MOCHE; A PERUVIAN COASTAL COMMUNITY'— GILLIN 



89 



the ir.einbers recite their literary compositions and 

 listen to musical performances. 



FIESTAS 



Latin America is a land of fiestas and holidays. 

 Peru has 20 official holidays throughout the year 

 in addition to Sundays, and Moche adds at least 7 

 semiofficial local holidays to this list, not to mention 

 fiestas organized sporadically by mayordomias for 

 the celebration of certain saints' days. These are 

 all fiestas involving the entire community. Family 

 celebrations must also be taken into account. In a 

 later section I discuss in more detail the rites 

 de passage. For example, there are 11 types of 

 padrin-a-^go (godfather or godmother relationship) 

 in Moche. The establishment of any one of these 

 is the occasion for a fiesta. 



It is more illuminating to discuss the details of 

 the various fiestas in connection with their func- 



tional relationships with specific aspects of the cul- 

 ture, and to make here the general observation that 

 the fiesta is the institutionalized form in which appear 

 almost all the other types of recreation and art men- 

 tioned above, except the actual production of pictorial 

 and literary art. Even modern sports have a place 

 in most of the community fiestas. 



All of the officially recognized fiestas have a 

 serious purpose (or I may say, are parts of funda- 

 mental orientations of the culture), such as the com- 

 memoration of a personage or event, religious or 

 patriotic, as the case may be. This aspect of the 

 fiesta pattern must not be overlooked or minimized, 

 l)Ut to the individual the performance of a fiesta 

 brings relief from daily strain and monotony and 

 a certain exaltation. Thus, the fiesta furnishes both 

 relaxation and recreation to the individual and the 

 group. 



MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS OF LORE AND LEARNING 



The symbolic patterns common in Moche are 

 mentioned at appropriate points throughout this re- 

 port, and in the following section merely a few 

 miscellaneous items are recorded. A good part of 

 what is ordinarily considered lore and learning will 

 be found in the sections on agriculture, fishing, and 

 medicine, as well as elsewhere. 



FORMAL EDUCATION 



Instruction is provided by two Government- 

 supported schools, one for boys and one for girls. 

 Each gives instruction through the sixth year. Each 

 school is manned by teachers, including a director, 

 all of whom are jorastcros. The staff of the boys' 

 school is male, and the staff of the girls' school is 

 female. The fact that there are only four teachers 

 for six grades in each school means that there is 

 a doubling up in the classes. I have made no thor- 

 ough investigation of the instruction, but the plan 

 of the boys' school, at least, is modern and, on the 

 whole, the equipment seems to be good. The director 

 of the boys' school recently established a school library 

 with a gift from the manager of one of the haciendas. 

 In addition to the public schools, there are two 

 "colcgios" in the pueblo. These are merely private 

 elementary schools, conducted in a private house by 

 the housewife, often while she spends part of her 

 time in her household tasks. Tuition in the private 



653348°— 47— 7 



schools is 2 soles per month, and some parents 

 prefer to send their children to these teachers because 

 they believe the children receive more individual at- 

 tention than in the public schools. A public rural 

 school exists in the small settlement, called Sun, in 

 the midst of the northern campina. It is coeduca- 

 tional and is manned by a male director (who at 

 the same time is a student at the University in Tru- 

 jillo) and two female teachers. This school oft'ers 

 instruction only up to the fifth year. 



On the whole, the people of Moche seem to be 

 anxious to have their children learn the basic skills 

 of literacy, and attendance in school is said to be 

 good. There is, therefore, reason to believe that the 

 coming generation of Mocheros will be completely 

 literate. In addition to the elementary instruction 

 offered in the community, intermediate and high 

 school instruction is available in both public and 

 private institutions in the nearby city of Trujillo, as 

 well as the public university offerings. 



PROVERBS AND EPIGRAMS 



The use of the proverbial saying and the epigram- 

 matic turn of phrase is much appreciated in Moche. 

 The following I heard frequently enough to remember 

 and to jot down, but I do not suggest that they indi- 

 cate the extent of the Moche repertoire nor that 

 many of them are native to Moche. On the con- 



