Over a gorge, a bridge to the Incan past

Nothing about all this weaving is necessary, strictly speaking.

But every year, hundreds of people gather here for three days of round-the-clock work to weave thousands of pounds of sturdy, stout straw that grows in these Peruvian highlands. They turn the straw into rope, the rope into braids, and the braids into a bridge, just as their Incan ancestors have done for centuries.

Perhaps the last bridge of its kind in the world, it is rebuilt every year as part of an intricate ceremony. It is narrow and, for outsiders, wobbly. Even a light wind along the Apurimac River, 80 feet below, sends the bridge swaying. Braided handrails six inches thick help crossers keep steady as they make their way over what is really a series of thick tightropes strung side by side. It takes a few minutes for a foreigner to crawl his way across, but a local can do it in no time.

Knowing how to cross the bridge, after all, is part and parcel of knowing how to weave it.

As many as 200 of these bridges once straddled gorges throughout the Andean mountains. Their construction connected communities, but also helped defend against attack: In the event of an invasion, the bridges could simply be burned.

Today, few people have reason to visit, let alone invade, the mountain community of Huinchiri in southeastern Peru. This village of 300 people is quiet most of the year; people farm and raise livestock to keep themselves and their families fed. When they need to go into town, they take the nearby wood-and-steel bridge, built more than 30 years ago.

During the three-day reconstruction ceremony, however, all that changes. Folks from neighboring communities pitch in to weave the rope, and even a trickle of tourists makes its way from the city of Cusco, five hours north, to witness the ceremony. The district invests some serious municipal cash – $13,000 this year – in showing locals and visitors a good time. The k'eswachaca, as the bridge is called in the local language of Quechua, rules the day.

Cayetano Ccanahuiri, a lifelong resident, is torn about all that attention. The village's misayoc, an indigenous priest, Mr. Ccanahuiri is master of ceremonies during the celebration. This is not, for him, an excuse for a party. The k'eswachaca is one of the last things his people have left to remind them of what it means to be Incan.

Up and down the Andes, there are few living reminders of the Incan empire, which once spread from its center in Cusco as far north as present-day Colombia and south to what is now Argentina. But the grass-rope k'eswachaca of Huinchiri, unlike Machu Picchu and other big-name Inca attractions, is more than just a ruin.

"This bridge is part of our lives even if we don't use it every day," says Ccanahuiri. "We cannot let it disappear, because we would lose our meaning."

The bridge, for Ccanahuiri and other village elders, is a symbol of the Incan traditions of collective work and reciprocity that have allowed communities to survive, even thrive, in inhospitable lands. It is also about conserving a relic that has been passed down through the generations.

On the other hand, the grass rope represents a simple supply issue: Huinchiri is located in a vast plain more than two miles above sea level, where nothing grows as quickly as q'oya, the grass. Llamas and other camel-like animals depend on it for food; humans use it for thatched roofs; and, of course, it can be woven into rope capable of holding, villagers say, up to 10 people at once.

Locals begin gathering q'oya a few weeks before the weaving gets under way, harvesting it with machetes and storing it until the ceremony starts. Women and children put the grass in pits or barrels and soak it until it is soft enough to weave, usually at least a day.

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