The article describes the customary exchange of agricopastoral
products currently in practice among the inhabitants of
different altitudes of the eastern slope of the Central Andes.
This descriptive report falls within the scope of the vertical control
theory, proposed by John V. Murra for the interpretation
of the historical record of Andean societies. The concept of the
vertical control is considered to be important and useful in understanding
Andean societies and cultures, because it refers not
merely to problems of the subsistence economy but also involves
a basic nature of the socio-political formation of traditional
Andean society in general.
As an analytical framework, however, there are still many
points that need to be theoretically clarified as well as factually
verified with regard to the notion of vertical control in itself.
Naturally, the mode of vertical or altitudinal control is by no
means free from regional variations and diachronic transformations,
on which the substantial data are still lacking. Detailed
descriptive studies of the actual mode of vertical control are,
therefore, urgently required. This article is mainly concerned
with that rather than with the theoretical sophistication of
Murra's arguments.
This description is based on data collected by the author
during fieldwork conducted in 1978-80 in the northwest of the
Department of La Paz, Bolivia. The main intensive research
took place in Titicachi, an upper-valley agricultural community
of Quechua-speakers, located in the south of Ayata, Province of
Muriecas. Extensive surveys were also done in adjacent areas.
The substantive data are provided in chapters 3-5. Chapter
3 gives a sketch of agricultural production and daily consumption
in Titicachi, a typical "maize village" in the upper-valley altitude
(approximately 2800 to 3500 m). Chapter 4 depicts the three
types of customary trade : (1) direct exchanges of goods in the
qhatu, or weekly fair, in Ayata and in Huanco; (2) seasonal trade
with distant areas, namely the Peruvian highland on the one
hand, and the pre-Andine foothills of Camata and Conzata on
the other; and (3) occasional barter with various groups of peddlers.
Chapter 5 examines the mode of barter, including the
rate of exchange, in terms of the vernacular concepts of the unit
of exchange.
The typical pattern of inter-altitudinal trade engaged in by
the upper-valley maize producers is as follows : Through trade
with highland villages they barter their crops for salt, chuno, or
freeze-dried potato, alpaca products, especially jerkey meat and
unspun wool, and such ritual objects as llama fat and fetuses,
as well as a variety of medicinal herbs. Through trade with the
lower valley and the subtropical lowlands, on the other hand,
they obtain various fruits, coca leaves, and seasonings, such as
the red pepper and the bixa fruit to prepare achote powder, in
exchange for their own maize crops or some of the goods they
obtained from the highland.
Such a traditional system can no longer be observed in its
pure form nowadays, due to the penetration of the urban-centered
distribution of goods that has an increasing influence on Andean
rural life. However, the barter system is not just dying out under
the pressure of the modern market economy, since the local people
seem to have managed to make the traditional manner of trueque
go hand-in-hand with the market economy. This has resulted,
at least in part, in a sort of symbiotic relationship between monetary
and non-monetary systems.
アンデス東斜面溪谷部，ケチュア農民の生業と交易活動
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