THE MEMORIES OF Qaqachaka's inhabitants about the first ancestors of the place and their characteristics are just as fragmentary as their narratives about the origins of the place. In general, their commentaries about them begin with observations about the local people, and the particularities that distinguish them from neighbouring pueblos. These commentaries stress how, to identify the provenance of someone, you observe their face, the intonation of their voice while speaking, and their kind of dress.

Differences between the comunarios of the locality are also noted: that some people have round faces (muruq iñnaqani), which they associate with those who used to speak Uru, while others have long faces (sayt’u iñnaqani), which they associate with speakers of Aymara and Quechua. Then Quechua speakers are distinguished from Aymara speakers by the shh sound in their speech.

It is common in these commentaries to remark on the origins of some inhabitants in Uru-speaking pueblos, especially among older people who can still remember their recent interactions with the inhabitants of Lake Poopó, where they went in search of dried fish in exchange for freeze-dried potatoes (chuñu) and other highland products. Don Tiburcio Maraza, from the Maraza family of Livichuco, offered us a linguistic interpretation about this kind of first ancestor:

These commentaries accord with the information registered in the census of 1570 by Pedro de Zárate, where it specifies that the province of Paria had 70 percent of Uru speakers and only 30 percent of Aymara speakers. And although Condocondo and its immediate surroundings had a majority of Aymara speakers, the shores to the east and south of Lake Poopó were settled by speakers of Uru-Chipaya.