'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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... face which promises his mother's beauty . He is intrepid and often tags along with Jaime while Eloy stays close to his mother . Their father is a young man named Ricardo , who came to ' Tambo from Paruro . We have met him only once ...
... face with large features , pretty , in a very Quechua sort of way . We have been watching the gradual initiation of Hugo , who is eighteen , into young manhood . He returned from three months of work in the gold mines of Puerto ...
... face and expressions are inscrutable ) offered Gary all of his land to farm and suggested that he build a house in Nayhua . The t'impu was served and eaten , and we moved outside into the sun . The musicians and dancers were all present ...