14 INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 5 
lands, which is the purpose of the present paper, 
it is necessary on the descriptive level to dif- 
ferentiate between the social classes encountered 
in each; such differentiation will be based on cul- 
tural criteria which we are assuming reflect the 
strength of the Indian or Spanish heritage.” Yet 
a difficulty in the handling of cultural criteria for 
the purpose of identifying social groups is appar 
ent immediately when one attempts to apply these 
criteria uniformly to an area as extensive as the 
Sierra of Peru. An individual in Quinoa whose 
way of life must be considered Indian chews coca; 
a resident of Sicaya, who clearly must be con- 
sidered a Mestizo on other cultural grounds, also 
chews coca. An Indian in Chucuito farms his 
own land, while the Mestizos of this town are 
above manual labor; yet the farmers of Arequipa 
and Chupaca are Mestizos. The Indian women 
of the Cuzco region go barefoot and transport 
bundles in carrying cloths on their backs; some 
Mestizas of the Jauja Valley also go barefoot and 
employ the same technique in transporting 
bundles. It is safe to assume that many culture 
traits, selected at random and employed singly as 
insignia of class, will apply to Indians in one 
region of the Peruvian Sierra and to Mestizos in 
another. What is significant for our present 
purpose is the proportion of, and emphasis ac- 
corded to, Indian or Spanish elements in the 
cultural content of the various contemporary 
communities described later. Hence when we 
designate a particular class in a given town as 
“Indian” we mean that this class exhibits a 
predominance of characteristics which are Indian 
in origin; a ‘““Mestizo’’ class or a ‘““Mestizo” town 
will be one in which Spanish or modern Western 
European culture predominates. 
There remains but to make a few very general re- 
marks regarding the nature of these classes in the 
Peruvian Highlands. Linton has pomted out 
that in most class-structured societies of the world 
the classes had reached a condition of satisfactory 
adjustment and that each of the classes really con- 
stituted a society in itself; he adds, “Classes can 
16 A basic assumption, of course, is our ability to distinguish in all cases 
between the Indian and Spanish elements. It would be well for those who 
attempt historical reconstructions based on materials from highly accultu- 
rated Latin American communities to keep this assumption in mind since 
numerous parallels appear to have existed between 16th century Spanish 
culture and the cultures of various advanced groups of Middle American 
Indians. Some of the pitfalls of this sorting-out process have been pointed 
out by Redfield (1941, pp. 87-88) and by Parsons (1936, pp. 479-544). 
scarcely be said to exist within any society until 
the individuals who exist at different social or 
economic levels have become conscious of their 
common interests and organized themselves” 
(Linton, 1936, p. 110). In southern Peru the socie- 
ties tend to be organized along rigid classlines. The 
most common situation in the smaller towns and vil- 
lagesappears to bea two-class structure with a small 
Mestizo “aristocracy” and a large Indian peasant 
population.” The Mestizo class in Chucuito, and 
elsewhere, exhibits a strong sense of class conscious- 
ness and solidarity, and considers itself set apart 
from the Indian population, which, indeed, itis. The 
Indians, although not so conscious of class as the 
Mestizos, are united by a common cultural heri- 
tage and by a complex of sociopolitical and social 
patterns. One might almost speak of the two 
classes in Chucuito as separate cultures, or at 
least subcultures; certainly they represent separate 
societies. In this type of class structure the 
status of the individual tends to be rigidly fixed 
and there is little social mobility. It might not be 
improper to speak of such a structure as a caste 
system. Nevertheless, these two classes have, 
through living together for many years, become 
mutually adjusted to each other and live in har- 
mony, if, perhaps, without affection. 
Sicaya, on the other hand (and presumably 
other towns in the Jauja Valley), is essentially a 
classless community, and social status within the 
town is based primarily on wealth and to a lesser 
degree on education and ‘background.’ ’’ The 
classes here are merely aggregates of individuals 
whose common interests arise out of a similar 
background and economic status. Although in 
Sicaya the peon, a landless day laborer, tends to 
form a group apart, he is given the opportunity 
to find his place in the social structure through his 
own initiative, to marry a local woman, and to 
improve his status generally. Historical data 
from Sicaya indicate that at one time the class 
structure was more rigid. One may venture the 
tentative hypothesis that the present social trend 
in Highland Peru is away from “caste” and in 
the direction of ‘class.’ In the Peruvian Sierra 
the rigidity of the social structure appears to 
depend principally upon the presence of a large 
17 This is also the situation encountered in Quinoa (see pp.) 31-34 
18 In the present paper the class structure of Chupaca, which is virtually 
identical with that of Sicaya, is described at some length (see Chupaca, 
pp. 37-41). 
