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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 3 



Formal definitions of property and its management 

 all conform to Peruvian law, which is governed by 

 the principle of the right of private property, in- 

 dividual and corporative. The Peruvian law also 

 contains provisions for collective and cooperative 

 property holding and management in the cases of 

 legally recognized "communidadcs indigcuas" (in- 

 digenous communities), and it furthermore permits 

 and protects the formation and operation of produc- 

 ers' and consumers" cooperatives. The Mocheros 

 have not taken advantage of either the corporative, 

 communal, or cooperative features of the law, but 

 operate exclusively under its individualistic aspects. 



At first glance the situation appears the more 

 strange because the intensely individualistic attitude 

 toward land is combined with a cooperative attitude 

 toward labor. The shared-work pattern in agricul- 

 ture, house building, and irrigation (formerly it was 

 on a completely democratic basis) operates side by 

 side with an apparently rather childish jealousy re- 

 garding lands, houses, crops, clothing, tools, animals, 

 money and all other forms of property, but particu- 

 larly land. Thus it might be said that a tendency 

 toward communism in labor exists side by side with 

 individual ownership and management of tangible 

 property. The idea that one's labor is a commodity 

 which can be sold in exchange for property (or its 

 symbols, e.g., money) is an innovation in Moche, and 

 even yet perhaps only 15 percent of the labor force, 

 as we have seen, sell their labor abroad. Under the 

 older work-sharing pattern, labor was and is traded, 

 reciprocally to be sure, but in exchange for labor 

 and hospitality, not for money or goods. One ob- 

 vious explanation for this superficial paradox might 

 well be that, considering the realities of the Moche 

 situation, labor has always been plentiful, but landed 

 property and other forms of property derived di- 

 rectly or indirectly from it have been distinctly limited 

 and scarce for generations. There are many hands, 

 but few lands. 



Land is the most important type of property in 

 Moche and, in truth, is the most important fact in 

 human life throughout the whole desert coast of 

 Peru. By land, I mean irrigated terrain, capable 

 of producing subsistence and/or commercially valu- 

 able crops, for no other type of land has any mean- 

 ing in this region, other than in terms of barren 

 distances to be traveled and the chances of death in 

 doing so. 



Practically every adult Mochero man and woman 

 possesses a bundle or so of legal papers stored awav 



ill a trunk in the house or, in some cases, it is said, 

 buried on his land for safe keeping. These papers 

 are supposed to prove the individual's right by in- 

 heritance, purchase, or transfer to the land which he 

 claims to own. Their effectiveness in protecting land 

 rights in Moche is, however, affected by two facts. 



(1) Many, probably the majority, of landowners 

 are unable to read and write, which leaves them ill- 

 equipped to contend with cases of litigation. (2) The 

 majority of the documents do not and under the cir- 

 cumstances probably cannot establish property rights 

 in land beyond any possibility of successful contrary 

 legal action, so that an unethical lawyer can always 

 try "to make a case." Lawyers tell me that clearing 

 titles, particularly of small parcels of land which have 

 passed through many hands during the last 400 years, 

 is at the present time a most uncertain proposition 

 and is almost always exposed to attack provided the 

 opposition can dig up countervailing documents, 

 which, particularly in the case of small holdings, can 

 hardly ever be ruled out of possibility. 



It is perhaps not generally understood in North 

 America that the Spanish colonial system saddled 

 Latin America with a tradition of intricate red tape 

 and required documents and reports and that certain 

 of these procedures are still followed. Applied to 

 illiterate natives, this system represents a striking 

 form of cultural inconsistency of a type which I have 

 previously termed inconsistency of pattern with pat- 

 tern (Gillin, 1944, p. 443). In land disputes, it gives 

 literate persons a marked advantage over those who 

 are illiterate (Cornejo Bouroncle, 1935). 



-Such a set of patterns — documentary legalism and 

 illiteracy — is inconsistent only if both are present in 

 the cultural system at the same time. Education will 

 eliminate illiteracy, but first there must be a transi- 

 tion period, which often is still one of maladjustment. 

 Moche is in such a period at the present time. With 

 the modern emphasis upon education and profes- 

 sional training a number of young men have 

 succeeded in obtaining complete or partial training 

 as lawyers in the University of Trujillo or elsewhere, 

 ^fany of these have followed a successful career in 

 the law, but some, unable to obtain a place in an 

 established office or to create a practice of their own, 

 turn not unnaturally, perhaps, to litigation among 

 their own people. With the increased pressure of 

 population on the available land, their hopes are not 

 long deferred. As heirs and subdivisions of in- 

 heritances multiply, so do quarrels. 



There is no recognized communal or familv 



