Toba - Settlements

In pre-Conquest times, bands settled near river courses in dry areas. Extended families of between thirty and eighty individuals were grouped together. They owned a predetermined territory over which they migrated in order to avoid overexploitation. Nowadays Toba settlements are divided into rural and periurban. The former are areas of fiscal land—some with titles of communal property—where each extended family occupies a piece of land by general consensus. The dwellings are similar to the ranches of neighboring Whites, with thatched roofs and walls of adobe and wood. There are also houses with zinc roofs and brick walls. Usually there is one room or, at the most, two. Dwellings are quite some distance from one another, surrounded by each family's fields. Periurban settlements can consist of groups of cheap living quarters made of zinc and brick, or else look like typical shanty towns that spring up in large coastal cities like Rosario and Buenos Aires. Houses are built from any available material, and there is no special spatial arrangement or agricultural exploitation except for some domestic horticulture.