Aymara

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Aymara

Between approximately 1200 and 1500, at least twelve distinct Aymara-speaking kingdoms dominated the area of the Andean Altiplano (high plateau) between Cuzco in present-day Peru and Potosí in present-day Bolivia. The origins of the Aymara language are not clear, but linguist Alfredo Torero believes that it may have developed in the area of Huari (Wari) culture in the central highlands of Peru. Although the Aymara actually constituted one cultural and linguistic group, there was often fierce competition among them, and consequently the kingdoms were well fortified militarily.

The most basic social and economic unit among the Aymara was the extended family, which in turn belonged to larger groups known as ayllus. An ayllu is generally understood to be a group of people who hold land in common and who trace their origins to one spiritual or legendary ancestor.

Above the ayllu level Aymara society had a dualistic structure that divided human communities into complementary halves. Each kingdom, as well as each village or settlement, was composed of two moieties, or parcialidades: a superior one, usually called hanansaya, and one of inferior status known as hurinsaya. This political division reflected a conception of the universe based on the unity of halves, or opposites. This dualism was symbolized by the male/female relation, and features of the physical world (rocks, mountains, bodies of water) were often conceived of as either male or female.

Each Aymara kingdom had two kurakas, or chiefs, one for each parcialidad; and on the district and village levels there were usually also leaders for both hurinsaya and hanansaya. Kurakas were responsible for allocating lands to ayllu members, ensuring that the proper religious rites were performed, and periodically redistributing some of the community's wealth. In return for performing these functions, kurakas, who generally had access to considerably more land than did commoners, had their fields tilled by ayllu members and received various other types of labor service as well. This labor for the leaders was viewed as a form of reciprocity by the common people for the generosity the kurakas demonstrated in redistributing the society's surplus.

The anthropologist John Murra was among the first scholars to show how agricultural "archipelagos" were used by the Aymara in order to make the best of the Andean region's varied geography. In this "vertical" system, agricultural lands with different altitudes and ecologies were utilized to produce a variety of crops. Most Aymara communities had their primary settlements on the sides of highland valleys or on the altiplano, where they were able to graze herds of llamas and alpacas, exploit salt deposits, and grow potatoes and quinoa. Lands in lower valleys provided vegetables, maize, coca leaf, cotton, tropical fruits, and vegetables.

It was through their ayllus that families obtained products grown in lowland zones that were more than several hours' walk from their base communities. Ayllu-held lands in distant regions were farmed by agricultural colonists (mitimaes, llacturuna) who were sent by the highland leaders for this purpose. Most ethnohistorians believe that because of the system of agricultural colonies the Aymara economy was able to function without markets or a medium of exchange. Products from lowland areas most likely were redistributed to community members by the ayllu leaders as a form of largesse.

After about 1440, the Inca—a Quechua-speaking ethnic group based in the Cuzco area—began to expand southward and to incorporate the Aymara kingdoms into their state system. The Aymara responded in a variety of ways to the invasions. Kingdoms in the area of Lake Titicaca eventually rose in revolt against increasing Inca demands for land and labor. Further south, Aymara leaders seem to have more readily cooperated with the invaders in return for certain concessions. For instance, the kurakas of the Charcas, Caracaras, Chuis, and Chichas were feasted by the Inca leaders, showered with gifts, and made officers in their armies. In general, the main burdens of Inca rule probably fell on the common people, who now, in addition to working the lands of their own kurakas, also had to do the same for the Inca leaders and spiritual cults.

The Inca imperial approach of building on preexisting Andean social and political institutions, and the flexibility of the Aymara lords in cooperating with the new state, helped Aymara culture survive to experience the next invasion: that of the Spanish, which began in 1532. During the Conquest and Spanish colonial period Aymara people used a variety of strategies, ranging from revolt to alliances with the colonialists to skillful use of the colonial legal system, in order to survive domination and maintain fundamental aspects of their culture. Since political independence from Spain in 1825 the Aymara have continued as a distinct cultural and linguistic group despite attacks on their communal organizations and system of land tenure, the racism of the dominant mestizo society, and their economic exploitation as peasants and poorly paid workers.

According to the 2001 census, approximately one-third of the population of Bolivia continues to speak Aymara. Although throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth most Aymara people were peasant farmers, now many are urban and have diverse occupations. There are Aymara industrial workers, truck drivers, business people, intellectuals, and professionals. The 2005 election of Evo Morales to the presidency, the Aymara leader of the Movement Toward Socialism / Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), garnered international attention for both Bolivia and indigenous movements. Today Aymara political and cultural organizations have links with other Native American rights groups in Bolivia and other countries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

John V. Murra, "An Aymara Kingdom in 1567," in Ethnohistory 15, no. 2 (1968): 115-151, and Formaciones económicas y políticas del mundo andino (1975).

Nathan Wachtel, The Vision of the Vanquished (1977).

Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne, "L'espace aymara: Urco et uma," in Annales, 33, nos. 5-6 (1978): 1057-1080.

Martha J. Hardman, ed., The Aymara Language in Its Social and Cultural Context (1981).

Franklin Pease, "The Formation of Tawantinsuyu: Mechanisms of Colonization and Relationship with Ethnic Groups," in The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800, edited by George A. Collier, Renato I. Rosaldo, and John D. Wirth (1982), pp. 172-198.

John V. Murra, "The Limits and Limitations of the 'Vertical Archipelago' in the Andes," in Andean Ecology and Civilization: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Andean Ecological Complementarity, edited by Shozo Masuda, Izumi Shimada, and Craig Morris (1985).

Xavier Albo, ed., Raíces de América: El mundo Aymara (1988).