Quechua, usually called Runasimi in Quechuan languages, is an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common ancestral language, it is the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with an estimated 8–10 million speakers as of 2004. Approximately 25% of Peruvians speak a Quechuan language.
The Aymara or Aimara people are an indigenous people in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America; about 2.3 million live in northwest Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Their ancestors lived in the region for many centuries before becoming a subject people of the Inca in the late 15th or early 16th century, and later of the Spanish in the 16th century. With the Spanish American wars of independence (1810–1825), the Aymaras became subjects of the new nations of Bolivia and Peru. After the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), Chile annexed territory with Aymara population.
Andean music is a group of styles of music from the Andes region in South America.
Puno is a department and region in southeastern Peru. It is the fifth largest department in Peru, after Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It is bordered by Bolivia on the east, the departments of Madre de Dios on the north, Cusco and Arequipa on the west, Moquegua on the southwest, and Tacna on the south. Its capital is the city of Puno, which is located on Lake Titicaca in the geographical region known as the Altiplano or high sierra.
Qullasuyu was the southeastern provincial region of the Inca Empire. Qullasuyu is the region of the Qulla and related specifically to the native Qulla Quechuas who primarily resided in areas such as Cochabamba and Potosí. Most Aymara territories which are now largely incorporated into the modern South American states of northern Chile, Peru, Bolivia and the Argentine northwest were annexed during the reign of Sapa Inca Huayna Cápac in the sixteenth century.
Quechua people or Quichua people, may refer to any of the aboriginal people of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, there are some significant populations in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina.
Apu Mallku is an Aymara title meaning "supreme leader" or "king" conferred on a Mallku or "prince". The Apu Mallku's mandate is to oversee the vast network of Ayllus, an ancient Andean system of governing councils that predates even the Inca empire. It appears that the mandate of the Apu Mallku was initially restricted to the Collasuyu but it could now be interpreted to extend to the bounds of the much larger former Inca realm of the Tawantinsuyu which stretched throughout the Andes incorporating the modern states of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. The self-appellation for the people of this combined territory is Qullana.
The Incas were most notable for establishing the Inca Empire in Pre-Columbian America, which was centered in modern day South America in Peru and Chile. It was about 2,500 miles from the northern to southern tip. The Inca Empire lasted from 1438 to 1533. It was the largest Empire in America throughout the Pre-Columbian era. At the peak of the Inca Empire, it was the largest nation in the world and to this day is the largest native state in the western hemisphere. The Inca civilization was located from north to south of the western hemisphere of South America. The Inca state was known as the Kingdom of Cuzco before 1438. Over the course of the Inca Empire, the Inca used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate the territory of modern-day Peru, followed by a large portion of western South America, into their empire, centered on the Andean mountain range. However, shortly after the Inca Civil War, the last Sapa Inca (emperor) of the Inca Empire was captured and killed on the orders of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule. The remnants of the empire retreated to the remote jungles of Vilcabamba and established the small Neo-Inca State, which was conquered by the Spanish in 1572.
Q'ero is a Quechua-speaking community or ethnic group dwelling in the province of Paucartambo, in the Cusco Region of Peru.
Incan agriculture was the culmination of thousands of years of farming and herding in the high-elevation Andes mountains of South America, the coastal deserts, and the rainforests of the Amazon basin. These three radically different environments were all part of the Inca Empire and required different technologies for agriculture. Inca agriculture was also characterized by the variety of crops grown, the lack of a market system and money, and the unique mechanisms by which the Incas organized their society. Andean civilization was "pristine"—one of five civilizations worldwide which were indigenous and not derivative from other civilizations. Most Andean crops and domestic animals were likewise pristine—not known to other civilizations. Potatoes, tomatoes, chile peppers, and quinoa were among the many unique crops; Camelids and guinea pigs were the unique domesticated animals.
The Kallawaya are an indigenous group living in the Andes of Bolivia. They live in the Bautista Saavedra Province and Muñecas Province of the La Paz Department but are best known for being an itinerant group of traditional healers that travel on foot to reach their patients. According to the UNESCO Safeguarding Project, the Kallawaya can be traced to the pre-Inca period as direct descendants of the Tiwanaku and Mollo cultures, meaning their existence has lasted approximately 1,000 years. They are known to have performed complex procedures like brain surgery alongside their continuous use of medicinal plants as early as 700 AD. Most famously, they are known to have helped to save thousands of lives during the construction of the Panama Canal, in which they used traditional plant remedies to treat the malaria epidemic. Some historical sources even cite the Kallawayas as the first to use quinine to prevent and control malaria. In 2012, there were 11,662 Kallawaya throughout Bolivia.
Inca mythology is the universe of legends and collective memory of the Inca civilization, which took place in the current territories of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, incorporating in the first instance, systematically, the territories of the central highlands of Peru to the north.
Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous peoples of the Andes. In Inca mythology she is an "Earth Mother" type goddess, and a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. She is also an ever-present and independent deity who has her own creative power to sustain life on this earth. Her shrines are hallowed rocks, or the boles of legendary trees, and her artists envision her as an adult female bearing harvests of potatoes or coca leaves. The four cosmological Quechua principles – Water, Earth, Sun, and Moon – claim Pachamama as their prime origin. Priests sacrifice offerings of llamas, cuy, children and elaborate, miniature, burned garments to her. Pachamama is the mother of Inti the sun god, and Mama Killa the moon goddess. Mama Killa is said to be the wife of Inti.
Ayni can refer to either the concept of reciprocity or mutualism among people of the Andean mountain communities or the practice of this concept. As a noun, the law of ayni states that everything in the world is connected, and is the only commandment that rules daily life in many communities like the Q'ero. As a verb, this often refers to the cooperation between the members of a community when one member gives to another, he or she is entitled to receive something back. Well-known practitioners of Ayni include the Quechuas and Aymara, as well as numerous other tribes that live in the Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.
The vertical archipelago is a term coined by sociologist and anthropologist John Victor Murra under the influence of economist Karl Polanyi to describe the native Andean agricultural economic model of accessing and distributing resources. While some cultures developed market economies, the predominant models were systems of barter and shared labor. These reached their greatest development under the Inca Empire. Scholars have identified four distinct ecozones, at different elevations.
Jatun Kunturiri is a mountain in the Potosí mountain range of the Bolivian Andes, about 5,008 m (16,430 ft) high. It is situated south-east of Potosí in the Potosí Department, José María Linares Province, in the south-west of the Puna Municipality. It lies between the Sip'uruni River in the north and the Khunurana in the south, north-west of the lake T'ala Qucha and the village Talaco.
Mink'a, Minka, Minga also mingaco is an Inca tradition of community work/voluntary collective labor for purposes of social utility and community infrastructure projects. It is practiced in several Latin American countries. Mink'a can adopt different ways of expressing community, such as the construction of public buildings and infrastructure, or benefit a person or family, such as needing help when harvesting potatoes or other agricultural products. Usually, the mink'a labor is without salary, such as in the public works projects of Ocra, a campesino community in the Andes. Faenas are seen as a labor tribute to the community or a cash-free form of local taxation. Mink'a is mainly practiced in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay.
Pre-Columbian Bolivia covers the historical period between 10,000 BCE, when the Upper Andes region was first populated and 1532, when Spanish conquistadors invaded Inca empire. The Andes region of Pre-Columbian South America was dominated by the Tiwanaku civilization until about 1200, when the regional kingdoms of the Aymara emerged as the most powerful of the ethnic groups living in the densely populated region surrounding Lake Titicaca. Power struggles continued until 1450, when the Incas incorporated upper Bolivia into their growing empire. Based in present-day Peru, the Incas instituted agricultural and mining practices that rivaled those put in place many years later by European conquerors. They also established a strong military force, and centralized political power. Despite their best efforts however, the Incas never completely controlled the nomadic tribes of the Bolivian lowlands, nor did they fully assimilate the Aymara kingdoms into their society. These internal divisions doomed the Inca Empire when European conquerors arrived.
Ocra is a Quechuan Campesino community within the Chinchaypujio District in Peru and about 1.5 hours outside of Cusco; its central village is located at 3,670 m (12,040 ft) altitude.
During the Inca Empire’s comparatively brief reign, from 1438 to 1533, Inca civilization established an economic structure that allowed for substantial agricultural production as well as cross-community exchange of products. Inca society is considered to have had some of the most successful centrally organized economies in history. Its effectiveness was achieved through the successful control of labor and the regulation of tribute resources. In Inca society, collective labor was the cornerstone for economic productivity and the achieving of common prosperity. People in the ayllu worked together to produce that prosperity. This prosperity caused the Spanish to be amazed by what they saw when they first encountered the Incas in 1528. According to each ayllu, labor was divided by region, with agriculture centralized in the most productive areas; ceramic production, road construction, textile production, and other skills were also part of the ayllus. After local needs were satisfied, the government gathered all surplus that is gathered from ayllus and allocated it where it was needed. People of the Inca Empire received free clothes, food, health care, and schooling in exchange for their labor.
