36 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 14 



figures, reduced to total populations, and Indian 

 percentages of the whole populations, in terms of 

 the provincial divisions of 1876. The figures of 

 table 8 are recombined as necessary for compari- 

 son with earlier or later periods, in the other 

 tables and maps of this report. 



THE CENSUS OF 1940 



A detailed critique of the misleading "racial" 

 concept according to which the census of 1940 was 

 completed, has been published by John Rowe 

 (1947, pp. 202-215). It is a critique that seeks 

 to establish a more rigorous cultural definition of 

 the Indian than the one used in the census. The 

 truth remains, however, that recent Peruvian 

 administrative policy follows the figures on 

 Indians as published in the volumes of the census. 

 The political reality of Indian problems today 

 rests upon these figures. For our purposes they 

 are valuable in their published form and without 

 Rowe's corrections, for the simple reason that they 



describe caste status in Peru, as recorded by 

 thousands of census takers, and as admitted by 

 the subjects to whom the question concerning 

 "race" was addressed. In this sense, the head 

 count of 1940 is exactly comparable to the census 

 of 1876, with its identical confusion between 

 "race" and caste. Both enumerations tabulate 

 and quantify a general social attitude toward 

 caste, under the misleading name of "race." 

 The figures themselves are fully published in the 

 census report of 1940 (Peru: Censo Nacional, 

 1944-49). The percentages of Indian population 

 are published by province in Rowe's article (his 

 table 1), which we therefore do not reproduce 

 here. 36 The census does not publish separately 

 the figures for whites and mestizos, which appear 

 together under the common heading as "raza 

 blanca y mestiza." 



»• On Rowe's map, 1947, fig. 1, Yauli and Pasco; Huari and Huaylas Pro- 

 vinces are Interchanged, as in the erroneous Censo Nacional maps of 1940. 



THE COMPOSITION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE PERUVIAN 



PEOPLE, 1795-1940 



In Peru the quantitative relationships between 

 Indian and non-Indian groups have long been 

 governed by the processes of caste formation and 

 caste recruitment. "Racial" criteria intervene 

 only by verbal confusion, when the biological 

 terms of everyday usage, such as "Indian" and 

 "mestizo," are made to perform double duty as 

 terms denoting caste status. Throughout the 

 past century and a half in Peru, people have 

 said "Indian" when they meant "rural prole- 

 tariat." They said "mestizo" when they meant 

 the small farmer, the artisan, the industrial 

 laborer, or the member of other low-income 

 groups not attached to the land. 36 



An excellent text to illustrate these verbal 

 confusions may be taken from the last years of 

 the Colonial regime in Peru. Dated 1819, it 

 appears in a manuscript 37 that survived the fire 

 of the National Library in Lima in 1943. The 

 manuscript contains, among other materials bear- 

 ing upon the tributo de indios, three pages written 

 by one Dionisio Farfan, who was the tax collector 

 of the province of Chachapoyas in 1819. The 

 text of this informe apparently was composed to 



" On whites, see p. 5, footnote 12. 



"MS. in BNL, uncataloged. "Instruccion de Matriculas de Indios por 

 [Julian] Orodea (de la Cuesta]. Oral 605. 1820." 27 fos. 



accompany the matricula de indigenes compiled 

 by Farfan. It was received at the Contaduria 

 General in Lima on September 15, 1819. 



After noting that he had registered more 

 Indian tributaries than his predecessors, Farfan 

 commented upon the difficulties of distinguishing 

 between Indians and mestizos. The passage 

 clearly indicates his perplexity in trying to 

 adhere to any "biological" concept of race. 



Y este aumento habria sido mas considerable si hubiera 

 podido numerar muchos individuos que pasan por 

 Mestigos y se [re]nunciaron por de clase Indica, pero 

 aunque realmente son Cholos, segun sus aspectos, era 

 tal el exfuerso con que defendieron su libertad, para sub- 

 straerse del Empadronamiento, negando u obscureciendo 

 con el propio fin su verdadera calidad, q no hubo arbitrio 

 de comprehenderlos. 



(This increase would have been greater if I had been 

 able to count many persons who pass as mestizos, having 

 renounced their Indian status. Although these are really 

 Cholos, according to appearances, they defended their 

 freedom with such effort, to escape being registered, by 

 denying or concealing the ir true quality for this purpose 

 that there was no way of including them.) 



Farfan here introduces the concept of the Cholo, 

 whom he apparently regards as intermediate be- 

 tween the Indian and the mestizo. The next 



