24 INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY—PUBLICATION NO. 5 
Castrovirreina. These trading trips are usually 
made on foot, and produce is transported on 
llama back (pl. 5, d); truck transportation is, 
however, becoming more frequent. Itinerant 
merchants and traders make the rounds of these 
puna communities, purchasing or bartering for 
the local products. Sheep and wool buyers with 
headquarters in Huancavelica visit the village 
after the flocks have been sheared. Several times 
a year traders or arrieros from Ayacucho make 
trips through this region selling coca, bread, and 
valley products and bartering for or purchasing 
wool, sheep pelts, and livestock. (See Carmen 
Alto, pp. 29-31.) 
Native-woven textiles including ponchos, 
shawls, and homespuns are produced for local 
consumption and for trade, and quantities of 
llama hair rope are braided for the Huancavelica 
market. These articles are, in the main, manu- 
factured by men. 
The inhabitants of Choclococha who do not 
possess sufficiently large flocks to support them- 
selves by means of pastoralism alone go to work 
in the several mines situated nearby. Usually 
men goin groups of 8 or 10, leaving the women and 
children behind to herd the livestock. Since, as 
one informant stated, mine wages are low and 
the work difficult, most of these groups remain 
for only 2 or 3 months at a time and then return 
to their homes to stay until their earnings have 
been spent. Some 10 men of the community work 
on the maintenance of the Huancavelica-Castrovir- 
reina highway. 
Because of the general poverty of the com- 
munity, fiestas are said to be simple and infre- 
quent. The principal fiesta of the community is 
held on October 15 to celebrate El Sefor de 
Cochareas. In addition to the fiestas of the 
church calendar, rites are performed which are 
designed to insure the welfare of the flocks and 
herds and to increase their numbers. 
CASTROVIRREINA 
Like Huancavelica, Castrovirreina began its 
existence early in Colonial times as a mining 
town. Vazquez de Espinosa (1942, pp. 527-528) 
states that, owing to the discovery of silver 
mines in the vicinity in 1590, the town was 
founded in 1591, and 2,000 Indians from the ad- 
joining provinces were apportioned to work the 
mines and to perform other necessary labors. 
Describing the town as he saw it in 1616, he 
continues: 
It contains 100 houses, a main street and other side 
streets; there is a plaza, with the church and the Royal 
Apartments on it; but all the buildings are made of adobe, 
low and straw-thatched. [Vazquez de Espinosa, 1942, 
pp. 527-528.] 
He states that in the year 1610 the town con- 
tained 86 European residents including, other 
than Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and a 
Levantine. 
The chief business of this city is its mines and smelters; 
but the owners are in debt for more than their value; 
they are sustained by hopes for the future, and the same 
is true of those who contract with them. There are eight 
businessmen dealing in Spanish and native merchandise, 
who live there on the plaza, not to mention others who 
come up frequently for business transactions [ibid., 
pp. 528-529]. 
In addition to being a mining center, Vazquez 
de Espinosa makes it clear that the economics of 
Colonial Castrovirreina, as today, depended in 
large part upon farming, trading, and the breeding 
of livestock. He states: 
They grow potatoes, which are like ground truffles; 
ocas; macas, which are like small turnips; and ollucos; 
these are all root crops—they cannot grow wheat, barley, 
or corn for the land is too cold, although there are some 
ravines nearby, at a quarter league and a league, where 
they do very well, downstream by the river passing by the 
city and others near at hand; they raise cabbage, garlic, 
lettuce, peaches, and frutilla de Chile, which is their straw- 
berry, but larger and better. They get wine from the Ica 
and Pisco Valleys, and Umay, and the Government reg- 
ularly apportions Indians for the transport, so that the 
city may be provided with wine, flour, and other necessary 
foodstuffs . . . so that the city is well provided all the 
year with the products and fruit coming up to it from 
the valleys. 
In the year 1610 there were four cattle ranches, four 
sheep ranches, five of goats, and one of mules, and a few 
farms. On these ranches there were 1,600 cattle, 5,000 
sheep, 12,000 goats, and 400 brood mares. At present 
there are many more, for they breed well and multiply 
rapidly [ibid., p. 530]. 
In the early 17th century the District of the 
city of Castrovirreina was divided into enco- 
miendas, and the Indians paid tribute to their 
encomendero in the form of cash, silver ore, produce, 
or a combination of these.** The native popula- 
46 In theory the purpose of the encomiendas was to missionize and socialize 
the Indian populations which pertained to them; in fact, the system served 
to exploit the Indians in that they were often forced to pay tribute to the 
encomenderos in the form of goods or services. For a discussion and analysis 
of the system see Valega (1939, pp. 183-185). VAzquez de Espinosa states 
that the tributary Indians of the Province of Huachos, which pertained to 
Castrovirreina, paid tribute in the form of cash, silver ore, cloth, llamas, 
maize, poultry, and potatoes at rates fixed by the Viceroys (V4zquez de Es- 
pinosa, 1942, pp. 536-537). 
