The ancient god of Tiahuanaco before which the Indian woman, herding her pigs, bowed down in worship
Roughly speaking, the population is divided into three classes, as everywhere in the Andes, each shading into the other until the lines of demarkation are at best hazy. Of the whites, the census report itself asserts, “Sequestered, they knew more of theological subtleties than of religion, were more devout than moral, and had more preoccupations than ideas. There is even to-day no stimulus for their best faculties, and they have lost almost completely that virile character bequeathed them by their Spanish ancestors. They will work only at commerce or government employments that demand no corporeal fatigue.” Effeminate is the description that most quickly occurs to the foreigner; but they are no more so than all men of the “gente decente” class throughout South America. Even the whites take on something of that sulky dis-confidence, that unobliging insolence of the Aymará character, and one quickly catches the feeling that the foreigner is disliked in Bolivia, at least far more so than in Peru. Another native, with the point of view of wide travel, assures us, “The whites are really Indians and cholos in their mode of thought. Thanks to the Aymará blood in his veins, or to the effect of that environment on his character, the paceño lacks docility, is uncommunicative, and is bored at all times at everything; hence his desire for excitement, for noise, and the resultant life in the canteens. In the three cold cities of Bolivia more liquor is consumed than in all the rest of the country; alcoholism is the national vice par excellence, and the surest way to win a fortune is to run a bar.”
But in any strict census the cholo is the most numerous class of La Paz. A native writer succinctly explains the rise of this mixed race: “As in the beginning the Spaniards had not within reach many women of their own race, they satisfied the physical and moral necessities of the sex with women of the vanquished tribes.... A few of these succeeded in inspiring real passion in the breasts of the hardy Conquistadores, sometimes even to the extent of causing the latter to marry themselves legally and Catholicly with our Indian women.” All hail to the inspiring Indian women! One must not, however, overlook the fact that “real passion” among the old Spanish Conquistadores was not so closely allied to soap and tooth-powder as in our own days. Short and sturdy—especially the women, who do not wear themselves out with dissipation—with quick little eyes, the cholos have much of the independence of the Aymará character; they are quite the opposite of servile, and somewhat despise both the whites and the aboriginals.
No country of South America has so large a percentage of pure Indian population as Bolivia. The Aymará is by nature silent and aloof, more sullen and cruel than the Quichua, and by no means so obsequious as the aboriginals of Cuzco. He never touches his hat to a passing gringo; unlike the Indian of Quito he crosses the main plaza in any dress he chooses, even carrying bundles and sitting on the benches; in the region roundabout, the race has inner organizations under their own chiefs which are virtually independent of the Government; yet in town he does as he is ordered, though sullenly, and shopkeepers drag him in to perform any low task at whatever reward they choose to give him. As pongo, or house-servant, he is farmed out as a child and becomes virtually a slave,—though that condition worries him little. A frequent “want-ad.” in the papers of La Paz runs: “Se alquila pongo con taquia,” that is, there is for rent an Indian servant with necessity of gathering for his master llama droppings as fuel. Festivals and fire-water are his chief amusements. Sunday he reserves as a day to get drunk, and couples are reputed to take turns at this recreation, so that one may be in condition to lead the other home when it is over. His music is melancholy beyond words. As a Bolivian puts it, “He lives without inquietude and without remorse, being dangerous only when he is full of liquor or religion. He is a beast of burden, uncomplaining, desires nothing, is apparently content with his fate, and looks with supreme indifference on all the rest of the world and its people.”
The contrasts of life in La Paz are striking. Here an ancient scribe sits before a typewriter agency; there a group of Indian women squat before the crude products of the country, in front of the electric-lighted emporium of a foreign merchant; electric tramways thrust aside trains of llamas even in the principal streets. Speaking of these street-cars, they crawl back and forth across town, sometimes zigzagging whole blocks for every street; and the dishevelled carriages for hire are generally drawn by four horses. For La Paz is broken and steep, often held up in layers by retaining walls, while the sidewalks are often toboggan-steep and always slippery. Houses which from the “Alto” seem on the level are found to be a hundred feet or more one above the other. It is one of the easiest cities to get lost in without being really lost; for one always comes out finally on some corner where a familiar landmark or half the city stands forth to orientate one at once. Many a street is crowded with Indians from the country, and especially with chola vendors who, there being no regular market-place, spread their wares where they will, squatting in unbroken rows on the sidewalks and driving the uncomplaining pedestrian into the slippery cobbled streets. One does not hurry in La Paz; the air is too scanty. A bogotano complained that he could not sleep there on account of the altitude! The temperature ranges from 6 degrees Centigrade in June to 18 in this mid-summer month of December. Yet even then it was somewhat wretched after sunset, and no one would choose to sit in pajamas in the central plaza at night. From eleven to three it grew almost uncomfortably warm for climbing about so up-and-down a place, and the brilliant unclouded sky was hard both on eyes and nerves at noonday.
It is difficult for the stranger to get accustomed to seeing droves of llamas, with drivers dressed in the style of Inca days, soft-footing across the main plaza or patiently awaiting their masters, with the modern congress building as a background. Congress, by the way, was in session during my days in La Paz. The visitors’ gallery is high up above the perfectly circular chamber, giving the half-hundred representatives the appearance of being down at the bottom of a deep well. They smoked frequently, spoke sitting, were largely white, though the cholo class was by no means unrepresented, and among them were two priests in full vestments, their tonsures shining up at us like rays from the Middle Ages. There were also several who strangely resembled Tammany politicians of the popular cartoons, and nowhere was there any outward sign of genius, legislative or otherwise. While the man who had the “floor” kept his seat and droned endlessly through something or other, the presiding officer sat motionless and openly bored, and members slept, smoked, read newspapers, wrote letters, and otherwise busied themselves with the vital problems of the nation, after the fashion of legislative bodies the world over.
There is a distinct gradation in the costumes of La Paz, especially among the women. The men of the “gente decente” class, the whites and the consider-themselves-whites, ape Paris to the best of their ability, as in all Andean capitals. The higher-class cholo, ranging from shoe-makers to clerks—in both the American and English sense—wears more or less countrified and ill-fitting “European” garb, even to gloves and a cane on Sunday, if he can get them; for social standing depends chiefly on dress. The less ambitious half-caste wears the same leather sandal as the Indian, a coat showing a bit above or below his more or less crude-colored poncho, a coarse shirt without collar, and a heavy felt hat. A peculiarity of the paceño costume, as universal among the Indians and poorer cholos as the cord around the knee of British workmen, is a slit in the back of the trouser-leg, showing a white, pajama-like undergarment above the bare brown ankle. The Indians, conservative as all their race, are slow to adopt the slightest change, and still dress much as in the time of the Incas. The men wear peaked knitted-wool “skating-caps” of gay colors, with earlaps, like clowns in a circus, often with a felt hat of varying tones of gray on top of it. Their ponchos of alpaca-wool are of solid colors,—orange, scarlet, purple, magenta—with some tone of red always the ruling favorite. Much of this cloth has for years come from Germany, though there is still considerable native weaving. Some go barefoot; more often they wear the heavy, well-made leather sandals that are displayed in large quantities in the market-stalls.
But the men of La Paz lend it little color compared to the women. These may be roughly divided, following the local phraseology, into “señoritas,” “cholas,” and “indias”; though these in turn subdivide, until there are six rather distinct costume classes, all shading somewhat into one another. First: The foreign women and a small number of native white ones copy the styles of Paris with more or less success. Second: The moderately well-to-do woman—and all those of the “gente decente” class during the morning hours of mass; it being against the rules to wear a hat in church—wrap themselves from head to foot in the jet black manto that gives them the appearance of stalking crows. These commonly powder their faces with what seems to be cheap flour, and are rarely startling in their beauty, though many are physically attractive between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three.
