Mountain of the Condor: Metaphor and ritual in an Andean Ayllu
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Description
Author: Bastien, Joseph W.
Publisher: Waveland Press
Pub Date: 1985 (reprint edition)
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Fair. Binding tight. No tears. Previous owner’s signature on ffep/half-title page. Lower rear cover corner has approx 4-5″ bend. Some edge and corner wear.
Notes: “Although each ethnic group was spread out, two factors, verticality and the ayllu, unified them. Verticality is an underlying principle of Andean social, political and economic organization and means the strategy of one group’s controlling as many distinct niches as possible. In the Andes, altitude is the great ecological variable, and so is an extremely important factor for control. Andean civilizations arose through successful efforts to control as many vegetational zones as possible …The mechanisms of vertical control include colonization, seasonal migration, resource exchange, and kinship relations…Still more basic to verticality is the ayllu, which in its variant forms has survived the economical and political changes of the Incas, Spaniards, Republicans, and Reformists. The metaphorical nature of the ayllu has made it difficult for scholars to define it. They have described the Incan ayllus in different and incomplete terms as communal land, a lineage-based community, and a clan.” (From the Preface)
