'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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... seemed to believe that this document and any others Gary could produce would dispel any suspicion regarding our motive for being here and Baltazar's for putting us up . It seemed best , of course , to do it right away , immediately , so ...
... seemed upset about something . I could see from where I sat that a place in the center of the long ridge of the horse's spine had been rubbed raw . I went to where Andrés had tied him to look : the skin had completely worn away ...
... seemed to be nothing for me to do , so I went to sit with the men and few women who had gathered in the comedor . Baltazar was bragging - we had told him that my parents might come to Peru and that we were thinking of bringing them to ...