Bélgica Dagua, "How Communities Used to Drink Wholsomely."

Long ago you would sit nicely, enjoying the festivities with the elders. Tell me about that. I liked that, being surrounded by the elders and enjoying the gathering. The elders told the truth; they didn’t lie. We laughed, talked, and sang. I liked that; even now I still like that. The young people weren’t like that; they liked noise and playing music. They would go out dancing over there; I didn’t like that. I watched how they behaved. In earlier times, it wasn’t like that. We sat together, talked, and drank chicha. When we said “let’s sing,” we sang. “Now you sing and he sang, now you sing and they sang,” and they drank while singing as a group. And if it was time to dance, they danced. —Did only women dance, or women with men? Men and women, everyone together there. Whoever wanted to make people dance would ask for the drum. “I’ll play the drum to make you dance,” and I start playing “tin, tin, tin, tin, tin” on the drum. When they said “let’s dance,” yes, then the person stood up and danced. We would say “I’ll dance only up to here,” and then return to our place. If he wanted to go dance with another woman, he would say “I want to dance with you,” and the same way, she would stand up and go dance. After dancing again, he would return to the same seat. He also sat like that; he had already drunk before. Now it’s not like that. Whoever wants to drink, drinks; whoever wants to dance, dances. They run around here; they don’t stay in one place. People in the past weren’t like that. Now, these days, young people and elders sit down to talk, laugh, and say: “now I want to drink.” They give them something to drink, and you would tell them to sing. The elders sang. I liked listening to what the elders sang. —And now, these days? They go crazy; if they go crazy over there, they will fall while they’re fighting. One pulls the other’s hair, the other pulls the shirt. They’re drunk, rolling on the ground, and the other one hits him with a stick. Now it’s like that. Before, we sat in a circle to talk. We sat like that to talk. When most people had left, we made a smaller circle to keep laughing and talking until the end. Drinking alcohol, then “go to sleep now.” I also went to sleep; like that, we all went to rest. “Yes, tomorrow there will be more to drink, we gather again.” Now, these days, that no longer happens. Therefore, I prefer to drink with older people instead of young ones. Young people nowadays are very crazy. For example, they might say, “you like my husband.” They talk; they want to start problems for no reason. They think I like their husband, but they behave that way when they are drunk. —Long ago did they only drink chicha, or also alcohol? Not only chicha, we drank only chicha. Some people there still drink alcohol. Yes, in Montalvo there are still people who drink a lot.