Note 145 — XXII. (continued 2)

The Aymara Indian rarely uses animal food, as to do so he would require to kill one of his beloved Llamas. His chief food consists of roasted Chuño, a small bitter species of potato, which flourishes only on the barren, rugged plateau of the Andes inhabited by the Aymara, where neither the common potato nor the maize continue to grow; even barley, which the Spaniards introduced, ceases to thrive. Their only other food is a species of moss, which grows in the swamps, and is called by the natives "Lanta." Under such alimentary conditions, it is readily intelligible why the Aymara have a predilection for coca balls (acullica), which (as sailors and others do with us, with tobacco) they keep continually rolling about in their mouths, and which, as soon as the whole of the juice has been sucked out, is thrown away and replaced by a fresh "quid." The juice of the green leaves diluted with oceans of saliva is usually swallowed. An Indian chews on the average an ounce to an ounce and a half per diem, but on feast-days double that quantity.