Andean Cosmologies Through Time
Subtitle: Persistence and Emergence (Caribbean and Latin American Studies)
Contributors: Robert V. H. Dover (Editor); John Holmes McDowell (Editor); Katharine E. Seibold (Editor)
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: January 1, 1992
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780253318152
Subjects: Anthropology; Archaeology; Cosmology & the universe; Native American Religions; Philosophy (Specific Aspects); Religion - World Religions; Literature: Folklore/Mythology; South America; Cosmology; Ethnic & Tribal; Latin America - South America; History-Latin America - South America; Religion / Ethnic & Tribal; Science-Cosmology; Andes Region; Cultural assimilation; Indian philosophy; Indians of South America; Religion
Description: Concerned with Andean cosmology both as the manifestation of a system of belief and as a way of thinking or worldview that orders the social environment, this volume advances an explanation of why Andean Indigenous communities are still recognizably Andean after a half millennium of forced exposure to Western systems of thought and belief. Examining cultural authenticity in an Andean context, the authors describe a process facilitated by a cosmology which readily integrates the accouterments of non-Andean and other Andean influences in a given Andean community. At issue is not so much what is authentic but how it is perceived to be authentic and how it is so maintained. The nine authors explore a model in which a consistent and persistent cosmological discourse leads not to an emergent social order but to a social order which continually emerges as a peculiarly Andean phenomenon. This volume describes a set of mechanisms which together comprise a uniquely Andean perspective through which given communities perceive themselves or are perceived through time to be Andean.