The forest Indian is held by his environment no less strongly than the plateau Indian. We hear much about the restriction of the plateau dweller to the cool zone in which the llama may live. As a matter of fact he lives far below the cool zone, where he no longer depends upon the llama but rather upon the mule for transport. The limits of his range correspond to the limits of the grasslands in the dry valley pockets already described (p. [42]), or on the drier mountain slopes below the zone of heaviest rainfall ([Fig. 54]). It is this distribution that brought him into such intimate contact with the forest Indian. The old and dilapidated coca terraces of the Quechuas above the Yanatili almost overlook the forest patches where the Machigangas for centuries built their rude huts. A good deal has been written about the attempts of the Incas to extend their rule into this forest zone and about the failure of these attempts on account of the tropical climate. But the forest Indian was held by bonds equally secure. The cold climate of the plateau repelled him as it does today. His haunts are the hot valleys where he need wear only a wild-cotton shirt or where he may go naked altogether. That he raided the lands of the plateau Indian is certain, but he could never displace him. Only along the common borders of their domains, where the climates of two zones merged into each other, could the forest Indian and the plateau Indian seriously dispute each other’s claims to the land. Here was endless conflict but only feeble trade and only the most minute exchanges of cultural elements.
Even had they been as brothers they would have had little incentive to borrow cultural elements from each other. The forest dweller requires bow and arrow; the plateau dweller requires a hoe. There are fish in the warm river shallows of the forested zone; llamas, vicuña, vizcachas, etc., are a partial source of food supply on the plateau. Coca and potatoes are the chief products of the grassy mountain slopes; yuca, corn, bananas, are the chief vegetable foods grown on the tiny cultivated patches in the forest. The plateau dweller builds a thick-walled hut; the valley dweller a cane shack. So unlike are the two environments that it would be strange if there had been a mixture of racial types and cultures. The slight exchanges that were made seem little more than accidental. Even today the Machigangas who live on the highest slopes own a few pigs obtained from Quechuas, but they never eat their flesh; they keep them for pets merely. I saw not a single woolen article among the Indians along the Urubamba whereas Quechuas with woolen clothing were going back and forth regularly. Their baubles were of foreign make; likewise their few hoes, likewise their guns.
They clear the forest about a mid-cotton tree and spin and weave the cotton fiber into sacks, cords for climbing trees when they wish to chase a monkey, ropes for hauling their canoes, shirts for the married men and women, colored head-bands, and fish nets. The slender strong bamboo is gathered for arrows. The chunta palm, like bone for hardness, supplies them with bows and arrow heads. The brilliant red and yellow feathers of forest birds, also monkey bones and teeth, are their natural ornaments. Their life is absolutely distinct from that of their Quechua neighbors. Little wonder that for centuries forest and plateau Indians have been enemies and that their cultures are so distinct, for their environment everywhere calls for unlike modes of existence and distinct cultural development.
CHAPTER V
THE COUNTRY OF THE SHEPHERDS
THE lofty mountain zones of Peru, the high bordering valleys, and the belts of rolling plateau between are occupied by tribes of shepherds. In that cold, inhospitable region at the top of the country are the highest permanent habitations in the world—17,100 feet (5,210 m.)—the loftiest pastures, the greatest degree of adaptation to combined altitude and frost. It is here only a step from Greenland to Arcady. Nevertheless it is Greenland that has the people. Why do they shun Arcady? To the traveler from the highlands the fertile valleys between 5,000 and 8,000 feet (1,500 to 2,500 m.) seem like the abode of friendly spirits to whose charm the highland dweller must yield. Every pack-train from valley to highland carries luxury in the form of fruit, coca, cacao, and sugar. One would think that every importation of valley products would be followed by a wave of migration from highland to valley. On the contrary the highland people have clung to their lofty pastures for unnumbered centuries. Until the Conquest the last outposts of the Incas toward the east were the grassy ridges that terminate a few thousand feet below the timber line.
In this natural grouping of the people where does choice or blind prejudice or instinct leave off? Where does necessity begin? There are answers to most of these questions to be found in the broad field of geographic comparison. But before we begin comparisons we must study the individual facts upon which they rest. These facts are of almost every conceivable variety. They range in importance from a humble shepherd’s stone corral on a mountain slope to a thickly settled mountain basin. Their interpretation is to be sought now in the soil of rich playa lands, now in the fixed climatic zones and rugged relief of deeply dissected, lofty highlands in the tropics. Some of the controlling factors are historical, others economic; still other factors have exerted their influence through obscure psychologic channels almost impossible to trace. The why of man’s distribution over the earth is one of the most complicated problems in natural science, and the solution of it is the chief problem of the modern geographer.
At first sight the mountain people of the Peruvian Andes seem to be uniform in character and in mode of life. The traveler’s first impression is that the same stone-walled, straw-thatched type of hut is to be found everywhere, the same semi-nomadic life, the same degrees of poverty and filth. Yet after a little study the diversity of their lives is seen to be, if not a dominating fact, at least one of surprising importance. Side by side with this diversity there runs a corresponding diversity of relations to their physical environment. Nowhere else on the earth are greater physical contrasts compressed within such small spaces. If, therefore, we accept the fundamental theory of geography that there is a general, necessary, varied, and complex relation between man and the earth, that theory ought here to find a really vast number of illustrations. A glance at the accompanying figures discloses the wide range of relief in the Peruvian Andes. The corresponding range in climate and in life therefore furnishes an ample field for the application of the laws of human distribution.
In analyzing the facts of distribution we shall do well to begin with the causes and effects of migration. Primitive man is in no small degree a wanderer. His small resources often require him to explore large tracts. As population increases the food quest becomes more intense, and thus there come about repeated emigrations which increase the food supply, extend its variety, and draw the pioneers at last into contact with neighboring groups. The farther back we go in the history of the race the clearer it becomes that migrations lie at the root of much of human development. The raid for plunder, women, food, beasts, is a persistent feature of the life of those primitive men who live on the border of unlike regions.
The shepherd of the highland and the forest hunter of the plains perforce range over vast tracts, and each brings back to the home group news that confirms the tribal choice of habitation or sets it in motion toward a more desirable place. Superstitions may lead to flight akin to migration. Epidemics may be interpreted as the work of a malignant spirit from which men must flee. War may drive a defeated group into the fastnesses of a mountain forest where pursuit by stream or trail weakens the pursuer and confines his action, thereby limiting his power. Floods may come and destroy the cultivated spots. Want or mere desire in a hundred forms may lead to movement.
Even among forest tribes long stationary the facile canoe and the light household necessities may easily enable trivial causes to develop the spirit of restlessness. Pressure of population is a powerful but not a general cause of movement. It may affect the settled groups of the desert oases, or the dense population of fertile plains that is rooted in the soil. On the other hand mere whims may start a nomadic group toward a new goal. Often the goal is elusive and the tribe turns back to the old haunts or perishes in the shock of unexpected conflict.