Saraguro

ETHNONYMS: Indígenas, Runas

Orientation

Identification. The name "Saraguro" is Quichua for "Land of Corn," reflecting both its traditional role as a food-exporting region of the Inca Empire and the present close bond between the land, the people, and their agriculturai livelihood. The Saraguro Indians generally call themselves "Saraguro," indígenas, or occasionally runas (people). Local non-Indian townspeople (blancos ) often use the pejoratives indio and chinita when referring to the indigenous population.

Location. The Saraguro Indians occupy the Andean intermontane valleys surrounding Saraguro town (3.7° S, 79.3° W, elevation 640 to 910 meters), Loja Province, Ecuador. Originally covered mostly by tropical mountain forest, Saraguro territory is now dominated by croplands, managed pasture, woodlots, houses, and Saraguro town itself. To escape the intense competition for land, some Saraguro have recently settled in the moist tropical forest of the Yacuambi Valley on the eastern slopes of the Andes, in territory traditionally belonging to other indigenous groups.

Demography. Although available census data are unreliable, the approximate indigenous population of the canton of Saraguro is 10,000, with an additional 6,000 Saraguro spread throughout the other southern provinces of Ecuador. Complaints of intensifying land pressure suggest that the Saraguro population is growing rapidly.

Linguistic Affiliation. Most Saraguro are bilingual in Spanish and Quichua, a distinctive southern Ecuadoran highlands dialect of the Quechuan language. Among Saraguro and non-Indians, local Spanish pronunciation and inflection retain both Quichua and colonial Castillian features. Although assimilation pressures have threatened the extinction of the Quichua language, a national campaign for Quichua literacy and radio programs in Quichua have revitalized the native tongue.

History and Cultural Relations

Despite the fact that the human occupation of the Saraguro region dates from as early as 10,000 years ago, the Saraguro did not exist as a distinct settlement or society until the region was incorporated into the Inca Empire during the second half of the fifteenth century a.d. During the period of Incan domination, Saraguro town was founded as a way station (tambo ) along the road between Cuenca and Loja. The ancestors of the present Saraguro population are thought to have been forced migrants (mitimaes ) from Bolivia who married into local Canari or Palta families. Although European colonial rule began as early as the 1530s, Saraguro town remained largely under Indian ownership and control until 1900. During colonial and republican rule, as in Incan times, Saraguro's primary function was as a way station; consequently, the Saraguro Indians escaped the enslavement and loss of lands associated with the imposition of haciendas and encomiendas elsewhere in Ecuador. Since the construction of the Pan-American Highway in the 1940s, the Saraguro town center has come to be owned and politically dominated by non-Indians. Today most Indians live in dispersed neighborhoods or barrios surrounding the town center, but the Saraguro maintain claims to the site of the old tambo and several small plots of town land.

Since its founding 500 years ago, Saraguro has never existed as a fully autonomous, pristine society. Daily contacts with a dominant, organized state have forged a resilient Saraguro personality, emphasizing individualism and the ready exploitation of new economic opportunities combined with a strong sense of ethnic identity and family autonomy. Although interactions between the Saraguro and non-Indian townspeople are frequent and polite, a fundamental distrust pervades most interethnic relations.

Settlements

Since Incan times the dominant features of the local human landscape have been Saraguro town itself and its surrounding barrios. Even though the indigenous population has largely lost its holdings in the town, the center remains an important economic and religious hub, and most of the surrounding countryside is still under Indian ownership. In the mid-1980s Saraguro town had electricity and piped water, two Catholic churches, a large Sunday market, a livestock market, shops, pharmacies, several schools, a government hospital, local administrative offices, rural police, a post office, a telegraph office, and a bank. The population of the town center consists of about 5,000 blancos (people of pure Spanish or mestizo descent) and a few Indians employed as domestics or schoolteachers. Most Saraguro live and work in the dispersed barrios surrounding the town. Saraguro houses are usually single-story structures with three rooms; they are built of adobe bricks and have tile roofs. Land pressure in the barrios closest to town has prompted some families to build larger, two-story houses. Each house has a covered patio, a yard, and a small kitchen garden producing fruits, vegetables, and medicinal and culinary herbs. Individual houses are separated by smallholder agricultural plots averaging about one-quarter hectare each. Rising above the town of Saraguro is Mount Puglia, the "spiritual center" of the Saraguro universe.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Saraguro's basic agro-pastoral adaptation is shared by most rural indigenous and mestizo communities in highland Ecuador. Maize, potatoes, wheat, barley, and beans are tilled by bullock-pulled plows. Important capital improvements include field drainage and stone-and-agave field borders. Terracing and irrigation systems used in precolonial times are not maintained today. Harvests are dried and stored for household consumption and are rarely sold. Cattle are kept in private and communal pastures on plateaus overlooking the barrios. Milk, fresh cheese, and cattle are the primary sources of cash, which is used to purchase tools and consumer goods and to finance economic ventures and religious cargoes (see Religious Practitioners). Households also raise sheep for wool and guinea pigs, swine, rabbits, and chickens for meat.

Industrial Arts. The Saraguro spin and weave wool, sew, do bead work, embroider blouses, and make household furnishings, musical instruments, tools, and utensils. Most craft items are used in the household, but a small fraction are sold to Indians, blancos, and the occasional tourist.

Trade. Cattle and cattle products are the major means of obtaining cash storing and wealth. Some households also sell eggs, swine, and wool. A few households engage in commercial crafts production, and one barrio has established a weaving cooperative. Some men work as day laborers in house construction, and a few Saraguro are employed in health care, teaching, and other professions.

Division of Labor. Men engage in heavy agricultural labor, weave, and do most of the large-scale commercial work. Women perform lighter agricultural tasks and manage most domestic activities and interhousehold trade. Both men and women tend livestock and prepare crops for storage. Older children spend considerable time assisting parents in child care and in crafts, preparation of food, and production for cash.

Land Tenure. Most cropland and pasture are owned by individuals. Holdings are often dispersed throughout the barrio. Some pasture is held communally by each barrio. Cropland and pasture are freely rented, bought, and sold to other Indians. Although ownership of barrio land by non-Indians is officially illegal, some Saraguro have lost land to townspeople for nonpayment of loans.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Clans and lineages are not recognized in Saraguro society. Although there is a preference for barrio endogamy, barrio solidarity is based largely on proximity and common cause rather than common descent. Descent is reckoned bilaterally and egocentrically, with some "patrilineal contamination," wherein patronyms take precedence in official documents.

Kinship Terminology. The Saraguro use both Spanish and Quichua terms to distinguish affinal and consanguineal kin within an Eskimo system of reference.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Both men and women may marry at age 17. First-cousin marriage, especially among cross cousins, is permissible and sometimes viewed as advantageous. Parents express a clear preference for barrio endogamy, although barrio exogamy is tolerated. Despite the mild disapproval of premarital sexual activity, many Saraguro women are pregnant at the time of marriage and some bear several children before marrying. Courtship is usually conducted in secret, although interactions between cousins tend to be less formal. Patrilocal residence predominated in traditional times, but residence has become highly flexible and most contemporary couples express a preference for neolocality. The Saraguro are monogamous. Although divorce and abandonment draw criticism, they are not uncommon.

Domestic Unit. Small extended (three-generation) families are the predominant residential and economic unit, although wealthier families with large holdings often reside in separate nuclear-family houses.

Inheritance. Property is commonly left to offspring who remained in the natal household to care for their parents. Sons and daughters inherit equally, and parents who can afford to do so purchase land for married offspring. Daughters inherit silver jewelry and other heirlooms from mothers and grandmothers.

Socialization. Offspring are raised in a relatively permissive atmosphere. Acculturation is informal and based on observation, imitation, and correction. Corporal punishment and physical force are rarely employed. By age 5 children begin to assist their parents in gender-appropriate tasks. Since the 1970s Saraguro children have been required to attend primary and secondary school, and a growing number pursue university education in larger Ecuadoran cities.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. Unlike many other indigenous subcultures embedded in a class-structured national society, the Saraguro are neither at the bottom of the hierarchy nor themselves divided into distinct classes. Nevertheless, strong status differences exist within Saraguro society, conferred by age, wealth, and community religious and political involvement. Wealthier Saraguro hire both Indian and non-Indian laborers, and it is not uncommon for poor townspeople to beg from wealthy Indians. Whereas Saraguro men tend to wield greater public power, women have significant control over household decisions and resources. Both men and women can acquire social power through religious and political activities. Rejection of traditional dress and hairstyles and marriage to a non-Indian incur loss of status and Saraguro identity.

Political Organization. The Saraguro maintain a strong ethic of household autonomy. Consequently, barrio political and economic groups tend to be highly fractious and unstable. Such groups have nevertheless been instrumental in rural development. Traditional cooperative work groups (mingas ) are involved in public construction and maintenance projects.

Social Control. Although local police and priests attempt to enforce legal and moral standards, gossip networks remain the most powerful mechanism ensuring social restraint.

Conflict. The Saraguro have clashed violently with non-Indians since the Conquest. Today both the Saraguro and town residents publicly declare relations to be peaceful and amicable; however, both indigenous and blanco residents privately voice continuing mutual distrust and resentment. The traditional enemies of the Saraguro are the Jivaro (Shuar) Indians, who were displaced from their tropical-forest settlements by Saraguro colonists.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. Precolonial beliefs combined animistic spirituality with the worship of gods introduced during Incan rule. The Saraguro now profess strong Catholic beliefs; nevertheless, their religion remains highly syncretic and combines Christian and pre-Conquest elements. Thus, Saraguro worship is essentially polytheistic. Catholic saints and virgins are revered along with animistic spirits associated with rainbows, rivers, and the wind, Incan sun and moon gods, supalata (agricultural spirits), and supai (demons).

Religious Practitioners . Shamanic specialists have practiced in the region since pre-Conquest times, but under church suppression shamans have been labeled as witches and have failed to attract apprentices. Several Saraguro assist priests with Mass and church maintenance. Most attend Mass on Sundays and religious holidays; families are organized to finance church celebrations through a fiesta cargo system.

Ceremonies. The Catholic religious calendar has come to overlay the traditional sowing and harvest celebrations of the Saraguro. Household rituals focus on the family life cycle, commemorating births, marriages, construction of new homes, and deaths.

Arts. Saraguro bands perform traditional Andean folksongs on flutes, panpipes, and drums and have begun to play guitars and accordions. The Saraguro are renowned in southern Ecuador for their crafts. Women create elaborate floral displays for church each Sunday. They are also skilled spinners with the distaff and hand spindle, producing very fine "S" and "Z" twist yarn. Women weave intricate belts, and some possess special knowledge of natural dyes. Men, however, are regarded as master weavers, and produce large bolts of wool fabric on backstrap looms. Women fashion this homespun fabric into the distinctive Saraguro wardrobe. Men wear a tunic, short pants modeled after colonial pantaloons and covered on formal occasions by wool chaps, a poncho, and a wide, hand-tooled belt decorated with silver coins. Women wear a wool underskirt with a pleated overskirt, a colonial-style hand-embroidered blouse of brightly colored satin, and a shawl fastened with a large silver shawl-pin or topo. Men and women both wear wide-brimmed white wool-felt hats. Women also wear large, distinctive, antique silver earrings and hand-beaded collar necklaces. All woolens, except men's white chaps, are dyed a deep blue-black. By tradition, the Saraguro are said to wear black in perpetual mourning for the death of Atahuallpa, the last Inca.

Medicine. Traditional curers such as midwives, herbalists, and shamans continue to practice in Saraguro. Pharmacists and Indian nurses have been available for consultation since the 1950s, and a government-sponsored hospital opened in the town in 1980. The most common form of health care, however, is provided by Saraguro mothers, who diagnose and treat most family illnesses at home with a combination of medicinal plants, purchased pharmaceuticals, massage, and diet.

Death and Afterlife. The Saraguro follow Catholic teachings on death and believe that behavior in life determines salvation or damnation. Baptized children who die before first communion are said to become angels. A special wake is held, and the child is placed on an altar in the home and dressed as a winged angel. Guests eat a special meal, a band plays through the night, and parents dance in celebration of their child's holy transformation.

Bibliography

Belote, James Dalby (1984). "Changing Adaptive Strategies among the Saraguros of Southern Ecuador." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Belote, Linda (1978). "Prejudice and Pride: Indian-White Relations in Saraguro, Ecuador." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Finerman, Ruthbeth D. (1985). "Health Care Decisions in an Andean Indian Community: Getting the Best of Both Worlds." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

RUTHBETH FINERMAN AND ROSS SACKETT