|
 |
PEOPLE OF PERU |
About 45 percent of Peru's inhabitants are Native Americans, some of whom are descended from the Inca who established a great civilization in the region by the 15th century.
About 100 other indigenous groups live in the rain forest of eastern Peru. These tribes live in virtual isolation from the rest of Peru's population, speaking traditional languages and surviving by hunting, fishing, and agriculture.
At least 53 ethnic groups live in the Amazon jungle, although only around five percent of Peru's population live in the Selva (the tropical region east of the Andes in the jungle). |
People of the Mountains
At the same time, the hardy people of the Andes live a similarly isolated  existence. As with the Himalayan mountains, the Andes impose severe conditions and many limitations on life. Consequently, Andean people are physically adapted to the heights in special ways. In contrast to persons born and raised at sea level, those living at Andean altitudes 2,500 meters or more above sea level have as much as 25 percent more blood that is more viscous and richer in red cells, a heart that is proportionately larger, and specially adapted, larger lungs, with an enhanced capacity to take in oxygen from the rare atmosphere. Biological adaptations have permitted the native highlanders to work efficiently and survive successfully in the Andean altitudes for 20,000 years.
Some 37 percent of the country's people are mestizos, those of mixed white (mainly Spanish) and Native American background. About 15 percent of Peruvians are of unmixed white descent, and many of the remainder are of black African, Japanese, or Chinese ancestry. Some 72 percent of the people live in urban areas.
The social organization of communities in the Andes differs greatly from that of Europeanized Creole culture. Work, marriage and land-ownership are centered around a complex extended family organization called the ayllu in Quechua, which dates back to at least Inca times. One of the main functions of ayllus is to organize reciprocal work exchange.
A large majority of highland people live a marginal and impoverished existence and are removed from the modern benefits of the national economy. While retaining an unchanged loyalty to their ancestral heritage, so well identified to the outside world through their bright homemade costumes, the poor of the Andes are nevertheless equally eager to share in the luxuries of a "modern" lifestyle which includes education, electricity, sewage and running potable water. But rather than improving, the economic conditions of these communities is deteriorating, leading to massive urban migration. |
|
|
