'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. |
From inside the book
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... learned when I had visited Gary : how to say hello and goodbye , some words of thanks , and the im- portant words manan intendinichu ( “ I don't understand " ) . As we lived there , I gradually learned how to be a proper Quechua human ...
... learned to weave pallay ( the patterns ) , extraordinary in a Quechua village where al- most all women weave - Juana had learned from other girls when she was young - and one morning when I sat outside bent over my little tangle of yarn ...
... learned ways to plead , to complain , and to thank profusely . I have even learned how to refuse food , though this is on the very margin of social accept- ability and works only because I'm a gringa and allowances must be made for my ...