Moche: A Peruvian Coastal Community 



By John Gillin 



INTRODUCTION 



This monograph is an attempt to increase mutual 

 understanding in the Americas by portraying in some 

 detail the patterns of life of a Peruvian coastal com- 

 munity that I studied with ethnological methods 

 during a period of service in Peru as representative 

 of the Institute of Social Anthropolog}' of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



Moche is a community of "little men" or "common 

 people" in terms of their individual economic, social, 

 and political influence in the country as a whole, and 

 in that respect it is, of course, typical of the over- 

 whelming majority of rural communities of Peru. 

 The mode of life in Moche has many features in 

 common with other coastal communities, but it is 

 unusual in some respects, especially in the fact that 

 the bulk of its land area is still in the hands of peasant 

 owners. 



It seems to me that some of the past difficulties 

 encountered by foreign nations in dealing with the 

 United States have been based on ignorance of the 

 "common people" of our country. Our so-called 

 former "isolationism" and "distrust of foreign in- 

 trigues," for example, cannot really be understood 

 by anyone who does not have acquaintance with 

 some of the thousands of small towns and rural 

 neighborhoods scattered throughout our country. We 

 should be well advised not to make the same mistake 

 in our relations with other nations. Although a 

 little less than half of our own population live in 

 small towns and rural neighborhoods, a very large 

 majority of Peruvians are members of rural com- 

 munities of one type or another. Moche is not, of 

 course, typical of all of them. A good many more 

 reports on Peruvian communities would be necessary 

 to complete the picture, and it is hoped that they 

 will be forthcoming. 



I undertook the collection of the data herein pre- 

 sented during the first year of the Institute of Social 

 Anthropology's activities in Peru. I spent a total of 

 some 22 months in Peru in 1943-44, although dur- 

 ing the first year of this period I was attached to 

 the Embassy in a nonethnological capacity. On a 

 previous mission in 1934—35, I had spent about 5 

 months in the Peruvian-Ecuadorean Montaiia. The 

 period of field work in Moche totaled nearly 6 

 months in 1944. 



In June of 1944, I accepted an invitation from the 

 University of Trujillo to establish a course and de- 

 liver a series of lectures on cultural anthropology 

 at that institution. While engaged in these activities, 

 I initiated the study of the community of Moche, 

 some 7 km. from the city of Trujillo. I rented a 

 house in the town of Moche for interviewing and 

 here spent some nights, but for want of furniture 

 and kitchen equipment for the Moche house, I made 

 my home and general headquarters in the Hotel 

 Trujillo in Trujillo. 



Because of the pressure of other commitments and 

 tlie exigencies of the publishing schedule, the entire 

 monograph in its present form was written and the 

 illustrations were prepared for publication between 

 December 15, 1944, and February 1, 1945, with the 

 result that a certain amount of material gathered in 

 the field has had to be held out for later publication 

 because of sheer lack of time to prepare it. 



An attempt has been made in the present work 

 to present Moche culture as it exists at the present 

 time, and for this reason those who may have been 

 acquainted with Moche some years ago are asked 

 to remember that the processes of cultural change 

 have apparently been operating at a fairly rapid and 

 steady pace. Some of my friends in Trujillo, for 



