“Manam cancha, eh?” I cried, snatching the grass roof off a chicken-coop and tossing it before the animal. Sentimentalists to the contrary notwithstanding, the surest way to impress an Andean Indian is to appeal to force. Gradually the most democratic traveler learns to adopt the native habit of addressing him as “tu,” and to treat him like the balky domestic animal he so closely resembles. I picked up a boy from behind the mud wall surrounding the females, and thrusting a coin upon him, ordered him to go and buy eggs. Once the traveler can force money into an Indian’s possession, his prospects of provisions brighten, for it is as easy for the latter to produce them as to come and return the coin. The eggs were soon forthcoming and, taking possession of a table under the projecting roof and marching into the kitchen for water, I lighted my rum-burner and fell to preparing a meal. By the time I had effectively demonstrated my importance, the same woman who had “manam cancha-ed” me in the beginning came to say that if I would give her a medio she would buy fodder; and a few moments later she returned, carrying in her own arms a huge bundle of chala, or dry cornstalks, over which Chusquito struggled during the rest of our stay in competition with the family calf, pigs, and chickens.
It was probably as much out of a desire to inspect my cooking outfit as fear for her chicken-coops that had won me attendance. Behind the mask that hides his emotions the Indian of the Andes is filled with curiosity. There runs an Andean anecdote that well illustrates this characteristic. One of their own race, who had served in the army and learned other things without forgetting the ways of his own people, came at night to an Indian hut and requested lodging. When this was granted in the customary manner—merely by not being refused—he asked for food.
“Manam cancha,” came the expected reply.
“Well, sell me something and I will cook for myself.”
“Manam cancha.”
The soldier was well aware that there were plenty of supplies hidden away in the hut. He knew, also, the Indian temperament.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to get along on a chupe de guijarros,” he sighed, using Spanish to make his speech more impressive.
“A stone soup!” murmured the household, betrayed by astonishment into understanding a tongue they pretended not to know.
“Yes, it is what we use in the army when there is nothing better.”
He wandered down to the mountain stream below the hut and, returning with a dozen large smooth pebbles, washed them carefully, and laid them out on his bundle.