Chapter V.
RACES, LANGUAGE, AND CLASS DISTINCTIONS.
RACES.
The inhabitants of Bolivia may be properly classified as whites, Quichuas, Aymaras, and Chunchos.
The white race embraces the people of foreign extraction, and is chiefly composed of the descendants of Spaniards.
The Quichua race is numerically the strongest in the Republic. These Indians are mainly confined to the Departments of Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, Potosi, Oruro, and that portion of the Department of La Paz skirting the northeastern shores of Lake Titicaca, and thence spread over the interior provinces of Peru. They do not differ materially from the Aymaras, except that they are perhaps more highly civilized by reason of living more generally in the great centers of population, where they are extensively employed either as servants in the houses or as laborers in the mines of the better classes.
The Aymara race is confined almost exclusively to the Department of La Paz, the center of the ancient Collas tribes, now extinct with the exception of a small remnant constituting the community of Collana, nine leagues south of the city of La Paz.
The Aymaras are the indigenous inhabitants of the high plains of western Bolivia. Although these Indians are now civilized, they adhere closely to the customs of their ancestors. They are
exceptionally good farmers, intelligent mechanics, devout Catho-
