Word: aymaras
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Puny on the Plain. Four centuries after the Spanish conquest, perhaps four out of seven million Peruvians still live in the Andes, speak the Quechua and Aymara of the Incas, play their mournful five-noted pipes of Pan and on festive occasions get falling drunk on tinka, a poisonous potion of cane alcohol, nicotine and cocaine. But the pressure for land has increased, and the ancient farming ayllus (communes) are disappearing. More & more, Andean man has hired out to haciendas or mines, or moved to coastal cities. When he descends to the Pacific, it becomes his turn to undergo...
Spanish and English in addition to their own staccato Aymara or liquid Quechua...
...since the fall of the Inca Empire (1533) gathered in La Paz last week. Representing 70% of the population, they came from all parts of Bolivia at Government invitation and expense. About 20% spoke Spanish and wore European dress. The rest spoke only the ancient Indian languages, Quechua and Aymara. They wore native clothes-wide, multicolored belts, bright ponchos. Some of the men wore flat hats like Catholic priests. Others had "lluchus" (knitted woolen helmets) against the biting winds of the altiplano...
...speeches. Their own speeches had an archaic ring, like the protests of medieval peasants centuries ago. They protested against forced labor, rapacious landlords, priests who demanded disproportionate fees for religious services. They pleaded for popular education. They wanted schools, books, modern agricultural science. Said their leader, Francisco Chipana, an Aymara: "We must learn and work. . . . Soon we shall rise like condors above Mt. Illimani.... Through our own efforts, we can surpass those foreigners whose works we now admire...
Centuries passed. Not so many years ago the last of the Paka-Jakes returned to the Aymara people of Pacajes. He was fortyish and fat, but he had the authentic eagleface of his predecessors. He was illiterate, and he bore the earthy name of Damasco Maldonado. But he had the power to look into the future and the past and the thoughts of men; he cured sick llamas and women & children, got rid of bad ghosts and made things tough for his enemies. In the small Aymara pueblos of the Altiplano and among the Indies who worked the copper mines...