'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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... sitting in Pascuala's kitchen , cooking for the men who would plant her field , in- stead of alone in our house ... sit with Celestina in Pascuala's kitchen , squatting on the floor near the door , something my bones and muscles have yet ...
... sitting . Baltazar , having apparently resolved that our observance of the holiday should continue as long as the chicha lasted , announced the next morn- ing that we would rest that day and drink chicha , and this we proceeded to do ...
... sitting in the sort of horseshoe formation called kuskan tiy , traditional for taking more formal meals in the field ( kuska , meaning together , and try from tiyay , to sit ) , the opening of the arc downhill , with the eldest and most ...