People of the Volcano

by Cook, Noble David; Cook, Alexandra Parma

• ISBN13: 9780822339717
• ISBN10: 0822339714
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-30
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

While it now attracts many tourists, the Colca Valley of Peru's southern Andes was largely isolated from the outside world until the 1970s, when a passable road was built linking the valley-and its colonial churches, terraced hillsides, and deep canyon-to the city of Arequipa and its airport, eight hours away. Noble David Cook and his co-researcher Alexandra Parma Cook have been studying the Colca Valley since 1974, and this detailed ethno-history reflects a decades-long engagement with the valley, its history, and people. Drawing on unusually rich surviving documentary evidence, they explore the cultural transformations experienced by the first three generations of Indians and Europeans in the region following Spanish conquest of the Incas. Social structures, the domestic export and economies, and spiritual spheres within native Andean communities are key elements of analysis. Also highlighted is the persistence of duality in the Andean world: perceived dichotomies such as those between the coast and the highlands, Europeans and Indo-Peruvians. Even before the conquest, the Cabana and Collagua communities sharing the Colca Valley were divided according to kinship and location. The Incas, and then the Spanish, capitalized on these divisions, incorporating them into their state structure in order to administer the area more effectively, but Colca Valley peoples resisted total assimilation into either. Colca Valley communities have shown a remarkable tenacity in retaining their social, economic, and cultural practices while accommodating various assimilationist efforts over the centuries. Today's population maintains similarities with their ancestors of more than five hundred years ago-in language, agricultural practices, daily rituals, familial relationships, and practices of reciprocity. They also retain links to ecological phenomena, including the volcanoes from which they believe they emerged and continue to venerate.

Author Biography

Noble David Cook is Professor of History at Florida International University

Table of Contents

Illustrations and Tables	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Foundations
Beneath the Soaring Condor	p. 3
Return of the Viracocha	p. 29
Crisis of the New Order	p. 51
The "Republica de los Indios"
Constructing an "Andean Utopia"	p. 79
"Republica de los Indios": Social and Political Structure	p. 105
Tribute and the Domestic Economy	p. 131
Extractive Economy	p. 155
Indoctrination and Resistance	p. 181
The "Republica de los Espanoles"
Crisis in the "Republica de los Espanoles"	p. 215
Epilogue: Andean Counterpoint	p. 243
Notes	p. 261
Bibliography	p. 285
Index	p. 311
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