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 We find instead of rivalry that there is the closest and friend- liest relation between the mountain shepherd and the desert dweller. The causes for this condition lie in the geographic distribution of the principal natural resources upon which each depends. ‘The oases on the western border of the cordillera are for the most part mere dots in a vast desert. Miles of almost naked lava separate them from the belt of mountain pastures. Miles of hot sandy piedmont separate them from one another. In the sterile desert about them their own flocks, had they any, would find subsistence for only a part of the year. Hence the small size and scattered distribution of the oases make them quite as dependent on the flocks of the shepherds as the shep- herds are dependent upon the vegetable food of the oases. Indeed, this supplementary relation is carried so far in the case of the smaller oases that they are merely the winter camps for the mountain shepherds, who have their own gardens which they leave to the care of the old and infirm during the greater part of the year. At Tilomonte a few patches of land are planted and then left to the care of wind and sun until the harvest is due. Almost the whole population of Soncor and Socaire’ are in the mountains in summer, only a remnant of aged and feeble persons being left behind to care for the gardens.

In the communal vicuña hunts, which are of great antiquity, these pastoral nomads on the western flanks of the Andean Cordillera show most clearly their isolated condition. Else- where the ancient customs have largely disappeared. The priest has substituted the ceremonies of the Christian church for the old feasts of the harvest and the chase. But the poor shepherds of the desolate country on the mountain border of Atacama still retain their old ways. Some of them are in pure form; even those that have become modified still have a strong flavor of the original paganism. Among them the vicuña hunt is by far the most interesting. Late in February or early in March, the men of Aguas Blancas and Toconao go into the mountain country in search of vicuña. On the