The population of the great cordillera of the Andes, which stretches 4,500 miles from Colombia to the southern tip of Chile, consists of some 15 million Indians and a handful of descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. The Indians work the land; the aristocracy owns it. Hunger-pinched, and with a life expectancy of 32 years, the Indians live in what amounts to medieval serfdom. Their circumstances show why agrarian reform is a popular cry throughout Latin America. Last week TIME Correspondent Harvey Rosenhouse visited a hacienda high in the Peruvian Andes. His report:
The hacienda is called Sullupucyo, which in Quechua, the language of the Incas who ruled the Andes for 300 years, means "place of the fountain." It sits in an 11,000-ft.-high intermont basin 300 miles southeast of Lima, and covers 15,000 acres. The owner is Abelardo Luna, 35, who descends from the Spanish conquerors; he lives in a mansion in Cuzco and visits his property two or three times a week. To produce livestock and truck crops, the hacienda is worked by 500 Indian peasants known as colonos.
Chicha & Coco. "We treat our colonos very well. They have no cause for complaint," says Luna's foreman. "If they want it," he says, "we even give them a daily ration of chicha and coca." Chicha is a crude corn whisky; coca is a mild narcotic leaf that deadens pain and kills hunger. Luna lets his peasants graze a limited number of livestock free (most hacendados charge one head for ten as a grazing fee). He also allots each family two acres of cropland on which to grow food—potatoes and corn, and in season turnips and cabbage.
Peasants see the whole thing differently. Clad in filthy woolen ponchos, they were a humble lot. They doffed their hats and greeted me as "Doctor." But one who could speak Spanish (most know only Quechua) asked with surprising bluntness, "Are you on the side of Doctor Luna or are you for us?" Told that I wished to report how they live, they broke into smiles, lined up like children before a benevolent elder, and gave me a bear hug one by one.
Unsalaried, Unlettered. For four days each week, the peasants must work for the hacienda; they are supposed to get one sol, or 4¢, per day for their labor; in practice, they say, they get nothing. In addition, they and their wives must do servant duty in the big house for a week at a time, also without pay. If a sheep strays, or is killed by a fox, the peasant must prove that the loss is "an act of God"; otherwise it is required that he must replace the animal from his own herd or pay in cash.
Three days each week, Sullupucyo's peasants are permitted to work for themselves. Although Luna denies it, the peasants charge that their market is controlled by the hacienda, which buys their surplus produce at considerably less than market price. Failure to sell, as failure to accept any other hacienda rule, they say, means immediate eviction.