Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes

Chapter 2. The Aymara Community Today

2 / The Ay­ mara Community Today The present-­day realities of Ay­mara life are most effectively understood through knowledge of Ay­mara history, which is a profound source for understanding the people and their responses to development within their mountainous realm. The Ay­mara look to their history and the ways their people have lived and struggled for centuries in order to orient future action. Nayrapacha means the past is prelude and is visible, living and interwoven with the present. Ay­ mara Origins and Eco­ logi­ cal Complementarity The Ay­ mara were established in the highlands of Chile more than a thousand years ago accompanied by their camelids (Mamani M. 1989:1). Between 1000 and 1500 b.c.e., the people who were settled along the shores of Lake Titicaca expandedintoadjacentlands.Later,thegroupssituatedontheChileanhighplateau and surrounding areas were known as the Kingdoms of Lupaqas, Pacajes, Carangas, and Lipez. They made use of diverse microclimates to ensure access to maize and chili in the hot lowland valleys, coca from the yungas (humid tropical forests), guano and salt from the coast, potatoes and other tuberous root crops and cereal grains from the highlands, and llamas and alpacas from the Altiplano. Their sys­ tem of interchange served to counteract the limitations of life at high altitudes (Castro et al. 1984:214). For centuries and perhaps millennia, the seat of power and the highest demographic density in the pre-­Columbian Andes were found at altitudes above 3,400 meters. Ethnic groups and polities emerged in the Puna, the high, cold, arid pla- Aymara Community Today / 31 teau, and their success depended to a large degree on eco­logi­cal complementarity . Andean eco­ logi­ cal complementarity is an enduring organizational vision that is fundamental to the Ay­ mara community, which perceives its cultural geography holistically, as a single universe. Antithetically, colonial regimes tried to impose a new sys­tem of spatial organizationthatwasorientedtowardthemines .Agenciesforagrarianreformbroke up communal landholdings and impoverished the inhabitants, disregarding the existence of the Aymara’s settlement patterns and their use of vari­ ous eco­ logi­ cal stories. It is remarkable that in spite of the pressures exerted against Andean people and their cultural systems during 500 years of colonial and republican domination, we still encounter among highland Ay­ mara agriculturists a preference for locating their fields in complementary fashion, on several different eco­ logi­ cal tiers. It is not uncommon for Ay­ mara people to be familiar with environments that differ from those of their homes. Many highland dwellers still maintain access to lowland and middle-­ elevation life zones. Their grandfathers owned such lands, but some were lost in recent decades (Murra 1984:123–124; 1985a:3–11; Schaedel 1985:508; Murra and Wachtel 1986:7). Despite the attempted destructuring of the sys­ tem of eco­ logi­ cal complementarity by colonial regimes, 19th-­ century republics, and agrarian reform, it continues to be an Andean ideal today. Through the reciprocal use of human energy, the Ay­ mara of the south-­ central Andessustainablyusethenaturalresourcesoneachaltitudinalleveloftheirhighly heterogeneous landscape. This lasting cultural model is gradually being modified duetoindustrialdevelopmentandurbanization(Aldunateetal.1983:120).The discontinuous pattern of Ay­mara landholdings and the scattered distribution of the population are explained by the lack of arable land within a single microzone . Ay­mara territory is not regarded as continuous by the state; hence the Ay­ maraaredeprivedofdirectaccesstospecializedresources(Harris1985:331).Yet they have a universal perception of the unity of the ecozones in their territory and continue to be constituents in the reciprocal sys­ tem of eco­ logi­ cal complementarity . They live and work in different life zones within a macrosys­ tem that incorporates a large number of microzones (Rivera Diaz 1987:239). Past and Present The Ay­mara are an ancient people with a complex history characterized by shifting pressures from dominant groups. They maintained their identity and unity underthesubjugationandcontroloftheIncaEmpireuntiltheSpanishconquest 32 / Chapter 2 in 1532. During 200 years of ruthless exploitation and the inhuman working conditions of forced labor in the mines at the hands of the Spaniards, the majority of the Ay­mara people were excluded from any part of the wealth. For five centuries, the voice of the Ay­ mara world was muted by the Spanish governing class(Kehoe1996:238).TodaytheAy­maracontinuetobedeniedaccesstomany of their national resources (Johnsson 1986:28), and many feel disenfranchised and po­ liti­ cally ignored (Santos Huanca 2004:387–388). Discrimination by dominant institutions persists. In the Andes of ­ north­ ern Chile, local Ay­ mara communities continue...