Portrait of a Nation by Hurtado Osvaldo;

Author:Hurtado, Osvaldo;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 616350
Publisher: Madison Books
Published: 2021-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

Further on, he added that his fellow countrymen were more instinctive than reflective, slaves to traditions, individualistic, self-centered, “alien to social discipline, cooperation, [and] solidarity.” He also said that they demonstrated “aversion to sustained and persevering effort,” admired and sympathized with those “who spend and sterilely waste their fortune,” expressed a “kind of disdain” for everything that was “foresight, order and personal effort,” and acted “in bad faith with different nuances.” He remarked that such conduct was not to be put past merchants, artisans, members of the military, policemen, politicians, clergymen, officials, Indians, ultimately everyone—no one was exempt from such conduct. Referring to Indians, even though the observation was also valid for whites and mestizos, he repeated what foreign travelers from previous centuries had written: “they lived in [an] alarming [state of] drunkenness.”50 Niles described a scene that was common in cities, villages, and roads in the highlands on Saturdays and Sundays after the open-air market activities: drunken Indians lying on the ground, solicitously cared for by their wives, who had abstained from drinking to protect and care for their husbands.51 Michaux considered that Indians “like to get drunk like nobody else in the world, not just getting drunk one or two nights, no.” During religious celebrations, they were “drunk for three weeks.”52

Alfredo Espinosa Tamayo confirmed what Quevedo said. Ecuadorians were always disposed “to easy enthusiasms rapidly snuffed out.” So that they undertook projects “that they abandon the next day,” forgetting them after they have been launched and received “with great passion and fervor.” Bureaucrats, military men, professionals, and members of the middle class in general sought “occupations easy to perform,” “hated work, lived pretending to work, nourished false luxury” and when they emigrated to the coast, “they failed due to their lack of preparation for life’s struggles.” They were lazy, verbose, melancholy, arrogant, suspicious, distrustful, [and] improvident; and their volubility made them “easy prey for enthusiasm and discouragement, especially in the case of the highland chullas ,* whom he described as “incorrigible bohemians” and people that “want to and can’t.” Since there were no amusements, both the peasant farmers and the city-dwellers were “very contaminated by the vice of alcohol, which was more widespread than in other countries.” As for the Indians, he indicated that, despite their undeniable laziness, “they are much more hardworking than the mestizos and whites of the cities.” However, he characterized them as indolent, servile, distrustful, impassive, resigned, set in their ways, alcoholic, and given to theft.53 As an example of their lack of flexibility, one author mentioned the Indians’ resistance to making furrows against the direction of the slope, which was necessary to avoid erosion and the loss of soil quality.54

Researchers, travelers, and immigrants reiterated much of this. Clark cited an official report at the turn of the century, which spoke about lethargic young people who refused to work, and about educational and repressive measures taken by the liberal government against vagrancy. He added that, when construction was undertaken on the railway in the

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