DEPARTMENT OF LA PAZ 15 



square miles, and numbering not more than six hundred souls, 

 this tiny settlement in its isolated site, where difficulty of travel, a 

 rigorous climate (for it is on the cold heights over 13,000 feet 

 above sea level), and scarcity of tillable soil make intrusion of 

 the whites unlikely, has maintained its organization throughout 

 the centuries this, too, in spite of the fact that almost from 

 their doorways, though their secluded village itself is well-nigh 

 invisible from the neighboring hills, one can look down upon the 

 whole valley and the city of La Paz. From this secluded eerie 

 they have watched four centuries of white generations come and 

 go, with all the vicissitudes of political and economic changes, 

 but have not been affected in the slightest degree. Each year 

 there takes place the re-allotment of the land ; each day the cattle 

 go out to pasture upon their common grazing land; each season, 

 as in former times, the planting and the harvesting is carried on 

 in voluntary co-operation. Bound up with their communal land 

 system is a complete social and political organization. They 

 elect annually an alcalde from their own number and a cabildo 

 (or council) to assist him. To these, their own officers, are 

 referred all questions of public administration. They direct the 

 distribution of the land. They regulate the use of the meager 

 springs that supply the community with water. They even sit in 

 judgment in civil and criminal cases, imposing at times the 

 penalty of death. So jealously do these Indians guard their 

 sacred rights to the land and to their independence that it is said 

 they permit no outsider to remain overnight in their com- 

 munity. 13 The settlement is typical of many others that are 

 ""hidden away in such inaccessible nooks of the Andes. 



Province of Sicasica 



In the Province of Sicasica, which lies on the eastern edge of 

 the altiplano about halfway between Oruro and La Paz, many 

 Indian communities survive very much in their pre-Conquest 

 form. Here the cantons of Aroma, Umala, and Curaguara 



^Rigoberto Paredes: Description de la Provincia del Cercado [of La Paz], 

 Bol. Oficina Nad. de Estadist., Vol. 6, 1910, pp. 614-667; Vol. 7, 1911, pp. 1-18. 

 La Paz. 



