Highland and Lowland Peoples in Contact in the Tropical Urubamba

Abstract

Before and after the Spanish Conquest, a stretch on the Urubamba River between 730 and 650 m above sea level (asl) became a contact zone where forest tribes encountered people of highland origin (Incas, Quechua Indians, mestizos, and Spaniards). Matsigenka Indians settled in that zone, but the other forest tribe, the Piro, annually came upriver from a long distance to trade. In the Inca period, contact rested on trading coca, woods, medicinal plants and ornaments from the jungle for salt and other goods from the highlands. Except for a small coca-growing fringe, the Incas did not permanently settle in the hot country. They had negative perceptions of the jungle environment. After the Conquest, Spaniards first took over Inca coca plantations on the fringe and then established coca and sugar cane estates through the colonial period. As highlanders pushed down the Urubamba below 800 m asl to start haciendas, they came into contact with Matsigenka. Catholic priests started a mission to save souls and haciendas used Matsigenka as a source of labor. An annual trade fair with forest tribes survived into the first decade of the twentieth century. Further highlander penetration down the Urubamba occurred during the cinchona bark and rubber booms in the late nineteenth century. Later, a new land policy of the Peruvian government distributed parcels in the jungle to highlanders. In the 1960s, road construction brought a migratory flow of highland peasants into the lower Urubamba. Engulfing the selva, highlanders cut forests, eroded the soils and depleted fishing and wildlife. A natural gas boom has led to further change in the lower Urubamba. The Matsigenka and Piro survive with their own blocks of land, but their aboriginal culture has largely disappeared.