the Territorio de los Andes, one of the ten “territories"’ of the Republic of Argentina. In the Indian view the lack of inter- ference in local manners and government by the central authorities is a great advantage. Certainly it would hardly be worth the while of the central government to attempt either to tax or to control the slight commerce that passes from hamlet to hamlet over the difficult mountain ways. The Indians enjoy a high measure of independence and of de- tachment, and in this respect their life is little altered from the conditions of the last four centuries. The Puna was a part of the territory of Bolivia down to the time of the War of the Pacific. So distant and nearly valueless a region was given little thought, and sovereignty was purely nominal until 1883 when the settlement of the War of the Pacific was made. By the terms of the Treaty of Ancon new boundary lines were designated, and the Puna passed into the possession of Chile. In 1899 Chile ceded the territory to Argentina as a result of an arbitral judgment by the United States, and in 1900 it became a part of the national domain of Argentina. In 1901 Argentine officials made the acquaintance of the Indians of the region and entered into actual possession of the new territory. It was then that the Indians petitioned to be let alone and to maintain their ancient rights of pasture and occu- pation, and to this the government has wisely consented. The matter is important, because, from colonial times until the present, property boundaries have been vague, and there has been no actual and effective occupation by white men. Some of the bordering concessions to large landowners take in in- definite portions of adjacent Puna, This is all the more serious to the Indian inhabitant because in his view private property in land does not exist.
Distribution of Settlements
Of isolated settlements in the Puna there are many—in some places a single hut with two or three families or again a cluster of five or ten huts and a string of corrals. In the Argentine census of 1914 the population of the whole Territorio de los
