DEPARTMENT OF LA PAZ 17 



province. These are the Uros that dwell beside the Desaguadero, 

 the river that drains Lake Titicaca. Subsisting chiefly by hunt- 

 ing and fishing, they ply their reed boats {balsas) among the wide- 

 extended swamps that here border the river. Their houses are of 

 rude construction, being built of mud and thatched with straw 

 or totora, the bulrush from which their boats are made. They 

 appear to be among the oldest occupants of the plateau. Appar- 

 ently stranded in this inhospitable place, they have continued to 

 exist as a distinct tribe, with a language all their own — a survival 

 perhaps of some conquered people, too weak in numbers or in 

 energy to seek a better abode. They enter any discussion of land 

 tenure only in a negative sense, as they are almost entirely land- 

 less. They practice little if any agriculture, though some of them 

 now own small herds of cattle and llamas. They form the rare 

 example of a highland Indian tribe which is not markedly 

 attached to the soil, in contrast to the agricultural people that 

 surround them.^^ 



On all sides of the Uros are strongly organized and desperately 

 maintained agrarian communities of Aymaras. On the plain and 

 among the hills of this province exist some of the most refractory 

 of the aborigines of Bolivia. They are frequently at war, on a 

 small scale, usually over a question of land. Neighboring j^wcas 

 encroach upon their communal holdings, or some white man or 

 mestizo attempts to gain a foothold in their midst, and soon there 

 is a call for troops to quell an Indian uprising. In a few cases 

 they have realized the futility of further struggle and have 

 invited some trusted Bolivian to become their patron, turning 

 over to him their lands to form a finca and they themselves 

 becoming his virtual serfs. They are careful, however, to stipulate 

 that ancient customs are to be preserved, and, since among the 

 finca Indians of Bolivia as well as in the communities custom 

 is far stronger than law, they are perhaps safer than if they were 



15 Jose Teribio Polo: Indios Urus del Peru y Bolivia, Bol. Oficina Nad. de 

 Estadtsl., Vol. 6, 1910, pp. 481-517. La Paz. 



D. G. Brinton: Observaciones sobre la lengua puquina del Peru, transl. from 

 the English, with an introduction, by Manuel Vicente Ballivian, Bol. Soc. Geogr. 

 de La Paz, Vol. 16, 1918, pp. 65-85. 



