In the Andean field, social scientists and historians have only re- cently begun to ask "how peasants make politics" (Montoya 1986) or how they have "engaged their political worlds" (Stern 1987, 9). In the past, Andean peasants were frequently viewed as living outside politics or as being sporadic players at best on the stage of politics-albeit as reactive or perhaps millenarian rebels aligned against the state. When peasants did make a political showing, they were inevitably represented by the tac- tically mobile "middle peasantry" or independent smallholders (see Wolf 1969). In contrast, "traditional" estate peasants (service tenantry) were characterized as relatively passive, "prepolitical" victims.