Ethnography

Book Report

Lettered Mountain: A Peruvian Village's Way with Writing

Authors: Frank Salomon and Mercedes Nino-Murcia

Introduction

According the Oxford Dictionary of English, ethnography is the scientific description of peoples and cultures with their customs, habits and mutual differences.

This paper presents a book review of the book called Lettered Mountain: A Peruvian Village’s Way with Writing which provides a thorough ethnographic background of writing and literacy of the native people of Peru by focusing a study on a small Andean district known as Tupicocha located in the province of Huarochiri within the region of Lima, Peru.

The author describes the historical and social discrimination that Andean natives, also known as “yndios”, have been subjected to and how this ethnic group has been considered as people not having their own literacy. The author offers many examples that support the rich history of graphic communication and writing of these people.  

Salomon and Nino-Murcia teach us that in the first decade of the XVII century, Andean natives of Huarochiri wrote down a Huarochiri Manuscript – the only known book from South America that may be compared to the Popol-Vuh of the Mayans. In Chapter 1, Salomon and Nino-Murcia explore Alphabetism in Tupicocha from different perspectives such as the different forms of precolombinan communication using khipus, history of Quechuan and Spanish language literacy, evidence in the form of written materials found in town, purpose of written communication, etc. The fact that Tupicocha doesn’t have a great deal of printed literature throughout town may give visitors the impression that locals do not have a high level of literacy; however, given the opportunity, a high percentage of local population know how to read and write and are quite keen to read any literature available to them.

The book provides examples in recent history of the limited resources that the state has assigned to rural areas and the attitude that people from the capital have toward the Inka-descendant culture of Andean natives. The books demonstrates with pictures the limited amount of printed material available in small villages. For example, it shows that the most common places to find books are typically the school library and the municipal office.

The book does an excellent job exploring the history of literacy in Peru and the role it plays as a factor in the culture and day-to-day life of local communities in Peru. For example, the book describes that man who cannot write well are not considered good marriage prospects because they don’t have enough potential as household providers.

In terms of literacy among women, it is becoming widespread because new generations recognize that literacy offers greater employment opportunities for women. As a result, during the last decades, it has been observed a gradual decline in female dropout rates from school.

The book also provides some important statistics on overall country literacy rates that indicate that in 2007, 86% of Peruvian population knew how to read and write. Furthermore, the book also explores levels of literacy among men and women. On this front, it is found that women population is characterized by lower levels of literacy which in some ways it is influenced by the believe that males, who typically inherit and administer land issues, must be versed in law to defend their property. In the chapter, The Power over Writing, the author explores the historical context on how Spanish colonization influenced the culture and writing of local communities and how, subsequently, native people became marginalized from both a social and cultural standpoint.

Writing and Archive Keeping

Salomon and Nino-Murcia did an excellent job describing the rituals practiced by

local communities organized in the so-called ayllu cells which are small

community groups made up of extended families who own and administer their

common land. The authors illustrate how local Andean communities use writing at the ayllu meetings to document their daily operations, work records, group resolutions,

community events, group agreements, etc. The books explains from a historical perspective, how these communities use written language not only to be heard by the central state, but also to defend their own rights and administer their day-to-day activities.

The authors also explore the impact that migration of people to the capital has had

on the communities. For example, lately, it has been found that written language is

used quite often as a mean of communication among relatives.

Ayllu Meetings: Organizing day-to-day life in local Communities

As it was mentioned above, ayllu meetings are a core element of native Andean culture. Ayllu is made of extended families who meet periodically to administer local activities ranging from administering volunteer activities, to maintaining their properties, to administering their local political life. In this context, ayllu meetings use writing as a tool to record all transactions within the community. Having said that, records are protected by members at their houses. From a political organization standpoint, ayllus emulate a form of local governance and are used by native communities to establish a relationship with the state. For example, ayllu records are useful to confirm a person’s eligibility for retirement or to confirm if a member of the community has met all community-working activities. Salomon and Nino-Murcia explain that many of the latest improvements in the rural communities are a product of the small-scale initiatives raised by the ayllus in the countryside.

Khipus as way of Communication

Chapter 2 provides an excellent overview of khipus as a tool of communication used by Andean natives. Khipus is an ancient system of knotted cords used by Andean societies to record important information. Messages are expressed by combining fiber types, colors and knotting arrangements. The book describes several studies explaining the type of communication conveyed by khipus. One of these theories claim that khipus was mainly used to convey numerical information rather than complex or abstract expressions. Another school of thought claims that besides expressing numerical codes, khipus can also be used to represent a syllabic writing system also known as khipus phonography. A third school of thought relates khipus to semasiography which is a name used for a system of codes similar to music that can explained in simple words as writing without words. In this case, it is believed that khipus can be used to represent concepts, actions, objects. In addition to that, the book refers to an author, Urton 2003, who believes that khipus are signs representing a neutral underlying code similar to ASCI. Historically, khipus acquired different meanings such as the person who collected information of the herds by inspecting cord records. The colonial church used khipus as a tool for confession and catechism. For example, people used cord records of sins as a tool for confession, to record dates in the calendar of saints and to memorize some catholic teachings. Eventually, the Church came up with an invention known as the “khipu board” which combined alphabetic and cord signs in a single item. Historically, khipus ended up being used by local communities to maintain data independence from Spanish scribes.

The authors seem to take a position by stating that khipus are considered by many people as a graphical communication tool able to describe relationships between visual patterns of contrast, variation and data hierarchy that cannot be represented by scribal writing. The art of khipus has nearly been vanished since the Spanish decided that it was not appropriate to maintain khipus especially in the Catholic Church. This form of communication is nearly lost and remains as a mere token of history.

Alphabetization in Rural Areas

            In chapter three, A Tale of Two Cities, the book explores the idea that current state alphabetization is implemented in rural areas that already developed their own literacy practice. The authors explain that this phenomenon is quite unique since many of these peasants acquired their knowledge through self-teaching within their ayllus organizations. For example, many schools were built on the existing ayllu organization who obtained and financed ministerial education. The book provides evidence that since 1876, the ayllus in Tupicocha started sponsoring a village free school. When talking about two lettered cities, the book refers to two separate education models, one based on the ayllus scribal model and the second one driven by the central government. Salomon and Nino-Murcia investigate how the Spanish colony influenced and shaped rural writing habits. For example, villagers treasure a Spanish language book called El Mosaico which became an instrumental in learning Spanish reading and writing. Other books that became important in the learning of Spanish are Espejito (Little Mirror) and the book of The Peruvian Primary School (Guzman and Valle, 1923) and Coquito. In addition to that, the book describes some of the state projects that were implemented to bring literacy to the rural areas. The common denominator of all these programs is that this programs isolated Lima from the rural areas by trying to implement not only the cultural norms and standards of the Capital without taking into account the native culture, but also for showing signs of discrimination against native Andean people. In other words, even though some governments went through massive efforts to introduce schools in rural areas, this process didn’t integrate the needs of the peasants. However, nowadays, many of the peasants are achieving university degrees and these people are starting to support and provide positive influence in their communities.

            Offering these opportunities to indigenous groups to receive an education has allowed for Peru to become an icon for the rest of the world. These indigenous people now have the skills to communicate and let the rest of the world understand their culture at a much deeper level. Traditions, superstitions and rituals have resurfaced, and this would not have been possible if the indigenous groups where keep marginalized. Nations such as Bolivia or Ecuador are now trying to do the same. However, in Peru there are thousands of people who continue to be marginalized.

            Based on the ethnography one can come to the conclusion that to a certain extend not all indigenous groups in Peru have had the opportunity to integrate themselves with society.  The Tupicocha village that was focused on in the ethnography in comparison to surrounding villages nearby was slightly more advanced. Although due to cultural stigmas and beliefs there continues to be a greater advantage for the men in this society. Although there is proof that more female are staying in school my question rests in what type of encouragement is the government offering. In general if more students are attending school what more programs is the government offering. In the village studied in the ethnography it was mentioned that there were only two computers, which some would say is great, yet these computers lack access to internet and accessibility because only a few individuals have control over it. Yet in the neighboring villages they have never even seen a computer. I think that this should be the next focus of the government, now that the indigenous culture has been more accepting of receiving education, the next step would be to offer programs so that students feel encouraged to continue in there studies, and offer forms of communication so that the rest of the world can learn more about them.

           I understand that for the government this may seem like a difficult task due to the amount of investment that this may require. However, the government should take in note that it is because of these surviving indigenous groups, their traditions, arts and rituals that a large portion of the nations income is based on, tourism. I do not think that it is fair that such unique traditions of the past such as khipu be lost do to restrictions made in the past. Today hundreds of years later we continue to learn and understand more and more about such indigenous groups because we have become more accepting of them. Centuries ago, the Spaniards belittled the indigenous people but today there is no excuse for us to do the same. In addition to the government providing more programs for indigenous people I think the government of Peru and governments all over Latin America face the harder task of breaking the idea of racial division such as the mutallos or criollos. I think that for all of Latin America to become more successful in terms of economy, social relations, and welfare, the racial divisions need to come to an end. I having had the opportunity to travel to many Latin American countries and I have witness the racial division and I think that the only way for the indigenous people to feel more comfortable around the rest of society is if that barrier is broken.

            Overall the ethnography was extremely informative and offered a direct view into the indigenous way of life but most importantly the impact literature has had on these communities. Perhaps the most important theme in this ethnography is that the Andean people have had a their unique exposure to literature and that they have such a long history of different forms of communication that have been underestimated. There is hopes that in the near future these indigenous groups will be able to recover their traditions and beliefs which were once so brutally taken away.

References:

SALOMON, FRANK (2011) The lettered mountain [electronic resource] : a Peruvian village's way with writing. Durham, NC, USA: Duke University Press