The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-07-10

on the colo stones INSIDE the door leaulIlS
to the street and must get up and open to
anyone who knocks. The work done by
him will not be done by any of the other
servants, so that If you should have twenty
other servants you will still have your Pom
go. The Pongo alone will go to the pub
lie fountain for the water, the Pongo car
ries the vegetables and meats which the
cook buys, home from market, and the
Pongo alone emptieS the SlopS and cleans
the pots and pans.
These Indians often give their children
over to the whites to be brought up by
them as servants. There is money consid-
Grafton, and though the Bolivian law pro-
vides for the education of child so bought
this is practically limited by the caprice of
the buyer. The contract usually provides
that the parents may have the child back
If they pay 20 cents a day for the time he
has been in the hands of the buyer, but as
the Indians never have any money ahead
such sales are usually absolute, and they
are in force until the child is of age. If the
master don't like the child, however, he
can send it back, claiming that 1t has some
fault. Many of the house servants of La
Paz are got in this way, especially in the
case of the girls. AS a rule, large num-
Der of servants are needed, one usually be-
ing allotted to each child of a well-to-do
family. The servants are lazy and ineffi-
Gent, it requiring about four Indians to do
the work of one good American hired girl.
The wages are from $1.2O to $40 month in
this money, which Is equal to from AZ cents
to $3.50 American money.
A LOOK AT AN INDIAN HUT.
wish could take you into one of these
lnd1an nuts and show you just how hum
dredS of thousands of people live here in
Bolivia. 1t is by no means easy to get into
the Indians house. for he hates strangers
and will not admit any one if he can help il,
had one or two rather serious experiences
while making my investigations of this kind
on the Tfticaca plateau, and in one case
the Indian householder showed fight and
threatened to have me arrested. The outside
OF the huts are to be seen everywhere in the
country about here. have ridden along
tens of thousands of them them and they
are practically the same everywhere. They
would hardly rank as respectable pig pens
IN America. Imagine a mud hut from six.
eight to twelve feet square. Let it have
walls so low that you can reach up to the
matched roof without effort Let 1t have
no windows and let the door be an opening
two feet from the ground so small that you
have to stoop to get into it, The floor Of
the hut is the ground and you step over the
nigh door sill to get in. Once inside there
is little more than room to turn about for
often the farming utensils belonging to the
owner are kept there and it may be that in
the nut the donkey, the chickens and the
llamas also quarter. There is little furni-
ture Inc people sit on the floor, and men,
women and children back themselves up
against the wall al night, keeping at close
together as possible for warmth and sleep
sitting In one corner Of the hut there is a
little hearth or clay stove with a pile of
llama manure for fuel beside it, There is no
chimney to the hut and the dense smoke
finds its way out as it can. No one thinks
OF using fire for warmth. Fuel is too ex-
pensive for anything except cooking. The
family does not change it's clothes at night.
Everyone sleeps in the clothes which he
wears during the day. The men and BOYS
wrap their ponchos about them and the
women their blankets and all draw them
! selves as closely as possible together that
no part of their bodies may remain urcoy-
cred The cooking is very simple, one of the
IaVor1te dishes being challona stew, with
perhaps some chuno or frozen potatoes
dried, mixed with it. Challona is ierked
mutton. The sheep, having been killed. is
m.
Water is now sprinkled over it and it is
frozen again. 1t is then hung up, and when
dried it becomes so tough that it will keep
for months. When used it is cut into bits
and boiled long time. The Indian consid-
erS it delicious
THE SOUTH AMERICAN CHEW.
There is one thing that is more important
to the Bolivian Indian than his meals This
is his coca or his daily and hourly-and
might almost say his perpetual-chew He
eats coca as a horse eats hay. Indians en-
ployed IN the mines each insist on a daily
allowance of five ounces of coca leaves in
addition to their wages, and many of the
farmers give coca to their men. Women
and children chew coca, and it is rarely
that you can find an Indian without big
lump OF 1t inside his cheek Coca is, indeed
one of the chief products of Bolivia Mil
lions of dollars worth of it are produced
every year, and it is brought into La Paz
caily in large quantities. Coca is the shrub
from which cocaine is made. 1t should be
distinguished from the cacao tree, from
which we get our chocolate and cocoa The
coca plant grows from two to five feet in
height, and is is largely cultivated in the
eastern provinces of Bolivia. Each plant
gives three crops of leaves a year. The
leaves are gathered by Indian women,
packed up in bundles of twenty-five pounds
each and shipped TO the markets >on the
backs of llamas, donkeys or mules 1t is
heavily taxed and is one of the chief
sources of government revenue.
The Indians use coca much as the Siarnese
chew the betel nut. They take the leaves
which, by the way. look not unlike winter
green leaves, and mix them with ashes Of
lime They chew the mixture. and, strange
to say, swallow their spittle. The chew is
said to be both food and stimulant It
keeps out the cold and allays hunger Many
of the Indians go out and work for hours
on nothing but chew of coca, and in going
over these high mountain passes they al
ways chew it. AT noon and breakfast time
they put in supplies of the mixture but
keep on chewing all day long, year in and
year out. Strange to say, this continuous
chewing does not seem to cause Indigestion
and am told that it has no evil effects. Not
a few of the half-breeds use coca but I
have yet to find any whites who are ad-
dcted to the habit
The Bolivian Indian drinks raw alcohol
This he esteems the most desirable of bev-
erages, and a large part of his earnings
goes toward keeping himself and his family
in a chronic state of inebriety. On feast
days, and l am told that the Indian claims
go feast days out of every $685. men, wo-
men and children get drunk and keep so
until the alcohol and their money run out
.Va1