The Valley of La Paz has the aspect of a vast crater, its floor lying over 12,000 feet above sea-level. Its buildings and institutions merit the traveller's attention. Its pleasing alameda and other planted or cultivated areas are a relief after the dreary and forbidding aspect of the valley around, with its scarred and precipitous sides. Who could have founded a city here, and why?
La Paz was founded by Alonzo de Mendoza in 1548, and first named to commemorate the temporary reconciliation between Pizarro and Almagro, who had grievously quarrelled. The cathedral was begun in the seventeenth century, when the famous mines of Potosi were at their height of productiveness. Some of the streets are of the most winding character possible, and many of them reflect the poverty of their Indian dwellers. Others are full of animation, constantly threaded by caravans of llamas, asses and mules, and thronged by a many-hued population of pure-blooded Indians, with garments negligent but picturesque; Cholas, or half-breed women, often extremely pretty, dressed in vivid colours, coquettish, wearing their home-made hats of white felt; and townsmen of white race, ladies of La Paz, and European folk: in brief, all the elements we shall have seen in the upland towns of Spanish America, where rich and poor do congregate together. On Sundays the animation increases, for this is the day of markets, and piles of wares and fruits and other products interest and attract. The streets are electrically lit. In the new part of the city are many handsome residences and evidences of wealth. The inevitable band in the plaza discourses its music, and the churches command their usual congregations. The museums—mining and archæological—show a regard for science here. La Paz is now becoming a comparatively cosmopolitan centre, and its interest and importance most undoubtedly increase.
The Republic of Bolivia took its name, as a token of gratitude, from Bolivar, the great Liberator. Since his time, from 1825 to 1913, it has had seventy-one different presidents, an average of a little over one per annum, an indication either of an experimental outlook towards self-government or of chronic unrest, whichever way we may prefer to view it. It is difficult for a European to comprehend the disabilities and difficulties of such a community, and criticism is easy. But we may again reflect that their future lies before these remote States, and that their human vitality and natural resource are storehouses for the future, not depleted or derelict.
To the observant foreigner perhaps the most interesting human element in the Andes is that of the Indians. They are the true children of the soil, Nature's product unadulterated, the specimen of her human handiwork in this special environment. They hide nothing, they expect nothing from her. But if the future lies before them they are nevertheless obsessed with their past. They are a raza conquistada as their masters term them—a conquered race. They may not always be so. Different writers take different views of them.
In Peru the natives of these uplands are the Quechuas; in Bolivia, the Quechuas and the Aymaras. These two differ somewhat in their habits and temperament. There are, in addition, a number of savage tribes, mostly in the forested regions.
"The Aymaras, one of the principal ethnical elements of the Bolivian nation, are found in the north, as far as Peruvian territory, on the banks, islands and peninsulas of Lake Titicaca, and on the plateau as far south as Oruro. The Quechuas occupy the south and the north of the Argentine.
"Between these two races there is a difference of type and a greater difference of character. The Aymara is a little above the average height, has the chest strongly developed, the calves powerful, and the feet small. The features are not on the whole attractive; they are prominent, and indicative neither of intelligence nor goodwill. The head is large, the neck short and thick, the cheeks wide, the nose massive; the eyes are small, the mouth wide, and the lips thick. The colour is coppery or an olive-brown, varying with the altitude. The hair is black, thick and strong, but the beard is absolutely lacking.
"While the Quechua is docile, submissive and obedient, the Aymara is hard, vindictive, bellicose, rebellious, egotistical, cruel and jealous of his liberty; he is always ready to resort to force. In times of disturbance the factions have always recruited the bulk of their fighters from the Aymaras. Yet they seem lacking in will, except the will to hate all that is unlike themselves. The Aymara is also fanatical, and his is not the fanaticism of religion, but of vanity; he wants to cut a figure in the religious fêtes, which are not unlike orgies of idolatry, and are marked by alcoholic and moral excesses of every kind.
"The plateaux are always cool, so the Aymara wears a comparatively warm costume, consisting of a thick woollen shirt and a poncho of many colours, with dark, narrow breeches coming just below the knee. The legs are bare, and the feet equally so, or are shod with sandals of raw hide. The Aymara, like the Tibetan, another dweller in plateaux, is insensible to cold; he sleeps bare-footed in the hardest frosts, and walks through freezing water or over ice without apparent inconvenience. On days of festival the Aymara replaces the poncho by a sort of tight-fitting tunic. The head is well covered with a large woollen bonnet, which protects the neck and ears. The women also wear a shirt or chemise of thick wool or cotton, over which they throw a mantle of coarse, heavy wool, striped with bright colours, and retained on the chest by a sort of spoon of silver or copper, the slender handle serving as a pin. A heavy woolle petticoat, pleated in front, and usually dyed a dark blue, covers the lower part of the body to the ankles. The Aymara woman wears several of these petticoats superimposed, which gives her a very bulky look about the hips. A somewhat unattractive hat completes the costume. Men and women alike having a perfect contempt for hygiene, all parts of the body are coated with a respectable layer of dirt. Their clothes, which they never put off, even to sleep, are worn until they fall into tatters, and usually give off a disagreeable ammoniacal odour.
"The Aymara tongue differs from the Quechua; it is a harsh, guttural idiom, rather formless, but having conjugations. It is forcible and concise. The peoples conquered by the Quechuas learned the language of their conquerors; but the Aymaras retained theirs, and when the Spaniards conquered the country, the Aymaras, who had long been a subject race, were decadent and diminishing in numbers.
"By the innumerable vestiges of building and the tombs near Lake Titicaca we may judge that this country was once thickly populated. But the plains afforded no refuge, and the inhabitants could not escape the forced recruiting which supplied the mining centres. At the time of Tupac-Amaru's insurrection the Aymaras, happy to reconquer their liberty, or perhaps merely to effect a change of masters and to satisfy their bellicose instincts, threw themselves into the revolt; whereupon war, sickness and famine considerably reduced their numbers. To-day they are estimated to be about 400,000 strong.
"The Aymaras are divided into six tribes, according to the regions they inhabit. These are the Omasuyos, the Pacasas, the Sicasicas, the Larecajas, the Carangas, and the Yungas. The Aymaras of the provinces of Yungas, Larecaja, and Muñecas are lighter in tint, cleaner, more intelligent and less uncouth than the rest.
"The Quechua race, whose numbers are greater, are found in many regions of Bolivia. The Quechua is lighter and yellower than the Aymara, and more of a Mongolian type. The features are irregular, the eyes black, the cheek-bones prominent; the narrow forehead is slightly protuberant, and the skull oblong; the mouth is wide and the nose massive. The stature is rather below the average, but there are tall individuals, who as a rule resemble the Aymara type. Solidly built, the Quechua looks a powerful and muscular man; but as from childhood both sexes are used to carrying extremely heavy burdens on the back they are not really very strong in the limbs, although the shoulders are very powerful. The Indian is an extraordinary walker; his legs of steel enable him to travel long distances in mountainous regions without the least fatigue. The women are even stronger than the men, their work being heavier, although they live practically the same life.
"The Quechua costume consists of a coloured poncho, a tight woollen vest, and breeches rarely falling below the knee; the feet are shod with ojotas, or rawhide sandals, which take the shape of the foot. The woman wears a small woollen vest, cut low on the bosom; the skirt is the same as that worn by the Aymara women; and on a feast-day the Quechua woman wears all the petticoats she possesses, one over another. As they are all of equal length, each shows the edge of that below it, whence a gamut of various colours. The Quechua women are distinguished from the Aymaras chiefly by their hats, which are flatter.
"The Quechua idiom is extremely rich and has been studied grammatically.
"The Indian race has never been assimilated; as it was at the moment of conquest, so it is now; with the same language, the same customs, and the same miserable dwellings, hardly fit to shelter beasts. Isolated and solitary, or gathered into hamlets of a few cabins, they are merely conical huts of unbaked bricks, covered with thatch or reeds, and consisting of one small chamber, in which all the members of the family live in the completest promiscuity. These huts, in which the most wretched poverty and uncleanliness reign supreme, contain nothing that we should call furniture; as a rule there is no bed but the hardened soil or a few coverings of ragged sheepskin."[38]
INDIAN RAFTS ON LAKE TITICACA.
Vol. I. To face p. 274.