Number 30 - South American Explorers

ful, listing 1,481 species divided into eightythree
families and giving English, Spanish,
and scientific names of each. Birding, with
1,449 species listed (the discrepancy is because
Galdpagos birds are omitted), lacks
the niceties of the Spanish names and family
divisions, but makes up for that by providing
a useful bibliography and giving the sort of
travel information that will be invaluable
and, indeed, essential to anyone considering
a private birding trip to Ecuador. Serious
birders are advised to have both.
—Rob Rachowiecki
Kingdom of the Sun God
A History of the Andes and Their People
DAVID CAMERON
$29.95 [Members $27.95] Item #177
Kingdom of the Sun God is a solid, onevolume
survey of the Andes Mountains and
the peoples who have lived on them. Ian
Cameron is the author of his own mountain
of best-selling (21 million copies) travel and
adventure books, including To the Farthest
Ends of the Earth, a history of Royal Geographical
Society expeditions. He kicks off
his Andean tour with Darwin standing in the
hills back of Valparafso, pondering "what
forces had fashioned such a fine chaos of
mountains." Over the years the explanations
have included God's punishing us for our
wickedness, a witch's plugging up volcanic
vents, and pieces of Earth's crust colliding
with each other. The plate tectonic theory
was first proffered in 1915 by Alfred W.
Wegener, a German scientist, but dismissed
by geologists because he was a mere meteorologist.
The weatherman was ri"ht.
44 SOUTH AMERICAN EXPLORER
Cameron shepherds the reader on a trek
through several millennia of Andean history:
the early civilizations, the Incas, the conquering
Spanish, the first naturalists, the rebelling
criollos, and the modern-day mountaineers,
who have often been surprised to
find that their virgin peaks were conquered
long before by pre-Columbians. In 1953, for
example, Henning Kristen led a team on a
difficult climb to the top of the 19,455-foot
Licancabur volcano in Chile, only to find the
ruins of an Atacama Indian encampment.
Kristen's reconquest of Licancabur is a reminder
that these sierras have been homes,
battlefields, laboratories, and gymnasia for
thousands of years. —Daniel Buck
Inca Civilization in Cuzco
R. TOM ZUIDEMA
$9.95 [Members $8.95] Item #166
Inka Settlement Planning
JOHN HYSLOP
$30.00 [Members $28.00] Item #170
At the Crossroads of the
Earth and the Sky
An Andean Cosmology
GARY URTON
University of Texas Press, $11.95 paper
The University of Texas Press has recently
published or reissued three studies
which examine the organization of time and
space in the Andean world.
Although Hyslop's/nfaz Settlement Planning
comes with all the scholarly accoutrements
in the form of maps, notes, drawings,
photographs, diagrams, glossary, and an extensive
bibliography, the book is fairly easy
going for the generalist. Hyslop efficiently
introduces his reader to the principles of
Inca architecture and settlement planning
and then moves, chapter by chapter,
through organizing elements like the physical
relationship of manmade structures to
natural features, types of settlements or patterns,
environmental influences, and orientation
and alignment. While the Cuzco area
is central to the study, Hyslop has visited and
cited sites representing the widest range of
the Inca empire. This is a fairly readable text
which encourages and supports a general
reader who is undaunted by thoroughness.
Anyone who has read Hyslop's earlier study,
The Inka Road System, will find this a suitable
companion volume.
Inca Civilization in Cuzco is a series of
lectures originally delivered in French at the
College de France. The title is perhaps misleading
in its disarming simplicity, as this is a
study which assumes a familiarity with
sources and theory. Additionally, the language,
intended for an academic audience
(and a translation, to boot), makes no concessions
to the reader. For the generalist, no
matter how sincere his interest, this is a demanding
text. For the reader with a more
than average background, however, this is a
rewarding although rigorous read. R. Tom
Zuidema is a structural anthropologist who
has made important contributions to our
understanding of the Andean world. He has
attempted to discover the organizing principles
of that world and to define a complex
structure which is capable of explaining
myth, ritual, kinship, and concepts of time
and space. In this collection Zuidema treats
history and myth, administration and kin
models, and spatio-temporal organization.
At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky
examines the view of the universe in a contemporary
Andean community. Urton, who
trained with Zuidema, draws on
ethnohistorical sources as well as several
years of ethnographic fieldwork in the
Maras-Misminary area outside Cuzco.
Through observation and interview, Urton
examines celestial bodies and configurations,
the lore associated with them, their
correlation to and effect on terrestrial functions,
and their place in the organization of
the universe, as viewed in this part of the
Andean world. While Urton clearly is seeking
to define underlying cognitive structures,
his work is as concrete as it is theoretical.
The narrative, while academically respectable,
is an outstanding example of how good
writing can engage the general reader and to
lead him to higher levels of understanding
and deepened interest.
Taken together the three works cover
the full spectrum of chronology, geographical
extension, conceptual originality, and
readability. Individually they make very distinct
contributions and will appeal to very
different readers. —Dorothy Joba