I absolutely love Cusco. It is such a beautiful city and I really like that everything is so walkable. When I go out to explore I just pick a direction and walk and I always find interesting things. There is so much to check out and there are Inca stones everywhere, lasting reminders of the Inca empire the Spanish did not destroy or erase. It’s so cool to see an ancient Inca stone wall meld into a modern building. Throughout Cusco there is so much of the past mixing into the present. There are ruins and art and buildings and more around that mingle with the modern buildings and cars and phones. You see indigenous people in their traditional dress next to tourists. But when I think about these indigenous people I also have to wonder why I think of them as the past when I see them in their traditional clothes. Yes that’s what they have worn for hundreds of years but that doesn’t mean they are part of the past. They are apart of Peru’s present and future, not just the past. They and their culture is still very alive. But often they are seen as ghosts of the past.

Dualities are also something that I have seen a lot of here in Cusco. For the main day of Corpus Christi there was a long mass with choir music outside the cathedral so that the entire packed plaza could take part. And then later people partied all night long on the hill. It was a complete 180 switch up. It was like business in front with a party in the back vibes as tradition gave way to  a more loose modern party time. But it was interesting to be at this party because it was like a window into the ‘real’ Cusco. It was local people gathered together to enjoy the music and atmosphere. It wasn’t a tourist attraction that was curated for foreigners but a community gathering. And oh my god they could party.

The Q pop concert was one of the best things we have done on this trip. Lenin Tamayo was an amazing performer. Even though many of us couldn’t understand what he was saying we were able to get the message and be apart of the experience. The blend of the music was so cool and it shows you what amazing new creations you can get when cultures share and work together.

The story in the Huarochiri manuscript reminded me a lot of the story of Raven when he stole the sun. There are a lot of similarities between these stories, such as the the virgin birth, trickery, and impregnating the woman through something she consumed. It is a crazy story and sometimes I was a bit confused by some of the details that came in. Also it doesn’t seem to have a moral lesson to it which I found interesting. This story also reminds me of the Popol Vuh, which is a translation of the creation stories of the Maya, in the story telling style and how both give explanations for the natural world. There is often a view that all indigenous peoples around the world are similar/the same. You could look at the similarities in these stories in that way but I think that they speak more to the similarities between humans as a whole. Different peoples have more similarities than we often give credit to.

Being from Canada I have been exposed to a lot of stereotypes of indigenous people and it would seem that the image of the poor, badly dressed Indian is not just a North American image.  “In Huamanga, if one saw a gallant figure dressed in rose velvet breeches with fine gold trim, bright doublet beneath a dark velveteen cape from Segovia, broad felt hat, and a pair of good shoes, one probably expected to see the face of a wealthy colonial, or perhaps even a mestizo. Sometimes, however, the face belonged to an Indian.” The way that this is worded makes it clear that this would be a common and expected reaction in this situation. But this reaction should make us question why it is that we immediately think this way. Why is it when people see someone dressed well and expensively that they do not think it could be an indigenous person? Is poverty just too interwoven into our idea of what indigeneity is that people are surprised and shocked to see something in contrary to this? In reality it should be this reaction is surprising and sticks with people. We need to combat this view of indigenous peoples as poor, suppressed victims. They are so much more and should be recognized as such. They and their cultures are fully dimensional and complex, just like all the rest around the world.

A couple other lines that jumped out at me were, “The differentiation of native society into rich and poor reflected the ability of a minority to free itself form constraints that bound most Indians” and “For the great majority the road to success was closed.” It is a difficult choice to have to leave your community, traditions, and culture behind to try and have a better life. And these decisions aren’t just individual but impact family and the community at large. Pretty much the choice is try to become as Hispanic as you can and leave everything you know behind and maybe you can have a better life.

I absolutely loved the first sentence for the readings in the Lima Reader this week. “Lima must be—in my opinion—one of the ugliest capital cities in the world.” What an opening. Personally I didn’t find Lima an ugly city and I think this description is a bit harsh. I wonder what was it that made Lima seem so ugly? Lima is in some ways a paradox with opposites colliding with each other. You have the old and the new, the indigenous and the settler, the foreigners and the Peruvians. Everything blends together to create what is Lima. And the past is still very present in the current times with constant reminders like all the museums that are full of pictures and information. There are also very strong echos from the past that contribute to the problems of today in not just Lima but the whole of Peru.

One part of the Lima Reader that I found very thought provoking was the section that talked about Lima in the 80s when there was a lot of upheaval. “In 1984, Lima is a city of outsiders. The provincial masses, having overwhelmed the city, impose profound changes in the lifestyle of the capital and give it a new face.” It is interesting that the people coming in to Lima are described as outsiders. They are Peruvians too they just did not live in Lima before and likely have deep family roots in Peru. Yet they are described as outsiders coming in. They are othered and made into outsiders in their own country. And these new comers meant that things were changing which is something that many people do not like and actively try to avoid. I would imagine that many of the previous Lima residents were not happy about all the new people and the changes they brought with them. I wonder what was the city was like back then and the divides that would have been created? Would this have increased anti indigenous sentiments? But change is not always a bad thing and cultures and cities and people cannot stay the same forever. They are constantly evolving and changing and adapting.

At the LUM during the tour Edith always called the Shining Path terrorists and focused on describing their brutal acts. But the readings paint a different picture of brutality and abuses on both sides. In the part where an ex Shining Path member talks about her experiences she talks about how both sides ruined her life. Once apart of the Shining Path she was stuck and risked being killed if she tried to leave. On the other side the police came after her and put her in jail. She even said that it can be hard to decide whether to speak up or not because you got sent to jail if you did so it was a bit of a catch 22. There is often no clear right and wrong sides but different levels of violence and evil. Here the different sides do not seem very different from each other, they just go by different names and fight under different banners.

From what I have seen of Lima I think that it is a very nice city. I love the parks and little green spaces that I have seen so far and the old style buildings. It was really interesting how different neighbourhoods changed which made me think about what Rama talked about in the Ordered City. It made me wonder about how the different neighbourhoods were designed, for whom, and why. When I was walking to the city centre yesterday you could see where San Isidro ended and the new, less high end area began. The buildings got less modern looking and became older and more colonial looking. It was like modernity was clashing with the past that was still holding on. And as we left San Isidro the buildings were not the only thing to change. The streets got much busier and louder with bumper to bumper traffic and the side walks were swarming with people. I did find that I preferred the architecture outside of San Isidro because I find that modern buildings do not have the same beauty or warmth that old buildings do. There was more life and personality to the areas so I quite like being able to walk back into the past.

The different museums we went to were very interesting and now I want to learn more about the Shining Path. I had not heard about them before so I would be curious to look them up and learn the different takes on them. The guide called them terrorists and at the end when she talked about the two police officers who caught the leader she said that they are heroes for protecting democracy. This just stuck with me because in my experience with studying Latin America the police are not protectors of democracy but of dictatorships. The other museum we went to was also very interesting and I loved the ear pieces for the tour. They were perfect and made it really nice and effective to get the tour.

I can’t remember what it was called but there was a museum around the city centre that I was only in briefly but that was really interesting. It had stuff about most of the authors that we are going to be reading which made Jon very excited. But it was cool to see stuff from Guaman Poma, who I read last semester. I was not expecting to see his stuff there. One thing that I do miss is the late setting sun in Vancouver. The sun sets so early here and I would love to have more daylight, especially on days where we are doing more exploring. I have seen so many cool and beautiful things that I want to buy I just know that my bank account will not be happy with me when I get home. But I definitely will be. I will just have to pack very well to get everything back home because my bags will be stuffed!

I have to say that I preferred the Lima Reader to The Lettered City. I found The Letter City at the beginning a bit confusing and the writing was an academic fancy writing that says a lot while not really saying anything. But as I read more of it I got the hang of understanding what it was saying which is basically about how cities in Latin America, like Lima, were constructed by the Spanish and why. Still not my favourite and not a nail biter for me.

I was quite interested by The Lima Reader though. I was a bit surprised by the little sections but it was cool to have little bites of different stories and information. The section about the failed rebellion was one of my favourites I think because right of the bat I was pulled in. I think I have heard about this rebellion in another class before but I can not be sure. One thing that really surprised me was that in the rebellion one of the goals was to keep the Catholic faith. I would have thought that they would want to get rid of it entirely as it was something forced on them by the Spanish conquerors and was being used to forced out the indigenous religious practices. But maybe something about catholicism spoke to people which was why they wanted to keep it around after the rebellion.

I would not have thought that mestizos would also be part of a rebellion but it makes sense. They would have also been restricted and oppressed by the colonial government, just in different ways than full blooded indigenous people. They would have had a stake in wanting change in their society too. Freedom was the main goal of the rebellion as rebels believed that everyone should be free to live their lives and that there should not be slavery. The mestizos would likely have also desired freedom and saw this rebellion as a good opportunity to improve their society and their lives.

The brutality that those who resisted were met with did not surprise me at all though. In the reading they talked about heads being cut off and salted and then left hanging up around the city as a warning to people about what would happen if they also tried to rebel. It was also mentioned that some people were sent into forced exile and one man got 200 lashes in public. I wonder if he survived that. I would think that a person would die from pain before getting to 200. But this type of brutality is not uncommon in Latin American history after the Spanish arrived. Even today violence on this level still happens, especially to indigenous people. It would seem that these governments have not left the colonial times behind and are still trying to beat the indigenous into submission. One thing that I was wondering was how history would be if the rebellion had succeeded. What would today look like if the Spanish had not won?

Hi everyone!

My name is Anja, I am a fourth year student so I am almost done with school since I do not plan on doing a masters or PhD. A diploma and a bachelors degree are enough school for me. This is my first time doing a Global Seminar and I am super excited to check out all the amazing sites and cities and markets. This is also my first time in Peru so I am ready to do lots of exploring and site seeing. However this is not my first time traveling. I have been to several other countries including Costa Rica, France, Germany, England and Italy. My family loves traveling so this is not my first rodeo.

I grew up in East Vancouver and have spent my whole life in the same area and neighbourhood but my family is fairly new to Canada. My dad is Australian and my maternal grandparents are German so we have not been here very long. I have two sisters and I am the youngest and I also have two cats and a dog who are all very cute but they can get quite loud and will fight with each other.

This trip does not really feel real yet but I am sure that will all change once I land in Lima. I am so excited to get to know everyone and get this trip started. I am not the biggest fan of flying because I get antsy waiting and I do not like sitting still for so long. But it will all be worth it once I arrive in Peru. I am curious about what we will be learning. Since it is such big topic it could be almost anything. One thing that I am very excited for is the outdoor markets. I love going to these kinds of markets and exploring everything in the booths. I will definitely be looking for things to bring back for my friends and family.

While I have stayed in Costa Rica for three months and have taken Spanish in school my Spanish is not very good so I am hoping that I can get a bit better on this trip if I am surrounded by Spanish speakers and trying to practise. Hopefully I do not butcher the language too badly in my attempts. But I also plan to use duolingo as well to help me keep learning. The plan is to do some everyday but who knows if that will be possible. Fingers crossed!

Indigeneity is such a huge topic to look at so I was not really sure what direction this class was going to take became there is so much to explore. The books we read were really interesting and often quite different from a lot of the books I am used to reading. Learning about these other beliefs, lifestyles, cultures, and traditions was quite mind opening because it often made me pause and think and look at the world in a different way then I usually do. We all live on the same world but we don’t live in the same world. Different people see and exist in different ways and the lack of understanding and acceptance for these differences has led to a lot of abuse and suffering for indigenous peoples throughout Latin America as well as the rest of the world. But at the end of the day people are not even that different fundamentally and they are all connected. Kopenawa said in his book that everyone, even white people, were created by Omama and have connections with the xiapari. We are all connected.

We talked a lot about voice and it made me think about what an authentic voice is and if it actually exists. In the case of the indigenous voice what makes a person indigenous enough to be authentic? Is just being born from an indigenous family enough or do you have to speak the native language, grow up in the community, know and practice the culture, dress traditionally? Or can you be somewhere in between? Also who gets the right to speak and for who? Everything gets so complicated and there are no easy answers. Also no one will ever all agree on an answer either so that just leaves different, unsettled arguments that cannot be closed. The world is not black or white but is full of grey. Answers are not easy and neither are the actions necessary to fix the problems faced by indigenous communities and societies at large. For me I think what is important is telling stories respectfully and accurately. Stories are meant to be told, especially ones that pull back the curtain on things like corrupt governments and massacres. Not speaking out and sharing stories is worse because they are forgotten and ignored, erased and invisible.Even after 13 weeks there are still lots of questions. In a way I think I have more questions now than I did at the beginning.

This section of the book had the same style writing wise of the other parts we looked at but the content was less explaining Yanomami cosmology and shamanism and more present day focused. I love how Kopenawa talks about and to politicians.He is straight up and doesn’t beat around the bush. I really liked the part with the Brazilian president when Kopenawa was told that there were too many prospectors and too little money get them to leave so Kopenawa says “I answered him that by speaking with such twisted words he only wanted to deceive us and let our land be invaded. Then I added that he must be a weak man whose mind was full of oblivion and that he could therefore not claim to be a true great man.” No bullshit just straight up and I love it. And the best part was that he called out the lies being told, making it clear that he knew they were lying to him and he was not going to accept. Kopenawa’s description of politics is right on and it made me laugh. “Their politics is nothing but mixed-up talk.” Best description of politics I have ever heard.

One thing that I found very interesting was that was that the xapiri are exist outside Brazil and are everywhere in the world. I assumed that they only lived in Brazil but they are actually everywhere. These important beings to the Yanomami and they are apart of the whole but others have lost touch with them. Europe is full of them and they are apart of all of us. This is something that is a similarity between peoples around the world which shows there are similarities even among very different cultures. But there are also a variety of differences that need to be recognized and respected. Things like how people see the world and what they see as proper behaviour.

Kopenawa made a really good point about people actually following their words with actions. People so often just say the right words and speak out against problems but that’s where they stop. Words are only powerful if they are followed by actions. It does not matter if you make speeches about protecting the environment if you don’t actually do anything else. The big problems facing our world need more than words. Just words won’t save the environment or help the Yanomami. Action will because that’s what will bring change. Words are important to get the ball rolling but that’s just the start.

I found the book like a mix between Rigoberta Menchú, Subcomandante Marcos, and the Popol Vuh. It had the myth telling aspect like the Popol Vuh did, explaining how things are the way they are and are done, as well as instructions to how to do things. Like with Rigoberta Menchu’s book Kopenawa’s book is also written in an oral story telling way. Reading it can feeling hearing someone speaking to you and telling story instead of actually reading printed words on a page. Also like Menchu Kopenawa describes the personal pain and suffering that has impacted his life as a direct result of land invaders and abusive authorities. His mother died, his people’s ancestral territory has been invaded and stolen, and his culture is under attack. Like with Subcomandante Marcos’s book Falling Sky is a book trying to make the world away of the injustices going on in their countries. I did find it a bit confusing sometimes though so I had some trouble keeping track of the thread of the story at times. I found that things bounced around a bit.

When Kopenawa was describing the disease epidemics, the missionaries pushing christianity on the native population, and the taking of children reminded me so much about what happened in Canada when Europeans came. Just reading parts of this could be Canadian history if I did not know better. It just makes me think about how different things would be today if when the europeans had shown respect for the indigenous populations and their cultures that they encountered. The diseases could not have been prevented but they definitely could have been minimized. When Europeans first came to new lands and started mistreating the local peoples they were sowing the seeds for a racist, violent, and pain filled future. Their disregard for indigenous peoples, culture, and lands have been passed down to future generations and led to so many of the problems today

The end section where Bruce talked about how ethnographers “are generally not typical outsiders” I found interesting. The way he described them made them seem more worthy of being allowed access to communities than others. To me he seemed to be setting up people like him to been portrayed not just tacky tourists but respectful visitors who are there to learn and observe. Also like creating a separation of himself and other white people, the good and the bad, the givers and the takers.

The structure and style of the second part of the book gets even more unconventional than the first. Marcos constantly switches up who he is talking to and about but he often ties things back to the main point of the book, either directly or indirectly by alluding to it or with symbols. He writes about himself is many ways and plays several different characters. The Subcomandante, the simple soldier, and the writer to name a few. There is a lot of symbolism used to the point where you have to stop and think about who Marcos is actually talking about. There is also a lot of magic realism in the second part with most of the pages we looked using so much magic realism is like reading about a dream or fairy tale. What he is writing about is not a light topic but Marcos does not fill the book with doom and gloom. He puts in little jokes, has light little stories like the ones about the children at the camp and Durrito, and tells little side creation stories. There are several cracks about his big nose that I thought was funny and shows a bit of insight into Marcos. He has a sense of humour and can laugh at himself.

I was surprised that Marcos mentions characters and events and elements from the Popol Vuh. I was just expecting for him to keep on the topic of the Zapatista resistance and the Mexican government’s abuses. He talks about the houses of the underworld like the House of Darkness, Xibalbé and the warrior twins. The stories are not told the same and the Popol Vuh was much more detailed but it’s the same core idea. I wonder why Marcos decided to much these stories in his book. Maybe it was a show of defiance to throw in these indigenous stories when indigeneity is under severe attack. Having them written down in his book helps to keep them alive. Or maybe it’s not that deep and Marcos was just smoking something interesting in his pipe.

One line that really stuck out to me was “there exist at least two things greater than borders: one is the crime disguised as modernity, which distributes misery on a world scale.” There is such an emphasis on modernity and moving forward. Modernity is always framed as something everyone everywhere should strive for and that it makes things better. Modernity has been used as an excuse and a justification by many governments and corporations to do what they want to make a profit and to protect their interests.