Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

I have taken into account the statement of travellers in the interior, who have found the people more thickly distributed than they had thought. Two young Americans, Messrs. Whitehead and Peachy, who in 1902 travelled through northern Peru to the Amazon, encountered a relatively dense population. The engineers who in 1895 made the Intercontinental Railway Survey from the border of Ecuador to Cuzco, calculated the number of inhabitants along the route to be 482,000, substantially in agreement with the national census and with no signs of a marked increase. The location was through the Sierra and directly on the line of many of the most populous Andine towns. Engineers for private companies who made a reconnaissance of a route along the left bank of the Marañon, were surprised to find every little stretch of plain or valley between the glaciers occupied and cultivated by an Indian family, yet when they came to estimate the aggregate of the inhabitants the total was not a large one. This inter-Andine population may be numerous enough to justify the belief that the census of thirty years ago was not wide of the mark, but it is impossible to find grounds for the assumption of an increase of 30 per cent since then. The population of Peru at the beginning of the Panama Canal epoch reasonably may be placed at 3,250,000.

In the enumeration of 1876 the estimate was that of the inhabitants 57 per cent were pure Indian, 23 per cent mestizos, and, except for a fraction of negroes, the remaining 20 per cent was Caucasian, chiefly Spanish. The aboriginal proportion is now smaller than it was thirty years ago, since European immigration has added to the white population, and the mixed blood also has been augmented.

Group of Peruvian Cholos

There is no more fascinating history than that of the Quichuas, the aboriginal population of Peru which still survives. The distinctions are yet marked between this basic race and the races which were subjected, such as the Yuncas, who dwelt in the northern part and along the coast and whose language is still spoken by their descendants. Some of the tribes around the shores of Lake Titicaca are not of pure Quichua descent, being sprung from the rival race of the Aymarás, while in the forest region the Chunchos and others of the uncivilized tribes have little of the Quichua traditions or customs and speak dialects of their own. But the great mass of the population of Peru to-day is Quichua. The Spanish and other intermixtures which have produced the cholos, or half-breeds, have had four centuries to work out the blood mingling, and the cholo in every community is very easily distinguishable from the pure Quichua.

The Quichua is of the soil. Under the Incas the communal system of land cultivation prevailed, and the natives, even in the loftiest recesses of the mountains, were agriculturists. They found means to irrigate the most barren spots. On the plains and valleys they cultivated the land. The fondness for the freedom of the country still survives, and many of them prefer this life to being grouped in villages.

On some of the great haciendas the crops are apportioned on shares almost as in the times of the Incas. The natives are born shepherds, and the pastoral life suits them. In the Cordilleras, wherever there is a pass or a valley, the cabins of the Indians are scattered about as thickly as the producing qualities of the land will permit.

Much of the work in the mines is done by the cholos or mestizos. These also are the freighters who handle the droves of llamas, burros, and mules that bring the ore from the mines and take back the supplies. On the coast the population might be called chiefly cholo, for here the intercourse with other races has made the conditions different from those in the Sierra.

In the forest region the tribal customs are observed almost as before the Spaniards came. Many of the tribes are still restricted to bows and arrows, and as they are hostile to the government and accept its rule unwillingly, the authorities take pains to see that they are not encouraged in procuring fire-arms and learning the use of modern weapons. The marriage relation is primitive, but the traditions are rigidly maintained. An Englishman who had spent some years in the basin of the Ucayali told me that in one tribe polyandry was practised. An epidemic of smallpox had left many more men than women.

The owner of an hacienda on the edge of the forest region gave me an account of the marriage customs which had prevailed almost immemorially. One instance which had come to his attention was of a girl of nine who was married to a boy of eleven. When the child-wife was eleven years old, she was a mother. The gentleman had verified this incident himself and had no question of the age of the husband and wife.