Word: aymaras
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...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...
...Snow God "Kun" destroyed all life on earth, and only the ill-tempered "supaya" (devils) lived to roam the highlands of Bolivia. The" Pacha-Camaj" (Gods of Fertility) then sent down their own sons, the "Paka-Jakes" (Eagle Men), to create a new race of their beloved Aymara people, all of whom had been snowed under by Kun. The Paka-Jakes settled on the land around holy Lake Titicaca, recreated the Aymaras, and named the province Pacajes after themselves...
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...
...shores of Lake Titicaca in the Peruvian Andes where my wife and I are making anthropological studies of the Aymara Indians, we had occasion to attend one of their ceremonies which was designed to placate an important spirit. In deference to our presence, the Indian medicine men made additional offerings to this deity "so that no harm will befall the United States, and so that she may triumph over her enemies...