| The descendants of the Inca are the present day Quecha-speaking peasants of the Andes, who constitue perhaps 45 percent of the population of Peru. They combine farming and herding with simple traditional technology. Rural settlements are of three kinds: families living in the midst of their fields, true village communities with fields outside of the inhabited centers, and a combination of these two patterns. Towns are centers of mestizo (mixed-blood) population. An Indian community is close knit, its families usually intermarrying. Much of the agricultural work is done cooperatively. Religion is a kind of Roman Catholicism infused with the pagan hierarchy of spirits and deities. |
