The Kiss of Death

although, also according to the same laws, unworked land should be distributed to the neighboring peasants. Rarely, if ever, has this happened with large tracts of fertile land lying fallow, however. Now, in fact, some of these landlords are selling the land to private corporations. After these corporations begin to farm, they gradually take over more land, inducing neighboring peasants to sell their land and then work as farm workers on the larger farms.

A strong indigenous peasant movement has arisen in Bolivia affecting land tenure and productivity. Beginning in 1982 indigenous peoples participated in the making of a law that was finally passed in 1996 INRA (Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria) which guarantees the sovereignty of indigenous people and their land holdings. Foreigners are not permitted to enter their land without permission. Many tribes in eastern Bolivia occupy regions east of the Andes that include vast plains and tropical forests. Parts of this land have been altered from tropical hardwood forests to grassy savannahs for cattle raising. Thousands of acres of forests were cleared to farm soy beans which were never grown, leaving dusty flatlands.

Theoretically, the new laws protect native peoples, who are proven caretakers of the forest preserves; however, one problem is that many Bolivian people have not been socially trained to understand these laws. They also have few means to enforce them, as is also the case with Bolivia’s environmental laws. Organizations would do well to teach Bolivians about their laws and help them use modern technology to enforce the laws. Lowland tribes have been given laptop computers to help them communicate with networks of environmentally concerned groups that can help them survive against miners and loggers.

Another favorable aspect of Las Leyes de Participacion Popular of 1994 is that it provides government recognition of territorial units as municipalities. Previously, the government strongly favored urban areas, now it has decentralized in favor of regionalization. There currently are 380 municipalities, and these municipalities provide increased flexibility in regard to addressing cultural and social factors, climatic and agricultural conditions, soil conditions, and community problems. Most importantly, federal funds are now being distributed to the municipalities for agricultural and community development.

Environment

Bolivia has perhaps the greatest biodiversity and beauty of any country in the Americas. It is a gem of the world, noted for its beauty and wealth. From the top of the Andes to the Amazon basin, Bolivia has climatic and ecological zones that are equivalent to those from Alaska to Panama. From La Paz, one can travel up to a 17,000- foot pass with its near arctic conditions and then down to tropical forests housing parrots, monkeys, and snakes. Bolivia has more species of birds than any other country in the world, and it is still possible to visit areas where the animals are unaccustomed to humans, such as the Noel Kempf Preserve, a 2-million-square-mile preserve accessible only by helicopter.

Bolivia’s natural resources have been among the most exploited in the world. Its gold, silver, tin, and antimony mines have made others rich. Its eastern Andean slopes have been stripped of large, elegantly flowered chinchona trees in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to provide quinine bark to treat malaria throughout the world. In the twentieth century, the United States has virtually destroyed Bolivia’s coca crop and other vegetation in its effort to win the cocaine war at home. Amazonian forests have lost trees slashed for rubber, Tajibo trees stripped for bark to fight cancer, and palms bled for their resin to treat AIDS. Centuries-old mahoganies are cut down in a day and transported across roads that erode forest floors to urban centers of the world to build desks. Vinchucas and T. cruzi are also part of the equation.

In The Coming Plague, Laurie Garret (1994:619) sounded a warning call: “Human beings stomp about with swagger, elbowing their way without concern into one ecosphere after another. The human race seems equally complacent about blazing a path into a rain forest with bulldozers and arson or using an antibiotic “scorched earth” policy to chase unwanted microbes across the duodenum… Time is short.”

Ecosystem disruption and subsequent loss of species have profound implications for human health (see Grifo and Rosenthal 1997). Damage to the ecosystem has caused changes in the equilibria between hosts, vectors, and parasites in their natural environments; for example, T. cruzi has switched from animals to humans as its primary host. In addition to global warming, acid rain, and pollution, Chagas’ disease warns us of a potential huge epidemic.

Chagas’ disease has increased as biocultural diversity has decreased in Bolivia. It may be part of the environment’s barometer indicating rising pressure upon the forests. Bolivian natives recognize this, and they attribute many sicknesses to ecological abuses of animals and plants. Andeans have an environmental wisdom that sees humans, plants, animals, and land as ideally in balance. Andean Indians have rituals to feed the earth, the mother. Traditionally, they refer to alpacas and llamas on the same plane of existence as humans, the only difference being that humans now speak and herd them, whereas formerly it was the other way around. A major deity of Andeans is Pariya Qaqa (Igneous Rock), a god who became a rock, the mountain upon which they live. To native Bolivians, then, the earth is sacred; it is to be fed with ritual foods and worked in such a way that it continues to produce. They have developed elaborate systems of rotating fields and crops for three years and then letting them lie fallow as herd grounds so they will be fertilized. This has been practiced for over 1,000 years. Highland Andeans and lowland Indian tribes remain guardians of the mountains, valleys, and forests of Bolivia.

Huarochiri legends were recorded in 1608 by Father Francisco de Avila, and they reveal prehispanic religious traditions. These legends unfold a landscape alive with diverse sacred beings, mountain deities, and prophetic animals. They express the sacredness of animals, plants, and land. The following myth relates how overpopulation caused hunger in ancient times. The brocket deer reproduced until food became scarce. The conditions of their life became a problem.

Now, in ancient times, brocket deer used to eat human beings.

Later on, when brocket deer were very numerous, they danced, ritually chanting, “How shall we eat people?”

Then one of their fawns made a mistake and said, “How shall people eat us?”

When the brocket deer heard this they scattered. From then on brocket deer became food for humans (Huarochiri ms., Chapter 5, 71, ed. and trans. Salomon and Urioste 1991).

This myth illustrates the closeness of Andeans to animals. At first deer ate humans; but, after a fawn made a linguistic mistake, humans ate deer.

The following myth discusses a time when this world wanted to come to an end, but Andeans and animals were saved by the prescience of llamas:

In ancient times, this world wanted to come to an end.

A llama buck, aware that the ocean was about to overflow, was behaving like somebody who’s deep in sadness. Even though its owner let it rest in a patch of excellent pasture, it cried out and said, “In, in,” and wouldn’t eat.

The llama’s owner got really angry, and he threw the cob from some maize he had just eaten at the llama.

“Eat, dog! This is some fine grass I’m letting you rest in!” he said.

Then that llama began speaking like a human being.

“You simpleton, whatever could you be thinking about? Soon, in five days, the ocean will overflow. It’s a certainty. And the whole world will come to an end,” it said.

The man got good and scared. “What’s going to happen to us? Where can we go to save ourselves?” he said.

The llama replied, “Let’s go to Villca Coto mountain. There we’ll be saved. Take along five days food for yourself.”

So the man went out from there in a great hurry, and himself carried both the llama buck and its load.