MOCHE: A PERUVIAN COASTAL COMMUNITY— GILLIN 



by the "garua" mist of the winter season. Human 

 life and economic activity are therefore, in the main, 

 confined to a Hmited number ^ of irrigated river valleys 

 whose waters have been used to create oases of 

 sharply restricted extension. These conditions have 

 obtained since prehistoric times, and there is good 

 reason to believe that under the Inca domination 

 actually more coastal land was under irrigation than 

 at present. Nevertheless, in modem times, with the 

 introduction of capitalistic econoinic organization and 

 expensive "scientific" methods of farming export 

 crops, these peculiar conditions of the Peruvian 

 coastal valleys have easily lent themselves to a 

 tendency toward monopolization of the land and to 

 centralized organization of the working population. 

 It is natural that the large haciendas should grow 

 larger, that they should absorb towns no longer con- 

 veniently located from the point of view of production 

 of the cash crop, that they should concentrate the 

 working population in their own housing units at 

 chosen points, and that they should dominate, how- 

 ever paternalistically, the life of the common people. 

 Especially in the production of sugar on a large 

 and profitable scale, the natural tendency is toward 

 the establishment of "factories in the fields." There 

 is one hacienda in the Valley of Chicama that now 

 stretches from the Pacific coast to the jungles of the 

 Maraiion River and its domain is said to give liveli- 

 hood to 50,000 persons, including workers and their 

 families. It is still increasing. 



For better or worse, the Moche community is dif- 

 ferent and in many respects still preserves the ad- 

 vantages and disadvantages of free peasant life. The 

 Mocheros are outstanding exponents of rugged in- 

 dividualism, and there is little or nothing "socialistic" 

 about life in Moche. 



At first glance, then, the Moche District seems 

 to present several contradictions. Although it lies 

 about halfway between the city of Trujillo and the 

 ocean port of Salaverry, it is neither urban nor in- 

 dustrialized. The town is served 'by excellent 

 asphalted highways and railroads, but the "tone" of 

 life is that of comparative cultural isolation. More 

 than 100 families of outsiders live in the community, 

 but they have not as yet made over the culture in 

 their own patterns, nor are they socially accepted 

 in the community as a whole. Some of the most 



^ Romero lists 50 rivers, of which 27 are of the first class with 

 water all tie year around, 14 are second class usually with water 

 throughout the year, and 9 are third class with only seasonal flows 

 in normal years. The Mocfae River is of the first class (Romero, 1944, 

 rp. 20-21). 



1 .^,.-^^- 



imposing of the ancient Mochica ruins stand in the 

 Mocha countryside, but the modern Mocheros recog- 

 nize no ancestral link to the people who built them. 



GENERAL COMPOSITION OF POPULATION 



Among the inhabitants, there is a distinction made 

 between Mocheros and "forasteros" (strangers). 

 Although there are no official figures on the latter, 

 a count made by myself indicates that there are 111 

 jorajtcro families living in the community, of which 

 16 live in the campina and 95 in town. If one esti- 

 mates the total jurastero population at about 500, 

 it would represent about 13 percent of the total 

 population of the District of Moche, which was 

 3,773, according to the 1940 census. There has been 

 an attempt on the part of Trujillanos to make a sort 

 of residential suburb of Moche, because houses are 

 cheaper there and the climate is reputed to be 

 healthier. The Mocheros have resented and resisted 

 this tendency, and there are only 4 or 5 forastero men 

 who have succeeded in establishing intimate social 

 relations with the Mocheros in general. Only 15 

 of the forastero households belong to foreigners 

 while the remaining 96 are Peruvian. Even so. 

 they are "outsiders." 



There is also a territorial subdivision of the popu- 

 lation. Although the pueblo has no barrios (wards 

 or similar subdivisions), Mocheros as a whole are 

 classified as being from the pueblo, from the playa 

 (seashore), or from the campina, depending on where 

 they have their principal or only dwellings. The 

 playa group at present consists of only about 30 poor 

 fishing families, although it was formerly said to 

 be larger. None of the playeros, properly speaking, 

 maintains an establishment in the other subdivisions. 

 However, some persons who are identified as being 

 "from the campina" also maintain houses in the 

 pueblo, and vice versa. As will be seen later, the 

 campina falls into three sections — north, south, and 

 west. 



In describing Moche, we shall deal mainly with 

 the Mocheros, or "MocJicros nctos" (real Mocheros), 

 since, on the whole, forasteros "only live there." 



ENVIRONMENT 



The District of Moche lies within the last bend 

 of the Rio Moche before it debouches into the Pacific. 

 The District is bounded on the north and northwest 

 by the river, as shown on plate 2. To the east 

 the irrigated land ends abruptly in a sandy desert 



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