4 INDIAN COMMUNITIES OF BOLIVIA 



of the totora, a kind of bulrush that grows in the shallow margins 

 of the water, and, with nets of their own making, catch fish which 

 they sell fresh in the markets near by and dried in those more dis- 

 tant. Others carry on a number of home industries: weaving 

 blankets from the wool of sheep, llamas, alpacas, and vicunas; 

 making crude pottery, plaiting grass mats and baskets, or manu- 

 facturing hats, sandals, bags, and other such things that their 

 neighbors need. Still others, with their droves of llamas, gather 

 llama dung (the principal fuel used on the plateau) or act as 

 carriers between regions not yet reached by the railroads. Even 

 so, most of the Indians, though with few wants and well schooled 

 in thrift by hard necessity, are constantly on the verge of starva- 

 tion, and the failure of a single year's crops brings them face to 

 face with actual famine. 



Organization of the Communities 



Under the geographical conditions already mentioned it was 

 but natural that there should grow up a system of communities, 

 where each separate valley or secluded corner of the plateau 

 developed its individual life, centered about the cluster of 

 thatched dwellings where lived the closely related members of a 

 clan. Such a social organization, with its inevitable agrarian 

 character, seems to have existed on the highlands of Peru and 

 Bolivia from the very earliest times. The old Spanish historians 

 describe this communal system and the collective ownership of 

 land that prevailed throughout the Inca Empire. Early Indian 

 tradition records the belief that their first rulers established this 

 common possession of the soil. That it was in no sense an inno- 

 vation of the Incas is maintained by those who have studied the 

 Aymara civilization which preceded the Quechua dynasty.^ It 

 seems rather to have dated from the very beginnings of Aymara 

 culture and to have been the foundation upon which the social 



» Bautista Saavedra: El Ayllu, Paris, 1913. 

 C. R. Markham: The Incas of Peru, New York, 1910, pp. 159-172. 

 Heinrich Cunow: Die soziale Verfassung des Inkareichs, Stuttgart, 1896. 

 T. A. Joyce: South American Archaeology, London, 1912, pp. 99-143- 

 A. F. Bandelier: The Islands'^of Titicaca and Koati, New York, 1910. 



