AYMARA LIFE ; VIDA AYMARA
Feb 04, 2009 | quilting supplies
history.
The Aymara are an ancient people with a complex and still imperfectly understood history. They are a people rich in myth, knowledge and spirituality. The Aymara were the members of a great but little-known culture of the Americas centered in the ancient city of Tiahuanaco. Between 400 AD. and 1000 AD. Tiahuanaco was the capital of an empire that spanned great parts of the south-central Andes Mountains.
The pre-contact, indigenous central Andean cultural pattern contrasts sharply with that of the other areas of South America. For maximum development the Andean economy required rich soil, an adequate water supply, and the absence of both forest and deep-rooted grasses that were difficult to eradicate. For maximum development of their land, the Aymara grew crops that were suitable to the Andean climate. The alpaca and the llama were also suited to the Andean climate, and could be found on most of the Aymara land areas.
The Aymara are a native ethnic group in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America; about 2.0 million live in Bolivia, Peru and Northern Chile. They lived in the region for many centuries before becoming a subject people of the Inca, and later of the Spanish in the 16th century.
culture.
The native language of the Aymara is also named Aymara; in addition, many Aymara speak Spanish, which is the dominant language of the countries in which they live, as a second language. The Aymara flag is known as the Wiphala; it consists of seven colors quilted together with diagonal stripes. Aymara have grown and chewed coca plants for centuries, and used its leaves in traditional medicine as well as in ritual offerings to the sun god Inti and the earth goddess Pachamama. Over the last century, this has brought them into conflict with state authorities who have carried out coca eradication plans in order to prevent the creation of the drug cocaine, which is created by extracting the chemical from coca leaves in a complex chemical process. Coca plays a profound role in the indigenous religions of both the Aymara and the Quechua, such as the ritual curing ceremonies of the yatiri, and in more recent times has become a symbol of cultural identity.
Most of contemporary Aymaran Urban culture was developed in the working class Aymara neighborhoods of Chukiago La Paz such as Chijini and others. Bowler hats have been worn by Quechua and Aymara women in Peru and Bolivia since the 1920s when supposedly a shipment of bowler hats was sent from Europe to Bolivia via Peru for use by Europeans who were working on the construction of the railroads. The hats were found to be too small and were distributed to locals. The luxurious, elegant and cosmopolitan Aymara Chola dress which is an icon to Bolivia (bowler hat, Manila Shawl, heavy pollera, skirts, boots, jewelry, etc.) was born and evolved in Chukiago City and it is clearly not provincial but urban. The dress has become an ethnic symbol for the Aymara women. In addition, numerous Aymara live and work as campesinos in the surrounding Altiplano. The Aymara language does have one surviving relative, spoken by a small, isolated group of about 1000 people far to the north in the mountains inland from Lima in Central Peru (in and around the village of Tupe, Yauyos province, Lima department). This language, whose two dialects are known as Jaqaru and Kawki,[4] is of the same family as Aymara, indeed some linguists refer to it as ‘Central Aymara’, alongside the main ‘Southern Aymara’ branch of the family spoken in the Titicaca region.
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