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Geographical Review
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CAMPA SUBSISTENCE IN THE GRAN PAJONAL,
EASTERN PERU*
WILLIAM M. DENEVAN
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 497
FIG. 1
into how the settlers replacing the Indians can come to terms with the tropical
environment in a productive and nondestructive way.
The present paper, which by no means achieves all the objectives men-
tioned, briefly describes the subsistence system of the Campa, a representative
nonriverine tribe in western Amazonia, and relates the Campa situation to
larger issues of population density and of settlement and subsistence stabilit
Fieldwork was carried out among different groups of the Campa in 1965-
1966 and in the summer of 1968, particularly in the Gran Pajonal, but also o
the central Ucayali, the lower Ene, the upper Pichis, the lower Tambo, an
the Perene-Pangoa rivers. Some groups were visited at several periods of th
year, others only once. A major objective was to gain perspective on th
variability of subsistence from group to group, rather than to make an in
depth study of a single group. Many of the studies of tropical agriculture ar
based on one village and are therefore not indicative of the great diversity o
practices frequently present within a single culture. Spanish-speaking Camp
informants and interpreters were used, and missionaries and others long
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498 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
THE CAMPA
4 Specifically, Burt Watson and Mack Robertson of the South American Indian Mission. In the Gran
Pajonal, Moises Cadillo and Teodoro Pena provided considerable assistance and living accommodations.
s Stefano Varese: La sal de los cerros: notas etnograficas e hist6ricas sobre los Campa de la selva del
Peru (Lima, 1968); Gerald Weiss: The Cosmology of the Campa Indians of Eastern Peru (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1969); andJay F. Lehnertz: Cultural Struggle on the
Peruvian Frontier: Campa-Franciscan Confrontations, 1595-1752 (unpublished Master's thesis, Univ. o
Wisconsin, Madison, 1969).
6 William L. Allen andJudy Holshouser: Land Use Patterns among the Campa of the Alto Pachitea,
Peru (in press); John H. Bodley: Campa Socio-Economic Adaptation (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
Univ. of Oregon, Eugene, 1970).
7 Marshall S. Chrostowski and William M. Denevan: The Biogeography of a Savanna Landscape:
The Gran Pajonal of Eastern Peru, McGill University Savanna Research Series No. 16 (Montreal, 1970);
"Inventario, evaluacion e integracion de los recursos naturales de la zona del rio Tambo-Gran Pajonal"
(Oficina Nacional de Evaluacion de Recursos Naturales; Lima, 1968).
8 This estimate is based on the unpublished population data for the Campa region for 1970 collected
by SNEM (Servicio Nacional de la Erradicaci6n de Malaria). Pedro W. Fast (Naciones aborigenes en la
Amazonia peruana, La Montana [La Merced, Peru], Vol. 5, No. 56, 1962, pp. 6-7) and the Summer
Institute of Linguistics in Lima (unpublished) give a figure of 30,000, but others feel that 20,000 is more
realistic. The SNEM data indicate about 500 Campa in the central area of the Gran Pajonal, but their
information for this area is incomplete, and a more reasonable estimate would seem to be that of 1500 by
John H. Bodley (The Last Remaining Independent Campa, Peruvian Times, Vol. 29, No. 1498, Sept. 5,
1969, pp. 8-1o).
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 499
west but is relatively slight in many parts of the uplands, and some isolated
groups have had no direct contact with whites and are still hostile.
The Gran Pajonal Campa are best described as a seminomadic horticul-
tural tribe with a strong emphasis on hunting, rather than on fishing, as th
major source of protein. Socially they are organized into small groups that
comprise an individual family or as many as five or six conjugal families,
seldom numbering more than thirty-five persons and usually from five t
fifteen persons. Settlements consist of from one to five huts (except for the
missions, which may have as many as 300 to 400 people). Settlement sites ar
moved every one to three years for a variety of reasons; hence the designation
"seminomadic."
9 See Weiss (op. cit. [see footnote 5 above], pp. 591-599) for a detailed list of material culture.
I0 Weiss (ibid., p. 42) makes a sociological distinction between Pajonal and River Campa, based on
apparent separate breeding populations.
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500 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
._ I , - : i 1 n 11
:; :
FrG. 3-Pajonal on a ridge near the Franciscan mission village of Obenteni. Such
the result of the concentration of Campa settlements, chacras, trails, and fires on
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 501
the Rio Nevati and their tributaries. On the more gentle slopes between these
rivers are 9000 to 10,000 hectares of pajonales (grasslands), which owe their
presence, at least in part, to a long history of Campa clearing and burning."
The pajonales are in numerous scattered patches along the hill crests (Fig. 3);
most are less than ten hectares in area, but a few are one hundred hectares or
more. The dominant forest vegetation is Bosque Humedo Subtropical (Sub-
tropical Humid Forest), according to the Holdridge-Tosi classification,12 and
much of it is second growth. The area of pajonales has had the greatest con-
centration of Campa settlements in the past; recently, however, pressures
from settlers, from the Guardia Civil, and from a ranch at Shumahuani
have forced a movement toward the rugged fringes of the Gran Pajonal and
toward the missions.
In the pajonal area elevations mostly range between ooo1000 and 1500 meters.
Temperatures are cool (annual mean 20? to 22? C), but there is no frost; rain-
fall is moderate (2200 mm at Obenteni and 1700 mm at Shumahuani), with
a four-month dry season (May through August). Higher mountains rising to
3100 meters surround part of the core area-the Shira Mountains to the east,
the Cerro de la Sal and Kitchungari Mountains to the south-and lower, dis-
sected plateau country lies to the west and north. Accessibility is thus difficult,
requiring a long hike up from the Pichis or the Ucayali, with the result that
until recently the Gran Pajonal has been relatively isolated from outside in-
fluences, except for a few missionaries and settlers. Obenteni, with its small
airstrip, is the only Peruvian settlement, though from 1953 to 1969 there was
a small ranch at Shumahuani, mentioned above, and there are Adventist
mission villages at Paute and Tsoubenteni. Today, only a few groups of
relatively unacculturated Campa remain in the core area.I3 Nevertheless,
many of the other Pajonal Campa have retained their traditional economic
system.
SHIFTING CULTIVATION
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502 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
14 For a detailed description of the soils of the Gran Pajonal, see Chrostows
[see footnote 7 above], pp. 11-14 and 30-36.
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 503
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504 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
THE CROPS
Yuca and maize are the first crops planted. These are usu
but often the maize is concentrated on the lower slopes of
soil is more fertile and more humid. For example, one newl
had about 60 percent maize plants and 40 percent yuca on th
percent maize and 90 percent yuca on the middle slope, and
on the upper slope. Averaging out crop percentages on newly
I obtained roughly 25 percent maize, 70 percent yuca, and
crops. The maize is harvested at the end of four months a
yuca and other crops. Other plants are gradually added else
the end of six months the ratio is more like 85 percent yu
other crops. Thus the importance of maize can be overestim
only a new chacra.
Yuca is planted by digging a shallow hole with a short-ha
or with a machete. Two or three cuttings, each about a fo
serted in the loose earth piled up at the edge of the hole. Th
8 to 12 feet apart where the ground is bare of logs, but there i
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 505
a Identifications were made from specimens taken to the Instituto Interamericano de Cienc
Agricolas, Zona Andina (La Molina, Lima), from a list provided by Gerald Weiss (also see footno
above, pp. 599-602), and from personal familiarity. Most of the Campa names are derived from the W
list, which I used in the field, and are for the river Campa whose pronunciations often vary slightly f
those of the Pajonal Campa. Some of the Campa terms used are clearly based on Quechua or Spa
names.
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506 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 507
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508 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
CHACRA USE
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 509
chacra may also be nearby, but usually by the fourth year, if not before, a
new chacra site is selected several miles away and cleared. By the time the
last full yuca crop from the old site is exhausted, the family will have moved
into a house on the new site. For a year or so, though, there may be a fair
amount of moving back and forth to work the new chacra and to build the
new house and, after moving to the new house, to the old chacras to harvest
remaining plants and to obtain seed and cuttings.
The reason for moving is not because land has been exhausted at the
initial site, since a great many more chacras could be cleared within a short
walking distance, and individual chacras could be cropped for longer than
one or two years. Perhaps the most critical factor is the depletion of game, a
reason that was given several times. Other reasons given for abandoning a
house were to escape an enemy or a disliked neighbor, a death in the family,
disease, deterioration of the hut, or an influx of pests.
Thus there is an overlapping sequence of chacra making and use. At any
given time the basic pattern would comprise tapping residual crops from the
chacra cleared two years before, the harvesting of the main crop from the
previous year's chacra, and preparation of a new chacra. All three chacras
may be at the same place, or one may be at either an old house site or a new
house site. The actual pattern may be much more complex, however, since
many Campa are not systematic land use planners. A chacra that is still
producing may be abandoned prematurely because of a house shift due to a
death or lack of game, or a family may move too far away to be able to utilize
an old chacra. Relatives may move in and help to deplete a chacra. Because
of bad weather, an extended trading or fishing trip, or an injury, a man may
not clear a chacra in some years. As a result, some families have plenty of food
and their future needs are assured, whereas others are caught short with a
chacra depleted before another comes into production. Then they either
move in with relatives or live off the land, hunting and gathering, until the
new chacra is producing. Such instability of production seems to be common
in the Gran Pajonal and helps explain why the Campa frequently clear, burn,
and plant out of season. They fully realize that they will not get a good crop,
but for one reason or another their cropping-shifting sequence is out of
balance, and a poor crop planted at the start of the dry season is better than no
crop at all. This does not mean the Campa are poor farmers, however.
Top-soil samples were taken from several chacras over a two or three
year period to determine changes in fertility during the cropping cycle. The
results were not always comparable, owing to different methods of analysis,
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510 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
Although the Campa obtain the greater part of their food from agricul
ture (about 90 percent by weight), they are commonly thought of as hunter
and in terms of economic-activity time well over 50 percent is spent on hunt-
ing. No meal is considered complete without meat. When a family is out
meat the men and boys go hunting for at least the early part of the day during
periods of chacra work and for the whole day at other times. Most huntin
trips are no more than a half day's distance from the houses, so the hunters can
return at night; however, trips of two or three days or even several weeks are
not uncommon. Game is not plentiful in the Gran Pajonal, and a day's result
are often pitiful-a few small birds, a bag of snails and grubs, or nothing at all.
The Campa will go to great efforts with little return, partly because the
enjoy hunting, but probably also because of a need for protein, which is
deficient in the vegetable diet with its strong emphasis on starchy tubers.
Many Campa men have shotguns, but shells are not easy to come by, an
most hunting is done with the bow and arrow, with which they are quite
proficient. A wide variety of arrows are used for different purposes,I7 wit
i6 Soil analyses were made by the Centro Nacional de Analisis de Suelos, Estaci6n Experiment
Agricola de La Molina, Lima, Peru.
I7 Alan K. Craig: Brief Ethnology of the Campa Indians, Eastern Peru, America Indigena, Vol. 2
1967, pp. 223-235.
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 511
shafts of chonta palm or cane and points of chonta or bone. Blow guns and
poisons are not used. Blinds are set up, but I saw no traps.
The main game animals are deer, peccary, paca, armadillo, agouti, coati,
lemur, squirrel, and monkeys (capuchin, choro, howler) (Fig. 7).18 Rabbits
and sloths are present but are not usually eaten. Tapir is rare. A large variety
of birds are hunted for food and for feathers, including partridges, guans,
doves, macaws, parrots, toucans, paucars, woodpeckers, curassows, trum-
peters, tinamous, trogons, and swallows. The Campa's precise taxonomic
classification of birds rivals that of plants. They are knowledgeable about the
ecology of each species, and they can identify and duplicate most bird calls.
Most of the large game is seriously depleted in the central Gran Pajonal,
even though the Campa population itself has been greatly reduced in recent
years. The best hunting areas are near the major rivers below the Pajonal,
but these are several days away and are hunted by other people. Thus the
main reliance is on small game-particularly rodents and birds-and on
crustaceans, frogs, reptiles, snails, larvae, ants, beetles, and other insects.
Children especially spend a lot of time scavaging for insects, and this may
reflect their relatively greater need for protein.
The Pajonal Campa "cultivate," or at least protect, an unidentified grub
called poshori in piles of maize cobs. They also identify five or six species of
leaf cutter ants (Atta spp.), called coqui, which build mounds in the pajonales.
The Campa apparently consciously manage the prized ant resource through
the control of encroaching shrubs on active ant hills; the ants are gathered and
eaten in October when they swarm. 9 A few Campa have a chicken or two,
and an occasional muscovy duck is seen. The young of many wild animals
and birds are raised as pets, but they usually end up being eaten during times
of hunger.
Streams in the Gran Pajonal are generally small and so are the fish. Even
the larger Rio Unini and Rio Nevati are relatively unproductive compared
with the lowland rivers. Consequently the Pajonal Campa are at best some-
time fishermen. Most Pajonal fishing is with barbasco stupefier or with bow
and arrow. They cultivate barbasco, and the local streams are blocked with
I8 For most scientific identifications and full lists of animals (26), birds (80), reptiles and amphibians
(1 1), fish (59), and other biotic resources utilized by the riverine Campa, see Weiss, op. cit. [see footnote 5
above], pp. 605-620. The inventory for the Gran Pajonal Campa includes a few additional items, but the
overall diversity is less, especially for fish. Bodley also gives a list of identified game and fish, mainly for
the uplands and rivers north of the Gran Pajonal (Campa Socio-Economic Adaptation [see footnote 6
above], Chap. 2).
I9 Marshall S. Chrostowski: Environment, Resource Potential, and Campa Cultural Patterns in the
Gran Pajonal, in "XXXIX Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Lima, Peru, August 2-9, 1970" (in
press).
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512 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
DIET
The end product of shifting cultivation and other subsistence activities is,
of course, the food that is eaten. Diet is culturally determined, within the con-
fines of available foods, and the daily meals reflect cultural and personal
preferences, seasonal variability, and the general success of the food quest.
The subsistence pattern in turn has a major influence on population density,
on village size and stability, and on social organization.
Many Campa meals were observed at different times and places, and the
kinds and quantities of food were recorded. For one Campa family of four
living about five miles south of Obenteni, everything eaten by each person
for one to three days was weighed on a five-pound balance scale. This was
clearly not an adequate sample. Ideally, diet should be measured for each
member of several families for a period of several days each month over a
20 Ibid.
21 Weiss, op. cit. [see footnote 5 above], pp. 599-603 and 618.
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 513
full year in order to get seasonal variations. The meals recorded were not
average in that they contained a higher amount of meat (from a recently
killed deer) than did many other meals I observed in the Gran Pajonal. I
found that I could record food intakes for only one person at a time and had
TABLE II-AVERAGE DAILY FOOD COMPONENTS FOR ONE ADULT CAMPA MALEa
22 Woot-Tsuen Wu Leung: Food Composition Table for Use in Latin America (INCAP-ICNND,
Bethesda, Md., 1961); and Carlos Collazos and others: La composici6n de los alimentos peruanos, Anales
de la Facultad de Medicina (Lima), Vol. 40, No. 1, 1957, pp. 232-266.
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514 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
SOME IMPLICATIONS
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 515
24 Donald W. Lathrap: The "Hunting" Economies of the Tropical Forest Zone of South America:
An Attempt at Historical Perspective, in Man the Hunter (edited by R. B. Lee and I. DeVore; Chicago,
1968), pp. 23-29; William M. Denevan: The Aboriginal Population of Western Amazonia in Relation
to Habitat and Subsistence, Revista Geogr4fica, No. 72, 1970, pp. 61-86.
25 However, the Amahuaca of eastern Peru, one of the few tribes in the Amazon Basin for whom
maize is the staple rather than tubers, are still seminomadic hunters despite the apparently relatively high
protein content of their vegetable diet. See Carneiro, Shifting Cultivation among the Amahuaca of
Eastern Peru [see footnote 2 above].
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516 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
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THE GRAN PAJONAL, PERU 517
30 The hunting figure of 6 percent is based on the estimated average of 90 grams of meat a day per
adult and on the measured total of 1460 grams of food obtained in Table II. George P. Murdock (Eth-
nographic Atlas [Pittsburgh, 1967], p. 122), in contrast, lists a hunting percentage of from 26 to 3 5 for the
Campa (Murdock's percentages are apparently based on calories rather than on actual food weight, but
the results are about the same).
3I Bodley documented four long-distance shifts of Campa homes of from 20 to 80 kilometers; in each
case the reason given for moving was depleted game or fish resources (Campa Socio-Economic Adapta-
tion [see footnote 6 above], Chap. 2).
32 Carneiro suggests that 40 percent of the total food intake of the Amahuaca is from animal sources
(The Transition from Hunting to Horticulture in the Amazon Basin [see footnote 29 above]); and Mur-
dock (op. cit. [see footnote 30 above], pp. 118-122) estimates percentages of 16 to 55 for the relevant tribes
that he lists. There have been only a few careful measurements of both meat and crop consumption for
tropical tribes in Latin America. For the Miskito of Nicaragua, who obtain relatively large quantities of
meat both from the sea and from hunting, only o10 percent (150 grams) of the daily diet comes from meat
and fish (Bernard Q. Nietschmann: Between Land and Water: The Subsistence Ecology of the Miskito
Indians, Eastern Nicaragua [unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1970], p. 312).
For the Bayano Cuna of Panama the daily average of meat was 57 grams and of fish 51 grams for only
5.3 percent of the total diet (Charles F. Bennett, Jr.: The Bayano Cuna Indians, Panama: An Ecological
Study of Livelihood and Diet, Annals Assn. ofAmer. Geogrs., Vol. 52, 1962, pp. 32-50; reference on p. 46).
In a more recent study, James Duke obtained a fish and game percentage of 5.5 for the Inland Cuna
(Ethnobotanical Observations on the Choco Indians, Econ. Botany, Vol. 24, 1970, pp. 344-366; reference on
pp. 346-347). Hence a total of 7 percent meat and fish for the Pajonal Campa is not unreasonably low.
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518 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
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