44 



INSTITUTH OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY'— PUBLICATION NO. 



blooded Indian. His dwelling was merely an immense shed, 

 with some compartments fenced off with adobes or canes, for 

 such of the occupants as affected privacy. The bare earthen 

 floor was strewed with the aparcjo of mules and rude imple- 

 ments of husliandiy, lor tb.e qobcnuidor was both muleteer 

 and hushandinan . . . We rode through the silent streets, 

 fetlock-deep in dust, to the jlaza, one side of wb.ich wa-; 

 occuiiied by the ch'Jrch, a quaint, old, tiuuble-down edifice, its 

 belI-t(Aver reacbeil by a tlight of stone steps outside the 

 building, [.^quier, 1877. pp 12(:)-!27. 1 



Tlic town of Moche seems t(j have been somewhat 

 modernized since Squier's time, although many of the 

 town dwellers still complain lotidly of the "lack of 

 attention on the part of the authorities." As can be 

 seen in plate 10, upper ( left ). the plaza is now paved 

 with coliblc-tones and cement, and an u^ly modern, 

 imitation brick facade, erected after the flood of 1925, 

 hides the old church referred to by Squicr. Presum- 

 ably, however, the original edifice remains behind this 

 attempt at face-lifting, for the outside stone steps 

 leading to the bell tower are still exposed to the sky, 

 altlioitgh hidden behind the new facade. About a 

 third of the street mileage iii the pueblo is now paved 

 with cobblestones, and several streets near the plaza 

 are bordered by cement sidewalks (pi. 10, lozvcr 

 (right). The great majority of houses in the pueblo 

 are now of adobe, or at least present a plastered adobe 

 front to the street. And a considerable sprinkling 

 of tnore elaborate jorastcro houses for outsiders who 

 live here, using Moche as a suburb of Trtijillo, or who 



come here during the summer season, gives the town 

 a "mixed" appearance, doubtless considerably differ- 

 ent from the squalid Indian village of Squier's obser- 

 vations. 



.\tnop.g the "civilized" structures of Moche to be 

 seen at present are (map 1. Xos. 1-17 and C) : The 

 two-story Escuela de Agricultura (School of Agri- 

 culttire ) near the railroad tracks ( Xo. 13) : the rail- 

 road tr.acks themselves, which skirt the east edge of 

 town, ;ilthough the former station has now been re- 

 moved ; the silo of Sei'ior (i. ; the partially dilapidated, 

 bttt formerly elegant, house of the O. family with 

 elevated wooden lookout pl.itform; the facade of the 

 ("lovernmeiit buildings (pi. 11, upper (eciiler) : inap 

 1, Nos. 1-5 ) : the slatighler house ( No. 15) : the new 

 scIk)o1 for boys ( Xo, 9) ; the movie theater, rarely 

 tised and not impressive from the outside (C) ; two 

 hoiisis with second stories near the plaza. 



This sprinkling of attempts at sophisticateil archi- 

 tecture and hard-surfaced streets is mixed with the 

 dominant atmosphere of adobe houses, quincha fences 

 .•md windbreaks in the backyards. \ov: sloping roofs, 

 and dusty streets frequently littered with garbage and 

 refuse. Abiche is no longer "pure," and for that very 

 reason is the more interesting to a student of cultural 

 change. The over-all impression a stranger receives 

 of the pueblo is one of ragged rusticity. In the 

 eauipifia the rusticity is complete. 



FOOD AND DRINK 



THE CONTENT AND THE ETIQUETTE OE 

 BOARD AND BOWL 



The Mocheros are not an easy people to become 

 acquainted with, but once one has established rap- 

 port with them, their hosjiitality is extensive and 

 continuous. They are the envy of persons from all 

 parts of the coast because of the time and the re- 

 sources they lavish on the consumption of food and 

 liquor. In fact, eating and drinking are their prin- 

 cipal relaxation and recreation. Generally speaking, 

 Ihey are not gamblers, they care little for bull- 

 fighting and cockfighting, they have developed only 

 a vapid interest in the movies, but they love their 

 causas and their cliicha. 



Eating and drinking, in addition to being activi- 

 ties essential for the maintenance of life and health, 

 are great socializers and producers of interaction, 

 generally with a pleasant emotional overtone. The 

 dishes served on Moche tables and their ingredients 



are not e.xclusive to this community, but it is widely 

 claimed that they have a flavor not found elsewhere. 

 Although the use of peppers and other "hot" sea- 

 sonings is cominon to most of Peru, the food of 

 JMoche makes an unusually sharp assault upon the 

 taste buds of the novice and even brings tears to 

 the eyes of the initiated. The Mocheros consider the 

 flavoring of the cooking in other areas insipid. One 

 of my friends spent 10 days in Lima and returned 

 to Moche inuch disappointed. He told me that he 

 could not get enough to eat, that the yucas were 

 measly small things, the fish stale, and so on — but 

 worst of all, the food had no flavor. He was under 

 the suspicion that the Lima cooks substituted aehote 

 (a reddish coloring powder) for the strong, tear- 

 jerking peppers of his native cainpiha. 



To a North Ainerican the three most outstanding 

 features of Moche repasts, aside from details of vari- 

 ous recipes, would probably be the picante, the dishes 

 made in various ways from raw fish, and the chicha, 



