You can mark you interesting snippets of text that will be available through a unique link in your browser.

Aymara

Translation
Aymara
Aymaran, adj.
/uy'mah rah"/, n., pl. Aymaras, (esp. collectively) Aymara for 1.
1. a member of an Indian people living in the mountainous regions around Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and Peru.
2. the language of the Aymara people.
[1855-60]

* * *

Large South American Indian group living on the Titicaca plateau of the central Andes Mountains in present-day Peru and Bolivia.

The Aymara were conquered by the Inca and the Spanish, though they rebelled against both. Traditional Aymara now live in an area of poor soil and harsh climate, where they herd llamas and alpacas, grow crops, and fish using boats made of large reeds. Poverty rates within the group are among the highest in the hemisphere.

* * *

people
 large South American Indian group living on the Altiplano—a vast windy plateau of the central Andes in Peru and Bolivia—with smaller numbers in Argentina and Chile. Their language is also called Aymara (Aymaran languages). In colonial times the Aymara tribes were the Canchi, Colla, Lupaca, Collagua, Ubina, Pacasa, Caranga, Charca, Quillaca, Omasuyo, and Collahuaya. The Aymara numbered about three million in the early 21st century.

 Basically agriculturalists and herders, the Aymara live in an area of poor soil and harsh climate. Coarse grass gives pasturage for llama and alpaca herds. Staple crops include potatoes, oca (Oxalis tuberosa), ullucu (Ullucus tuberosus), quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), corn (maize), beans, barley, and wheat. Fishing is done from rowboats and totora-reed rafts.

      Before they were conquered by the Incas (Inca), the Aymara had a number of independent states, the most important being those of the Colla and the Lupaca. About 1430 the Inca emperor Viracocha began conquests southward from his capital at Cuzco. Aymara territories ultimately formed a major part of the Inca empire, against which the Aymara continually revolted.

      The Spanish conquest, beginning in 1535, brought seekers of gold and Indian labour, followed by Dominican and Jesuit friars in search of converts. The colonial agrarian economy was based on the systematic exploitation of the Aymara in agriculture, in the mines, as household servants, and on the coca plantations in the jungles. A period of rebellion began in 1780, during which the Indians killed large numbers of Spaniards, and continued until Peruvian (Peru) independence from the Spanish crown was proclaimed in 1821.

      The Aymara have passed through several stages of acculturation, first under the Incas, then under the Spaniards, and subsequently in the course of modernization. The Inca strengthened local Aymara dynasties as part of their imperial system and introduced new religious cults and myths, a greater variety of foods, and new art styles. The Spaniards introduced new domesticated animals and plants, plow agriculture, and iron tools. They suppressed native religious institutions but effected only a superficial conversion to Christianity. Today the Aymara maintain their beliefs in a multispirit world, have many categories of magicians, diviners, medicine men, and witches, but are Christian in their beliefs about the afterworld. Independence and economic development brought changes in social organization and a decline in traditional arts and crafts.

      Aymara clothing copies in crude homespun earlier Spanish colonial models. Men wear conical, ear-flapped, knit wool gorros; women wear round, native-made wool derbies, with wool wimples in cold weather. The single-room, rectangular, gabled Aymara house, about 8 by 10 feet (2.5 by 3 metres) in size, is made of turf, thatched with wild grass over pole rafters; it contains a family sleeping platform of mud at one end and a clay stove near the door.

      The basic social unit is the extended family, consisting of a man and his brothers, their wives, sons, and unmarried daughters, living in a cluster of houses within a compound. This structure is changing as many Aymara seek wages in urban settings. The political unit is the ayllu, or comunidad, composed of several extended families. It has little resemblance to the aboriginal ayllu.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

  
Share  

Look at other dictionaries:

  • aymara — * * * ● aymara nom masculin Famille de langues indiennes d Amérique du Sud, parlées par les Aymaras. (L aymara a sans doute des liens génétiques avec le quechua, devant lequel il a reculé.) ● aymara adjectif Déformation aymara, déformation… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Aymara — o aymará adj. y n. Variantes ortográficas de «aimara» o «aimará». * * * El término aymara se aplica a las siguientes acepciones: 1. Pueblo amerindio que habita la meseta del Lago Titicaca desde tiempos precolombinos y del incanato, repartiéndose… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • aymara — 1> аймара (индеец южноамериканского племени аймара) 2> язык племени аймара …   Новый большой англо-русский словарь

  • Aymara — La sauvegarde du patrimoine culturel immatériel des communautés Aymara de la Bolivie, du Chili et du Pérou * …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Aymara — noun (plural Aymara or Aymaras) Etymology: Spanish aymará Date: 1842 1. a member of an Indian people of Bolivia, Peru, and northern Chile 2. the language of the Aymara people …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • Aymara — Der Begriff Aymara, auch Aimara bezeichnet eine indigene amerikanische Sprachen in den Zentralanden, s. Aymara (Sprache) eine Sammelbezeichnung für die Ethnien, die diese Sprache sprechen, s. Aymara (Volk) Diese Seite ist eine Begri …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Aymara — Ay|ma|ra 〈m. 6 oder m.; , 〉 = Aimara * * * Aymara   [eɪ mɑːrə], Aymarạ́, südamerikanischer Indianer, Aimara …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Aymara — аймара (индеец южноамериканского племени аймара) язык племени аймара …   Большой англо-русский и русско-английский словарь

  • aymara — m язык аймара (в Южной Америке) …   Большой французско-русский и русско-французский словарь

  • Aymara — noun a) An indigenous people of South America. b) Language spoken in South America …   Wiktionary