photo by Patti Anderson

Alpaca History

Alpaca is a Spanish word derived from the Aymara name allpacu or the Quechua names pacos or pacoshas. The Aymara and Quechua people are today’s traditional owners of Alpacas. Like their Inca forefathers, many of today’s highland pastorialists collect their llamas, load them with highly prized alpaca fiber, woven cloth, dried meat and sacks of dried potatoes. Then they trek for days to the villages in more temperate lower elevations, where they trade their goods for grains and produce. With agriculture marginal at best on the harsh puna, these bartering trips are necessary for survival. Movement of goods between highland herders, farmers of the temperate Andean valleys and coastal fishermen was crucial to the development of Andean cultures, which culminated with the Inca Empire (1438-1532). Spanish conquistador Franciso Pizzaro and 170 men put an end to the Inca empire more than 470 years ago. Though the animals still figured prominently in the Andean herders’ culture and heritage, the pastoralists way of life was forever altered by the Spanish Conquest. European values and cultural disorientation broke down much of the social structure and belief system that once ruled the land, including strict codes concerning animal husbandry practices. Despite the changes and constant pressures since the Conquest, Andean pastoralism has survived (some would say primarily only as a vestige of the past) because both the people and animals are well adapted to the harsh Andean environment.

Alpacas are one of the domesticated members of the camel (camelid) family which also includes llamas, guanacos, and vicunas from South America, and the Bactrian and Dromedary camels from Asia and Africa. This family of animals originated on the plains of North America about 10 million years ago. A common ancestor to the South American camelids migrated there about 2.5 million years ago. Two wild species, vicunas and guanacos, also emerged and still live in the Andes today.

The ancient people, turned llamas and alpacas out each morning to graze on the puna, and they were returned each evening to the rock corrals known as canchones. These ancient corrals are spread throughout the altiplano which is the high plateau and drainage basin around Lake Titicaca, including northern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. For centuries they have been used to protect the herds at night and provide resting places for llama caravans as they pass through. This is an ancient way of life based on the only pre European livestock domestication in the New World, and it echoes back to the rise and fall of once great civilizations. The highland herders of today share a kinship bond with their alpacas and llamas, a bond cemented by tradition, religious devotion, genuine affection and harsh pragmatism.

It is believed that over 6,000 years ago alpacas were created through selective breeding which was heavily influenced by the vicuna. There are similarities in size, fiber, and dentition (teeth) between the alpaca and the wild vicuna. Of all the animals found in the Americas prior to European colonization, llamas and their wooly alpaca cousins had the most influence. Like the buffalo of the great plains, alpacas and llamas were the source of meat, fuel and hides. But unlike buffalo, they were fully domesticated animals, created centuries before the Incas by Andean people who bred wild forms of South American camelids and clearly appreciated the myriad of benefits woven alpaca fiber offered against the harsh environment in which they lived. From a dig at a sacrificial site of the Chiribaya culture dating back 1000 years, it was learned that the fiber recovered there from both alpacas and llamas possesed qualities far superior to the fleeces of camelids today. Andean cultures did not leave records of the size of their herds or the volume in trade, but anthropologists speculate that the trade surpassed all other prehistoric cultures in both North and South America. As alpaca breeders today look to the past for a glimpse of the future we can agree that we have much work to do when it comes to fiber qualities. Something which can be difficlt to realize the first time you touch an unbelievably soft cria.