Word: hacienda
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VICOS is a former hacienda set in a breath-taking Andean valley two miles high, yet more than ten thousand feet below the summits of massive snowpeaks. Before Cornell University anthropologists began--by arrangement with the government of Peru--an unusual development program in 1952, the hacienda's two thousand Quechua-speaking Indians lived on the brink of starvation...
...best a peon can hope for in a patron is a condescending paternalism, considering the Indians as innocent, somewhat retarded children. The worst he can expect are varied atrocities ranging from the common practice of beatings and whippings to extreme cases of unprovoked murder. Last year in the hacienda neighboring Vicos, two innocent Indians were killed and three seriously wounded by mounted local police acting on orders from the patron. Such incidents are generally silenced by the press and the government, whose spokesmen are often involved in the business end of the hacienda system...
...hacienda becomes so poor that it becomes unprofitable for the renter to operate, the Indians may be able to rent it directly from the owner. Several years ago the Indians in a hacienda not far from Vicos took advantage of such an opportunity. But though they have freed themselves from the daily brutalities of a particularly cruel renter, they have been unable to progress toward a higher standard of living and to build a school, their immediate goals...
...vicious circle of the system allows the former renter to outbid the Indians when the lease expires and take over the hacienda as soon as it becomes profitable once more. The renter waits for the Indians to accept the tempting agricultural aid that several organizations offer--which would increase prosperity in the community, hence assuring a return to serfdom. Caught in this system, these Indians are afraid to act and wait quietly for an opportunity to change. Should revolution sweep Peru, as many observers feel it soon will, these are some of the people with nothing to lose and everything...
...engagement parties than in the past, are deluged instead by the 20th century equivalent of the dowry: showers of every variety, both practical and kooky, pour forth the loot. Karla Francisco, 21, a fourth-generation Californian who is marrying Thomas T. Hammond, 22, at her family's luxurious hacienda, had a relatively conventional kitchen shower. But other brides have an appliance shower, a crystal shower, a china shower, a paper shower, a lingerie shower, a bathroom shower, and "vice" shower (liquor, brandy, wine). In Detroit's suburban Bloomfield Hills, Patti Bugas, 21, daughter of Ford Vice President John...