Peru COMMUNITY LIFE AND INSTITUTIONS
Figure 7 Principal Ethnolinguistic Divisions, 1991
Source: Based on information from Aníbal Cueva García (ed.),
Gran atlas geográfico del Perú y el mundo, Lima, 1991,
557.
Indian girls at a community fiesta on Lake Titicaca's
Taquili Island
Courtesy Elayne Zorn, Inter- American Foundation
Indian woman, with daughter, filling a cántara
in Platería, a village near Puno
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Baptism of a child in a Lima church
Courtesy Paul L. Doughty
A colonial church in Ayacucho
Courtesy Embassy of Peru
The importance of developing and maintaining effective
intracommunity relationships underlies many of the kinship
traditions that are universal in Andean and Peruvian
family life
in small towns. Throughout the Andes, there has been a
constant
need for peasants to retain strong interpersonal and
family bonds
for significant socioeconomic reasons. For centuries the
peasantry suffered the constant loss of land until the
Agrarian
Reform Law of 1969 reversed the pattern. The stronger a
community
is tied together, the greater has been its ability to
defend its
interests against usurpers, a fact often shown in
ethnographic
studies throughout the region.
By practice and reputation, Andean villages and towns
often
enjoy reputations for cohesiveness, community action, and
the
good, simple life. The tight social relationships in
Peru's towns
and villages, peasant communities, and small cities,
however, are
not necessarily based on "rural" or agricultural needs and
a
positive community spirit. Even in small populations where
everyone knows everyone else, or knows about them, there
can be
marked ethnic and social class differences and rivalries
that
afford many opportunities for disagreement and feuds.
Although
people share their culture, values, and participation in a
community, family interests often clash over property
ownership
and chacra boundaries, local politics, and any of
the
myriad reasons why people might not like each other. Thus,
small
town life can be difficult when conflicts erupt: "pueblo
chico,
infierno grande" ("small town, big hell") is the
expression used.
There are, therefore, two contradicting images of small
town
life: one bucolic, tranquil, and good natured; the other,
petty
and conflictive. Both images are rooted in fact.
Data as of September 1992
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