Salt procurement in the Amazon basin on the eastern flanks of the Andes provides an example of multiethnic access to a raw material source. During annual voyages to the Chanchamayo salt quarry ten days outside of their territory, the Asháninka of the Gran Pajonal (Ucayali, Peru) combine salt procurement with exchange with neighboring groups who share access to the source(Varese 2002: 33-35). Arturo Wertheman, a missionary who traveled through the region in 1876, explains

Throughout the year small bands of Asháninka traders traveled [the Gran Pajonal] paths to obtain salt, carrying with them tunics or ceramics to exchange for other items and for hospitality. With them traveled their traditions, their hopes, and the information of interest to their society. The Pajonal, the vast center of Campa territory not yet invaded by whites, appears to have been the center of culture and tradition through which the Indians journeyed, like a constant flow of life through their very society(Varese 2002: 120)

Other ethnographic examples of multiethnic access to salt quarries are mentioned in the ethnographic literature. Oberem(1985 [1974]: 353-354)describes access by both the Quijo and the Canelo people to a large rock salt quarry located on the Huallaga River, a tributary to the Amazon lying further north on the border of Peru and Ecuador.

In the Cotahuasi valley of Arequipa, to the north of the Colca valley, the rock salt mine of Warwa [Huarhua] has been exploited since Archaic times(Jennings 2002: 217-218, 247-251, 564-566). Access to the Warwa quarry, which lies near the border of the departments of Arequipa, Ayacucho, and Apurímac, is described by Concha Contreras(1975: 74-76)as including caravan drivers from all three of those neighboring departments.

El primer viaje lo hacen, mayormente, en el mes de abril. En esta época cientos de pastores se concentran en esta mina. El camino es estrecho y accidentado hasta llegar a la misma bocamina…Desde el fondo de la mina los pastores cargan a la espalda la cantidad de sal que necesitan llevar, de tal manera que hacen muchos viajes al socavón de la mina. En todo este tramo tardan 4 días, porque después de la mina, siguen cargando en la espalda hasta una distancia de aproximadamente cinco kilómetros, donde quedaron las llamas pastando, puesto que hasta la misma mina no pueden entrar juntamente con sus llamas(Concha Contreras 1975: 74).

There appear to be a number of protocols associated with salt acquisition at Warwa. Notably, the multiethnic visits by caravanners from various departments coincide in April despite the tight working quarters at the salt mine. Furthermore, there seems to be concern for impacts in the much-visited the mine area itself. The cargo animals are actually grazing a distance from the quarry and humans are obliged to carry the loads to these areas instead of attempting to load the animals close to the mine. These cases of multiethnic raw material access provide examples of the social and institutional nature of access to unique geological sources, and the focalized attention that these source receive from surrounding ethnic groups. The analogy with regional acquisition and diffusive transport of the raw material is perhaps the closest modern analogy to the nature of prehispanic obsidian quarrying that remains in the Andes.