AMONG BOLIVIA’S INDIANS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 June 1932, Page 7

AMONG BOLIVIA’S INDIANS

STRANGE CUSTOMS ENCOUNTERED. FIGHTING QUITE A PASTIME. Returning to their respective home countries after an absence of five and a half years in Bolivia, where they have been engaged in missionary work among the Indians and the half-castes, Mr. and Mrs. S. Edmonds ■ arrived at Wellington last week from Southampton. Mr. Edmonds is an Australian and his wife is a New Zealander, and they are on a year’s furlough. Mr. and Mrs. Edmonds are attached to the Bolivian Indian Mission, the headquarters of which are at San Pedro, in the province of Charcas.

In an interview with a Post representative, Mr. Edmonds said that he and his wife were stationed at a place called Torotoro, situated on the eastern slopes of the Andes, where they conducted the usual evangelical missionary work, education, and medical work among the Cholas (halfcastes) and the Quichua Indians, Although it was in the tropics, Torotoro enjoyed a temperate climate because it was situated at an altitude of 8500 feet. The Indians had been in the process of civilisation since the time of the Spanish Conquest, but the mission’s work was to teach them the ideals of evangelism. If left alone the Indians were quite peaceable. The only time they became fearsome was when they were drunk. This they managed to do, by drinking a native beer called chicha, which was brewed from . maize and wheat. On account of their low mentality they required a lot of educating, and this made them very difficult people to work amongst. They were occupied principally in agricultural work, and exchanged their produce for medicine, treatment, etc. Sunday was the great market day in Torotoro. The people lived on the hillsides in thatchroofed cabins made of adobes (sun-baked bricks). Their implements for agricultural purposes were very primitive, wooden ploughs drawn by oxen being used.

“Generally speaking, they are Roman Catholics and Saints’ days are well observed,” said Mr. Edmonds. “In some districts a Saint’s day is declared a public holiday. The Indians come into the town with their bands, dance up and down the streets, and generally make merry. Especially is this so when they have been drinking native beer. Fighting on these occasions is quite a pastime. They come prepared with helmets made out of cow hides, and in some districts they wear gloves made out of bits of rope, rags and in some cases wire. The latter inflict nasty founds. They challenge each other, a ring is formed, and they get to battle. A fight never lasts more than twelve spars, but the contestants come out of the ring bleeding and lacerated. Some of these fights have been known to end fatally.”

The Indians were very superstitious and feared imaginary spirits of the air, earth and. water. There were also witch doctors who claimed they could cure all kinds of diseases, real or imaginary, and in effecting their cures they appealed to the spirits. Giving an example of a witch doctor’s method of curing a person suffering from an ailment, Mr. Edmonds said that in a town called Aiquile one of the upper* class men had an inflamed arm. A witch doctor was called in, and he. asked to be supplied with a sheet, four candles, flour and water, a jar of beer, and some cigarettes. He made a paste of the flour and water, put it into a piece of material. and wrapped it around the man’s arm. He. stretched the- man out on the floor and covered him with the sheet, on each corner of which he placed the four lighted candles. The doctor sat down, chanted incantations, and then drank the beer and smoked the cigarettes. The man remained on the floor for some hours, and on an examination being made it was found that the paste had set and the arm had swollen terribly. The man was suffering agony, and he arose from tbo floor and kicked the doctor out of the house.