The Andes of Southern Peru / Geographical Reconnaissance along the Seventy-Third Meridian

by Isaiah Bowman

Fig. 25—Regional diagram for the Maritime Cordillera to show the physical relations in the district where the highest habitation in the world are located. For location, see Fig. [20]. It should be remembered that the orientation of these diagrams is generalized. By reference to [20] it will be seen that some portions of the crest of the Maritime Cordillera run east and west and others north and south. The same is true of the Cordillera Vilcapampa, [Fig. 36].

Note on regional diagrams.—For the sake of clearness I have classified the accompanying facts of human distribution in the country of the shepherds and represented them graphically in “regional” diagrams, Figs. 17, 25, 26, 32, 34, 36, 42, 65. These diagrams are constructed on the principle of dominant control. Each brings out the factors of greatest importance in the distribution of the people in a given region. Furthermore, the facts are compressed within the limits of a small rectangle. This compression, though great, respects all essential relations. For example, every location on these diagrams has a concrete illustration but the accidental relations of the field have been omitted; the essential relations are preserved. Each diagram is, therefore, a kind of generalized type map. It bears somewhat the same relation to the facts of human geography that a block diagram does to physiography. The darkest shading represents steep snow-covered country; the next lower grade represents rough but snow-free country; the lightest shading represents moderate relief; unshaded parts represent plain or plateau. Small circles represent forest or woodland; small open-spaced dots, grassland. Fine alluvium is represented by small closely spaced dots; coarse alluvium by large closely spaced dots.

To take an illustration. In Figure 32 we have the Apurimac region near Pasaje (see location map, [20] ). At the lower edge of the rectangle is a snow-capped outlier of the Cordillera Vilcapampa. The belt of rugged country represents the lofty, steep, exposed, and largely inaccessible ridges at the mid-elevations of the mountains below the glaciated slopes at the heads of tributary valleys. The villages in the belt of pasture might well be Incahuasi and Corralpata. The floors of the large canyons on either hand are bordered by extensive alluvial fans. The river courses are sketched in a diagrammatic way only, but a map would not be different in its general disposition. Each location is justified by a real place with the same essential features and relations. In making the change there has been no alteration of the general relation of the alluvial lands to each other or to the highland. By suppressing unnecessary details there is produced a diagram whose essentials have simple and clear relations. When such a regional diagram is amplified by photographs of real conditions it becomes a sort of generalized picture of a large group of geographic facts. One could very well extend the method to the whole of South America. It would be a real service to geography to draw up a set of, say, twelve to fifteen regional diagrams, still further generalized, for the whole of the continent. As a broad classification they would serve both the specialist and the general student. As the basis for a regional map of South America they would be invaluable if worked out in sufficient detail and constructed on the indispensable basis of field studies.

It is still an open question whether security or insecurity is more favorable for the broad distribution of the Peruvian Indians of the mountain zone which forms the subject of this chapter. Certainly both tend to make the remoter places better known. Tradition has it that, in the days of intertribal conflict before the Conquest, fugitives fled into the high mountain pastures and lived in hidden places and in caves. Life was insecure and relief was sought in flight. On the other hand peace has brought security to life. The trails are now safe. A shepherd may drive his flock anywhere. He no longer has any one to fear in his search for new pastures. It would perhaps be safe to conclude that there is equally broad distribution of men in the mountain pastures in time of peace and in time of war. There is, however, a difference in the kind of distribution. In time of peace the individual is safe anywhere; in time of unrest he is safe only when isolated and virtually concealed. By contrast, the group living near the trails is scattered by plundering bands and war parties. The remote and isolated group may successfully oppose the smaller band and the individuals that might reach the remoter regions. The fugitive group would have nothing to fear from large bands, for the limited food supply would inevitably cause these to disintegrate upon leaving the main routes of travel. Probably the fullest exploration of the mountain pastures has resulted from the alternation of peace and war. The opposite conditions which these establish foster both kinds of distribution; hence both the remote group life encouraged by war and the individual’s lack of restraint in time of peace are probably in large part responsible for the present widespread occupation of the Peruvian mountains.

The loftiest habitation in the world ([Fig. 24]) is in Peru. Between Antabamba and Cotahuasi occur the highest passes in the Maritime Cordillera. We crossed at 17,400 feet (5,300 m.), and three hundred feet lower is the last outpost of the Indian shepherds. The snowline, very steeply canted away from the sun, is between 17,200 and 17,600 feet (5,240 to 5,360 m.). At frequent intervals during the three months of winter, snowfalls during the night and terrific hailstorms in the late afternoon drive both shepherds and flocks to the shelter of leeward slopes or steep canyon walls. At our six camps, between 16,000 and 17,200 feet (4,876 and 5,240 m.), in September, 1911, the minimum temperature ranged from 4° to 20°F. The thatched stone hut that we passed at 17,100 feet and that enjoys the distinction of being the highest in the world was in other respects the same as the thousands of others in the same region. It sheltered a family of five. As we passed, three rosy-cheeked children almost as fat as the sheep about them were sitting on the ground in a corner of the corral playing with balls of wool. Hundreds of alpacas and sheep grazed on the hill slopes and valley floor, and their tracks showed plainly that they were frequently driven up to the snowline in those valleys where a trickle of water supported a band of pasture. Less than a hundred feet below them were other huts and flocks.

Here we have the limits of altitude and the limits of resources. The intervalley spaces do not support grass. Some of them are quite bare, others are covered with mosses. It is too high for even the tola bush—that pioneer of Alpine vegetation in the Andes. The distance[6] to Cotahuasi is 75 miles (120 km.), to Antabamba 50 miles (80 km.). Thence wool must be shipped by pack-train to the railroad in the one case 250 miles (400 km.) to Arequipa, in the other case 200 miles (320 km.) to Cuzco. Even the potatoes and barley, which must be imported, come from valleys several days’ journey away. The question naturally arises why these people live on the rim of the world. Did they seek out these neglected pastures, or were they driven to them? Do they live here by choice or of necessity? The answer to these questions introduces two other geographic factors of prime importance, the one physical, the other economic.

The main tracts of lofty pasture above Antabamba cover mountain slopes and valley floor alike, but the moist valley floors supply the best grazing. Moreover, the main valleys have been intensively glaciated. Hence, though their sides are steep walls, their floors are broad and flat. Marshy tracts, periodically flooded, are scattered throughout, and here and there are overdeepened portions where lakes have gathered. There is a thick carpet of grass, also numerous huts and corrals, and many flocks. At the upper edge of the main zone of pasture the grasses become thin and with increasing altitude give out altogether except along the moist valley floors or on shoulders where there is seepage.

If the streams head in dry mountain slopes without snow the grassy bands of the valley floor terminate at moderate elevations. If the streams have their sources in snowfields or glaciers there is a more uniform run-off, and a ribbon of pasture may extend to the snowline. To the latter class belong the pastures that support these remote people.

In the case of the Maritime Andes the great elevation of the snowline is also a factor. If, in Figure 25, we think of the snowline as at the upper level of the main zone of pasture then we should have the conditions shown in Figure 36, where the limit of general, not local, occupation is the snowline, as in the Cordillera Vilcapampa and between Chuquibambilla and Antabamba.