If the couple owns only one or two animals, then a relative might care for them without expecting a reciprocal service (q'asi or gratislla). The couple that receives the service is released from the daily concerns of herding the animals but it must acknowledge the favor in many ways. For example such couples attend the herder household's private and public ceremonies, and they present it with small ceremonial gifts (aphatas). Maintaining good relationships with relatives thus not only secures access to pastures but labor for the herding of one's animals as well.

When small herds of alpacas or llamas prosper, owners say that they have suerte with animals, a term that literally translates as "luck." It also has the connotation of "vocation," perhaps implying both the technical skills needed to manage animals, and the social skills necessary to participate successfully in the collective use of pastures. To have luck (tener suerte) means that owners are also responsive to the special needs of animals, assisting them at the time of mating to ensure fertilization, shearing them at the proper time of the year, searching for those who are lost, healing the sick ones, and assisting females in delivery.

As the young family's herds grow, they are asked to begin taking care of the whole group of animals for a number of days which is proportional to the number of animals that they have in the pasture. For example, a family would tend the animals one month per year if they owned one-twelfth of the herd. Once a family has a large herd and children of sufficient age to care for it, they may decide to build a residence in the pasture areas. Eventually they begin to care for the animals of younger families. Over time residents of a group-owned pasture build reliable systems of mutual aid for the care of their animals. These arrangements are informed both by the domestic cycle and interhousehold relations.³²

Work Calendars

The agricultural calendars in Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu reflect their highly diversified resources. Figure 4.1 is a highly simplified summary of the annual work cycle in Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu. Although agricultural calendars vary from household to household, common field agriculture and husbandry require that comuneros coordinate activities. Consequently, certain calendrical patterns emerge. These patterns also are set by regional and local fiestas, which are important as time markers that help

(page 121)

organize household labor throughout the year. The annual cycle of productive activities is further linked to aspects of the domestic life cycle and intrafamilial relations in the manner depicted above. The result of such linkages is a complex system of production in which of domestic groups, intrafamilial relations, and community are reproduced.

Agriculture in Cuyo Cuyo is entirely dependent on rainfall; precipitation structures all agricultural activities. The months of April through August are the core of the dry season; precipitation increases from September through January and diminishes until March.

The complexity of a household's calendar depends partly on the number of plots it sows every year. Households in Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu each plant between 9 and 24 discrete plots, and cultivate a total cropping area that ranges from 0.1 to 0.9 ha (see "Subsistence Production. . .", above). Variability in numbers of plots and total cropping area creates differences in demand for labor. However, the organization of labor is complicated even for households that have only a few or small plots, because these fields typically are dispersed among the different production zones available to the community.

The first year of production after a fallow cycle requires a number of special tasks. These include weeding and burning, fertilizing, and plowing. Plots are either fertilized by setting temporary sheep corrals (wanunas) on the fields or by the application of dung purchased in bulk from herders of the cordillera. The wanuna are stick-woven sheep corrals constructed around the field to be fertilized. At dusk children and women returning with their sheep from the hills around the village take the animals to spend the night in the wanunas. The herders sleep in plastic sheet tents erected on the side of the corrals. After a few nights, when a plot is properly fertilized, the corral is moved to another location. Most individual herds are too small to completely fertilize the family plots, so it is common practice either to rent sheep or obtain them through exchange, or both.

The first corrals are constructed in January during the period of rains, seven months before planting in the manda begins. People must conclude fertilizing with the wanunas before the planting season because sheep can damage the new crops. Poor fertilization planning may result in low yields or a complete failure of the crops.

(page 122: Figure 4.1)

(page 123)

Wanuna planning is a serious concern, especially for Ura Ayllinos. Because camelid and sheep dung accumulates throughout the year in their cordillera corrals, comuneros from Puna Ayllu fertilize their plots from these stockpiles. This fertilizer is transported from the cordillera by llamas during the month of August, a few weeks before planting begins in the village mandas. The mandas of Awi Awi are fertilized in a similar way except that dung from private herds is often augmented with truck loads of dung purchased from herders of Ananea. In both cases, once the dung is brought to the fields the whole family rushes to spread it out in the plots for fear of both thieves and unseasonable rains. Wet the dung weighs more, making it more difficult to spread. At this time of the year Puna Ayllinos are always reminded to hurry up by the town crier (arariwa) of the community. He stands on a spot above the community, and curses thieves, proclaiming that God will punish their laziness. He sings each of his words with a deep melodic voice that fills the valley: Suwakuna... chay suwapquy... yachachakunamun... and thus reminds people that they should hurry to complete their jobs.

Fertilization in Puna Ayllu takes place in haste. Households that buy dung must make a number of arrangements in advance to secure a load.³³ They must arrange for a truck to haul the dung and have cash ready to pay the owner at a time of his choosing. Demand for dung is high and people who are tardy may not find enough.

After the plots have been fertilized and before they can be planted, they must be foot-plowed. In local belief plowing must be done by a couple (masa), a view that hastens the return of male migrants from the goldfields of Madre de Dios. Plowing (chaqmay) is done preferably during April and May, when the soil is still wet and easy to break. Husband and wife can plow the soil whenever they choose, however it is a busy time because it coincides with the peak of the harvest.³⁴ After April farmers have little time left to plow their fields because they must hurry to finish while the soil is soft. Rain becomes scarce and unpredictable beginning in April. Farmers who fall behind schedule may have to hire workers or to seek ayni labor, both in limited supply at this busy time of the year.

By May the Cuyo Cuyo valley has changed from a lush green to no less beautiful hues of brown and yellow. The cropping areas with terraces are now covered only with earth, and, if one pays attention, scores of well camouflaged mice that feed on the plant residues. In the sky, hawks and other winged predators circle constantly above the terraces. From May through August, women are busy storing the harvest. Corn cobs must be

(page 124)

paired and hung in the balconies of the houses to complete drying; potatoes and ocas for dehydration must be selected. Sometime in June and July these potatoes are carried to special locations high above Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu to expose them to intense nightly frost and daily sun. Ocas must be placed in pools with running water to complete the processing. During these months men are busy practicing with their musical bands, soccer teams, or dancing troupes, to prepare for participation in the numerous public and private festivities (including most marriages). The dry season is a time of plenty, both in food and social life.

The fields that were plowed near the end of the rainy season have become rock hard by August, the time when the first potato plots are planted. The dry clods are broken up, often by children, with large wooden hammers (k'upana), either before planting or at the same time. Planting, like plowing, is again a task for couples. Men break the earth with their foot-plows and women place potato seeds in the soil while turning the earth to cover the seed and form the furrows.³⁵ Although the majority of men return from the gold placers in time for plowing, boys with small foot-plows can sometimes be seen helping their mothers. The arrangements for sowing entail a complex set of preparations: the seed must be selected; labor parties must be assembled; and, the household must decide how to distribute their crop with respect to early or late plantings, always a critical and difficult choice.

Planting dates are determined by interactions among several factors: a) the scheduling of religious festivities linked traditionally to planting; b) astronomical and natural indicators that produce a consensus ("how will this planting season go"), a conversational topic which is ubiquitous at this time of the year; and, c) a desire to minimize risk by planting some fields "ahead," some "right at" and some "behind" the ideal planting dates. For example, the celebration of Virgen del Carmen in July is the traditional time to plant potatoes. However, farmers who are familiar with constellations and other predictive devices (older, experienced men and women) tell their relatives whether the year will be better for early, normal, or late planting (always in reference to the ideal date of the celebration of the Virgen del Carmen). Individuals who are regarded as particularly knowledgeable are watched closely by their neighbors to see when they plant. As the ideal planting date approaches, farmers who have not yet decided when to sow their potatoes go at dawn to the manda to look at the fields to see how much has been already planted. They thus base their decisions on what others have already decided.³⁶

(page 125)

A household rarely schedules the planting of its potato fields in a given production zone in close succession. Rather, plantings are staggered. However, households that have very small plots tend to plant them in groups. For example if they have five parcels, they might be divided into two groups based on proximity and planted on two dates. Households try to divide their planting into at least two separate dates in order to reduce the risks posed by unseasonable rains and frosts. In high altitude plots crops take longer to mature, therefore farmers plant them first and harvest them last. Low-altitude plots are planted last and harvested first. This environmental factor further spreads planting dates.

Weeding begins directly after planting is completed. The timing is dictated by the development of weeds in the fields. Although weeding schedules change from year to year depending on the pattern of precipitation (i.e., weeding is late if rains come late), households attempt to complete the first weeding of their fields by the end of November when the men must leave for the goldfields. The second weeding is performed by the women and children at the end of March, with the occasional help of older people who do not migrate to the mines.

By the end of November most married men have left the Cuyo Cuyo District and are already working hard in the goldfields of Madre de Dios or in the high puna above Puna Ayllu (see chapters 5 through 9). Women and children are left with all agricultural, pastoral, and household responsibilities for the next four to five months. Food reserves from the previous year are nearing depletion and women must carefully ration their last food reserves. Women spend considerable portions of these rainy days weaving blankets, llikllas, and other textiles. According to men, women display their weavings to their returning husbands as a sign of their industriousness and sexual faithfulness.

During my residence in Cuyo Cuyo the rainy season skies were overcast for weeks at a time with daily drizzles and frequent heavier precipitation. The clouds sometimes clear around noon when a breeze blows up the valley, but they soon return from the lowland Amazon basin and promptly find their way into the canyon, first rolling over its walls and later covering the sky overhead. The high humidity that predominates throughout this "warm" season makes the cold penetrate to the bones.

The sense of plenty at harvest season comes not only from the replenishment of food supplies, but also from the fact that the men who were gone to the goldfields during the rainy season return to Cuyo Cuyo. The empty streets are now full of people hurrying to and from the harvest plots. The days of abundance are punctuated by the cooking of special meals in the fields: corn humintas and potato watia. To my surprise, some grown-up children of working age who accompany their parents for the harvest were expected to do nothing but spend the day chewing the sweet corn stalks.

Early harvest begins in December, when papa chaucha, the potato of short vegetative cycle, matures in Aripo. This harvest comes as a relief to the households of Ura Ayllu whose food supplies then are at their lowest

(page 126)

level. This harvest and a later one in February³⁷ help to alleviate shortages of food. However, these potatoes are not sufficient to bridge the gap for many families. Before the main harvest begins in March and April, women depend for food on small amounts of money or gold sent by their husbands from Madre de Dios. This seasonal food crisis especially affects the Ura Ayllinos and the households of Puna Ayllu in which the husband migrates to Madre de Dios. Puna Ayllinos who go to the Ancoccala mine take their families with them, and time the extraction of gold in a way that allows them to purchase commercial foods throughout the lean period (see Chapter 6). The harvest extends from April until June when the produce of the last corn plots is carried to Ura Ayllu.

This description of agricultural and pastoral production in Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu has focused on interactions among components of the food system. It is clear that this food production system involves a complex articulation of ecological diversification (which serves to reduce risk, both at the level of individuals motivated to enhance the security and well-being of their families and at the inter-family level) and community coordination of herding and planting activities. The description of the common field system of agriculture emphasized the notion that private household production is possible thanks to communal institutions that facilitate coordination of production and administration of resources. Environmental adaptation through resource diversification and communal control, as well as the fiesta schedule, shape community agricultural calendars. Agricultural production is the backbone of the annual domestic cycle of work, defining the limits for all other forms of work outside the farm, including the highly productive exploitation of goldfields.