The Wayfinders (24 page)

For reprints of early accounts from the
Chronicles, see: J. de Acosta,
Natural and Moral History of the
Indies
, ed. Jane Mangan (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,
2002); J. de Betanzos,
Narrative of the Incas
, trans. and ed. Roland Hamilton and Dana Buchanan
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); B. Cobo,
Inca Religion and Customs
(1653), trans. and ed. Roland Hamilton (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1990); B. Cobo,
History of the Inca Empire
(1653), trans. and ed. Roland Hamilton (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1983); Garcilaso de la Vega,
The Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General
History of Peru, Parts 1 & 2
(1609), trans. Harold Livermore (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1966); Poma Huamán Poma de Ayaala,
Letter to
a King
, ed. Christopher Dilke (New York: Dutton, 1978); Pedro
Sarmiento de Gamboa,
The History of the Incas
(1572), trans. and ed. Brian Bauer and Vania
Smith (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007); Pedro de Cieza de León,
The Incas
, (1554), ed. Victor W. von Hagen (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1976).

For Andean notions of land, pilgrimage, and
sacred geography, see: M. J. Sallnow,
Pilgrims of the Andes
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1987); B. Bauer and C. Stanish,
Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes: The
Islands of the Sun and the Moon
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001); B.
Bauer,
The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco
Ceque System
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998); and R.
T. Zuidema,
The Ceque System of Cuzco: The Social
Organization of the Capital of the Inca
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964). Johan Reinhard has
written several important books, including
The Ice Maiden: Inca Mummies, Mountain Gods,
and Sacred Sites in the Andes
(Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society,
2005) and
Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient Sacred Center
, 4th
rev. ed. (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, 2007). For an
excellent study of the Qoyllur Rit’I, see: Robert Randall, “Qoyllur Rit’I,
An Inca Festival of the Pleides,”
Boletin del Instituto Frances de Estudios
Andinos
11, (1-2):37-81 (Lima).

For astronomy, see: Brian Bauer and David
Dearborn,
Astronomy and Empire in the Ancient Andes
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); G.
Urton,
At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: An
Andean Cosmology
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981). For
Inca roads see: J. Hyslop,
The Inka Road System
(New York: Academic Press, 1984), and Victor W.
von Hagen,
Highway of the Sun
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1955). See also J.
Hyslop,
Inka Settlement Planning
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990). For
excellent books on the Andean Khipu system of accounting, see: G. Urton,
Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the
Andean Knotted String Records
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003), and J.
Quilter and G. Urton, eds.,
Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in
Andean Khipu
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002).

For classic ethnographies see: T. A. Abercrombie,
Pathways of Memory and Power: Ethnography and
History Among an Andean People
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998);
J. W. Bastien,
Mountain of the Condor: Metaphor and Ritual in
an Andean Ayllu
(Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1985); Inge
Bolin’s
Growing Up in a Culture of Respect: Child
Rearing in Highland Peru
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006) and
Rituals of Respect: The Secret of Survival in
the High Peruvian Andes
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998); S.
Brush,
Mountain, Field, and Family: The Economy and
Human Ecology of an Andean Valley
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1977); J. Meyerson,
’Tambo: Life in an Andean Village
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990); B. J.
Isbell,
To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an
Andean Village
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978); and F.
Salomon,
The Cord Keepers: Khipus and Cultural Life in a
Peruvian Village
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004). For
the history of the Vilcabamba, last redoubt of the Inca, see: H. Thomson,
The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca
Heartland
(Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2003), and V.
Lee,
Forgotten Vilcabamba: Final Stronghold of the
Incas
(Jackson Hole, Wyo.: Empire Publishing, 2000).

For Andean textile traditions, see: Nilda
Callañaupa Alvarez,
Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands: Dreaming
Patterns, Weaving Memories
(Loveland, Col.: Interweave Press, 2007). For
Andean ethnobotany see: J. Bastien,
Healers of the Andes: Kallawaya Herbalists and
Their Medicinal Plants
(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987);
C. Franquemont, T. Plowman, E. Franquemont, et al.,
The Ethnobotany of Chinchero, an Andean
Community in Southern Peru
, Fieldiana, Botany New Series No. 24 (Chicago:
Field Museum of Natural History, 1990).

For a wonderful portrait of contemporary Peru,
see Ron Wright,
Cut Stones and Crossroads
(New York: Penguin Books, 1984). For a terrific
and very funny travel account covering the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
before the rise of the drug trade, see: Charles Nicholl,
The Fruit Palace
(London: Heinemann, 1985).

For insight into the world of the Elder Brothers,
the late Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff is again a fundamental source. His
monograph, published in two volumes in 1950 and 1951, was reprinted in 1985;
see
Los Kogi:
Una Tribu de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta,
Colombia
, 2 vols. (Bogotá: Nueva Biblioteca Colombiana de
Procultura, Editorial Presencia, 1985). In addition, see the following
writings by Reichel-Dolmatoff:
The Sacred Mountain of Colombia’s Kogi Indians
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990); “Training for the
Priesthood Among the Kogi of Colombia” in J. Wilbert, ed.,
Enculturation in Latin America: An Anthology
(Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center
Publications, 1976); “The Loom of Life: A Kogi Principle of Integration,”
Journal of Latin American Lore
4, no. 1 (1978): 5–27; “The Great Mother and the
Kogi Universe: A Concise Overview,”
Journal of Latin American Lore
13, no. 1 (1987): 73–113; “Templos Kogi:
Introducción al Simbolismo y a la Astronomía del Espacio Sacrado,”
Revista Colombiana de Antropolo
gía 19 (1975): 199–246; and
Indians of Colombia: Experience and Cognition
(Bogotá: Villegas Editores, 1991). For Arhuaco
mythology and ritual, see: Donald Tayler,
The Coming of the Sun
, Pitt Rivers Museum Monograph No. 7 (Oxford:
University of Oxford, 1997). See also: Alan Ereira,
The Elder Brothers’ Warning
(London: Tairona Heritage Trust, 2009). In 1991,
Alan Ereira and Graham Townsley made
From the Heart of the World
, a
powerful film that brought the message of the Kogi and the Elder Brothers to
the world. Ereira later established the Tairona Heritage Trust
(www.tairona.myzen.co.uk), a non-profit organization that works closely with
Gonawindua (www.tairona.org), the official organization of the indigenous
peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

For an understanding of the Dreaming and the
Songlines, I do not find Bruce Chatwin’s popular book,
The Songlines
(New York: Penguin, 1988), very helpful. The most
provocative and elegant exploration of the subtle philosophy of the
Aboriginal civilization is W. E. H. Stanner’s “The Dreaming,” in his
collection
White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays, 1938–1973
(Canberra: Australian National University Press,
1979). For other classic accounts, see: Ronald Berndt and Catherine Berndt,
The Speaking Land
(Sydney: Penguin Books, 1988), and
The World of the First Australians
(Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1988); A. P.
Elkin,
The Australian Aborigines
, 4th ed. (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1976); and
T. G. H. Strehlow’s
Aranda Traditions
(Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1974) and
Songs of Central Australia
(Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1971). See also:
John Mulvaney and Johan Kamminga,
Prehistory of Australia
(St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin,
1999); Richard Baker,
Land Is Life: From Bush to Town: The Story of
the Yanyuwa People
(St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin,
1999); Fred Myers,
Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: Sentiment,
Place, and Politics among Western Desert Aborigines
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991);
Robert Tonkinson and Michael Howard, eds.,
Going It Alone?: Prospects for Aboriginal
Autonomy
(Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1990); and
Robert Tonkinson’s
The Mardu Aborigines: Living the Dream in
Australia’s Desert
(Fort Worth, Tex.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1991) and
The Jigalong Mob: Aboriginal Victors of the
Desert Crusade
(Menlo Park, Calif.: Benjamin Cummings
Publishing Co., 1974).

For the clash of cultures and the consequences
see: Bruce Elder,
Blood on the Wattle: Massacres and Maltreatment
of Aboriginal Australians Since 1788
(Sydney: New Holland, 2002); Alistair Paterson,
The Lost Legions: Culture Contact in Colonial
Australia
(Plymouth, England: Altamira Press, 2008). For
the wonder of Aboriginal art, see: Fred Myers,
Painting Culture: The Making of a High
Aboriginal Art
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002). For
a popular survey and introduction see: Robert Lawlor,
Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the
Aboriginal Dreamtime
(Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1991).

Chapter Five: Century of the Wind

The title of this chapter comes from the third
volume of Eduardo Galeano’s astonishing trilogy,
Memory of Fire
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1985, 1987, 1988). For
the Garden of Eden see Nicholas Wade, “Eden? Maybe. But Where’s the Apple
Tree?”
New York
Times
(April 30, 2009). See also: Sarah Tishkoff et
al., “The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans,”
Science
324, no. 5930 (May 2009): 1035–44. For Mazatec
whistle speech, see: G. M. Cowan, “Mazateco Whistle Speech,”
Language
24, no. 3 (1948): 280–86. For a sense of the
mystical realm of Vodoun, please see my two books on Haiti:
The Serpent and the Rainbow
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985) and
Passage of Darkness
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1988). For the Naxi see: Cai Hua,
A Society Without Fathers or Husbands: The Na
of China
(Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2008). For the Warao, see:
Johannes Wilbert’s,
Mindful of Famine: Religious Climatology of the
Warao Indians
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1996);
Mystic Endowment: Religious Ethnography of the
Warao Indians
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); and
Tobacco and Shamanism in South America
(New Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press, 1993).
For the Mentawai aesthetic, see: Charles Lindsay,
Mentawai Shaman: Keeper of the Rain Forest
(New York: Aperture, 1992).

For the Tendai marathon monks and the traditions
of the Yamabushi, see: Carmen Blacker,
The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic
Practices in Japan
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1975); Miyake
Hitoshi,
Shugendō: Essays on the Structure of Japanese
Folk Religion
(Ann Arbor, Mich.: Center for Japanese Studies,
University of Michigan, 2001); Miyake Hitoshi,
The Mandala of the Mountain: Shugendō and Folk
Religion
, ed. Gaynor Sekimori (Tokyo: Keio University
Press, 2005); Paul Swanson, ed.,
Tendai Buddhism in Japan, Japanese Journal of
Religious Studies
14, nos. 2–3 (1987); Royall Tyler and Paul
Swanson, eds.,
Shugendo and Mountain Religion in Japan
,
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
16, nos. 2–3 (1989); Percival Lowell,
Occult Japan
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895); and John
Stevens,
The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei
(Boston: Shambhala, 1988).

To understand all of these complex notions of
culture, the finest source, the ultimate voice, is the late David
Maybury-Lewis, who taught me almost everything I know about anthropology.
Please see his classic publications:
Akwe-Shavante Society
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967);
Dialectical Societies
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1979);
Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the
State
(1965; reprint, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997);
The Savage and the Innocent
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2000); his edited work,
The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples
in Latin American States
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2002); and
Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World
(New York: Viking, 1992).