42 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



On their yearly excursions they traveled in a band numbering 

 from 200 to 300, since at the mouth of the Paucartambo (Yavero) 

 they were generally set upon by the Pucapacures. The journey 

 upstream required three months; with the current they returned 

 home in fifteen days. 



Their place of meeting at the mouth of the Yanatili was a 

 response to a long strip of grassland that extends down the deep 

 and dry Urubamba Valley, as shown in Figs. 53-B and 55. The 

 wet forests, in which the Machigangas live, cover the hills back 

 of the valley plantations; the belt of dry grassland terminates 

 far within the general limits of the red man's domain and only 

 2,000 feet above the sea. It is in this strip of low grassland that 

 on the one hand the highland and valley dwellers, and on the other 

 the Indians of the hot forested valleys and the adjacent lowland 

 found a convenient place for barter. The same physiographic 

 features are repeated in adjacent valleys of large size that drain 

 the eastern aspect of the Peruvian Andes, and in each case they 

 have given rise to the periodic excursions of the trader. 



These annual journeys are no longer made. The planters have 

 crept down valley. The two best playas below Eosalina are now 

 being cleared. Only a little space remains between the lowest val- 

 ley plantations and the highest rubber stations. Furthermore, the 

 Indians have been enslaved by the rubber men from the Ucayali. 

 The Machigangas, many of whom are runaway peons, will no 

 longer take cargoes down valley for fear of recapture. They have 

 the cautious spirit of fugitives except in their remote valleys. 

 There they are secure and now and then reassert their old spirit 

 when a lawless trader tries to browbeat them into an unprofitable 

 trade. Also, they are yielding to the alluring call of the planter. 

 At Santo Anato they are clearing a playa in exchange for am- 

 munition, machetes, brandy, and baubles. They no longer make 

 annual excursions to get these things. They have only to call at 

 the nearest plantation. There is always a wolf before the door of 

 the planter — the lack of labor. Yet, as on every frontier, he turns 

 wolf himself when the lambs come, and without shame takes a 

 week's work for a penny mirror, or, worse still, supplies them 



