-
Chapter 1. Pre-Columbian Andeans
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Pre-Columbian Andeans include all Indigenous peoples who lived in the region before the coming of the Europeans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.This chapter concentrates on some of the later cultures, notably those of peoples who built cities and established empires or had panregional influence over neighboring cultural groups in terms of art.The first part presents the general environmental context, next the peoples before the advent of the Inca civilization, and then the Incas themselves. The Natural Environment Religious ideas expressed in art flow from a special relationship Andeans feel with their natural surroundings. For this reason, a general look at the lay of the land, the climate, and living creatures that inhabit the Andean region provides some groundwork for understanding why Andean arts take their particular shapes, forms, colors, and materials. One of the best sources for understanding the richness of this environment is the Peruvian geographer Javier PulgarVidal (1968,1987),upon whose lectures and writings this discussion has been based. Peru is a country of very diverse climatic zones,each with distinct earth features, weather, plants, and animals.These rich and varied surroundings allowed for the existence of a long line of empires and urban settlements. Some of the area’s civilizations remained limited to one region, while chapter 1 Pre-Columbian Andeans 015-058 strong_CH1.indd 17 2/6/12 11:03:59 AM 18 Themes others, such as the Chavín, Huari, and Inca, extended their influence over several regions and topographies. Peru has three major and quite distinct climatic and geographic zones: the coast, the mountains, and the jungle. Human groups living in each zone have adapted in characteristic ways to their environment and at the same time have often taken advantage of the benefits offered by the other zones through trade, travel, religious pilgrimage, military conquest, and colonization. Peru lies in tropical latitudes but has part of the secondhighest mountain range on the globe and one of the world’s driest deserts cooled by an inversion effect of the cold ocean current close offshore.The Amazon basin to the north and east surrounds the country’s shoulders in its warm and humid mantle (figure 1.1). Coast The desert coast (costa) is on the leeward face of the Andes range. Prevailing east-to-west trade winds drop their moisture in the form of rain on 1.1 Andean geography.Altitudes and principal climatic zones (left to right: coast, mountain, jungle) are shown in a vertical slice of topography, with local terms for some environmental niches. Drawing by the author. 015-058 strong_CH1.indd 18 2/6/12 11:04:00 AM [3.218.247.159] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:19 GMT) Pre-Columbian Andeans 19 the windward side of the Andean cordilleras, ranges or literally “backbones.” The mountains are so tall that the water never makes it over them to the Pacific-facing coast. Just off the coast to the leeward side, the cold Humboldt ocean current brings an “inversion effect” that creates a relatively cool and foggy maritime climate on land and a wealth of seaborne food sources. The cold upwellings off Peru’s coast provide one of the richest sources in the world of fish, marine mammals, and birds. It is this cold current that allowed ancient Indigenous cultures to build and support the concentrated populations living in their seaside cities.The Spanish built the city of Lima, one of the two co-capitals of their colonies in the Americas, on this coast. Most large cities and most of Peru’s population occupy the coast today. Agriculture along the banks of the short rivers flowing west down from the mountains produces good yields of foods and cotton fiber for cloth in limited econiches. A number of early civilizations developed on this thin strip of otherwise dry land walled on one side by the Andes and lapped on the other by a life-giving sea full of resources. Among these Indigenous coastal cultures were Paracas, Nazca, Moche, Chimú, and Pachacamac. The oceanside climate of the coast precludes extremes of temperature, though in winter many areas are blanketed in thick coats of fog. In fact, one product of the coast is vegetation that grows well in desert fog zones,such as epiphytes (plants deriving nutrients and hydration from the air and from host plants, such as orchids) and crops that thrive in small riverine floodplains.The yunga—lands at slightly higher altitudes than sea level and facing the water...