46 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 3 



family income by making chiclia and caiisas to sell. 

 The cliicha sells, according to quality, for 10 and 15 

 centavos a liter, and an ordinary causa is worth 10 

 centavos. Owing to the rigid etiquette of drinking 

 which requires even a commercial hostess to drink 

 with her guests, many of these women who sell 

 chicha all day become more or less thoroughly intoxi- 

 cated by evening. Such places of refreshment are 

 called chichcrias, although the word is less used than 

 in certain other parts of Peru. 



Some of the more conservative families still eat on 

 totora mats placed on the dirt floor, but the great 

 majority now have rough rectangular tables, some- 

 what like those for kitchen use in United States 

 farmhouses, around which they sit to eat and drink 

 on benches made of sawed boards. 



There is no rule against men and women eating 

 together and for ordinary meals and small g-itherings 

 this usually takes place. At festive meals the women 

 of the household are usually in the kitchen during 

 the meal, occupied witli the preparation and serving 

 of the food, and at any meal the women are usually 

 up and down, serving the meals, moving hack and 

 forth between table and kitchen. 



All responsibility of preparing, cooking, and serv- 

 ing the food and chicha is customarily in the hands 

 of the women. Although the women do the work 

 they also have the authority, and a man is supposed 

 to secure the agreement of his wife before issuing 

 invitations. If a visitor drops in, the man will ask 

 his wife if she has something in the way of a causa 

 and some chicha. If he wishes to buy chicha. he 

 usually asks his wife for the money. To be sure, 

 certain men dominate their wives or companions 

 sufficiently to make these requests more in the nature 

 of a command than a pleading, but in the pattern and 

 phrasing of the eating and drinking situation the 

 woman is supposed to have the controlling role. 



Proper relaxation is required for the healthful 

 digestion of food after eating, according to local 

 belief. Reading, riding horseback, and sexual inter- 

 course within an hour or two after a meal are re- 

 garded as extremely dangerous. This is summed up 

 in a frequently quoted proverb, which I believe has a 

 genera! Peruvian distribution : 



Despiics d(' ciiiiicr. 



HI iin paj^elilo f^aic !<■(■>■. 



m caballo, ni iniiicr. 



(After eating, 



neither a ]ia]'er to rtad. 



nor a horse, nor a woman.) 



During my time in Moche one of the local foras- 

 tcros was suddenly taken ill and, 2 days after being 

 removed to the Trujillo hospital, died of a ruptured 

 duodenal ulcer, according to hospital attaches He 

 was a strong, healthy man in his thirties, and the 

 Mocheros were agreed that he met his end by reason 

 of his habit of immediately mounting his horse and 

 riding off to his work after eating. 



CHICHA 



This drink and the customs concerned with it 

 deserve a fairly long section, not because of its 

 inherent interest for tipplers unacquainted with the 

 beverage, but because, for better or for worse, it 

 plays so large a part in Moche life. 



Maize grown in the countryside is used principally 

 for roasting ears (choclos) and for making chicha. 

 Certainly the latter use absorbs by far the major part 

 of the maize consumed in the community. The con- 

 sumption of cliicha, according to my data, seems to 

 average about 2 1. per day per adult (over 18 years 

 of age) for its ''normal" or thirst-quenching proper- 

 ties, as an accompaniment of meals etc., with an 

 additional liter per day per adult as a conservative 

 estimate for chicha consumed because of its festive 

 properties. These are only estimates, based on 

 relatively small samples of families, but seem to be 

 on the conservative side, if anything ; for when the 

 Mocheros become festive, the amount of chicha con- 

 sumed is prodigious. The fact that they are, for the 

 most part, independent proprietors of their lands 

 allows them the leisure and the opportunity for such 

 relaxations. 



The word "chiclia" is in general use for rustic 

 drinks in all parts of Spanish America, and it does 

 not seem to be a term native to Peru.^^ The Quechua 

 terms are '"acca, aka, asuha, khusa, aqha." ^* The 

 material preserved in the Museo Arqueologico 

 "Rafael Larco Herrera" in Chich'n seems to show 

 clearly that chicha, or a similar beverage, was in 

 common use during Mochica times. Many in- 

 formants have insisted that large sealed pots con- 

 taining chicha in a "good state of preservation," i. e., 

 potable, have been recovered from the Moche ruins 



^ Arona sees the word as an old Spanish term meaning "sustenance" 

 or "nourishment," the same root involved in salchicha (sausage) 

 (Arona, 1938, pp. 165-166), although in another place he raises the 

 question whether it may not be an Antillean term (ibid., p. 177). It 

 is impossible to translate the word as "beer," as will appear later, 

 when beer itself is discussed. In Moche the word jora (actually the 

 mash from which chicha is brewed) is used frequently to refer to tlie 

 beverage. 



^ Valdizan and Maldonado, 1922, vol. 2, p. 69 ff. ; aqha is Farfan's 

 rendering (Farfan, 1941, p. 34). 



