HIGHLAND COMMUNITIES OF CENTRAL PERU—TSCHOPIK 29 
peonage which are often encountered in southern 
Peru in the Departments of Cuzco and Puno are 
said not to exist to any great extent in the Aya- 
cucho region.*! Informants stated that there was 
no free service; according to what appears to be 
the most usual arrangement, tenants have the 
obligation of working for the hacienda a fixed 
number of hours a day twice a week in return for 
the land which they are given to farm for their 
own use.°° 
Exportations from Ayacucho Department are 
in general relatively small; native-woven blankets 
and ponchos, silver filigree work, kid hides, shoes, 
felt hats, some maize and wheat and cochineal 
dye are exported to Huancayo, Lima, and Ica.*° 
There is a strong tendency toward economic 
specialization in the various barrios which pertain 
to Ayacucho. The people of Capilla-pata, San 
Juan Bautista, and Carmen Alto are professional 
travelers, butchers, and meat dealers; those of 
Teneria are tanners, while the inhabitants of 
Santa Ana are potters. The barrio of Concho- 
pata specializes in textile production while the 
people of Soquiacato, Calvario, Arco, Magda- 
lena, San Sebastian, and Pampa San Agustin are 
farmers (Bustamante, 1943, p. 45). According 
to Pareja Paz Soldan, cattle raising is of consider- 
able importance in the Provinces of the Depart- 
ment, particularly on the pampas of Cangallo, 
and most of the livestock finds its way to the mar- 
kets of Lima and Callao (Pareja Paz Soldan, 1943, 
p. 339). 
Although today the production of cochineal is 
on the decline, this was formerly an industry of 
considerable importance, and most of the dye was 
sold to European markets. The collection of 
the insects, which continues to be an important 
activity in Cangallo Province, is the occupation 
of Indian women. The insects, which bring 25 
or 30 centavos a pound, are collected during the 
dry season in the many groves of tuna cacti 
(Opuntia sp.), and care is taken not to remove all 
of the parasites; in fact the insects are said to be 
purposely placed in groves as yet not infected. 
In a good day a woman can collect as much as 5 
& For a discussion of the types of hacienda peonage current in Cuzeo De- 
partment, see Kuczynski, 1945, particularly pp. 87-109. 
65 Bustamante states that obligatory service persists in the Ayacucho region 
in the form of pongos, or household servants, who work without pay for their 
hacendados, (Bustamante 1943, pp. 94-95). 
® Dunn (1925, p. 396) states that before the construction of the Central 
Railway, the usual trade outlet for Ayacucho was by way of Ica to the port 
of Pisco; now the bulk of traffic goes via Huancayo, and thence by rail to 
Lima. 
pounds. The cochineal insects are collected from 
wild plants or in groves where the cacti are culti- 
vated for prickly pears; the owners of the groves 
allow the cochineal gatherers to remove the insects 
free of charge in order that the plants may bear 
more fruit. 
CARMEN ALTO 
At a kilometer distant from Ayacucho, across 
a small stream and in the shrub-covered foothills 
to the west of the city, is situated the village of 
Carmen Alto. Although politically it has the 
status of District in the Province of Huamanga, 
socially and economically it tends to be a suburb 
of Ayacucho. 
There is no automobile road to Carmen Alto, 
and the village may be reached only by climbing 
a steep, rocky path which winds between ancient 
stone walls overgrown with cacti and grass, and 
shaded by gnarled and massive peppertrees. The 
single main street, at one time surfaced with 
cobblestones, winds up a hillside. To one side 
the village’s water supply flows in a stone-lined, 
covered channel which dates from the Colonial 
Period. Other public facilities, sue has electricity 
and postal and telegraph services, are lacking. 
Many of the houses which line each side of the 
street are falling into ruins, and some are deserted 
although their architecture indicates that Carmen 
Alto was once a fashionable Colonial suburb (pl. 
8, a). Much alike in ground plan and design, all 
houses are one-story buildings, constructed of 
field stones laid in adobe. The rooms tend to be 
unit structures with porches, or corredores, ar- 
ranged around a patio which is often paved with 
cobblestones (pl. 8, 6). Roofs are of red tiles; 
the pitch facing the street is short and abrupt 
while that which slopes toward the patio is longer 
and more gradual and extends outward to cover 
the porch. Though most houses have handsome 
arched doorways of dressed stone, windows are 
generally lacking. 
Halfway up the hill the main street broadens 
to form a little plaza, on one side of which is 
located the small church. With the exception of 
the church and of an elementary school for boys 
and another for girls, each of which is attended by 
some 20 students, there are no public buildings. 
The gobernador transacts his official business on a 
covered porch in the patio of his home, and in his 
spare time operates a small store which occupies 
another room of his house. Other stores are 
