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IXSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 



a similar tie around B and C : the next tie will include 

 C and D, and so on. A totora mat usually has three 

 horizontal (crosswise) sets of ties, whatever the 

 method used. 



A few minor industries or specialities should be 

 mentioned, all intrusive in the community. There is 

 one tinsmith ; there are two shoe cobblers ; there are 

 five bakeries, or, more properly, households, in the 

 pueblo which bake bread for sale ; there is one black- 

 smith, who seldom shoes a horse but whose work is 

 concerned with the repair of plows and other iron 

 work. One man is a diploma-holding embroiderer 



and specializes on spangled velvet and silk cloths 

 given by the pious to their favorite saints. We have 

 already mentioned the carpenters, masons, adobe 

 makers, dressmakers, tailors, barbers, midwives, 

 curers, witches. 



The so-called industries of Aloche are of minor im- 

 portance in the over-all income of the community. 

 Only mats and baskets are sold outside the community 

 on any appreciable scale, and even that is small. The 

 remainder of the industries are actually service spe- 

 cialties whose product is for local consumption. 



ECONOMICS 



SPECIALIZATION AND DIVISION 

 OF LABOR 



Because of the trends of change present in the situa- 

 tion, it is difficult to speak of the economic "system" 

 of Moche in ijencra! terms. For almost any general 

 statement made either there are exceptions in the 

 behavior of individuals or there may well be within a 

 year or two. The following remarks, therefore, are 

 to be understood as depicting the outlines of the situa- 

 tion as it existed, according to my information, in the 

 year 1944. A more precise measure of tendencies of 

 change and deviations from general patterns could 

 perhaps have been obtained by means of a systematic 

 collection of statistical information. But this, for 

 reasons mentioned in the Introduction, was impossible 

 to carry out on a large scale with the facilities at my 

 command. 



DIVISION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES ON A 

 SEXUAL BASIS 



In general, men do the hard and heavy work, while 

 women are concerned primarily with house and child 

 care and financial affairs. With respect to the latter, 

 the women handle most of the commercial trans- 

 actions and also handle, if they do not entirely control, 

 the household funds. Although the situation is not 

 actually phrased that way in Moche, many a super- 

 ficial observer has come away with the impression that 

 the man is culturally regarded as the fellow "with the 

 strong back but the weak mind." 



Men are primarily concerned with the following 

 activities : Plowing, planting, cultivating, harvesting, 

 supervision of livestock, milking cows, digging, 

 cleaning, and watching of irrigation ditches, fishing 

 and the making of nets and tackle, and building 



houses and fences. In the agricultural work, women 

 sometimes assist with the lighter tasks of planting, 

 harvesting, and weeding. The following specialties 

 are exclusively male : Carpentry, masonry, adobe 

 making, tailoring, barbering, fireworks making, shoe 

 cobbling, tinsmithing, butchering (women sometimes 

 kill animals for home use), blacksmithing, hat 

 making (one man). Only men are professional 

 musicians (playing in the bands and singing in the 

 church). Men also serve as mayordomos of reli- 

 gious fiestas which are mechanisms of potential 

 economic gain as well as of religious satisfaction. 

 Only men hold political offices and serve as public 

 scribes. 



Women are primarily concerned with the follow- 

 ing activities: Harvesting of light garden crops for 

 home use ; preparation and serving of food, including 

 baking for sale ; manufacture of chiclia : care of the 

 house ; clothes washing ; care of the children ; such 

 spinning as is done; weaving (formerly) ; repair of 

 clothes and dressmaking, both for the family and on 

 order ; transportation of salable goods to market, 

 selling such goods and handling the money or other 

 economic returns ; professional midwifery. Un- 

 married girls and women occasionally help with the 

 lighter field work, but a married woman is not ex- 

 pected to work in the fields. 



Both sexes take part in the following activities : 

 Light agricultural and horticultural work ; cutting 

 wood for sale; house building (women may carry 

 bags of earth in fapia making, while men do the 

 heavy digging and lifting) ; making gourd con- 

 tainers ; basket and mat making, although these 

 activities on a commercial basis tend to be men's 

 work ; dressmaking on a commercial basis tends to 



