A Toponymic Study of the Chiripa Locality MARIO MONTANO ARAGON p ARALLELING THE SITE surface survey and region, I also consulted a series of old and new excavations, as a linguistical anthropologist I maps, publications, and dictionaries, including the spent two months making a detailed toponymic files of the Agrarian Reform (Paredes 1931; Polo survey of 9 square kms in and around Chiripa. My 1910). None of these maps were as detailed as I goal was to learn the names of every topographic would have liked. As I collected these place locale as well as their meanings from the mountain names, I tried, whenever possible, to confirm the top to the lake. In this search I found a series of names with as many people as possible, especially languages represented in the place names. One the elders of the region. I coded each place name assumption I use is that cultures are perpetuated in by meaning, such as human anatomy, minerologi- the names of their lived world. I assume that the cal, botanical, musical, and agricultural; using 20 longevity of people's languages in their associated codes in all. I also described the location and world view will be seen in the number of place- translated the use-meaning into Spanish when I names in their environment. In regions like the could. I believe that the name Chiripa is either Titicaca Basin this becomes particularly interest- Aymara or Uru; the UrU meaning is associated ing due to the multiple languages that co-reside with fish. there now, as also happened in the past. Part of The Taraco Peninsula was in the Umasuyu this project's goal was to see if socio-cultural division of the Pacajes during the Late Intermedi- structures were evident in the names. The lan- ate and Inka times (the last 1000 years). During guages that are represented in the Chiripa place- the early Colonial period, the Taraco Peninsula names are Uru, Aymara, Quechua (Kichua), and was divided into 10 small ranches. These still can Spanish (but no Pukina). be seen in the community boundaries today. This In all I have 126 place-names for this small local regional name Pacajes was changed to Ingavi area (Bertonio 1956; Metraux 1936). Besides in 1842 after the independence of Bolivia, with the talking with people throughout the designated canton becoming Taraco in 1880. This canton had 8 Early Settlement at Chiripa, Bolivia ten sections, with Chiripa being the central area in I think that the ancient name of the area is Peqeri, Peqeri. After the agrarian reform of 1952, Peqeri - which means stone grinder in Aymara. I think Chiripa became the center of this section. The they might have made these stone artifacts to the community itself is divided into two sections, an east of the modem community of Chiripa. upper and a lower one, laying east-west along the I estimate from the origins of the 126 shoreline. toponyms I have located in the region that 75% are I have found a startling loss of cultural Aymara, 2.5% are Uru origin and the rest, 22.5%, history memory among the people I spoke with. I are Spanish with a small hint of Quechua in some found that residents associated themselves with the of them. Some of the names reflect geological or Inka, which archaeology tells us is not correct. I biological features, others identify archaeological found 17 family names that I consider to be old, locales. This distribution suggests that the Uru ayllu (Aymara) families of the region. There are lived in the area first, with the Aymara entering, also Spanish family names in the region. Chiripa and then of course much later, the Inka and then today has 100 families, with about 500 inhabitants. the Spanish.