'Tambo: Life in an Andean VillagePerhaps the best way to sharpen one's power's of observation is to be a stranger in a strange land. Julia Meyerson was one such stranger during a year in the village of 'Tambo, Peru, where her husband was conducting anthropological fieldwork. Though sometimes overwhelmed by the differences between Quechua and North American culture, she still sought eagerly to understand the lifeways of 'Tambo and to find her place in the village. Her vivid observations, recorded in this field journal, admirably follow Henry James's advice: "Try to be one of the people upon whom nothing is lost." With an artist's eye, Meyerson records the daily life of 'Tambo—the cycles of planting and harvest, the round of religious and cultural festivals, her tentative beginnings of friendship and understanding with the Tambinos. The journal charts her progress from tolerated outsider to accepted friend as she and her husband learn and earn, the roles of daughter and son in their adopted family. With its wealth of ethnographic detail, especially concerning the lives of Andean women, 'Tambo will have great value for students of Latin American anthropology. In addition, scholars preparing to do fieldwork anywhere will find it a realistic account of both the hardships and the rewards of such study. |
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... chicha and trago that flowed through the village during those days . Chicha and trago are staples of celebration in Quechua life , and of many other activities as well . Chicha is a very mild beer , made from corn which has sprouted ...
... chicha and trago , and we all drank it gladly , except the ingeniero who had refused the trago earlier , authenticating his refusal as not born of distaste or disdain . I had , in the end , to appreciate their gesture in spite of myself ...
... drink chicha from a very small wooden qero , which Baltazar said his godfather had given him , and from it later trago : it was the perfect size for chicha , a big mouthful and a little more , but full of trago it was dangerous . When ...