Callahuaya

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Callahuaya

ETHNONYMS: Callawaya, Kallawaya, Qollahuaya, Qollawaya

Orientation

Identification. The name "Callahuaya" derives from an Inca province of the same name. Bolivians refer to them as "Qollahuayas," meaning "place of the medicines," because the Callahuaya are renowned herbalists in Andean countries. They cure with plants, minerals, animal products, and ritual. Peasants refer to them as "Qolla kapachayuh" or "lords of the medicine bag." The Callahuaya have earned this title on account of their knowledge of over 1,000 plants used for curing.

Location. The Callahuaya live in Bautista Saavedra Province, La Paz Department, Bolivia. Charazani is the provincial capital. Bautista Saavedra is located north of the Cordillera Real (Oriental) in the foothills of the Apolobamba Mountains, also called Cordillera de Carabaya. Water from Lake Titicaca and glaciers of the Apolobamba Mountains feed Río Charazani and Río Calaya, which flow east to join the Mapiri and tributaries of the Amazon. The Charazani and Calaya rivers form a system of high and medium valleys, where the Callahuayas live at elevations of between 2,700 and 5,000 meters, above the rain forests of the Yungas area and below the regions of permafrost. The average temperature for Charazani is 12.2° C, and the annual fluctuation is 4.6° C. Precipitation is around 30 centimeters per year. The rainy season usually lasts from November until April, although it often begins earlier. It rarely rains between May and July.

Demography. Approximately 13,000 Callahuaya live in Bautista Saavedra (2,535 square kilometers), an area the size of the state of Delaware. Population density is 5.2 people per square kilometer. Although many Callahuaya have moved to cities, improved health and high birthrates have kept the rural population from decreasing very much. The Callahuaya have approximately 128 herbalists.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Callahuaya speak Quechua, Spanish, and some Aymara. Herbalists use a secret language for curing, machaj-juvai, the "language of colleagues." Although this language is rapidly disappearing, it had an estimated 12,000 words. The Callawaya speak it principally to exclude outsiders and for curing rituals. Machaj-juvai is a hybrid language formed from a lexicon mostly of Puquina words and a Quechua grammar. As Puquina disappeared in the seventeenth century, the Callawaya continued to use Puquina words with a Quechua grammar to talk about plants and medicinal paraphernalia.

History and Cultural Relations

The Callahuaya have been purveyors of medicines throughout the Tiahuanaco cultures (a.d. 400-1145), the Mollo culture (1145-1438), the Inca Empire (1438-1532), the Spanish Conquest (1532-1825), and the Bolivian Republic (1825-). As early as the Tiahuanaco period, the Callahuaya practiced trephination, reshaped craniums, and used enemas, psychotropic snuff, and medicinal plants from lowland regions. Throughout Mollo culture, the Callahuaya built elaborate cisterns to bury prominent users of ritual and herbal powers. During the Inca Empire, they had the honor of being chair carriers for the Inca, traveled up and down the Andes, and learned the pharmacopoeias of many Andean groups. After the Spanish Conquest, the Callahuaya lost much of their land, were moved to villages, and covertly continued worshiping their ancestors and earth shrines while also learning about European medicinal plants.

After independence in 1825, the Republican period ushered in the rise of the mestizos in Charazani, who considered themselves a class apart from the peasants of the surrounding ayllus (the ecological, cultural, and social units of Callahuaya society). Some of these mestizos became herbalists and competed with peasant herbalists. To avoid their influence and competition, Callawaya from the communities of Curva and Chajaya traveled long distances throughout Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Herbalists from each ayllu had distinct trade routes that they protected by mutual agreement among the elders. Because of their widespread travel, they had become well known by the beginning of the twentieth century but lost their importance thirty years later with the increase of doctors and pharmacists in Bolivia. After the peasant revolution of 1953, the Callahuaya were publicly recognized by the president of Bolivia in 1956, and have since enjoyed a revival as a result of renewed interest in natural medicine and Andean traditions.

Settlements

Rivers and valleys constitute the natural boundaries for an ayllu. Tributaries flow into the Charazani and Calaya rivers and form triangulated land masses with various ecological features. The Callahuaya classify ayllu according to three major altitudinal levels: low, central, and high. The primary economic activity corresponding to each zone is growing maize (cereals), cultivating potatoes, and raising llamas. After the agrarian reform of 1954, the ayllu system diminished in importance, with attention given instead to separate communities and Bolivian political units such as cantons, provinces, and peasant syndicates. The Callahuaya now recognize nine ayllus: Amarete, Chajaya, Chari, Chullina, Curva, Inca, Calaya, Kaata, and Upinhuaya. The people live in small adobe houses (4 by 5 meters), one for cooking, another for sleeping, and one for storage. The houses form three sides of a courtyard, and a wall with a gate encloses the patio where the Callahuaya weave, raise chickens and guinea pigs, and socialize. Burros, pigs, and sheep are kept in open corrals behind sleeping quarters.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Callahuaya are horticulturists and herders. Within each ayllu, the people in the lower communities farm maize, wheat, barley, peas, and beans on the lower slopes (3,200 to 3,500 meters); those in mid to high communities cultivate oca (Oxalis crassicaulis ) and potatoes on rotated fields of the central slopes (3,500 to 4,300 meters); and those of highland communities herd alpacas, llamas, and sheep on the highlands (4,300 to 5,000 meters) of the ayllu. The people from the three levels traditionally exchanged produce and provided each other the necessary carbohydrates, minerals, and proteins for a balanced subsistence diet. Herbalists serve community members by bringing them medicines and produce from other places. Many herbalists now live in cities. Reliance on the exchange of goods between urban herbalists and rural peasants is important as insurance in a region of unpredictable weather and frequent crop failure.

Industrial Arts. Aboriginal crafts include carving soapstone amulets, weaving elaborate textiles with elegant motifs, and forging ornate jewelry. Certain villages specialize in these activities.

Trade. The Callahuaya traditionally traded crafts among themselves and other Andean groups. Various villages had assigned trade routes for their herbalists. Those from Curva traveled to Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, and Sucre in Bolivia, Arequipa, Peru, and northern Argentina. Herbalists from Chajaya and Kanlaya traveled through the Central Highlands of Peru to Lima and up the coast to Ecuador, at times reaching the Panama Canal. Ayllu Calaya harvested coca in the Yungas and marketed it in the densely populated areas of the Puna. This international trade has diminished because of difficulties involved in crossing borders, settlement in urban centers, and changing markets.

Division of Labor. Only 25 percent of the adult male population in Chajaya and Curva are herbalists. The others provide them with a support system: gathering herbs, repairing roads, providing food, and maintaining their animals, land, and households. Women take care of the farm and the animals while men are traveling on herbal trips, usually during the nonproductive part of the agricultural year. Children herd sheep and work in the fields soon after they begin to walk.

Land Tenure. Aboriginally, individuals had access to plots of land in large rotative fields with plot size determined by the needs of their respective families. Individuals owned house and garden plots. After the Bolivian agrarian reform, members of the community were granted title to land, which, being inherited, is subject to fractionalization. This has resulted in minifundismo (excessive fragmentation of plots) and absentee ownership. Some communities still hold land in common. The criteria of the agrarian reform for setting community boundaries have led to feuding between people living in the high, middle, and low levels of the ayllu.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Hamlets consist of minimal patrilineages, several of which form a maximal lineage. Baptism and marriage provide the Callahuaya with godparents, and these ritual ties unite families from different ecological zones and groups. The social relationships of natural kinship influence ritual kinship, and ritual kinship supports the ties of natural kinship.

Kinship Terminology. Quechua-speaking Callahuaya use classificatory kin terms. When they want to distinguish lineal relatives from collateral relatives, they add dueño (master of the home) to the kin term. "Oldest" and "youngest" are important kin-type qualifiers. The Callahuaya have adapted the ritual kinship (compadrazgo ) of Spanish-Catholic origin to their classificatory kinship system: baptism creates a set of relationships similar to those received at birth.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. The Callahuaya follow the Quechua system of bilateral descent in that both sons and daughters receive inheritance from fathers and mothers. Exogamy is observed in that men of a particular elevation of an ayllu choose spouses from that of a different elevation. The wife moves to the husband's level but maintains property on the level where she was born. It is likely that her daughter will marry someone from that level to claim the inheritance.

Domestic Unit. Households consist of extended families often including married sons, their wives, and children. Large families are desired but many children die because of acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, and malnutrition. Although the family is the basic unit of production, members of the ayllu exchange work tasks, a practice called ayni.

Socialization. Until they are weaned, Callahuaya children are carried on their mothers' backs. When they begin to walk and talk, their hair is cut in a ritual ceremony, and they begin wearing adult-style clothing, herding, and doing farm work. Education is informal, by imitation and practice. Aspiring herbalists accompany skilled herbalists to learn the trade. Children are required to attend primary and secondary schools, where they are taught Spanish and receive a Western education. This has resulted in less use of Aymara and Quechua, as well as in the migration of children to cities.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. Age and elders are afforded importance in social relations. Women are considered of lower rank than men; this is the result of male-oriented Aymara and Spanish influences upon Quechua patterns, which tend toward equality between genders. Ayllu is the basis of social organization; it is an elastic concept that traditionally included levels of land, kinship ties, community and economic ties, metaphor, ritual, and fiesta. Private property and capitalization erode this basis by drawing the Callahuaya into the national economy.

Political Organization. The Callahuaya traditionally selected leaders according to a system in which roles were more ritualistic, regulatory, and temporal, rather than hierarchical and authoritarian. Principal positions were alcalde (mayor), alcalde escolar (inspector of schools), preste (sponsor of fiesta), corregidor (sheriff), and juez (judge). After the agrarian reform, many communities instituted sindicatos (peasant unions), the secretarial positions of which replaced the traditional roles. Community sindicatos are the base of a pyramidal organization that has the Ministerio de Asuntos Campesinos (Ministry of Farmers' Affairs) as its apex. Sindicatos have overlapping, shifting fields of force from government officials to political parties and regional leaders and interests. Through sindicatos, peasants have acquired political influence in Bautista Saavedra from the mestizos and vecinos (villagers) of Charazani, who had held sway in this region for years.

Social Control. Social control is maintained by gossip, causing misfortunes to a person by ritual means, litigation, incarceration, and expulsion from the village. Godparents intervene on behalf of their children when there is neglect or abuse. Ritualists and diviners influence social control when they perform rituals and divine from coca leaves.

Conflict. The major conflict has been with mestizos, upper-class villagers of Charazani, and peasants of the ayllus. Traditionally these villagers held property throughout the ayllus, where peasants were required to work according to a hacienda system. After the agrarian reform peasants became citizens of Bolivia and received title to their land. Today some peasants have moved to cities, from which they control their property in Bautista Saavedra. This has caused problems of absentee ownership and lack of sufficient land for peasants to own and work.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. The Callahuaya have telluric, ecological, analogical, and stratified belief systems. Having largely avoided syncretism, they have times, places, and ritualists respectively for the household, community, ayllu, and national religious systems. Their religion is less concerned with abstract concepts and more involved with earth, nature, and time (seasons). Households have shrines where husbands and wives daily offer coca. Communities have earth shrines, ritually provided for by yachajakuna (diviners), and chapels, where mass is celebrated for fiestas. Ayllus also have earth shrines, ritually fed by yachajakuna and leaders from the high, middle, and lowland communities. The Callahuaya practice Catholicism only nominally but espouse its religious fiestas, saints, and ceremonies. The center of their religion is the ayllu where they have earth shrines on the levels. They symbolically feed these earth shrines foods representative of the levels: a llama fetus from the highlands, guinea-pig blood representative of the middle lands, and coca from the lowlands. In ritual, they symbolically interpret the ayllu according to a mountain-body metaphor. Their chief deity is Pachamama (Mother Earth), symbolically associated with the Virgin Mary or La Virgen de Copacabana. They also venerate the prominent and surrounding mountains of Aqhamani and Sunchuli. Ankari appears in many of their rituals and is associated with wind and fortune. Sajjra is a combination of devil and trickster, accountable for misfortunes. Every community has a male and a female saint. The crucifix is a symbol found throughout the region.

Religious Practitioners. Traditional Callahuaya religion has recourse to diviners, herbalists, spiritists, amulet makers, and sorcerers. Christian religions are represented by Franciscan friars, who have evangelized the region since early Conquest times; Callahuaya catechists, who provide Catholic paraliturgical services; and circuit ministers, who preach Protestantism. Protestantism is popular for economic and medical assistance, but creates conflict in communities because of its rejection of saints, fiestas, and drinking.

Ceremonies. Callahuaya herbalists conduct intricate ceremonies for healing. Diviners usually perform ceremonies at ritual tables (mesas ) to feed the earth shrines for good luck. Sorcerers perform rituals to dispel evil. Major ayllu rituals are the Chosen Field, Corn Planting, Potato Planting, All Colors (herding ritual), and fiestas of saints around harvesttime. Ayllu fiestas have decreased in size and scope because of Protestant proselytizing; agrarian reform, which has divided the communities of the ayllu; and formal education, which has emphasized national identity.

Arts. The Callahuaya excel in intricate weavings with pictographs. They are also noted silver and gold artisans, and many have moved to La Paz where they operate jewelry stalls alongside the church of San Francisco.

Medicine. Curers of the nineteenth century reportedly knew as many as 300 plants, minerals, insects, animal products, and amulets. Modern herbalists use about 100. Children pursue other professions because they do not want to invest as many as eight years to learn to be curers. The basis of Callahuaya medicine is a corporal concept, through which the body is explained metaphorically according to the ayllu. The body is a vertically layered axis with a system of ducts through which air, blood, fat, and water flow to and from the sonco (heart). Blood and fat, principles of life and energy, come together at the heart and flow to the parts of the body in a hydraulic cycle of centripetal and centrifugal motion. These originally Andean concepts have supposedly assimilated notions of the Greek European humoral theory of hot-cold and wet-dry. With formal education, younger herbalists have adapted Western medicine to their herbal theory and practices.

Death and Afterlife. Traditional Callahuaya believed that after death they would travel the subterranean waterways of their ayllu up to the highland lakes. Here they would be reborn in its reflections and begin another journey down the ayllu levels. Callahuaya who live far away want to be buried in cemeteries of the Callahuaya ayllus. Ancestors and chullpas (grave sites) are integral parts of rituals and ayllus.