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* Professor Ramirez has a long and distinguished record of
scholarship on the colonial period * Well-balanced narrative
covering all major themes of the subject in an appropriate level of
detail * Concise and accessible writing style * Illustrated with
maps and images to bring the history to life * Incorporates the
latest research advances from the fields of colonial history,
social history, and ethnohistory
* Professor Ramirez has a long and distinguished record of
scholarship on the colonial period * Well-balanced narrative
covering all major themes of the subject in an appropriate level of
detail * Concise and accessible writing style * Illustrated with
maps and images to bring the history to life * Incorporates the
latest research advances from the fields of colonial history,
social history, and ethnohistory
This book reexamines the structure of Inca society on the eve of
the Spanish conquest. The author argues that native Andean
cosmology, which centered on the idea of divine rulership,
principally organized the indigenous political economy as well as
spatial and socio-kinship systems. Ramirez begins by establishing
that the phrase "el Cuzco," picked up from the native peoples by
the Spanish invaders, referred not only to a place but also to the
Inca leader. This leader acted as the center of the Inca universe,
connecting the people to their ancestors, nature, and each other.
From this starting point, the author revisits the Inca cosmology
and looks at the way in which the ruler and other authorities
connected the people to the gods and bound a diverse polity
together under divine protection. Next, the book shows how rituals
immortalized these leaders and connected the people to past
generations. Finally, the author examines how a cosmology, centered
on the divine nature of the king, defined the community and
identity of the Andean people.
This book reexamines the structure of Inca society on the eve of
the Spanish conquest. The author argues that native Andean
cosmology, which centered on the idea of divine rulership,
principally organized the indigenous political economy as well as
spatial and socio-kinship systems. Ramirez begins by establishing
that the phrase "el Cuzco," picked up from the native peoples by
the Spanish invaders, referred not only to a place but also to the
Inca leader. This leader acted as the center of the Inca universe,
connecting the people to their ancestors, nature, and each other.
From this starting point, the author revisits the Inca cosmology
and looks at the way in which the ruler and other authorities
connected the people to the gods and bound a diverse polity
together under divine protection. Next, the book shows how rituals
immortalized these leaders and connected the people to past
generations. Finally, the author examines how a cosmology, centered
on the divine nature of the king, defined the community and
identity of the Andean people.
The old saying that "history is written by the victors" certainly
applies to most of the history of European colonialism in Spanish
America. However, in recent decades scholars have begun to study
the Spanish conquest and early colonialization of America from the
point of view of native Americans in an attempt to right this
imbalance. Taking the perspective of the vanquished, the present
author aims to determine and explain some of the general principles
on which the pre-Hispanic Andeans' lives were based. The book
describes how the imposed Spanish colonial system altered the
organization and belief systems of the native inhabitants of
northern Peru during the first fifty years or so after the Spanish
conquest. By centering on an area that was incorporated into the
Inca empire relatively late (1460's-70's), the book offsets the
Cuzco focus of much of the existing literature on Inca history and
culture. It explores the impact of expanding colonialism on
indigenous ideas about leadership and legitimacy, the supernatural
and morality, land and tenure, service and allegiance, and wealth.
This history is based on many types of early historical accounts,
local-level primary documents, and archaeological and
anthropological findings. Although the writings of Spanish
chroniclers are used cautiously, administrative records often
contain petitions from Indians who express their concerns in their
own, albeit translated, words, and judicial records include
valuable testimony from native witnesses. These native American
statements give us an intimate glimpse into Amerindean society,
showing how indigenous people actively sought opportunities to
defend the principles on which their community lifedepended. That
these attempts to explain their beliefs and conception of the world
were ignored or dismissed, discredited and ridiculed, and certainly
largely misunderstood has resulted in a lasting distortion of the
historical record.
Apart from collective memories of lived experiences, much of the
modern world's historical sense comes from written sources stored
in the archives of the world, and some scholars in the
not-so-distant past have described unlettered civilizations as
"peoples without history." In Praise of the Ancestors is a
revisionist interpretation of early colonial accounts that reveal
incongruities in accepted knowledge about three Native groups.
Susan Elizabeth Ramirez reevaluates three case studies of oral
traditions using positional inheritance-a system in which names and
titles are inherited from one generation by another and thereby
contribute to the formation of collective memories and a group
identity. Ramirez begins by examining positional inheritance and
perpetual kinship among the Kazembes in central Africa from the
eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Next, her analysis moves
to the Native groups of the Iroquois Confederation and their
practice of using names to memorialize remarkable leaders in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, Ramirez surveys
naming practices of the Andeans, based on sixteenth-century
manuscript sources and later testimonies found in Spanish and
Andean archives, questioning colonial narratives by documenting the
use of this alternative system of memory perpetuation, which was
initially unrecognized by the Spaniards. In the process of
reexamining the histories of Native peoples on three continents,
Ramirez broaches a wider issue: namely, understanding of the nature
of knowledge as fundamental to understanding and evaluating the
knowledge itself.
Apart from collective memories of lived experiences, much of the
modern world's historical sense comes from written sources stored
in the archives of the world, and some scholars in the
not-so-distant past have described unlettered civilizations as
"peoples without history." In Praise of the Ancestors is a
revisionist interpretation of early colonial accounts that reveal
incongruities in accepted knowledge about three Native groups.
Susan Elizabeth Ramirez reevaluates three case studies of oral
traditions using positional inheritance-a system in which names and
titles are inherited from one generation by another and thereby
contribute to the formation of collective memories and a group
identity. Ramirez begins by examining positional inheritance and
perpetual kinship among the Kazembes in central Africa from the
eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Next, her analysis moves
to the Native groups of the Iroquois Confederation and their
practice of using names to memorialize remarkable leaders in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, Ramirez surveys
naming practices of the Andeans, based on sixteenth-century
manuscript sources and later testimonies found in Spanish and
Andean archives, questioning colonial narratives by documenting the
use of this alternative system of memory perpetuation, which was
initially unrecognized by the Spaniards. In the process of
reexamining the histories of Native peoples on three continents,
Ramirez broaches a wider issue: namely, understanding of the nature
of knowledge as fundamental to understanding and evaluating the
knowledge itself.
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