Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
chewed the coca leaf as a mild stimulant and as an important cultural
mark. A mildly intoxicating beer was made from wild
algarroba
beans
that formed a variation of the corn
chicha
still prevalent today in the
Andes. (
Chicha
is an alcoholic beverage popular among Andean peas-
ants. Traditionally, women prepare
chicha
by masticating the
algar-
roba
pods or corn in their mouths and fermenting the resulting mix
of juice and spittle.)
The tunic, a shirt of woven llama wool, was the principal garment
of men and women, though the women's tunics were ankle length.
In the winter, a woolen cape provided warmth. Everyone wore
Andean-style sandals on their feet. Though agriculturists, the men
still reveled in their status as warriors. They wore their hair long and
adorned their heads with feathers and headbands as a mark of their
warlike status. The main weapons were spears, bows and arrows,
stone-headed clubs, and the distinctive weapon of the plains hunters,
the bolas.
Among the Diaguita, there apparently existed none of the caste
structure and social differentiation common among the imperial Inca,
and they possessed little in the way of sumptuous goods such as gold
and silver ornaments. Diaguita families formed into clans descended
from a common ancestor. Important clan leaders may have had two
wives (a principal indication of wealth among them), but most men
were monogamous in marriage. In the absence of a well-organized
priesthood, the shamans took charge of religious ceremonies and
passed along the folk medicines from one generation to the next.
They remained a relatively decentralized agricultural people, in which
the chiefs of small units generally wielded modest political powers,
although several chiefs did unite into informal political and military
alliances. A Spaniard testified, “It is notorious that no village which
has a cacique is the subject of another cacique or pueblo” (Steward
1946, II: 683).
Most chiefs inherited their leadership status from their fathers and
uncles and confirmed that leadership with valor in battle, thereby
proving his political authority. Otherwise, a council of elders shared
decision-making power within the group. The Diaguita's political
decentralization meant that any large valley might be inhabited by
several different groups, each in tense and hostile contact with the
others. The Inca imperial alliance may have mitigated the competi-
tion among the various clans of the Diaguita, although the stone for-
tresses that still dominate the narrow passages between the valleys of
