Glynn Custred

Hunting technologies in Andean culture

In: Journal de la Socit des Amricanistes. Tome 66, 1979. pp. 7-19.

Citer ce document / Cite this document : Custred Glynn. Hunting technologies in Andean culture. In: Journal de la Socit des Amricanistes. Tome 66, 1979. pp. 7-19. doi : 10.3406/jsa.1979.2168 http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jsa_0037-9174_1979_num_66_1_2168

HUNTING

TECHNOLOGIES

IN

ANDEAN

CULTURE

by Glynn CUSTRED

Hunting as a subsistence strategy, particularly the hunting of deer and camelids, was of prime importance in the development of early Andean cul ture ; first because hunting formed one of the principal means by which man took possession of and adapted to the ecologically vertical environment of the Andes, and secondly because it established a close relationship with camelids which eventually led to the domestication of llamas and alpacas. This paper will attempt to outline Andean hunting practices and their changing roles in Andean culture through time. For present purposes it is convenient to set up three hypothetical and very broad sequential stages of hunting in the Andes as defined by its relative social and economic significance. The first stage is that in which hunting, along with gathering and fishing, formed a central subsistence activity of small, probably nomadic societies. The second is a long and regionally diversified transitional phase when populations were shifting from economies based primarily on hunting and gathering to economies based on agriculture and herding. And the third stage is one in which hunting and gathering formed minor activities practiced only by small segments of large, socially stratified populations with well organized political and economic institutions. The Hunting, Gathering and Fishing stage It appears that a way of life clearly based on hunting was in evidence in the Central Andes around 9,000 B.C. as witnessed by the number of project ile points found at archaeological sites from that time onward. The climate of the Andes during that period was different than it is today, and the animal species which inhabited the region were more varied than at the present time. Besides the deer and camelids which still survive, giant sloth, mastodon and native horses were abundant. Hunters pursued these animals with a tool kit including projectile weapons, knives, scrapers, bone awls and flaking tools, all indicating a way of life in which the hunting of herd animals played an important role. It appears that this tradition spread rapidly throughout the Andes and southern South America.

SOCIT DES AMRICANISTES

It is possible that this tradition and the projectile point technologies which characterize it originated in South America. An alternative hypothesis, however, is that it was brought into the southern continent by populations migrating from North America (Willey 1966 : 43-50). No matter which of these possibilities was indeed the case, there is little doubt that advances in hunting technology made it possible for early migrants to " explore new eco logical niches ", as Willey puts it, and in this way to establish themselves firmly in the Andes of the early post-Pleistocene era. As the climate changed to something near its present form, and as the numb er game animals was reduced to those represented by modern fauna, Andean of hunters and gatherers gradually adapted to the environments of different Andean regions. The game hunted during this period, as revealed at Lauricocha II and at sites elsewhere in the Central Andes, were deer and wild camelids. Small game, such as vizcacha and birds, was probably also taken. Also a host of wild seeds and plants were gathered. The weapons used by these early hunters were probably the spear and the spear thrower. Bows and arrows, says Thomas Lynch, may have also been used at this time, despite contentions that this weapon was a relatively late introduction into South America. Bifaced knives, awls and small thumb scrapers for dressing hides were also parts of the hunter's tool kit. There is also some indication that the bolas might have been used. Caves and rock shelters provided housing for the hunters, and it is possible that simple reed huts may have also been built. Shallow pits with reed or stone wind breaks may have also been constructed for shelter (Lynch 1967 : 55-56). Fire, says Lynch, was probably made by striking flint rather than with the drill or hearth. Perhaps the most important aspect of this period was the systematic use, by individual hunting groups, of the varied Andean environments. There were two dimensions to this variability. One was the complementarity of coastal and highland patterns of moisture. The other was the vertical arran gement of life zones within the highlands as determined by ascending alt itude. The Andean climate during this period was moister and cooler than it is today, thus what is now a desert coastal region was at that time a savannah landscape which blossomed into lush meadows each year with the onset of the ocean fogs. These are the so-called " lomas ". During the rainy season in the highlands the coast remained dry. And during the dry season in the sierra the " lomas " bloomed. Camelids and deer migrated between the zones on a seasonal basis, and the human population took full advantage of this sea sonal pattern of movement in their subsistence activities. In some coastal areas hunting alternated with littoral gathering in accordance with the growth of the " lomas " and the presence of game on the coast. Another pattern was seasonal transhumance in which the hunters followed the game up and down the vertical series of life zones of the mountain environment. The latter is seen in a number of local variations (Lynch 1967). According to Lynch the social organization of the pre-ceramic Andes was directly affected by this pattern of transhumance and the diversity of life

HUNTING TECHNOLOGIES IN ANDEAN CULTURE

zones it included. Hunting and gathering groups came together and dispersed seasonally. Among the Andean hunters and gatherers there appear to have been two variations on this theme with further variations from place to place and over time. One strategy was to station groups at camps in a single el evation zone with hunting expeditions going into the punas and paramos on a seasonal basis. Possibly only the able-bodied men went on these hunting trips leaving the rest of the group in camps at lower altitudes. Another pattern seems to have been the seasonal dispersal of small groups into the high el evation grasslands in search of game at one time of year, and coalescence of these groups at lower elevations when the vegetable resources of those zones could support larger populations. Different component technologies, there fore, were developed to exploit different vertical life zones on a seasonal basis (Lynch 1967 : 56-57). The systematic exploitation of contiguous vertical resource zones esta blished a number of local systems which differed from north to south and from east to west in accordance with regional environmental variations. The dis tribution of deer and camelids, and varieties of wild plant resources, were by no means uniform throughout these regions. There were, therefore, varying degrees of reliance on hunting in different locations and at different points in time. This means that various groups were consciously and unconsciously experimenting with their resource configurations, resulting in a number of innovations. This in turn led to interactions between different vertically based regions in the form of developing exchange networks (cf. McNeish et al for a discussion of this phenomenon). In sum, the hunting of early post-Pleistocene herd animals made it pos sible for man to extend his occupation of the Andes by means of the more efficient exploitation of animal resources. And as Andean conditions altered, the hunting of migrating deer and camelids played an important role in orienting man's subsistence activities vertically, and in thus tying together the highest and the lowest life zones of the mountain environment in systematic patterns of exploitation. This pattern of vertical resource exploitation and horizontal regional exchange has remained the basis of Andean interactions to the present day despite the changes in resources and technology brought about by the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and herding. The vertical environment during the pre-ceramic period was characterized by two grasslandscapes, one at the bottom of the vertical series (the coastal savannahs) and one at the top (the punas and paramos). Climatic changes eventually turned the coast into a desert broken only by river valley oases and greatly reduced localized " lomas ". The grasslands at the top of the Andes (although becoming progressively drier as one moves from central Peru through northern Bolivia) still remained grasslands and thus continued as the habitats for herd animals. In considering Andean hunting it is therefore useful to view the Andes not from the coast upwards, but rather from the high altitude grasslands downward. The highest habitable zone is characterized by high plateaus which run from north to south between the cordilleras. These plateaus are extensive in Bolivia and southern Peru, but become narrower in central Peru and finally

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give way to a more broken terrain in the northern Peruvian highlands. There is, therefore, a corridorlike effect at the top of the Andes for some 1,500 kil ometers of its north-south extension. Every vertical series of resource zones begins in the grasslands of these high altitude plateaus and descends in transverse valleys to the coast or to the jungle. On the coast the valleys terminate in what became, through time, more and more isolated oases in the desert. And on the inland slope they end in narrow gorges swallowed up by rugged terrain and dense rain forest. Each valley, therefore, is separated from the next by mountainous terrain in the middle elevations and is isolated from other valleys at its terminus. They all join at their highest points however in the long corridors of grass lands at the top of the Andes. It is no wonder, then, that even today every agricultural region entered on foot or horseback is entered from the puna. This is very important in understanding patterns of trade, and must have been a central factor in the geopolitics of pre-hispanic times. This pattern is also important in understanding the transition from hunting to herding throughout the Andes. The Transition to Herding The preconditions for domestication may have existed at different places, forming what would amount to different foci of potential herding communities. Such foci would be scattered from north to south at various points along the high altitude steppe landscape. Once domestication did take place at one or more of these foci, the innovation spread, probably with great rapidity, along the horizontal puna corridor which linked different vertically ordered regional economies, thus infusing a new element into these economies at the very top of their vertical series. Once established in the places most conducive to herding, the innovation then caught on in those high altitude regions (4,000 meters and above) where it might possibly never otherwise have occurred. The same thing, in fact, might be said of high altitude quinoa and tuber culti vation, and perhaps of other innovations as well. It is impossible to know for sure juste how llama and alpaca herding deve loped from camelid hunting. There are two possibilities, however, which are suggested by two basic hunting strategies found throughout the world. One of these involves the driving of herd animals into an enclosure of some kind where they are systematically slaughtered. The other consists of the stalking and the ambush of wild game. Both of these methods have been observed in the hunting of camelids in native South America. Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira and her associates have hypothesized that the ambush technique of hunting was the forerunner of Andean camelid herding. Their reasoning is based on the assumption that the ancestral species of modern llamas and alpacas exhibited a social pattern and a set of behavioral traits similar to those of contemporary guanacos and vicunas. Vicunas live in small family groups within defined territories. Each group is dominated by a single male which defends his harem and his territory from intruding males. These groups remain in the same place at all times of the year, year after year. Under proper geographic conditions, such as those prevailing on the Puna of Junin

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11

(where the authors' archaeological data were taken), and with low human pressure on the wild herds, such numerically and spatially stable camelid popul ations would offer a highly predictable game supply to Andean hunters. Hunti ng techniques developing from this, goes the theory, would be that of the ambush type rather than that of the surround type since the latter would destroy the stability of camelid territories. This specialized form of camelid hunting, and the hunters' primary depen dence on it for subsistence, led to a sedentary human population. As long as a balance was maintained between the camelid and the human populations, say Pires-Ferreira et al, the system tended to remain the same. However once over-hunting and the presence of dogs had disrupted territorial stabil ity, thereby dispersing the camelid herds, the emphasis began to shift away from ambush hunting to strategies of increased control over the game terri tory in order to halt the dispersal, and thus to maintain the necessary mananimal balance. As this process progressed the camelids slowly began to change in the direction of semi-domesticates through the decreased exchange of genes with wild herds. Eventually the relationship between these semidomesticated herds and the human population took on the configuration described by Leeds for the Chuckchee of Siberia and their semi-domesticated reindeer herds. Ultimately, however, human control of camelid territory expanded to the human control of camelid breeding, thus giving rise to true domesticates and a true herding technology. It is, however, only an assumption, not a proven fact that all camelid varie tiesduring the pre-ceramic period exhibited the same social patterns and the same set of behavioral traits as those of contemporary vicunas. Since it is not possible to identify camelid species on the basis of fragmentary osteological evidence alone, it is impossible for us to say whether the camelid popul ations of that period indeed constituted a uniform ancestral species of all existant camelids, or whether speciation had begun before man took up a hunting way of life, and had thus already reached a point where ancestral llamas and alpacas were differentiated in their behavior and in their patterns of territoriality from those of modern vicunas. Such variation within the pre-ceramic population would naturally have shown a different response to the environmental factor of hunting than that suggested by Pires-Ferreira et al. If this kind of differentiation had indeed taken place before hunting began then a good case can be made for the drive and surround technique as the way by which man began his path to camelid domestication and to herding as a way of life. This method of hunting has great antiquity in other parts of the world and has been attested in the Andes from the sixteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth century. Cobo for example briefly describes a hunting tech nique observed by the Spaniards in the fifteen hundreds which was called in Quechua cayeu. This term literally means " to enclose animals, or to place them in corrals ". The caycu involved the construction of enclosures bet ween hills and gorges in such a way as to catch deer and camelids as they ran through (Cobo 1956 : bk 14, ch. 16). In this respect George Miller (personal communication) reports finding an interesting crude stone construction of

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SOCIT DES AMRICANISTES

unknown antiquity lying at an elevation of some 4,600 meters above sea level in the punas above Mazocruz in the department of Puno, southern Peru. This structure consists of two stone fences approximately 1.8 meters high and some 100 meters long built in the shape of a closed funnel with an opening of about 20 meters in width. The topography of the area is such that animals being driven over the hill would enter the opening and be trapped in the progres sively converging walls where they could be easily captured or killed. According to local tradition this arrangement was formerly used for vicuna hunting in the way Cobo describes for the sixteenth century caycu. It is extremely easy to contain camelids with the flimsiest of barriers. In fact, the favored technique used in historical times was not in the form of fixed stone fences, but rather simple ropes strung around an area and hung with streamers of cloth which would blow in the wind, thus discouraging the animals from even approaching the barrier once inside the restricted area. Given the topography of the high altitude grasslands it is easy to imagine how relatively large numbers of camelids could have been isolated from the general population by the closing off, with the crudest materials, of relatively large areas. And if proto llamas-alpacas exhibited a different propensity to domestication than did the ancestors of modern vicunas and guanacos, then it is easy to see how a relatively facile transition might have been made from surround hunting to the control of camelid territory, and eventually to the control of camelid breeding. The period of transition from hunting to herding, however, was also a period of transition from gathering to horticulture. In fact, it may even have been true that the domestication of animals suggested the domestication of high altitude plants or vice versa. At any rate, due to regional variability and interregional interaction, innovations were exchanged from place to place which ultimately added up to qualitative changes in Andean cultural patterns. We encounter during this period " mixed " economies where populations relied, in different degrees, on herding and hunting in the highest zones and horticulture and gathering further down. There was a steady decrease in the importance of hunting and gathering, until they were finally almost entirely supplanted in most places by agriculture, herding and trade. Hunting as a Marginal Activity Hunting, however, persisted in various forms playing subordinate roles within the broader cultural context as recently as the present century. There were three primary types of such marginal hunting in the Andes. They were coastal hunting, organized Inca drives and residual puna hunting. There was hunting on both the north and the south coast of Peru during the Moche and the Nazca periods. Ceramics from the latter period in southern Peru suggest in their iconography that the spear and the spear thrower and perhaps the bolas and the sling were the weapons used. The game, although not depicted on the vessels, was most likely guanaco since these animals are found along the southern Peruvian coast even today. The Nazca data, how-

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13

ever, are much too sparse to allow us to say more about southern coastal hunting at this time. The pottery from the northern Peruvian coast, however, presents us with a more complete graphic record. Gerdt Kutscher's interpretation of Moche iconography gives us a picture of deer hunting which, judging by the dress of the hunters, was reserved for the nobility. Weapons used were slings, light javelins and spear throwers (Kutscher 1967 : 118). It is entirely likely that such hunting was indeed reserved for the upper classes of the agriculturally bases stratified societies of the coast as Kutscher has suggested. Iconogra phie interpretation alone, however, is not sufficient to establish the existence of a pattern of purely sport hunting as posited by Kutscher. His hypothesis could, however, be tested by an examination of middens from either Chanchan or from the Viru project to ascertain first the differences between the res idence sites of the rich and the poor, and then the presence or absence of evi dence for the unequal distribution of hunting between the two. If such a differential distribution could be proven with data other than those from ic onography, then it would be clear that hunting on the north coast had shifted by Moche times from the role of a primary economic activity to that of a sport which may well have been the prerogative of the elite, perhaps even a symbol of status, much as was the case in Europe during the same period. The exploitation of wild animals was a marginal activity during the Inca period ; however, it contrasted sharply with the apparent sport hunting of Moche times. Judging from the sparse references in the chronicles there seems to have been two types of hunting practised during Inca hegemony. The most spectacular of these was the great drive referred to as the royal hunt, and in Cobo and Balthasar Ramirez as the chaco. The most notable references to this are found in the writing of Cieza de Leon (1553), Balthasar Ramirez (1597), Cobo (1653) and Garcilaso de la Vega. These descriptions, says John Rowe, are probably all based on reports of a single hunt held before 1536 by Manco Inca near the Valley of Jauja in Central Peru in honor of Francisco Pizzaro(Rowe 1946 : 217). The " chaco " involved large numbers of beaters (10,000 to 20,000 according to Cobo, 50,000 to 100,000 according to Cieza de Leon), and a wide expanse of territory. Cobo estimates ten to twenty leagues or more, and Balthasar Ramirez says that the area of the hunt depended on the number of beaters involved. The beaters made loud noises, thus forcing all wild life into an ever constricting circle. This enormous human circle contracted to the point, writes Balthasar Ramirez, that the beaters could almost join hands. Slaught erers then went among the animals and killed them with clubs. Vicunas, guanacos, deer and even predators were taken in this fashion (Cieza de Leon 1880 : ch. 16 ; Balthasar Ramirez 1597 : 18-19). Only a portion of the game animals rounded up in the drive were killed. These were males and older females. Reproducing females and the young were released. Cobo indicates that after shearing, vicunas were also released. All predators such as foxes and pumas were exterminated. Hunting of this type was strictly regulated. Balthasar Ramirez reports that the " chaco " was a very serious affair (muy solemne) performed only at the arrival of a

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viceroy or of other high personages, or at the behest of the priests or on other occasions ( otros respetos). The other chroniclers say the " chaco " was regulated by the state and that the penalty for poaching was death. These restrictions, along with selective slaughtering, resulted in the profusion of ani mals in the game lands. Their numbers in some regions, however, appear to have diminished drastically when Inca (and local state) controls disap peared after the conquest (Jimenez de la Espada 1965 : vol. 2, p. 307). The second type of hunting reported in the colonial sources appears to have been on a much smaller scale. Gobo, for example, mentions the use of traps, lassos and " flches y otas armas arrojadizas " (probably including such things as spears, bows and arrows, slings and bolas), as well as the caycu which has already been discussed (Cobo 1956 : bk. 14, ch. 16). These data, as scanty as they are, nonetheless suggest an interpretation of changes in hunting in the Andes. In the case of the " chaco " what we see is not hunting at all, but rather a planned management of a specific Andean resource more like mining or forestry than anything else, where meat and wool were taken on a regulated periodic basis, employing not hunting skills but rather the organized labor of large numbers of unskilled workers. Further more, this resource was exploited in such a way as to assure large numbers of game in future years. This pattern of conservation and harvesting therefore might not be too inappropriately labeled " Inca wilderness resource mana gement ". The term Inca as used here, however refers to a period of Andean culture history, and not necessarily to the pan-Andean state itself which prevailed during this time span. The picture we now have of the Andes under Inca state control, especially as depicted by John Murra (1975), is one of a mosaic of different state organizations which regulated the exchange of goods from the different vertical production zones within their jurisdictions. The Incas superimposed a higher level of political and economic organization upon these already elaborate local systems, thus tying what were to become constituent Andean states into a broad pan- Andean empire. Judging by Balthasar Ramir ez's description the " chaco " represented what was in fact a highly rational use of only one type of resource by local political and economic entities, a sys tematic use regulated by political, religious and other local social and cultural mechanisms. If this is the case, then what we see in relation to the Inca state is simply the incorporation of one component of local planned, rational uses of vertically ordered resource configurations into a broader economic system, not the total Inca control claimed by most of the Spanish chroniclers. The Incas, however, might well have expanded the " chaco " to other regions, as they apparently did with llama herding and with corn and coca cultivation (Murra 1975). This interpretation, in fact, is consonant with what we know of Inca controls in the areas of agriculture, herding and resource storage and distribution, and thus represents yet another example of the highly efficient exploitation of Andean resources in Inca Peru. In sum, we see in the Inca " chaco " the change of a traditional Andean activity (hunting), as was the case with so many other traditional Andean patterns of life, into a new sys tem which operated on a higher level of elaboration and which formed an inte-

HUNTING TECHNOLOGIES IN ANDEAN CULTURE

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grated component of Andean civilization at the zenith of its autonomous devel opment. In contrast to the " chaco ", the " caycu " (as described by Cobo) represents not the elaboration of Andean hunting, but rather its continuity from earlier times. Such residual puna hunting probably existed side by side with herding, and perhaps also with agriculture in the lower elevation zones, as it did until the early decades of the present century. If the " caycu " in fact did form one component of local Inca economies, as was the case with modern puna peasant economies, then it seems reasonable to assume that the Inca state merely incorporated it into the taxation system as was the normal practise with herding and agricultural forms of production. If this is the case, then what we see in residual puna hunting is a continuity extending backwards in time from the twentieth century, through the Inca period to perhaps remotest antiquity. Residual puna hunting existed in central and southern Peru in the nine teenth century, and in southern Peru until the 1920s. The fullest description we have of this activity is the one given by the Swiss naturalist and Peruvianist J. J. von Tschudi (1963). In the 1840s Tschudi accompanied a hunting party for five days in the Puna of Huanhuan in central Peru. These hunts began, he writes, in April or May when the horses were brought in from the winter pas tures. Each family from the region supplied at least one man for the enterprise. Widows accompanied the hunters as cooks. The hunting party Tschudi observed consisted of seventy to eighty or more Indians. The first step was to set up a corral in a flat area by placing poles in the ground twelve to fifteen steps apart. At about two or two and a half feet above the ground a colored cloth was strung to the poles, and to this were affixed colored streamers which blew in the wind. An opening of a few hundred feet was left in the fence as an entrance for the herds which were to be driven. The entire corral was comp leted in about half an hour. The men would then drive the vicunas sometimes for miles towards the corral. Once the proper number of animals had entered, the entrance would be closed. The fleeing vicunas would run well inside the corral, since the flying streamers attached to the fence would frighten them. The men would then kill them with their bolas. This weapon is described by Tschudi as three balls held together with a thong made of the achilles tendon of a vicuna. Two of the balls were heavy, the third light. The latter was held in the hunter's hand while the other two were swung around his head. When let fly, the bolas would either wrap themselves around the front legs or the neck of the animal bringing it down for the kill. The range of this weapon was, according to Tschudi, fifteen to twenty paces. After this the corral was dismantled and moved to another location where the entire process would be repeated. Each drive yielded from fifty to sixty vicunas, and often over one hundred animals would be taken. During the five days Tschudi accompanied the hunting party, one hundred and twenty two vicunas were bagged in this way. The meat was dried and distributed equally among the hunters. The hides were reserved for the church, either going directly to the priest, or being sold to finance church repairs.

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This practise must have been wide spread since Tschudi cites an 1827 decree issued by Simon Bolivar ordering that vicunas taken in this manner should not be killed, but rather sheared and then set free. Tschudi, a naturalist, saw no evidence during the time he spent in the sierra that such practises were diminishing the vicuna population, despite some contemporary reports to the contrary. If this is true, then the pattern of residual hunting as practised in the nineteenth century was one which balanced the take of the puna hunters with the size of the vicuna population, thus indicating a possible long term continuity of the practise. The only reference found in the literature to such hunting for the twentieth century is in Western LaBarre's monograph on the Peruvian Aymara. LaBarre says that such hunting was taking place in the Aymara region as late as 1927 (LaBarre 1948 : 77). Further to the north, in the Quechua-speaking depart mentof Cuzco and the northern provinces of the department of Arequipa, there is an extensive area of high puna which provides the ideal habitat for vicuna. A long time resident of that region, Sr. Jose Santos Vizcarra, told this author in 1975 of a hunt he had observed in the early 1920s near Cerro Yayculla in the remote punas of the province of Castilla, Arequipa. His report tallies with that of Tschudi's which was made some hundreds of kilometers to the north and well over a century before. The account given by Sr. Vizcarra of southern Peruvian hunting thus deserves to be written into the record as a useful piece of ethnographic information. Sr. Vizcarra recalls that a large area of the puna was fenced off for the hunt by stringing a rope on poles about a meter above the ground in an enormous circle. The poles, he estimates, were about three meters apart. Cloth strea mers of different colors were affixed to the rope, at about three centimeters apart. These streamers fluttered in the wind causing a flamelike effect. Their name, lliplli, in fact, is derived from the Quechua term llipiy meaning " to flame or to have a luster like that of a flame ". Dogs were used to chase the vicunas into the circle. Once inside, the animals ran well away from the fences since the flapping lliplli frightened them. The pursuing dogs caused them to bunch up and run in circles until they were exhausted. The men would then catch them with lassos and kill them, or would kill them with bolas. Other exits were left in the fence with traps set to snare the fleeing vicunas. These traps were in the form of netting. The animals' feet would become entangled thus allowing the hunters to close in for the kill. There was only one hunt a year. The hunters dried the meat and took the wool either for direct use or for trading or selling elsewhere. These hunters were primarily llama and alpaca herders who owned no agricultural land. Each year they sold wool and meat at a market place, and with the cash would purchase salt directly from a distant mine. With this salt, and with dried meat, live animals, wool and woolen products, they would travel down to the warm valleys to barter for corn, potatoes, wheat, barley and fruit (see Custred 1974). Hunting, therefore, provided only a secondary means of production which furnished the herder-trader either with raw products for trading, or supplied him with directly consumable items, thus allowing him to avoid cutting into his primary capital, namely his llama and alpaca herds. When

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hunting disappeared with the vicunas, the herding-trading pattern continued as it did in other puna regions where hunting was not practiced. Religious-magical rituals were performed before vicuna hunts as before any other subsistence activity, including interzonal trading. This consisted of the burning of an offering called variously alcanzo, werachurana, and werakanana (known elsewhere as despacho and pago). This offering included llama or alpaca fat, kernels of corn, leaves and seeds of coca, pieces of soapstone and incense. Libations were also poured, and a special vicuna song was sung. Wild animals, including the vicuna, were said to be the livestock (uywaq) of the hill spirits. The singing of songs for domesticated animals and the offering of alcanzos is still a feature of the annual offerings made to the hills on behalf of domest icated animals. The llama and alpaca offering is made in February, the time of the birth and mating of these animals. The llama-alpaca song, the paquwaynu, is sung at that time. Sheep have their special day and offering on St. John's Day, June 24th, at which time the sheep song is sung. Offerings are burned on the day of St. James in July for the horse, occasioning the singing of the horse song, and the cow song is sung when making offerings to the hills in behalf of cattle in the month of August. The vicuna song, sung in connec tion with offerings to the hills each year before the hunt, thus completes a ritual pattern centered on the principal resources of puna dwellers. The sexual division of labor seen in puna hunting and herding is reflected in this symbolic complex. Men hunt and trade, and when at home pasture the animals, while women stay home year round tending the herds. The herd animals, with the exception of the horse, are all symbolized by a mother image. Alpacas, therefore, are represented in song and ritual as paqumama, sheep as cKapimama and cattle as anumama. Furthermore, only women are permitted to sing the domesticated animal songs, and humans appearing in the texts of these songs are always female. The vicuna, on the other hand, is called taytay, " father ", and only men sing the vicuna song. It is also interesting to note that the melody of the cow song is typically Indian, while the melody of the vicuna song is European. One would expect the reverse to be true since the vicuna is a native Andean animal, while the cow is not. In fact the provenience of cattle is recognized within the cow song itself when the cow sings " hispaamanta lloqsimurqani, pobre peruanata uywasaq nispa " (" I have come from Spain saying 'I will nourish the poor Peruvian women' "). Traps, known as payche, are said to still be used by the herders of the punas of the province of Castilla. These traps are laid on game trails for deer and are co vered with grass to disguise them. When the animal is caught the hunters sweep down upon him for the kill. Traps, probably of the snare type and called toqlla, are still used in that province to catch vizcacha and kipio, an edible puna bird. One informant said that a few people in the herding anexo of Huaraco-Palca sell the meat of wild animals at the mines, thereby deriving even today part of their income from hunting and trapping. This paper has attempted to draw attention to the importance of hunting in man's adaptation to the Andean environment, and to indicate in general

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terms the role of hunting in, and its changing relationship to, Andean cultural development. In respect to the environment this paper has suggested that we think of the Andes as a series of integrated vertical zones which should be viewed not from the coast upwards, but rather from the highest altitude life zones downward. This perspective is not only useful in understanding the role of hunting in Andean culture history, but also in understanding all other forms of production and exchange activities as they relate to the Andean environ ment. What is needed, however, are not generalities but rather specific details on hunting as a food producing technology. Hunting is highly mutable and can develop into highly specialized activities. The question is what kinds of hunting strategies were developed in different Andean regions and how did these specializations facilitate environmental adaptations and cultural el aborations ? Those questions may be answered to some extent by closer atten tionto hunting as a technology when examining the archaeological data, and by interviews with herders in the remote Punas of southern Peru who might have participated or witnessed vicuna hunts which marked the end of a long history of group hunting in the Central Andes.

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Pires-Ferreira, Wheeler Jane, Pires-Ferreira Edgardo, and Kaulicke Peter, 1976. Preceramic Animal Utilization. Science, 194 : 483-490. Ramirez, Balthasar, 1597. Descripcin del Reyno del Peru del Sitio Temple. Provincias, Obispados y Ciudades de los Naturales de sus Lenguas y Traje... In Quellen zur Kulturgeschichte des Prkolumbischen Amerika. H. Trimborn, Ed. Frankfurt a. M. : Forschungsinstitut fur Kulturmorphologie. Rowe, John H., 1946. Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest. In Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. 2. Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution. Tschudi, J. J., 1963. Peru : Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1838-1842. Graz, Austria : Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt. Willey, Gordon, 1966. An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 2. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.