ABSTRACT
The campesinos formally are baptized and confirmed members of the Roman Catholic Church. Several permanent and visible markers in the community provide evidence of their faith: a cemetery, a chapel in which is kept an idol of the patron saint (San Martín de Porres), and religious images which are kept in private homes. Various rites are practised, and the people voice a set of beliefs concerning God, the saints, the devil and his helpers. Orthodox or not these ideas and practices form a systematic pattern, each element of which must be viewed in terms of the overall structure. The set of religious conceptions provides several designs for living in the sense of affording explanations or meanings for events which have occurred, and of providing orientations, or pathways, for behaviour that should occur. Ultimately, these beliefs justify and legitimate the central social relationships in the village.
