LA PAZ, Bolivia — As La Paz has grown into a bustling city of more than 1 million people, with shining skyscrapers and noisy traffic jams, an urban Indian subculture has flourished amid the concrete and brick, preserving its folk customs, traditional beliefs and ancient language against the pressure of the dominant culture and the modern metropolitan environment.
The streets of La Paz belong to the \o7 cholitas, \f7 Indian women in bowler hats, full skirts and brightly colored shawls who come and go with babies and bundles on their backs, or sit on sidewalks peddling food, trinkets and gadgets. Aymara-speaking Indians also own uncounted shops and other businesses in the city, and their children are moving up in the mainstream educational system.
Some eventually assimilate into the Spanish-speaking mainstream, but the urban Indian masses, now a majority in the La Paz metropolitan area, are continually augmented by migrants from rural areas. And a growing elite of educated Aymaras is working to strengthen their subculture.
'Water and Oil'
Aymara anthropologist Mauricio Mamani said that after centuries of discrimination against Indians by the city's Spanish-speaking elite, La Paz's two separate societies will never unify.
"Impossible," he said in an interview, "because they are like water and oil. It is not possible for them to come together."
Aymara Indians once lived in a proliferation of independent rural kingdoms spread over the Andean highlands. They were linked by their common language and similar cultural patterns. In the 1400s, the Quechua-speaking Incas conquered the kingdoms, but the Aymara language and culture endured. In the 1500s, Spanish domination began.
Over the centuries, the Aymaras have learned Spanish, accepted Catholicism and adopted many of the cultural trappings of the conquerors and their descendants. The bowler hats and full skirts worn by Aymara women came from Europe.
Longtime Duality
There have been urban Indians since La Paz was founded. Built in rectangles around a central square, the colonial city was flanked by Indian huts huddled along irregular lanes. The Indians called La Paz by an Aymara name, Chukiyawu.
"There has been a duality in the city since its foundation," said Jose Mesa, director of the Museum of Customs.
