221

T H E DEVIL IN BOLIVIA'S NATIONALIZED T I N MINES

Failure to recognize the dynamic quality of shared beliefs from the past
limits the revolutionary jjotential of working class movements. T h e vi- 1

tality of folk beliefs stems from the sense of identity, of common aims
and interests among those who share them. Their dynamism flows from
the ability people have to recombine the same themes to prove different
postulates about society. I shall illustrate this with the changing signifi-
cance of the Devil, or Tio (Uncle) as he is called, in Bolivian tin mines.
The same beliefs and rituals in honor of the Tio that served to lessen
hostility between workers and owners in the time of the tin barons be-
came transformed into the focus for rebellious feelings during the mili-
tary dictatorship of Barrientos.
Between 1952 and 1967, the hopes for recovery and development as
a result of nationalization of the mines were completely shattered. After
the revolution of April 9, 1952, the coalition government organized by
the Movimiento National Revolucionario (MNR) and led by Paz Es-
tenssoro acceded to the demands of left labor leaders to nationalize the
mines owned by Patino, Hochschild and Aramayo. T h e agreement signed
I Marx himself was deeply aware of the complexity of the relationship between ex-
ternal conditions and consciousness of their significance. In his analysis of the re-
lationships of production and labor he reveals himself to be ahead of his critics
who often misread him (Marx, A Contribution to the Crititfue of Political Economy
(New York 1904), p. 11).
In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations
that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of pro-
duction correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers
of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitute the
economic structure of society—the real foundation on which rise legal and po-
litical superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social con-
sciousness. I he mode of production in material life determines the general
character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary,
their social existence determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their
development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with
the existing relations of production, or, what is but a legal expression for the
same thing, with the property relations within which they have been at work
before. Front forms of development of the forces of production these relations
turn into their fetters. Then conies the period of social revolution. With the
change of economic foundation the etaire immense superstructure is more or
less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations the distinction
should always be made between the material transformation of the economic
conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of nat-
ural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short,
ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.
in the Campo Maria Barzola, named after a woman killed in the mas-
sacre of 1942 when the workers of Siglo XX demanded higher wages, sig-
nalized independence from foreign capital and national control ove:
profits to be used in the development of the nation. The major tin, leau
and silver mines seized by the government were reorganized under th-.
unified administration of the Mining Corporation of Bolivia (COMI-
BOL).
The miners, still armed with the rifles they had seized in the mili-
tary phase of the revolution, were organized in the Central Obrera Bo
liviana (COB), in April 1952 under the leadership of Juan Lechii.
Oquendo. Labor was the key power group in the government until the
presidency of Siles Zuazo, who instituted a stabilization plan backed b\
a United States advisory team sent to Bolivia after the recognition oi
the MNR government by the State Department in 1956. Lechin opposed
stabilization, which froze wages and limited the power of workers.
When Paz Estenssoro resumed the presidency in I960, the new mid-
dle class of administrators, technicians, and the militan were a power-
ful sector opposed to the miners. In order to "discipline" the insurgent
workers and restrict the power of the Control Obrero, ot workers coun-
cils, in the mines, many of the workers considered excessive were fired
COMIBOL was reorganized under the Triangular Plan in which the
United States, West Germany and the Bank for Inter-American Devel-
opment provided capital and technical aid. When the COB resisted the
lowering of wages, the layoffs and the closing of stores run by the mining
company, Paz retaliated by arresting union leaders. In the confrontation
at Siglo XX in 1963, the labor movement was put to rout, and Paz con-
tinued to base himself on and build the military forces.
The rift between labor and government, which now depended com-
pletely on military control to maintain its power, widened until, after
a series of strikes in the summer and early fall of 1964, Air Force Gen-
eral Rene Barrientos Ortuno, a running mate with Paz Estenssoro for
the vice presidency, took advantage of the ripening counter-revolution-
ary situation. He declared a rebellion and seized power along with the
army chief of staff, General Alfredo Ovando Candia, in the coup of No-
vember 4, 1964, The mines were put under military control. In a mas- 2

sacre of workers in San Jose in May 1965 eight workers were killed, the
last rifles held by miners were seized, their radio was taken over, ant!
the union hall was occupied. Similar action was taken in other mine-
Union leaders went underground, or were imprisoned or deported. "Vel-
2 A fuller discussion of these events can be found in James Malloy, Bolivia. The I
completed Revolution (Pittsburgh, 1970).
low unions" organized largely to report subversion by workers in the
mines took control. The climax to Barrientos' repression came in San
Juan on the night of June 24, 1967; miners and their families, without
provocation, were machine-gunned down in their homes and in the
streets of the mining encampment of Siglo XX and Catavi as the\ cele-
brated the ceremony of warming the earth.
I first visited Bolivia shortly after the massacre of San Juan. The H

mine of San Jose in Oruro was closed. Over 800 women had just been
laid off from work, replaced by machines which did the work of con-
centrating the mineral. I was curious to learn what had happened in the
fifteen years to dash the hopes for progress through a limited national
revolution. I returned two years later (1969) to make a fuller study of
the changes that the political reversals of the 60s had wrought in the
consciousness of the workers since that sunrise mass in 1952 celebrating
the nationalization of the mines when miners pledged to increase pro-
duction and to stop stealing ore.
Oruro has the reputation of being the center for the ideological
movements that have spread among the miners. The University of Oruro
is one of the reasons for this. The students pride themselves on the uni-
versity's autonomy from political and economic control, and exercise a
rare freedom of expression and a voice in administrative decisions. Some
of the children of miners attend the university, sometimes working in the
mine to pay their expenses. The university press publishes books on
the labor movement, and novels about the mines by Lara. Mendoza.
Cespedes, Ramirez Velarde, and Taboada Teran are available in many
of the bookstores. The miners had their own radio station until 1965,
when it was seized along with their meeting hall by the army. Programs
planned by union leaders were broadcast in Quechua and Spanish, and
their news broadcasts presented labor views. The workers of San Jose
are, as a result, one of the most thoroughly politicized segments of the
Latin American working class.
Oruro is also considered to be the "folklore capital" of Bolivia.
Legends of the monsters that threatened to kill all of the people of Uru
Uru, the pre-Hispanic tribal name, are known to everyone and are in-
cluded in texts given to schoolchildren. The principal legend concerns
Hahuari, the powerful ogre who was believed to live in the hills and was
My three-month field trip in 1969 was financed by the Social Science Research Coun-
cil. I returned to Bolivia in January, 1970 to complete a year's study of the mines
financed by a I'ulbright-Hayes National Defense and Education Act, Title IV
award. I am grateful to both agencies for providing the basis for carrying out the
> instigation.
identified with the "Devil" or "Uncle" of the mines. It was he wh
persuaded the people to leave their work in the fields and enter t!
caves to find the riches he had in store. They abandoned the virtuo..
life of tilling the soil and turned to drinking and midnight revels pai
for by their ill-gained wealth from the mines. Then in turn came
monstrous snake, a lizard, a toad and an army of ants to devour them,
but each of these was struck by lightning as he advanced on the tow:
when one of the frightened inhabitants called upon Nusta, the 1m.
maiden, later identified with the Virgin of the Mines. The serpent ca:
still be seen, cleft in two, in a rocky crag encircling the hill where tlv
Church of Chiripujyo stands guard. The toad can be discerned in ,
stone at the foot of the hill of San Pedro, and the lizard reveals hi*
demise in the waters of Lake Poopo that glow at noon to show that h-
died in a pool of his own blood. The hoard of ants were turned int. =
sand dunes that cover acres of land south of the town center. The-
witnesses to the salvation of the town must be propitiated in Augu>t
the month of the Devil, and during Carnival. The drama of salvation
is reenacted at Carnival, when hundreds of dancers costumed as devil-
emerge in the streets of Oruro.
Hahuari lives on in the hills where the mines are located, and is ven-
erated in the form of the Tio, or Devil, as the owner of the wealth oi
the mines. Llama pastoralists say they have seen him at night carrying
the mineral on teams of llamas and vicunas into the mines where the
animals deposit it and where it is found by the miners, who give theii
thanks in offerings of liquor, cigarettes and coca. The Tio controls tin-
rich veins of ore and reveals them only to those who give him offerings.
If the Tio is offended by anything the miners do, he can cause an ac-
cident. There is a feeling among miners that their earnings, as the wage-
of the Devil, are soon dissipated. One miner's wife told me that she coul<!
not save any money, no matter how much her husband earned on con-
tract, because they were the wages of the Devil.
Images of the Tio appear in the main shafts at each level of the mine
and sometimes small images are placed in the coca-chewing niches. Tiu
likeness varies according to the fancy of the workers who make it, but
the body is always shaped from mineral. The hands, face and legs arc
sculptured with clay from the mine. Bright pieces of metal may In
stuck into the eye orbs, or light bulbs, sometimes from the miners' hel-
mets, may be substituted. Sometimes the plaster-of-Paris masks used h-
the devil dancers in carnival are put on his head. The images range i:
size from a hand-span to those as large as a man. They are sometime-
clothed in a stiff canvas vest, a flamboyant cape and high boots. 1 i
 eeth may be made of glass or crystal sharpened "like nails" and the
mouth is open, gluttonous and ready to receive offerings. In Siglo XX,
the images are characterized by a huge erection. The theme of male sex-
uality is also apparent in the representations of him in the form of a
cock. Sometimes he is accompanied by the figure of a bull, who is his
assistant and who helps those in contract to him by digging out the ore
with his horns. Or he may be accompanied by a harem of Chinas, fe-
male temptresses. The Tio is a figure of power; he has what everyone
wants, in excess. Remains of coca lie in his greedy mouth. His hands
are stretched out, grasping the bottles of alcohol he is offered. Some have
described him as a "gringo" (a term applied to any foreigner with blond
hair or fair complexion whether from Germany, the United States or
elsewhere) wearing cowboy hat and boots.
Another spirit present in the mines but rarely represented in an image
is the Pachamama, or Viejita (Old Woman). Many of the miners greet
her when they enter the mine, saying, "Good day, old woman. Don't let
anything happen to me today!" And when they leave the mine safely,
they thank her for their life. They ask her to intercede with the Tio
when they feel in danger. When they set off dynamite, they ask her not
to get angry.
A contrary feminine image appears to the miners, usuallv after they
have been drinking chicha, the fermented corn liquor, in the form of
the Viuda, or Widow. She is a young and beautiful rhola (Indian or mes-
tiza who lias assumed some urban traits, primarily clothing) who makes
men lose their minds and sometimes their paychecks. The Widow is the
eternal Eve, deluding men with her promises. Her need for men is om-
nivorous. Sometimes she carries them off in their delusion to distant
mines where they die. She is a projection of the disillusionment the miners
expect and try to insulate themselves against, a composite of deluding
labor recruiters, prostitutes that rid them of their hard-earned money,
and their frustrated desires. Some say she is the consort of the Tio.
The ceremony of offering to the Tio, called the ch'alla, is performed
every Tuesday and Friday by workers, sometimes individually and some-
times by the work gang. According to the old miners, it is a continuation
of the traditions found among the campesinos who give an offering to
the Pachamama so that she will rid the house or cultivated grounds of
evil spirits and ensure the fertility of people, animals and crops. Inside
the mines it is also, although not explicitly, an offering to the Pacha-
"ma. Before the offering of liquor is passed to the Tio. miners spill
v>me on the ground for the Pachamama. Special recognition is given to
lite Pachamama on the eve of June 24, the fiesta of San Juan in the
Catholic calendar, in the warming of the earth ceremony, when miners
as well as campesinos light fires in front of their homes.
The ch'alla within the mines is described as follows by a miner;
We begin to ch'alla in the working areas within the mine. We bring in banners, con-
fetti and paper streamers, all those things. First we begin with the Tio. We put a
cigarette in his mouth. After this we scatter the alcohol on the ground for the Pa-
chamama. 1 and rnv partner do it. We are "politicos," a kind of team. We scattei
the alcohol and then gi\e some to the Tio. Then we take out our coca and begin to
chew, and we smoke. We serve liquor from the bottles each of us brings in. We light
the Tio's cigarette, and we sav, "Tio, help us in our work. Don't let any accidents
happen." We do not kneel before him as we would before a saint, because that would
be sacrilegious. Then everyone begins to get drunk. We begin to talk about our work
about the sacrifice that we make. When this is finished, we wind the streamers around
the neck of the Tio. We prepare our mesasA After some time, ue sav. "Lei's go."
Some have to c a m the others out it the\ are drunk. We go to where we change
clothes, and when ue come out of there ue make the offering again of liquor, ban-
ners, and we wrap the streamers around each others' necks. And from there on, each
one does what he pleases: either he goes home or he continues di inking, but ii is
his own decision.
In the ch'alias I have observed and participated in, the head of the work-
ers in the paraje, or work area, takes the initiative in starting each act.
He leads the men. in shaking the liquor on the ground and calling for
life, "Hallalla, hallalla!" The act of chewing coca, called the achamama,
is the ingestion of the spirit of Pachamama. Liquor stands for the
thoughts of people, both the good and the bad. While the offering is
given to the Tio, the oldest man or sometimes a yatiri, or diviner, if one
is called in, asks the Tio to "produce" more mineral and make it "ripen"
just as though it were a crop. This terminology used by the miners clear-
ly relates the ch'alla in the mines to the pre-Hispanic customs performed
by the agriculturists.
A special ch'alla, called k'araku, or invitation to eat, is performed
with music and dancing on the first of August, the month of the Devil,
and on the first Friday of Carnival. In the days of Patiho, Aramavo and
Hochschild, the miners offered four, five or six quintales (100 pounds)
of the richest mineral, called the achura, to the owners in a ceremony
in which they sacrificed a white llama to the Tio. The patron in turn
gave the workers a gift called the t'inka, consisting of liquor, coca and
clothing. In the drinking and dancing that took place before the image
of the Tio, the bonds between workers and managers were reinforced.
4 Mesas, or "tables," are prepared with offerings of k'oa, a herb, the foetus of a
llama, cakes with pictures of desired objects—houses, cars, animals—or frightening
monsters—serpents or tigers—and are wound about with colored wool. These mesas
are burned in front of the Devil as well as the other stone effigies in the town.
The workers who knew Patino say that he sincerely believed in the Tio
and made large offerings to him. The k'araku is described by a miner,
now 42 years old, who had worked in the mines since he was 12 and
who professed disbelief in the power of the Tio:
Never have the miners forgotten the custom of the k'araku. They take an animal,
kill it and save the blood. They cook it whole without salt. After this, they wrap the
bones in white or red wool, and bury them in the mine where no one will disturb
them. They sprinkle the blood where they work and on their tools and the machines
that they work with. As we sprinkle the blood, we ask the Pachamama to make
the tools help us in our work.
This ceremony reveals the desire of the workers to be productive. It
overcomes the alienation of man in industrial institutions by relating
him, through his tools, to the Pachamama, the source of all productivity.
I was curious to know how the new social security provisions put into
law after the revolution of 1952 affected the traditional securitv system
established through the ch'alla. When I questioned workers, many pro-
fessed disbelief in the old demons. But the mines are full of danger and
accidents, and death must be given a reason or the men will be fearful
of entering after someone has had an accident. The miner who described
the k'araku above, and who professed disbelief in the devil, went on to
tell of what happened to one of the men in his work group when the
bones of a sacrificial llama had been disturbed:
I know of a man who had a vein of ore near where the bones were buried. Without
advising me (my informant was the head of the paraje) he made a hole with his drill
and put the dynamite in. He knew very well that the bones were there. On the fol-
lowing day, it cost him his life. His neck was severed. While he was drilling a stone
fell and cut his head off. We had to change the bones with a ceremony. We brought
in a good shaman who charged us $500 and we hired the best orchestra and we sang
and danced in the new location where we laid the bones. We did not work in that
paraje for three days, and we spent all the time in the ch'alla. Each man in the work
gang was washed with two liters of water mixed with white and yellow corn ground
up and mixed with oil of sweet almonds.
A carpenter recounts the following case of the death of his partner
in the mines when he challenged the power of the Tio.
He was called Marcos Valencia. He was a youth who had recently come out of the
army. He had these problems. He wanted to work, to earn silver to clothe his sister,
his brothers and his mother. He worked with a great will. He could do the work of
two men because he was very strong and they paid him well. He worked with all his
will. In these times we used to take out the loads with a wheel.
One day, Marcos Valencia came to work very weary. When he took his turn on
the wheel, from time to time he made me pull my arms. And I complained.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Nothing," he replied.
 But from time to time he repeated this and caused me to fall so that I hurt my-
self. When it came to rest, I complained to the foreman, and he said he would
speak to the vouth. He told Marcos. "You have come here to work, not to sulk."
We began to work and again I was thrown down. I said, "Marcos, what is the
matter with you? You are my friend. You can't carry on this way."
And he let go of the bag, speaking to me, and said, "Hector, 1 am ueary of m\
life."
I asked him why. and he said. "Look what happened to all my work. In the seven
months that I have worked, I saved my money. I bought material to make clothing
for myself and my sister and for my mother and my brothers. I also bought a sail
and saved my money bevond this. And I bought six or seven new pairs of shoes. I
intended to have the clothing made for each one of my brothers and my sister in
turn, and also for my mother. As it turned out, my sister stole the suitcasc with
everything, all the clothes, the money, everything. 1 am left with nothing. Seven
months of work with nothing to show for it. For this I am weary."
Since we had to work on another shaft, we rested in the coca rest. And where we
sat there was the figurine of the Devil. When Marcos sat on the boulder, he seized
the Tio, no more than the head, not the body, and threw it against the rock.
The foreman who was in front said, "Don't do that. You too can die in the same
way."
And Marcos Valencia replied. "No. no. I'm not going to die now. These are il-
lusions. I do not believe in these things."
"So said a worker in Santa Fe," said the foreman, "and he died in an accident in
the shaft."
"What does that matter?" said Marcos Valencia. "It's not going to happen to inc.
I have destroyed the Tio many times and nothing happened."
"But someday it will happen. You can't stay here destroying things. Perhaps I shall
send you to the other side."
And so we continued working until afternoon. Instead of going out at three, we
left at four in the afternoon. And there was 110 elevator to take us up. There was
nothing, and we rang and nothing came. Then finally the haul came. I got 011 first.
The superintendent got on behind me and Marcos Valencia behind him. The moment
that he put his foot on. the elevator went down and one leg remained out, caught
on the ground. He grabbed the superintendent by the shoulder, but he was torn of!
the elevator by the force of the descent. And it wasn't like the movies, shouting aloud.
No. He did not shout. The only thing he said was, "Ahhh . . ." until he fell to
palino (the bottom level). Completely destroyed. Absolutely. There was nothing left.
His ribs crushed, his scalp torn off on the rocks, his skull mashed. And so he died.
"Was it because of the way he treated the Tio}" I asked. "I cannot say,"
replied my informant, "but it was a coincidence."
The changes that came after the revolution, giving increased educa-
tion and political power to the miners, have upset some of the old ideas
but not wiped them out. Feelings are mixed about the Tio. One young
union delegate rejected the Tio completely and asserted that onlv the
old continued to honor him:
Here in San Jose this belief is disappearing. Before, one could not even whistle in-
side the mine because that would disturb the Tio. They wouldn't even let in air be-
cause of the whistling in fear that that would cause the vein to disappear. But that
is completely absurd. . . . However, these beliefs are still found in mines that arc-
not in contact with the city, that are not well socialized. . . . For me, these cere-
monies are simply a pretext to drink. It is absurd to blame accidents on the Tio when
it is really due to the company's failure to give the proper materials.
One Protestant convert feels the ancient superstitions are a diversion from
progress:
In this country, nothing is ever going to progress. Everyone is accustomed to give in
the name of the Devil. This is surelv a contradiction. Do these customs bring bene-
fit to the home? Do they bring any intellectual benefits? They do not. Do they bring
any future benefits to the home and for the children? They do not. But look at the
United Slates. There the majority are Protestants and there they are progressing.
Look at Abraham Lincoln for example. He was a Protestant, an evangelist. There
you can see the spiritual and moral values of men who are recognized in the history
of humanity. One needs faith in the one and only supreme God to progress. When
one has faith in a supreme God, the moral and spiritual values flow. But as we me
going, man turns into a beast.
In response to this statement, another miner present in the discussion
replied:
Jorge says that this country as a consequence of the old religion drinks too much
and does not take advantage most effectively of their earnings. Those values do not
pertain so much to religious principles. If we analyze them, they are more a cul-
tural process. From the purely orthodox religious point of view, these customs should
be eliminated. But man has his defects. The miner must believe in the Pachamama
and the Tio because of accidents that occur. Man is spirituallv weak from the point
of view of accidents or propensity to accidents. Without this belief he does not work
in confidence. He is always uneasy. He thinks that even if not today, tomorrow he
may have an accident. And he is more concerned about the accident and does not
work, looking around to see if he is going to fall or if it is going to happen. But he
does not work. Therefore, the miner, particularly in the month of August, buys his
wool, grease, coca and other things that he offers, saving, "Pachamama is not going
to punish me." With this, he internally believes he has fulfilled a proposal of giving
something to the Pachamama and from that moment he can arrive at a point of
forgetting an accident. Then he can continue working with tranquility. It is a cus-
tom that the priests have not forced on us. We ought to think that our own race
formed it, and that it was not formed by the priest. In the time of the Inca, they
had forms of serving God, the Sun, and the mother Earth. It was always in his feel-
ings. He serves God in his offerings now as before in the time of the Sun.
The majority of workers do not question the presence of the Tio or the Pacha-
mama. When they are startled, they yell, "What are you doing, Tio?" or "Don't
get angry, Mama!" When an accident nearly happens, they offer more liquor and
coca to the Tio with thanks for saving them. Some miners say that the fears men
constantly face in the mines cause some to lose their virility. When this happens, the
miners turn to the Tio and ask him to make them as potent as he. When three men
died within a short period of time in San Jose last year, the men were convinced that
the Tio was thirsty for blood. A delegation requested the administration to give them
free time for a ch'alla, a collection was taken and three llamas were purchased. A
yatiri was hired to conduct the ceremony. All the miners offered blood to the Tio,
saving, "Take this! Don't eat my blood!"
The Tio's influence over accidents remains, but there is much less concern about
his power over the veins of ore. This stems in part from the present system of con-
tract pavment. The nationalized mines pay in accord with the cubic meters exca\ated.
The only thing of importance is the tonnage. Formerly the pirikinis (the old con-
tract group) worked with all their heart, their tears, their suffering because they were
compensated onlv for the mineral content. For this reason, they had these customs
with the Tio, they made the ch'alla, they kept out all strangers except their own
superintendent for tear of losing the vein.
Since the miners no longer have the drive to produce as much as in
the days of private ownership and since they have been totally alienated
from the nationalized COM1BOL management after the military take-
over of the mines in 1965, they even conceal veins they find. Some of the
older engineers feel that if the miners had the incentive of the t'inka
they would turn over the finer metals as an nchura instead of stealing
them and selling them outside.
Nationalization had also affected the structure of the work group and
with this the solidarity among workers. In the days before the revolu-
tion, work was done by gangs of from ten to fifteen men, with onlv one
mechanized drill in the hands of the master driller who was leader of
the group. The other men worked with picks and there were more cart-
ers to take out the mule-drawn carts loaded with ore. Solidarity among
the workers was high because they shared the contract payment which
was based on the amount of metal, not the cubic meters of ore taken
out. Antagonism existed between the work groups, but rarely within
them. An old miner who had worked in most of the mines of Bolivia
and a copper mine in Chile described these conditions:
The men in the mines who get high returns on their contracts were most often the
targets of witchcraft. The miners used to go seek their shamans from among the cam-
pesinos who know more about this. These shamans have animal spirits. Here, and
especially in Colquecharka, many miners used witchcraft to make their more fortu-
nate companions lose the vein. They went into the mine with the shaman, they threw
water with salt on the vein where their enemy was working and this made it dis-
appear. Sometimes the miners knew they were being bewitched and they called on
the Pachamama.
Other miners reported pouring the milk of a black burro mixed with
garlic on the veins of their enemies to make them disappear. The miners
also had to protect the veins against the "evil eye" (bankanowi) of any
workers entering their sector. When they struck a good vein, they some-
times slept in the mine to protect it. The miners never brought garlic
into the mine, because this too made the vein disappear. The Spanish
belief that garlic wards off evil may have some connection here with
the notion that the vein, as the product of the Devil, is evil and like the
Devil would be frightened away by the garlic.
When the mines were nationalized, solidarity shifted from the small
primary group of a work gang to a wider group embracing all of the
workers in the mines. This tendency had been growing since the second
decade of the twentieth century and was intensified with each strike and
its resulting massacre. Labor leaders tried to expand working class sol-
idarity through the Central Obrera Boliviana and sought to include all
workers and campesinos. Within the mines, work groups were eliminated
and team work was substituted, with two instead of ten or fifteen men
as the basic unit. W hile the inner core of solidarity in the contract group
r

was lost, a larger unity was maintained in the work force as a whole so
long as the workers had the Control Obrero as a means of pressing their
demands with the administration. One of the rights workers had gained
after the revolution was to have their contracts figured openlv, with the
superintendent, the chief of the level, and the head of the work gang
signing the contracts. This right, and other gains made by the revolu-
tion. were ensured by the Control Obrero. All this was lost after the
military takeover. "We work in ignorance of what we produce," said
one miner, "and we are paid a starvation wage. The old unity is lost
and there is no organization to create a new unity."
The group ch'alla has been limited since the occupation of the mines
by Barrientos in 1965. No animals are sacrificed and the drinking is lim-
ited because of the scarcity of money. The miners sav that Barrientos
was afraid of the worker solidarity promoted in these drinking sessions.
The group spirit is recounted by an old miner:
In the time when work was still done with manual force, the ch'alla was held every
Friday. The men offered the Tio alcohol, coca, cigarettes, beer and alcohol. We did
not dance but we gave the offering, chewing coca and we began to recount our prob-
lems. One would say, "I don't make enough money to support mv children." An-
other would say, "1 have to earn more too. I want to leave my children something
when I die. Every day it gets worse. Of the hundreds of bolivars we used to earn,
only dozens remain." And so it was in the ch'alla, we used to talk of our problems
and plan what to do to change things.
The suppression of the ch'alla has added to the resentment of the
workers against management and the government. Union activists say
it was suppressed because the administrators feared that the miners might
start a rebellion if they got together and shared ideas about their com-
mon misery. One union leader saw the ch'alla as the fountainhead of
proletarian solidarity:
This tradition inside the mine must be continued because there is no communica-
tion more intimate, more sincere, or more beautiful than the moment of the ch'alla,
the moment when the workers chew coca together and it is offered to the Tio. There
they give \oice to their social problems, they give voice to their work problems, they
give voice to all the problems thev have, and there is born a new generation so rev-
olutionarv that the workers begin thinking of making structural change. This is
their universitv. The experience they have in the ch'aUa is the best experience in-
side the mine.
Along with the suppression of the ch'alla came a sharp drop in the pro-
duction of high quality ores. The nationalized mining administration
has never succeeded in developing work incentives. There has in effect
been a denationalization of the mines as private companies have pur-
chased concessions to work over the slag that has been taken out of the
mines. The mines have been decapitalized as the profits go to support
the army and other non-productive sectors of society. The wages of the
workers were frozen at the level to which Barrientos had reduced them
in 1964. This fact, coupled with rising salaries of administrators and
arrnv officers, has resulted in both an almost total alienation of the work-
ers and a stagnation in production. The greater freedom of unions and
political activities under Ovanclo has not yet resulted in substantial
changes to improve the lot of miners.
The ch'alla to the Tio has had the effect of overcoming antagonisms
present in the work situation. It dissolves the jealousies of men compet-
ing with each other as they confront the administration. The ritual re-
leases pent-up frustrations, creates equality out of inequality, and stim-
ulates the euphoria of comradeship. As a result of the failure of the MNR
and the subsequent military dictatorships to solve the problems in the
mines, to overcome the high accident rate and to make a reality of the
social legislation it passed, the workers have fallen back on their old
security system—placating the Devil who still lives in the hell that is the
mines, and seeking the sympathy of the Pachamama to ensure life and
good fortune. The strength of these old rituals in asserting the will to
live and to improve the miners' lot came to me most clearly when I vis-
ited Siglo XX on the second anniversary of the massacre of San Juan.
As I walked through the fire-lit streets, talking to the miners and their
families, everyone told me that there were more fires than before the
massacre. "It is our history," one miner said. "We must remember that
night and carry on." One woman replied, when I asked why miners do
the earth-warming, since it is an agriculturalist custom:
The campesinos warm the earth to get more animals and crops for greater life. We
do it now more than before the massacre because we felt the need to assure more life.
The determination of the miners and their families to lead a more pro-
ductive and self-fulfiilling life came through clearly in the fire-lit streets
of the encampment.
The Tio and the Pachamama are projections of the miners hopei
for the future, more responsive than the giant bureaucracy which takes
their social security payments and waits for them to die before paying
compensation. The sponsorship of the rituals by the former owners and
the mines and their foreign administrators had reinforced an exploita-
tive labor system. However, the rejection of the belief in the Tio and
the rituals of the ch'alla by the indigenous bureaucrats and technicians
who entered after nationalization (men who for the most part are afraid
of being identified with the Indian and chola classes from which they
came), has transformed the Tio into an ally of the workers. One worker
said, on the occasion of the k'araku, "The Tio is the real owner here.
The administrators just sit in their offices and don't help us in our
work." The suppression of the ch'alla and the ritual exchange of achuras
and the t'inka has become a symbol of the repression exercised by mil-
itary leadership since Barrientos. When Ovando permitted a limited
ch'alla to take place during the 1970 carnival, the men expressed some
hope that their lot would improve, but the failure of the administration
to make the traditional exchange and the impoverished nature of the
celebration because of lack of funds minimized the impact of the cele-
bration. "The Tio is still hungry," the miners said, "and so are we."
New York University JUNE NASH