Book

Moon, sun, and witches: gender ideologies and class in Inca and colonial Peru

Princeton University PressPrinceton, N.j.Published In 1987 • Pages:

By: Silverblatt, Irene Marsha.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Silverblatt discusses the the status of, treatment of, and ideologies about women before the Inkan conquest, under the Inka before the Spanish conquest, and under the Spanish during colonial Peru. How this changed during this time period is explored. However, only the information pertinent to the Inka up to 1600 A.D. were indexed for OCM (Outline of Cultural Material) subjects. Silverblatt states that long before the Inka came on the scene, 'Andean peoples interpreted the workings of nature through an ideology of gender complementarity. Male and female interdependent forces were also ancestor-heroes and ancestor-heroines of the mortals whose gender they shared. Constructing the supernatural with familiar materials, Andean women perceived kinship and descent to follow lines of women, just as in parallel, men saw themselves as descending from and creating lines of men....[Later,] the Inkans manipulated popular structures of gender complementarity and parallelism to coax [the conquered] into acquiescing in their loss of autonomy.' (page xxviii). This gender parallelism allowed women to control their own political and religious institutions and to become AYLLU leaders before and during the Inkan conquest.
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Acculturation and culture contact
Gender status
Lineages
Cosmology
Spirits and gods
Prophets and ascetics
Gender roles and issues
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Inka
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
2005
RegionThe area the document pertains to
South America
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
Central Andes
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
Book
Evaluation
Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
Ethnohistorian
Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
4: Excellent Secondary Data
5: Excellent Primary Data
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
Sarah Berry ; 2003
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
1975-1978
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
1200 A.D.-1600
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru
NotesAdditional notes
Irene Silverblatt
Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-255) and index
LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
86022514
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Incas