The guinea pig
Subtitle: healing, food, and ritual in the Andes
By: Edmundo Morales.
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Tucson
Language: eng
Number of pages: 177
Subjects: Indians of South America -- Domestic animals -- Andes Region.; Guinea pigs -- Social aspects -- Andes Region.; Guinea pigs -- Andes Region -- History.; Indians of South America -- Food -- Andes Region.; Indians of South America -- Andes Region -- Economic conditions.
Description: The guinea pig pervades nearly every aspect of Andean life. Traditionally important in folk medicine, native religion, and as a food source, guinea pig use continues to proliferate. Once a woman's domestic chore, raising guinea pigs is today a profitable commercial practice in Latin America. This once-sacred animal is now exploited as a source of cash income.

As the drive to integrate indigenous peoples into the modern global market economy becomes a priority with Latin American governments, the implementation of new economic policies regulating guinea pig husbandry is aggressively changing traditions and values in the Andes.

Edmundo Morales traveled back to his homeland in the Andes to capture in words and pictures the changes and continuities in traditional uses of the guinea pig in his culture. Morales, a native speaker of Spanish and Quechua, easily ventured into many isolated communities and examined social customs centered upon the guinea pig.

Although the guinea pig lives in the Andean home as a domestic animal, it is also enjoyed as a culinary delicacy. Folk doctors employ the black guinea pig to determine the cause of illness - pressed against an ailing body, the animal reportedly squeals when it finds the source of disease. These are only some of the uses for the guinea pig in the Andean cultures of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

A study of cultural traditions and changes, The Guinea Pig: Healing, Food, and Ritual in the Andes will be useful for social scientists, humanists, and policymakers, as well as for general readers interested in this unique aspect of Andean culture. The book records the cultural traditions of an indigenous people while demonstrating how participation in the global market economy can alter a way of life.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: From household animal to market commodity; title: The cuy as food and symbolic social binder; title: The cuy in Andean medicine; title: The cuy in Andean ideology, religion, and belief; title: The future of the cuy economy.