BACKGROUND

The Putaendo Plain, a large terrace extending outward from the foot of the mountains, is located to one side of and at an altitude of 650 feet above the village of the same name. A wide, windswept expanse of land with neither trees nor bushes, the plain has been home to herds of goats for generations and affords a panoramic view of the valley. Putaendo families picnic there on Sundays; at night, it belongs to lovers and young people.

The fields visible from the plain, which are now covered with fruit orchards, were sown years ago with fodder crops, hemp and grains (wheat, kidney beans, lentils, barley. . . ). In those days, ox-drawn carts and wagons were used for working the fields and carrying the produce to market. In many cases, these carts were a family's most valuable asset and the most important tool for work on the haciendas. They were repaired many times and lasted for generations.

Today, few of the carts in this region are still in use. Of those that did not end up being used as firewood or left to disintegrate in the stableyards, some are now decorating the entryways of local restaurants or the patios of weekend country estates. Thus reduced to the status of garden ornaments, displaced from their natural physical, temporal and social environment, and immobilized in someone's front yard, these carts have been estranged from their natural historical process. Artificially posed on manicured lawns, they await their second demise, enduring the inclement weather as they never did during their useful lives, when they were carefully stored under cover at the end of each day.

Another ultimate destination of the carts has been the museum. Here, in an environment of respect and veneration, often surrounded by lesser farm implements, the cart is frozen in a perpetual photo op. Mummified and museified, it is difficult for us to picture the conditions under which men and animals actually used the carts and the abundant or wretched harvests they transported.

Finally, there are still some very old carts that are beyond restoration because they are falling apart or missing one piece or another. These are unsuited for use as museum pieces or lawn ornaments, and are therefore fated to disappear quietly without ceremony.