Across the Andes

by Charles Johnson Post

But it is in the great fiestas that one has the best opportunity of hearing the Indian music. I was waiting in the Indian town of Achicachi for the arrival of my mule to carry me over the pass to the village of Sorata. The fiesta was for the birthday of the town and in honor of the ancient gods of the place; at daybreak the Indians gathered within its walls from miles.

With the light of dawn the streets began filling with dancing bands of Indians in their gaudy festival attire. They were there in thousands. The plaza was a weaving mass of brilliant ponchos and feathers; Indians with contorted masks, and jaguar-skins trailing from their shoulders, performed dances in the cramped spaces cleared for their benefit; silver and gold bullion decorations glinted in the clear atmosphere along with cheap tinsel and tin mirrors; and above all rose the sound of the Pandean pipes, the flutes, and the drums, filling the air with a confused discordant roar.

Often several groups of Indians would band together and in single file follow the pipes and drums in a little jerky, dancing step. Sometimes they went through simple evolutions, figure eights and circles, or divided and came together in the pattern of the “grand march” of the East Side balls. The players would dance as well, and occasionally some inspired individual would halt the line while he whirled dizzily around in one spot to his own music. The others would watch these performances with approval, chanting in a high wailing key and clapping their hands in accompaniment.

With the darkness of the night the dancing and playing in the plaza became less and less. The groups withdrew to their ’dobe huts and squatted on the mud floors. A tallow dip or a smoky wick floating in a dish of grease furnished what light there was. The wind from Lake Titicaca blew fresh and keen, but in the lurid gloom of their squalid huts the air was foul with the crowded Aymarás. The chanting took the place of the dance, and the flutes and pipes led in the air; the drums were silent. With the finish of each verse or section the note ended in a prolonged maudlin wail that continued until it became the opening note of the succeeding stanza.

This song is also popular with the Cholos—the half-breeds. They hate the whites, and sing it with either Spanish or Aymará words of foul denunciation. In Sorata one time they marched past below my window, singing it for my benefit. Between verses they cursed the “gringos” in vulgar Spanish.

It was in this same village of Sorata that I was present at its greatest Indian fiesta. It is the fiesta of the harvest and generally lasts for an entire week. The mission padre pronounces it the feast of Todos Santos, but to the Indians that is a matter of indifference. The maize and the “choque” (potatoes) have been gathered, and the “chalona” (frozen mutton) prepared for the ensuing season; the year has ended; it is the fiesta of the harvest. They go to confession on the morning of the first day, but the remainder is spent in their own customs.

The little parties organized themselves after the early-morning visit to the ’dobe church and paraded with their odd trotting dance-steps through the lanes of the town. There was the usual collection of thin drums and shrill flutes, with here and there the mellower tone of a Pandean pipe. One band stood out conspicuously in the crowding throngs. This band had been carefully trained by its host, who did not play himself, but with a proud dignity directed its evolutions. A huge Aymará headed the party; he played Pandean pipes with tubes four feet in length. A great drum swung by a rawhide thong from his shoulders. Its shell was from a log, the core of which had been burned out. Following him was the line of Indians in a reducing scale, each with a smaller set of pipes and a smaller drum.

Each Indian contributed but a few notes to the air; the range of the pipe was limited. The drums never rested; they marked the sonorous rhythm of the measures. The training was perfect; there was never a break in the succession of notes; the effect was much like that of a calliope, but more mellowed and pleasing. They played but two airs, and these seemed to be reserved for that peculiar form of orchestra.