Evening star., 1927-08-16


it is customary for white man when
walking on the streets through crowds
Of Indians to treat 'em rough" by
beating about with his cane and
ordering them to clear the way
which they do submissively.
These Indians are more truly in
slavery than are the Mexican poems.
They live for succeeding generations
upon the same hacienda and accept
the slavery imposed upon them by the
land owners. In Mexico the peon the.
oretically is held-or was held, prior
to the recent overturning of the gov.
ernment-by the law which forbade a
peon from leaving a hacienda if he
were in debt to the owner, who, in
practice, saw to it that the peon re-
manned in debt, for the owner kept
the accounts. But in Bolivia no such
subterfuge was ever resorted to; the
Indian belonged" to the land and
stayed where he was born. Many live
in villages where there are no white
men; they. however, are equally en-
slaved by their tyrannical chiefs. The
Indians constitute 20 per cent of the
3 100000 population of Bolivia.
X X X
At the age of 10, all males are
forced to serve six months in the Bo-
livian army, and at the end of the six
months the chosen ones of acceptable
physical and mental fitness, are re-
drafted for two years service. Dur
ing that two years, they are given in
tensive training and schooling, and it
is reported that this very often
arouses in them ambition to so on
with education, so that they demand
schools. There is at La Paz an Amer.
lean Institute for higher education,
which has had support from the Bo-
tivian government and from friends of
education outside of Bolivia-from the
United States and Brazil. Since the
World War, the Bolivian finances
have been restricted, so that govern
ment support of the institute has been
suspended.
The marvellous skill of the pre-
conquest period when the Incas ruled
the vast territory, including what is
now Bolivia and Peru, has not come
down to the present degenerated In
dians. They have no knowledge of
stone carving, as did the Incas. yet
chinery, including electric machinery
for mining, but that is not at all re-
lated to the skill of their ancestors.
Senator Hiram Bingham, who has
Travelled extensively through South
America, describes in his book, Inca
Land" how he had been warned of
the dangers of meeting certain "sav-
age and ferocious Indians" who, when
he ventured among them, proved to
be harmless and very cordial.
The degree of progress made In
agriculture by these natives is indi-
Gated by Senator Bingham in the fol-
lowing paragraph from his book:
1--WE found that it was difficult to
get Indians to use any except the i'm
plements of their ancestors. The
process of plowing this field was un-
doubtedly one that had been used for
centuries. The men, working in uni
son and in a long row, each armed
with a primitive spade or foot plow,
to the handles Of which footholds were
lashed, would, at signal, leap for
ward with shout and plunge their
spades into the turf. Facing each
pair Of men was girl or woman
whose duty 1t was to turn the clods
over by hand. The men had taken off
their ponchOS to secure greater free
dom of action, but the women were
full clothed as usual, modesty seeming
to require them to keep heavy shawls
over their shoulders. Although the
work was hard and painful, the toll
was lightened by the joyous contact
Of community activity"
X X y
So far as concerns the Indian life
there is no national hOl,ndarv hetyyaen
Bolivia and her neighbors. Peru,
therefore. is on the alert lest the pres
ent uprising in Bolivia should spread,
and Peru is massing large force
along her border to guard against In.
dian invasion.
'coDyrixhs. 1as7. BIZ RNui v. c0llinsa