Alan L. Kolata

The author spent decades in the rarified air of the Andes, and it does show. He finds, and sifts through, the culture of the Aymara, finding its ancient stars and vital presence. A University of Chicago anthro-archaeologist, Kolata worked on Aymara agricultural projects, eventually winning considerable deserved intercontinental attention.

In this work, Kolata translates to page the practical and even magical concepts that have guided this society that is at once ancient and current. One example, he explains that among the Aymara ``the place of time is inverted. It is the past that is in front of us, visible, knowable, graven in the physical world and in memory. . . . The future, on the other hand, lies behind, invisible and knowable only through ritual specialists trained in the arts of prognostication.''

Kolata illustrates this "time consciousness" through the Aymara year, the seasons -- sowing seed, harvesting, and cycles of ritual. He walks us through everyday life in marketplaces, urban bars, and private homes.

Kolata devotes considerable text to the ancient capital of the Aymara, now a ruin, but he limns in a sacred city of temples, altars, star porches, and stelae. He writes, ``Tiahuanaco, in its time, was forsaken by the gods and the ancestors. No amount of sacrificial blood flowing on the great earth shrines of the city would change its fate.''

Curiously, little time is spent in any "hidden valley". Nor does he seem interested in "spirits". Perhaps the indifference is mutual.… (más)