The Incas


Book Description

Essential to understand Inca culture in all its aspects: origin, economy, social organization, religion and art. This is an introduction to life in the Tawantinsuyo, which is opposite to the versions provided by Spanish historians, whom imposed their occidental interpretation to a very Franklin Pease, well-known Peruvian historian, dedicated his entire life to study Inca civilization. In The Incas, Peruvian historian Franklin Pease explores all aspects of life in the Tawantinsuyu, the great Inca empire that stretched for thousands of miles along the Andes of modernday Bolivia, Chile, Ecuadro and Peru. Pease does so by reexamining the sources of most of our knowledge of this complex society, the "chronocles" written during and after the Spanish conquest by a disparate group of soldiers, priests, colonial administrators ands the descendants of this protagonists, often themselves of mixed Andean-Spanish blood. This account opens a window into the Inca universe, vividly explaining everything from the Inca polity and economic structures to its agriculture, transportation infrastructure, creation myths and religious beliefs. It also takes great care to avoid the common historioraphical error of projecting onto the Incas, arguably the last great civilization to have existed without contac with the "Old World" western ways of seeing and imagining the universe. The Incas is one of our best sellers and has already been translated to different reality.




The Incas’ Sky


Book Description




The Two Faces of Inca History


Book Description

The historical narratives of the Inca dynasty, known to us through Spanish records, present several discrepancies that scholarship has long attributed to the biases and agendas of colonial actors. Drawing on a redefinition of royal descent and a comparative literary analysis of primary sources, this book restores the pre-Hispanic voices embedded in the chronicles. It identifies two distinctive bodies of Inca oral traditions, each of which encloses a mutually conflicting representation of the past that, considered together, reproduces patterns of Cuzco’s moiety division. Building on this new insight, the author revisits dual representations in the cosmology and ritual calendar of the ruling elite. The result is a fresh contribution to ethnohistorical works that have explored native ways of constructing history.




Unfolding Consciousness


Book Description

Exploring the Living Universe and Intelligent Powers in Nature and Humans, author Edi Bilimoria heralds the new science of consciousness and offers the readers a roadmap and necessary tools to achieve future growth. Presented in three volumes, plus volume IV contains references, resources & further reading, they reveal the unity of the Eastern and Western branches of our perineal wisdom. Bilimoria shows how science seeks truth using a synthesis of both traditions. Evidence from a wide range of sources— scientific, medical, philosophical, religious, and cultural— is put forward to argue the case that humans are spiritual beings, primarily, and not merely complicated biological machines. Bilimoria teaches that consciousness is not the product of matter but the primary &‘ element' from which all else emanates. This process and its underlying mechanisms are described in detail with much clarity. This work has over 2000 references and is supported by copious tables and diagrams, plus individual chapter summaries and sidenotes to assist readers in navigating the multidimensional terrain traversed.Key areas - The scientific and esoteric worldviews compared and contrasted - The ultimate promise of science - The &‘ soft' and &‘ hard' problems of consciousness: How external input to the physical senses results in an internal, subjective experience - Quantum physics: its contribution to a new scientific paradigm - The Mystery Teachings of All Ages: their worldwide unity and central message - &‘ Wet computers' and computers: Is the brain no different, in principle, from a computer? - Death and after: the transition and continuity of consciousness in other realms - Paranormal phenomena and apparitions - Subtle bodies - Evolution and destiny - Powers latent in human beings - Divinity and the united message of all world religions - The question of immortality - The primacy of consciousness and the manner of its unfoldment from the unmanifest realms to the physical world Edi Bilimoria' s guest appearance on the Shepheard-Walwyn podcast series can be found on this link. https://shepheardwalwyn.com/edi-bilimoria-unfolding-consciousness-why-sapolsky-is-wrong-and-how-to-get-in-tune-with-life/




The Life Cycle


Book Description

'A gripping read for anyone who cares about what we're doing to the planet and how we can change it' DAVID SHUKMAN, FORMER BBC NEWS SCIENCE EDITOR 'Searing observations focused on our need to protect biodiversity - A tour de force' SIR TIM SMIT OBE, CO-FOUNDER OF THE EDEN PROJECT 'An informative, uplifting and truly important book' JONATHON PORRITT, AUTHOR AND CAMPAIGNER One woman's journey through South America - and the devastating story of our planet's disappearing biodiversity Pedalling hard for thirteen months, eco adventurer Kate Rawles cycled the length of the Andes on an eccentric bicycle she built herself. The Life Cycle charts her mission to find out why biodiversity is so important, what's happening to it, and what can be done to protect it. From the Pacific Ocean to rainforests and salt flats, Kate learns that armadillos can cross rivers by holding their breath, that Colombia has more species of birds than North America and Europe combined, and that in threatening species and ecosystems, we're tearing down our own life support system. En route, she witnesses the devastation of goldmining and oil drilling but finds hope in the incredible people working to regenerate habitats and communities. As she reaches the 'end of the world', she realises that to tackle biodiversity loss we all have a role to play.




The Stone and the Thread


Book Description

"Shows that precolumbian tectonic forms (especially as found in sculpture and weaving) appear to be an overlooked source, or anticipation, of much of the art of the 20th century. Second part of book deals with artifacts as American art and addresses reception of ancient tectonics in the 20th century. Emphasizes intense relationship that some members of the New York School (particularly Barnett Newman and Adolph Gottlieb) had during 1940s with the aboriginal arts of the North American part of the hemisphere and thus the affinities between their work and the work of the older Torres Garcâia in Montevideo, at the other end of the continent"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.




In Praise of the Ancestors


Book Description

Apart from collective memories of lived experiences, much of the modern world’s historical sense comes from written sources stored in the archives of the world, and some scholars in the not-so-distant past have described unlettered civilizations as “peoples without history.” In Praise of the Ancestors is a revisionist interpretation of early colonial accounts that reveal incongruities in accepted knowledge about three Native groups. Susan Elizabeth Ramírez reevaluates three case studies of oral traditions using positional inheritance—a system in which names and titles are inherited from one generation by another and thereby contribute to the formation of collective memories and a group identity. Ramírez begins by examining positional inheritance and perpetual kinship among the Kazembes in central Africa from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Next, her analysis moves to the Native groups of the Iroquois Confederation and their practice of using names to memorialize remarkable leaders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, Ramírez surveys naming practices of the Andeans, based on sixteenth-century manuscript sources and later testimonies found in Spanish and Andean archives, questioning colonial narratives by documenting the use of this alternative system of memory perpetuation, which was initially unrecognized by the Spaniards. In the process of reexamining the histories of Native peoples on three continents, Ramírez broaches a wider issue: namely, understanding of the nature of knowledge as fundamental to understanding and evaluating the knowledge itself.




Cultural Astronomy In Latin America


Book Description

This book provides a unique view of Astronomy in Culture, Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy involving ancient civilizations in Latin America, emphasizing scientific and cultural knowledge combined with historical, cognitive, archaeological and anthropological aspects. Topics covered in the book include different associations of ancient civilizations with the stars and planets, whether in farming, architecture, social organization, beliefs, myths, religion, metric systems, calendar construction, shrines, and variations in astronomical research methods based on the types of material evidence available. Special attention is paid to the war cycles associated with observed celestial events, day-counting calendars, including movements in the sky and written evidences from codices, and in particular the Andean and Inca traditions of astronomically associated shrines, caves and celestial alignments of monuments and temples.




The Neo-Indians


Book Description

The Neo-Indians is a rich ethnographic study of the emergence of the neo-Indian movement—a new form of Indian identity based on largely reinvented pre-colonial cultures and comprising a diverse group of people attempting to re-create purified pre-colonial indigenous beliefs and ritual practices without the contaminating influences of modern society. There is no full-time neo-Indian. Both indigenous and non-indigenous practitioners assume Indian identities only when deemed spiritually significant. In their daily lives, they are average members of modern society, dressing in Western clothing, working at middle-class jobs, and retaining their traditional religious identities. As a result of this part-time status the neo-Indians are often overlooked as a subject of study, making this book the first anthropological analysis of the movement. Galinier and Molinié present and analyze four decades of ethnographic research focusing on Mexico and Peru, the two major areas of the movement’s genesis. They examine the use of public space, describe the neo-Indian ceremonies, provide analysis of the ceremonies’ symbolism, and explore the close relationship between the neo-Indian religion and tourism. The Neo-Indians will be of great interest to ethnographers, anthropologists, and scholars of Latin American history, religion, and cultural studies.




Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation


Book Description

Recent debates about the return of colonially looted heritage have furthered the discussions on decolonisation around the world, and have reignited questions surrounding “what is, and who owns, cultural heritage”. These discourses in the meaning, production and management of heritage – with a growing presence of themes that address “Latinities” – have gained greater visibility in Latin America and the Caribbean, as challenges surrounding cultural heritage arise more prominently worldwide. The attention on this region aims to contextualise the various theoretical, empirical, and critical perspectives in relation to the negotiation of decolonisation. Hence, this book focuses on the analysis of diverse modes of confronting the power underlying colonial heritage that can contribute to pushing boundaries and persuading changes in pre-established definitions of political thought and local identities. To this end, the chapters in this book focus on a wide scope of topics, ranging from the repatriation and restitution of cultural heritage, and diasporic movements to decolonial practices around monuments, museums, and education. In so doing, this volume challenges stereotypes that made Latin America and the Caribbean a space of mere reproducibility of external ideas, and instead provides a space to show current decolonial perspectives and practices developed in the region that will enrich the international debate on the contestation of colonial legacies and decolonisation of cultural heritage.