Amarete is a Quechua community situated on the Eastern
slope of the Central Andes of Bolivia. The Central Andes is
a region where varied natural environments align along steep
mountain slopes. This article deals with the native exploitation
of this environments, focusing mainly on land use.
In Amarete arable lands are divided according to the altitude
into two parts. There are the . upper and the lower, as in the
other Andean communities. In the ideal of the Amaretean
waqe) are attached. This division of land is a device for reducing
crop damage by the bad weather and for preventing the total
loss of the agricultural production of a family or the whole
community.
Historically the traditional forms of land use, for example,
the rotation system of kapanas, land tenure and land inheritance,
seem to have changed. This could have been caused by the
invasion of the outsiders and the Bolivian Agrarian Reform
commenced in 1952. The loan of lands exists between Amarete
and its annex villages where the arable fields are scarce, as well as
between Amarete and other villages of the Charazani valley
where manpower is lacking.
people, the former is used for producing potatoes, and the latter
for maize. But besides these two crops a large quantity of tuber
crops, like oca and isano, wheat and barley, beans and peas, are
also cultivated.
Ther otation of crops is done both in the upper and lower
parts, and the same crop is not cultivated for two in succession
years. In the upper part of the cultivated field the rotation cycle
is seven years, and selection of the crop to be sown and sowing in
one rotation unit are controlled by the entire community. In
the lower part, crop rotation is also practiced but this is not
subject to communal control.
Two or more separate tracts of land are combined as a set.
A rotation unit (kapana) is composed of one large tract of land
and smaller annex pieces. In land tenure to each unit of arable
land (sayalia) some smaller and poorer quality lands" (chiki or
waqe) are attached. This division of land is a device for reducing
crop damage by the bad weather and for preventing the total
loss of the agricultural production of a family or the whole
community.
Historically the traditional forms of land use, for example,
the rotation system of kapanas, land tenure and land inheritance,
seem to have changed. This could have been caused by the
invasion of the outsiders and the Bolivian Agrarian Reform
commenced in 1952. The loan of lands exists between Amarete
and its annex villages where the arable fields are scarce, as well as
between Amarete and other villages of the Charazani valley
where manpower is lacking.
ボリビア北西部・アンデス東斜面のケチュア農村における環境利用 : アマレテ村の事例
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