In pre-columbian times the north coast of Peru had a number of florishing cultures. The textiles and featherwork produced there was outstanding. We have been fourtunate that these people lived in a very dry region and had a tendancy to bury their dead in their best garments.

This is an exhibition catalouge, but in addition to beautiful pictures it is heavy on information. This deals specificaly with the Chimor culture of the north coast which flourished from around 700AD till they were conqured by the Inca's in around 1470AD.

This book gives you technical details of how their textiles were made and breaks them up into periods and styles. You also get information on textiles that weren't in the exibition but are relevent to the research the author has done.

If you have any interest in the textiles or featherwork of ancient Peru then this book, though focused on a very narrow area, is a must read.

This book takes the reader on a journey through several cities and archeological sites of Peru. The archeological information is wonderful and there is a large bibliography, glossary of Quechua terms as well as a discography of Andean music. Some of the descriptions will take your breath away with the beauty of the picture he paints and the skillfully crafted writing. This thoughtful book goes beneath the skin and touches the soul of Peru. A must-read before going to Peru!

I had the privilege and honor to be one of Professor Luis Martín's pupils at SMU a decade and a half ago. I recall his playful, excitable and gregarious personality, as well as his trademark lectures in which he typically juggled history, theology, poetry, sociology and hard-core Sevillian gossip!

Such is the trademark of his writing in "Daughters of the Conquistadores." Don Luis artfully stretches the imagination of the reader by plotting in occurences and tribulations of nuns, divorcees, concubines, "tapadas" and "beatas" in the colonial Peru of 1550-1800. In a most authentic and self-bred style, he narrates the mysteries and abuses taking place in convents and nunneries, haciendas and palaces; and underlines the influence of women in a society relentlessly dominated by "Don Juanism" and sternly regulated and probed by an over-zealous Catholic church.

A book tough to research and tougher to write, "Daughters of the Conquistadores" is fun to read, bare of profound insights and laden with satyrical, albeit tragic, anecdotes.

Finger weaving (also called Indian braiding) dates back centuries. All that is needed to weave these intricate, beautiful designs is a short dowel, some vividly colored yearn, and your fingers. Alta Turner draws upon her years of experience as a teacher of finger weaving to introduce the reader to the basic techniques and patterns of the North American Plains and Woodlands Indians, including the diagonal, chevron, double chevron, diamond, double diamond, lightning, double lightning and arrow-head designs. Following these, she demonstrates several striking Peruvian designs (including the Peruvian rep braids and Peruvian cross rep braids). The informative text is enhanced with diagrams and illustrated directions enabling the reader to create woven sashes, belts, collars, neck-ties, headbands, and bands for trimming or lengthening clothes. Finger Weaving: Indian Braiding is an inexpensive but invaluable 48 page booklet that will prove of high interest to students of Native American culture, costumers, and needlecrafters.

This by far is the best work written on the Pizarro Family as a whole. I am glad to see more information written on Gonzalo, Hernando, and Juan Pizarro. Before this book was written most people did not fully understand who Francisco and his brothers were basically about. This book pants a nice painting of who they were and ultimately their fates. I wish to see more work on the Pizarro's in the near future. I advise anyone who is interested in reading about the Conquistadors to check this book out for it covers everything on the subject matter.

The investigation of Guitarrero Cave was (at their time) the most well carried multidisciplinary attempt to get information about the first ocupations of perivian Andes and the subsecuent process. A lot of papers were published about the findings, covering several topics like plant domestication, cordage and textiles, lithics, etc. This book is a compilation of 12 contributions from the proyect investigators:

1 Setting and excavations
2 Stratigraphy and Chronology
3 Pollen analysis and paleoethnobotany
4 Vegetation and land use near Guitarrero Cave
5 Plant Remains from Guitarrero
6 Ancient peruvian highland Maize
7 Variation in cultived Beans
8 Faunal remains
9 Artifacts made from stone and other inorganic materials
10 Bone and Wood tools
11 Cordage, Basketry and Textiles
12 Guitarrero Cave in its andean context

There's a lot of interesting material for the interested in southamerican archaeology, and for anyone who wishes to see a good sample of the application of multiple disciplines at once.

I am not very well versed in South and Central American myth, nor am I that familiar with the Spanish conquests. However, reading through this facinating account and seeing the progression of a myth in formation and particularly its relation to actual history will likely provide anyone who reads it with insites into the complexities of the connections between history, myth, and the retelling of both.

A very readable book for young adults about the Spanish Conquest of Peru. Marrin describes in vivid detail the daily life of the Incas before the Spanish arrived. A warlike people, the Incas valued toughness, courage and obedience to authority. They were not strangers to capital punishment or torture. Like the Aztecs, they practiced ritual human sacrifice to appease the many gods they worshipped. Although their society was highly organized and technologically advanced, they were not prepared for warfare on European terms. When Pizarro arrived, he kidnapped their leader and held him for a ransom of silver and gold. Without their leader to give them instructions, the Incas were helpless to launch a rescue mission; they had been trained to obey orders, not to think for themselves. For many years the Incas made attempts to resist Spanish rule, but in the end, Spanish greed, weapons, cruelty and disease overtook them. A sorrowful yet valuable account of the Spanish impact on the New World.

Ann Wightman's study of the bishopric of Cuzco argues, with a generation of other scholars of the Andes like Stern, Spalding and Sempat, that ethnic divisions within Spanish indigenous communities would slowly be replaced by social class-based relations to land and the Spanish economic system. A solid piece of history; broad and mostly engaging. Ideal for students of colonial Latin American history, the Andes, or historians interested in indigenous identity.

There is, in every "Tribal "civilisation",a structure.
It is a basic structure.
There is no difference between ourselves(socially) and those of our latin american counter parts.
Except for ecconomic structure.