Publications /  The Potato, Treasure of the Andes
From Agriculture to Culture

The ancient civilizations of the Andes played a fundamental role in domesticating the potato. The potato, in turn, wielded a profound influence on the development of Andean society. Over the centuries, chroniclers, historians and explorers have compiled valuable information that not only sheds light on the role of the potato, but also leads to a greater understanding of the world view of pre-Hispanic peoples.

One of the most perceptive testimonies is that of the Jesuit Bernabé Cobo, who in his 1653 chronicle Historia del Nuevo Mundo (1979, 1990) called the tuber “the bread of the Indians.” The Spaniards noted that Andean peoples, despite their harsh environment, had reached a high level of social development. Indeed, they built their civilization with the energy provided by the potato, a nutritiously valuable and easily stored food that formed the basis of their diet. Cobo did not write a great deal about the potato, but his editor, the Spanish scholar Marcos Jiménez de la Espada noted two complementary references found in the Relaciones Geográficas de Indias (Jiménez de la Espada, 1965). The first was the Relación de la Provincia de Yauyos, written in 1586 by Diego Dávila Briceño, a Spanish official in Huarochirí in the highlands east of Lima. Dávila Briceño recognized the importance of the potato as a foodstuff and found it ideally suited for cultivation in Spain to help feed the needy: “In the upper reaches of these rivers, they sow and gather the seed of these potatoes, which require cold earth, and are one of the greatest sources of sustenance that the Indians have in this province; they resemble truffles; and if in our Spain these were to be grown as they are here, they would be a great solution in the years of famine.” His vision was to be confirmed in the centuries to come.

The second reference noted by Jiménez de la Espada in his edition of Cobo is a legend recorded by a priest, Martín de Murúa, in his Historia de los Incas (Urteaga and Romero, 1922). The legend tells of the feats of the Inca Urcón, whom anthropologist Tom Zuidema regards as the archetype of the Andean farmer (1989). Inca Urcón was said to have moved a large amount of soil, especially suited to the production of potatoes, from Quito to Cusco, the Inca capital. On the outskirts of the imperial city, to the east of the Inca fortress of Sacsayhuaman, he used it to build a mountain called Allpa Suntu (pile of earth). This story is significant because it underscores the Incas’ intent to organize the production of the potato, an important staple crop. Yet the ethnohistorian John Murra (1975) claims that unlike maize, which was grown under centralized policies, in the Andes the potato was the food of the people, widely grown by rural farmers. Although in Mesoamerica, maize was the basis of the popular diet, in the Andes the potato fulfilled this role. Murra believes that understanding this function is fundamental to an anthropological assessment of the cultural evolution of Andean society.

According to the geographer Carl Troll (1980), the development of advanced Andean civilizations is associated with the process of migration, around 7000-5000 BC, to higher altitudes. This ascent depended on the adaptation of food crops – and in particular the potato – to the various highland ecosystems. In this respect, the development of the chuño-making process for preserving potatoes has long interested archaeologists. The success in adapting the potato plant to a wide variety of ecosystems, however, was the essential first step.

In his study on pre-Hispanic nutrition, the historian Hans Horkheimer (1973) finds it remarkable that these civilizations should have developed such high-quality potato crops through the vegetative propagation of some apparently insignificant tubers. But of course, it took thousands of years to develop the great variety of edible potatoes available today. For instance, there are the bitter potato varieties, such as the ones known in the Andes today as ruki, which are typical of the puna and “sweeter” potatoes, such as the maway type, which are found in sheltered areas of the mountains.

Some ethnic groups managed to grow a wide range of varieties within their own territory, taking advantage of steep slopes that featured substantial climatic diversity within relatively small distances. Settlers in areas that did not boast this climatic diversity established colonies at some distance from their homeland. At the same time, long-distance trade enabled the ancient inhabitants of the highlands to transport potatoes to the coast.

AT THE CORE OF LIFE

In their study of the biology and cultivation of the potato, Stephen Brush and Edward Taylor (1992) described how the system used in the Andes for classifying potatoes is based not only on species, variety and subvariety but also on ecology, morphology and usage. This precise terminology testifies to the ancestral values accorded to the potato and measured according to the tuber's function in day-to-day life. The inhabitants of the Andes do not perceive of their individual and communal actions separately from nature. Economic cycles coincide with symbolic and ceremonial times of the year, which in turn correspond to social events and life cycles. This is why the history of Andean culture is also the history of the potato.

The potato enjoyed such an important place in daily life before the Spanish conquest that, as Murra notes, it determined measurement systems. For example, time was measured by how long it took to cook a pot of potatoes. There was also a measure of space related to the potato: a papacancha or topo was the plot of land a family needed to grow its potatoes. Because plots at higher altitudes had to lie fallow for seven to ten years, a topo in a highland area could be larger than one in the lowlands. Papacanchas and topos were different from chacras – parcels of land of fixed dimensions in low-lying areas. Eventually, the Spaniards used chacra to refer to any field for growing crops.

Potato growing began with the tilling of the soil, a task performed with a type of foot-plow known as chaki taklla in Quechua and uysu in Aimara. This plow, developed especially for use on steep highland slopes, is just one of the technologies used by ancient Andean farmers to manage their resources efficiently. Today, we can see the heritage of agricultural know-how still alive in highland fields. For instance, farmers orient the furrows according to weather predictions: if a dry year is expected, the furrows are planned so that they will retain water, while if a rainy year is forecast, fields are plowed so that water will flow away and the potatoes will not rot. Ancient Andean farmers even considered the expected angle of the sun at harvest when marking out their furrows. They did not want to cast their shadows on the field and risk mistaking potatoes for clods of earth.

MORE THAN FOOD

In the Andes, sowing is regarded as the most important activity of the farming year. In some villages, the potato is still given the ritual name Mama Jatha (mother seed, or mother of growth). In Aimara, jatha refers to the basic unit of social organization (the equivalent word in the Quechua language is ayllu). Thus the potato is the seed of Andean society.

The Mama Jatha ritual relates the potato to Pachamama, or Mother Earth, who is mother of all things. Andean peoples associate Pachamama with fertility, as described by Mauricio Mamani, a Bolivian researcher and specialist in ecology and agriculture. In his book (1988) on the agricultural rite at carnival time, he notes: “...the earth provides humidity, softness, fragrance, and a hunger to receive the seed and reproduce; and Man provides the fertility rites, speaking to Pachamama, offering prayers, sharing with her the exquisite coca leaf and the finest food.” The carnival ritual, involving coca, the sacred leaf of the Incas, formed part of the agricultural cycle, which concluded with the harvest and selection of the next season’s seed.

It is an age-old Andean custom to offer to the Earth some of the recently harvested food. Thus potatoes were reburied among hot stones so Pachamama could eat before the farm workers helped themselves. This practice gave rise to the method of cooking food by roasting it underground, remembered today in the pachamanca, the traditional festive way of cooking in the ground. The prominence of the pachamanca is another reflection of the important role that the potato has played in the development of the Andean worldview.