Social Organization: The Mosetén were inducted in reductions by Franciscan missionaries. The first mission was established in Muchanes in 1804. During the past century they were missionized by Redemptorists. From the late 19th to the mid 20th century, a frenzied exploitation of the medicinal cinchona bark (or Jesuit's bark), a source of quinine, swept over the region, massively manned by Mosetén labor. It is said that “airplanes left loaded with quina”.
The Mosetén married couple is monogamous, with a strong endogamic tendency. However, there are several Mosetén women married to Andean colonists (Aymaras or Quechuas). Residence is initially matrilocal and later neolocal, and filiation is patrilineal. A very important aspect of Mosetén life is the great value they place on their ethnic identity and interethnic relationships.

Political Organization: At present this structure exhibits a double modality. Firstly, as tradition demands, each Mosetén community is led by a cacique, or chief, elected yearly at a General Assembly; he will be in office for a year but his mandate may be renewed. Also, ever since the 1994 Mosetén People’s Congress, there exists the Mosetén Indigenous People’s Organization (OPIM), an institution that represents them before the Bolivian State and other indigenous organizations such as CPIB and CIDOB.

Economica: The main Mosetén economic activity is agriculture, albeit developed in limited extensions, or chacos, due largely to the presence of large groups of colonists, mostly Andean in origin. They grow yucca, maize, beans, rice, etc, “only what we need during the year”. The region could yield cacao (cocoa bean) crops but they do not cultivate it. The only products they take to market are plantains. Hunting, which used to be a traditional practice, has dwindled because of demographic pressures. Fishing and recollection continue, however.

Symbolism: Festivals are the principal means for Mosetén symbolic recreation. Every community organizes festivities twice a year: one in honor of the Patron Saint, attended by other communities and by a Catholic priest; and another which they call “our feast”, with a much deeper ethnic identity, and with costumes that, as is traditional in the community of Santa Ana, represent a variety of animals.		Hedgehog

The metamorphic character of representations in this ritual reveals how important the relationship between Man and Nature is within Mosetén cosmogony and religious practice.

Source: Ethnic Atlas of Anthropological Research, UNAN – Viceministry of Culture - José Teijeiro - Teófilo Laime - Sotero Ajacopa - Freddy Santalla