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Show 79 light. Food habits include many dishes prepared with corn (especially Mexico and Central America) and potatoes or tubercules (South America); fruit and meat are seldom eaten, but milk and eggs even less. Alcoholic beverages such as rum and "chicha" (fermented corn) are common, and "coca" chewing is widespread through the South American countries reviewed. The prehispanic "huipil" has been abandoned. At present women from the highlands wear cotton blouses and woolen skirts and capes, while some groups in the tropics and forest go half-naked from the waist up. Men wear white cotton or colored woolen trousers, according to different climate regions, cotton skirts and woolen blankets or jackets. Sandals and hats are frequent among men, but women go barefoot and uncovered, except when traveling. As it should be expected, all Indian regions lack a running-water system, drainage and latrines. Bathing is not frequent and dresses are washed and changed at festival occasions. Modern medicine and scientific curing are sometimes practiced but only in large towns. The people inhabit river banks and creeks, and very humid regions suffer from malaria and intestinal parasites as campaigns against anopheles are rare and the custom of drinking boiled water has never existed. At the highlands smallpox, pneumonia and TB probably cause more than half of all deaths. Morbidity indexes are very high since in the native mind concepts of disease lack causal provenience and no preventive or scientific curing takes place whatsoever. Contagious sicknesses are favored by the human and animal promiscuity and the unsanitary conditions of the people, the living quarters and surroundings. The data just mentioned interrelate with the last answer of this essay. Illiteracy ranks very high. Fifteen million is the approximate total figure among the native population of the six countries surveyed while half of them ignore Spanish, and live outside of the so-called "western culture". Thus, they follow their traditional way of thinking, acting, and believing. Generally, natural phenomena have been thought as governed by gods and the relation between them and the people is taken for granted. Their world harmony ought to be maintained by the total respect and obedience of old practices, rituals and ceremonies. Sorcerers, witches and magicians act as reinforcers of that principle, and myths, legends and belief permeate the daily routine and the after-world conception of existence. Fright, anger, ritual uncleaness, evil air and evil eye, "conditions" of the blood, and other syndromes are well known by the natives, and special folk remedies and medicines are given in order to stop the ailment and reintegrate the sick person to the harmonious world. Offerings to the saints and the carrying of charms and amulets are very common, and in some regions (Mexico and Guatemala) there still is a knowledge of a ritual calendar which guides and controls their destiny. Gabriel Garces, Victor (Ecuador), "Immigracion e Indigenismo," America |