INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 



example, were certain that the Mocheras still prac- 

 ticed weaving as a generalized activity, and for a 

 time I was disturbed by the fact that I could find 

 no looms or women devoted to this activity. It 

 turned out that as late as 15 years ago not a few 

 women were still operating their hand looms, but 

 that by 1944 they had all (with one possible excep- 

 tion) discarded them. Moche as a composite culture 

 and as a changing culture is the emphasis of the 

 present account. 



From the technical point of view of an ethnologist 

 trying to do his work, Moche is not an easy problem. 

 One has to contend with a tendency to polite with- 

 drawal which characterizes the Mocheros' dealings 

 with strangers and foreigners and which is to a 

 considerable extent based upon their fear of inroads 

 upon their land holdings. On the other hand, 

 although in my experience I have never encountered 

 a group whose confidence was so difficult to obtain, 

 I have never met people who, once their confidence 

 was gained, were so hospitable. The Mocheros like 

 to spend a good part of their not inconsiderable 

 leisure sitting about drinking, eating, and talking. 

 Once the ethnologist is admitted to such sessions, 

 he becomes privy to a great deal of gossip and gen- 

 eral comment and is able to conduct a large number 

 of "indirect interviews." On the other hand, this 

 very pattern of relaxation makes it difficult to ar- 

 range long, serious, confidential interview sessions. 

 The typical Mochero does not like to sit down for 

 hours at a time and concentrate with an ethnologist 

 who painstakingly goes over apparently minor points 

 time after time and writes the answers down in a 

 notebook. I was fortunate, however, in securing the 

 services, partly voluntary and partly paid, of a group 

 of informants representing both the Mocheros and 

 forastcros (outside settlers in Moche) who were 

 willing to do this very thing as well as to write out 

 reports of their own on topics which were of interest 

 in the study. Since only a part of a year was spent 

 in the culture, a good many features of the yearly 

 round described herein, especially those concerned 

 with agriculture and fiestas which were not observed 

 personally, had to be obtained from informants 

 alone and are unsupported by personal observation or 

 participation. Any apparently significant differences 

 between informants have been indicated in the text. 

 In the field, notes were typed ofif onto 4- by 6-inch 

 sheets of paper, usually each night if possible, and 

 filed according to the 55 principal categories of the 

 Yale "Outline of Cultural Materials" (Murdock et 



al., 193S) plus a few other categories of particular 

 interest to the present investigation. 



A certain amount of material on Moche personali- 

 ties and on the "typical" life cycle will, it is hoped, 

 be published at a later date. 



Finally, two aspects of method should be men- 

 tioned which, because of the circumstances, could 

 not be fully carried out in the present case, but which, 

 it is believed, should be considered in future in- 

 vestigations of this sort. In the realization of both, 

 the full collaboration of official government agencies 

 of the country concerned would be invaluable. They 

 are as follows: 



1. Practically all I^atin American rural communi- 

 ties of actual or potential and cumulative significance 

 in present and future national and world affairs, are 

 cultural composites, or mixtures, and their cultural 

 systems are all in a condition of flux and change.^ 

 This means that both the cultural patterns and the 

 behavior may show a considerable amount of varia- 

 tion and inconsistency. The only way to describe 

 the variability with a completely satisfying degree 

 of scientific accuracy is on a basis of systematic col- 

 lection of quantitative material that is susceptible of 

 at least simple statistical treatment. This does not 

 mean discarding the technique of indirect interview 

 and other time-tested ethnological techniques in favor 

 of the exclusive use of questionnaires and similar 

 procedures, but it does mean applying techniques to 

 all the population or to large and controlled samples 

 and tabulating certain information obtained thereby 

 that has statistical or numerical significance. For 

 example, I am convinced by agreement among all of 

 my informants that quarreling over land is common 

 among the Mocheros, but I am unable to say with 

 accuracy how common it is, i, e., what percentage 

 of the adult Mocheros have been engaged in such 

 feuds, what percentage of the feuds involve members 

 of the same family, etc. It would be a great help 

 if the whole of the cultural variations in behavior 

 (amenable to such treatment) could be reduced to 

 percentages or other simple constants representing 

 the distribution of the various alternatives, because 

 such treatment would not only permit a more ac- 

 curate description of the position of the various 

 cultural alternatives in the existing system, but would 

 also provide a more precise basis for measuring 



1 Isolated "primitive" cultures in Latin America are, of course, 

 important from the viewpoints of historical and general ethnolog>', but 

 by the time they have become significant to an understanding of national 

 or international developments, they have invariably become "accul- 

 turated." 



