By Jorge Recharte, 1993.

Chapter 6 - Ancoccala: Community Organization and Household Mining in Puna Ayllu

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the nearby peaks of the Apolobamba range (INGEMET-ORSTOM 1980, 1: 1; 2: 6, 39). It has been deposited in morainic hills, the result of various glacial events. These hills provide adequate slope for the transportation of water by gravity (INGEMET-ORSTOM 1980, 2: 54-57). The gold is distributed evenly, mixed with boulders and other detrital materials in an ochre-colored, clay-silt matrix.¹⁵ Gold particles have not traveled a long distances from their source in the cordillera, hence they are coarser than the gold extracted in the tropical lowlands of Madre de Dios. The extraction technology in Ancoccala is correspondingly different, affecting both the physical aspects of work and the social arrangements that organize it.

The water used to sluice the gold-bearing soils of Ancoccala comes to the mine through a canal 20 kilometers long. It originates in the snowpacks of the nearby cordillera. The canal is cleaned once a year and occasionally is repaired.¹⁶ Although the glaciers are permanent sources of water, the supply improves considerably during the rainy season. Precipitation on the high plateau of Ananea ranges from a low of about 5 mm during June and July to a high of 90-100 mm from December through March. It drops again to 40 mm and 17 mm in April and May, respectively (see Table 6.1). The sharp reduction of water availability in Ancoccala during the dry season is worsened by the frequency of sub-freezing temperatures at this time of the year. Nocturnal frosts hamper thawing at the base of the glaciers and freeze the little water that still circulates in the canals. The frosts of May through August also harden the soil, making it difficult to break and wash in the sluiceway. These factors, combined with the extreme cold of the dry season (a miner told me that water freezes inside the house), make it difficult and uncomfortable to mine.

Gold Extraction

Caños are exploited in ways that reveal Cuyo Cuyeño ideas concerning the organization of household economy. Caños always are divided into two distinct types of operation. The purpose of such a division is both economic and technological. Usually a single caño is divided into two different parts. One is called the "(household) expense sluiceway" (Span., caño del gasto) and the other is called the "savings sluiceway" (Span., caño del ahorro).

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The expense caño usually is located at the downstream end of the caño (in the part called kantu, Figure 6.3) where the walls are shorter. It is small in order to allow the miner to extract gold from it on a weekly or biweekly basis. This gold provides regular access to the cash needed to buy food and other products in the market at Oriental (hence the name caño del gasto).

The savings caño is located in the section of the sluiceway that has the highest walls (in the part called uma, Figure 6.3). Although people work daily in this caño, gold is extracted from it only at the end of the season. Among other things, this gold is used to finance purchase of the food that will supplement agricultural production during the months of the year people live in the main village (May through November). Hence, the reference to savings, caño del ahorro.

As far as I know, the separation of these two types of caños is characteristic of all the miners of Ancoccala. Division of the caño into these two sections also has an important technological aspects. The "expense" section is worked by the miner alone. However, the "savings" caño requires the cooperation of fellow miners due to its larger size and in order to make efficient use of the limited supply of water.

Work in the sluiceway starts around 9 a.m., after a hearty morning meal. Typically, miners work both in the expense and the savings caños every day. The main task of the miners in the savings caño is to cut a very large portion of the ore all at once. In a single day, a group will attempt to topple all of the ore that a miner will wash throughout the whole mining season. The large work force needed for this task is assembled through the mutually exchange of labor. If miners were to work alone, cutting the ore in their savings caños would take them several weeks and would waste their supply of water during those days. The following

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description of the technological process of gold extraction refers to the tasks that are performed in the savings caño.

When they arrive in Ancoccala in late November or early December, the first task for the miners is to dislodge several tons of the gold-bearing ore in order to begin the sequence of washes. From this ore miners obtain an average of about sixty grams of gold at the end of three to four months of work.

The first step of the process consists of cutting a strip of the caño measuring approximately one to one and a half meters wide by thirty to sixty meters long. This is done in a single day working in waritachy with their fellow comuneros. The largest such group I witnessed had twelve people, perhaps because the amount of ore a crew of that size can cut in one day is close to the maximum that miners can process efficiently in a season with the water they receive.

Waritachy is associated with a technique for cutting the ore called hutk'uchy. The miner first works a few days alone, preparing the caño for the arrival of his co-workers. He evens up the wall of the sluiceway and cleans the canal. Then he proceeds to contact the people with whom he has, or wishes to have, a relationship of labor exchange (ayni). He asks them to come to work on a specific date. Late in the afternoon of the day before the waritachy, the owner visits all of the prospective participants and gathers their steel bars (Quech., wari) in order to sharpen them for the next day's effort. Giving a bar for this purpose further commits the comunero to participate in the waritachy.

In a waritachy session in which I participated the owner of the caño was a twenty-nine year old married man from Puna Ayllu.¹⁷ An aggressive entrepreneur, he had a drygoods store in the community and several years of experience as a migrant in Lima. Observing him stage a waritachy was particularly interesting because he had always spoken in derogatory terms about ayni.

The waritachy took place on a cloudy, cold day, with intermittent periods of snow. There were three periods of intensive work (lasting 2:05 hours, 1:15 hours, and 1:05 hours respectively), and three break times (lasting, 2:27 hours, 39 minutes, and approximately 30 minutes respectively). The work day lasted 7:31 hours, of which about four were spent working, and three resting. It is important to recall that this is strenuous labor at an altitude of 4,600 meters.

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The workers began to arrive at approximately 8:30 in the morning. The steel bars, sharpened the previous afternoon by the sponsor of the waritachy, were resting against the caño wall awaiting their owners. The atmosphere was relaxed. People sat and talked, and after a short while the miner's wife showed up with hot chocolate and bread for the participants. Breakfast was leisurely and was followed by at least another fifteen minutes of conversation and coca-chewing.¹⁸ Then an older man in the group invited people to start working, ". . .shall we start working, brothers?" he said. (Later the owner of the caño explained to me that the appropriate etiquette requires that he not hint of his eagerness to see the work begin.) Following the invocation of the elder, all the workers sprang to their feet, grabbed their pikes and lined up along the caño wall behind the owner.

Spaced about one and a half meters apart, each ayni worker began to dig a hole (hutk'u) at the base of the caño wall, a task called hutk'uchisqa. Miners claim that hutk'uchisqa is the hardest, most energy-demanding task of the gold extraction process.

[The lower back], the hands, [ache so much] that we can't stand up. We work eight, ten people [together]. Some people can get more [work] done than others, and we try to beat each other. You don't want to be left behind, [because] then people look at you, right? [and say] "he can't work," and then they don't want to do ayni with you any more.

The owner of the caño set the pace of work with his own rhythm. He was expected to finish digging his hole first, before his invited workers, who were trying to beat him.

When the owner finished his first hole, he left his place at the head of the line and moved to the end, i.e., to the beginning of a second set of holes. The second person to finish working his first hole occupied the second position, after the owner, and so on. The result was that people realigned themselves according to how fast they worked. Although they were not outspoken or aggressive about the competition, it was expressed indirectly by the 'leap-frog' arrangement of the task. By the end of the day each worker had made from four to six holes.

Even though the waritachy eventually must be reciprocated, participants are extremely sensitive to the fact that they are working hard for the well-being of another household. For this reason, the vitality of this labor institution rests on symbolic actions and etiquette that reinforce the notion that waritachy workers are special guests. This is the significance of having bread, coca, cigarettes and alcohol during the breaks. And the owner of the caño must not show impatience to have his workers back at their tasks after these respites. The only way an owner can claim hard work from the participants is silently, by means of his own example.

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In the waritachy I am describing, the owner invited his ayni companions to stop working at lunch time, the tusuy samay. They not only did not pay attention to his invitation, they worked harder, theatrically showing their contempt for such a suggestion. After a short while the man repeated his request with identical results. Finally he was forced to beg them in falsetto voice: "samarikusun hermanitukuna, samarikusun" [rest, my little brothers, rest, please]. It is only at this point that the ayni workers abandoned the caño, with feigned reluctance, following the lead of an elder. They were received at the miner's home with a ceremonial meal of uncommon quality and abundance. In the darkness of the small house people repeatedly were invited to eat from a lliklla that had a prodigious pile of steaming peeled and boiled potatoes (papa munthuy), dehydrated potatoes (chuñu phuti) and boiled corn (mote), crowned with cooked meat at the top. This was followed by two dishes of soup, a third course with meat in it and finally by a cup of hot chocolate. None of the participants could finish his serving, which seemed precisely the intent of the host. Otherwise, as he told me later, criticisms would be sharp:

If we don't [feed them abundantly], they speak badly of us, and they would not want to come again (Pedro Phocco, PA, 1-3-86).

After lunch the group returns to the caño to resume work. They stop for an afternoon break to chew coca, smoke cigarettes and drink cane alcohol before they complete the work. Waritachy by definition lasts only one day. At its end, the long line of perforations at the base of the sluiceway's wall resembles an arcade. Each hole has the standard depth of a shovel's handle and they extend for as much as sixty meters along the caño wall, depending on how many people gathered to work.

All of the miners in Ancoccala use waritachy, even those like the host of the work party described above who have abandoned the practice of ayni in agriculture or house construction. Waritachy is a pre-capitalist social relation of production that shows great vitality in the context of an activity devoted to the production of gold, a capitalist commodity par excellence. Part of this vitality derives from the technological practices that enhance efficiency of collective water use in the mine.

After the waritachy is over, all the remaining tasks are performed by the miner working alone in his caño. He must return the ayni assistance, but this will be done over the course of the mining season, allowing him to plan the use of his time and water share. From a strictly technological point of view, waritachy improves the effectiveness of water use rather than time use. From a broader perspective, the use of ayni for the arduous task of cutting the ore transforms the experience into one of solitary. It makes hard work into a meaningful if contradictory social event: the form of task itself is geared to put workers in competition while at the same time the beneficiary must symbolically transform the occasion into a celebration.

The next step after the waritachy consists of completing the cutting of the ore, which now is ready to fall due to the perforations along the base of the caño wall. Once the ore has fallen and is resting on the surface of the caño, the miner proceeds to wash it over and over again.

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The heavy particles of gold fall to the floor of the caño, while clay and other lighter materials are carried away by the water that is flushed along it's floor. Week after week the original earth cut in the waritachy is reduced and the gold is concentrated. At the end of the season miners are left with a small amount of material that they pan to finally extract the gold particles.

An important characteristic of work in Ancoccala is that its routine contrasts sharply with mining activities in Madre de Dios. In Madre de Dios the work invariably follows a schedule of eight to ten hours from Monday through Saturday. Work is done in crews which impose on each person a fixed rhythm of activity (Chapter 8). In contrast, the work day in Ancoccala is shorter than in Madre de Dios, usually starting after 9 a.m. A relatively unstructured work schedule is possible in Ancoccala because work is performed separately by individuals, except during the waritachy. It is common to interrupt work in the caño to perform other activities.

In sum, gold mining in Ancoccala is possible due to a complex hydraulic system developed and maintained with collective labor. Its everyday administration, however, relies on decentralized distribution by kinship groups. The formation of ayni work parties serves to ensure that each individual household uses its water in the most effective manner. The fruit of months of labor and weeks of washing the ore is a small nugget, melted down from gold particles. This carefully is wrapped in a piece of foil-covered paper from a cigarette package and hidden in the house. Husband and wife will then use the gold to buy food, school supplies for the children, clothes, and the commodities that are essential to the modern peasant of Peru. The institutional features that make possible this private appropriation of gold lie in communal organization.

Comuneros and Authority

Ancoccala is institutionalized as a corporate social entity through a system of authorities who are empowered by the collectivity to insure the proper operation of the mine. At the top of the political hierarchy is the Presidente de la Mina (President of the Mine). He is flanked by subordinate Vocales, young married males who transmit his orders to the comuneros. Second in rank is the Teniente Gobernador de la Mina (Lieutenant Governor of the Mine). It is his responsibility to resolve household quarrels, except those that are strictly related to water-rights disputes.

The two major canals, hanaq larqa and ura larqa each have two Regidores (Aldermen). In the words of an Ancoccala miner, their duty is:

To distribute [the water] to us. He, when someone takes more, takes more water, to him we complain. He is our judge in this [water-related matters]. He is the owner of water. . .Regidores are the owners of the qhallana and of the water.¹⁹

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The main responsibility of the Regidores is to find solutions to water conflicts, although the Presidente and Teniente Gobernador join them in difficult cases. The office of Regidor is the only one attached specifically to the upper/lower division of the mine, and the exercise of their authority is restricted to the canal for which they are elected. The duties undertaken by these authorities are demanding because competition for water can be serious and the ensuing conflicts can be intense.²⁰

Ancoccala has also a Comité de Minería, a committee in charge of supervising the mita or rotational work that each household must perform in one of the two community-owned caños of Ancoccala. Families who labor in the mine owe three days of work to the communal sluiceway located on the same canal from which they take water for their individual caño. This rule indicates that the relationship between households and the mine as a corporate institution is perceived in reciprocal terms. The income obtained in these two community-owned caños is used to finance collective operating costs. These may include expenses as disparate as paying a lawyer to do paperwork or purchasing objects for a ritual in honor of the mine.

One of the main functions of the mine officials is the maintenance of the mine infrastructure, an effort clearly related to the productive process. Another important function is their regulation of conflicts that cannot be resolved by the domestic groups themselves. For example, the Teniente Gobernador is more or less constantly involved in solving "honor libel" feuds among households.²¹ These disputes often can be traced to quarrels over caño and water rights. When the parties reach an agreement, the Teniente Gobernador records it in his official book:

Don Pedro and his wife talked insolently against the plaintiff's person and also about [his] caños. [He started this talk] only now that the plaintiff's father Juan is dead. He used [rude words] to attack the plaintiff Francisco, and his wife. (Ancoccala, Actas del Agente Municipal, 3/20/1987.)

Another entry records an agreement made by a defendant who recognized his fault at the end of the process:

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[The defendant] says that he will not insult [the plaintiff] again. His father, wife, and brothers, will not bring up those issues again. His wife won't insult [the plaintiff] anymore, beginning today. If problems occur again, if either the defendant or the plaintiff start to talk [insult each other] again, the fine will be one million soles [50 dollars]. Both promised that they would prevent their fathers, brothers, and mothers from talking [i.e., insulting each other] again. (Ancoccala, Actas del Agente Municipal, 3/1/1986.)

Fines help the authorities to keep conflicts under control. Cash fines are the most common penalties. The amounts which correspond to various infractions are established in the first annual community meeting miners in early December. Offenses such as washing clothes in the canals, not participating in faenas (collective work), not fulfilling mita obligations, or using the water outside one's shift have fixed fines. A stronger and more effective penalty is to threaten "insubordinate offenders" with destruction of their properties or with eviction:

Those who do not comply, their water reservoirs will be destroyed in broad daylight. It is for this reason that we [the Authorities] write it in this book. (Ancoccala, Actas del Agente Municipal, 11/20/83.)

The authorities of the mine also have the responsibility of "paying" Santa Tierra Pachamama (the sacred earth) three times a year in order to solicit her generosity with the gold and her protection against accidents.

As mediators among the users of the mine, the authorities render a public service which gives them prestige and empowers them. Comuneros use the prestige they gain through public service as part of their strategy to resolve conflicts with other households and for personal benefit. For example, service as an authority of the mine can be used to gain access to a caño.²² Mining authorities keep accurate records of all the labor and donations given to the mine. Every time a voluntary donation of money or resources is requested by the mine, the names of the donors are registered. Free loaders who resist working in faenas or mitas are promptly identified and their names written down as a negative record that can be used to legitimate punishment at a later date. One of the most important purposes of collective organization in Ancoccala is to recognize public service and to penalize free loading.

Conclusions

In sum, Ancoccala is a "system of work" (Wallman 1979), a social space in which the moral, technological and economic dimensions of mining are institutionalized and integrated by a communal mode of social organization. This community structure provides Puna Ayllinos with a means

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to obtain cash in a secure and relatively stable fashion. The peasants who work at Ancoccala value this communal system of work because it secures their individual livelihoods. The miner who told me that the workers of Ancoccala had the mine "so that no one will harness us," was referring to the high value that Puna Ayllinos place on their economic and political independence from other segments of national society. The miner did not say "so that no one will harness me," in awareness perhaps of the historical fact that the defense of household resources is a collective affair. Service in public positions of authority and sponsorship of fiestas and rituals that constantly create a political community is as intimate a part of the experience of work for each miner in Ancoccala as is laboring in their individual caños. The first is a political and moral (service) dimension of work and the second is an economic dimension, yet they are inseparable for the miners.

Ancoccala miners are peasants working seasonally for cash on the margins of a capitalist economy. They have constructed a mine and a system of work and they are responsible for the quality of the labor conditions there. When they make economic decisions concerning their work in the mine, they must evaluate the work system of Ancoccala as a whole. They cannot, for example compare the profitability of gold mining in Ancoccala to gold mining in Madre de Dios without taking into consideration that these two places represent two different social worlds. The technological processes of gold extraction in Ancoccala and Madre de Dios are quite different. Two consequences of this difference are that miners in Ancoccala work shorter hours and that their physical effort is less exhausting, despite the altitude. These physical and technical differences are fundamental referents in the system of valuation that guides peasant decisions to migrate to one place or the other. This explains in part why many people from Puna Ayllu prefer to work in the Ancoccala mine and not in Madre de Dios, even though they could make more money working in the lowlands.