Streaming Media

Event Title

2012 International Conference on Sustainability & Rural Reconstruction

Start Date

8-12-2012 5:00 PM

End Date

8-12-2012 6:15 PM

Language

English

Description

We the aymara people in the region of Puno in Peru, consider that everyone’s life is important, that is why our life is based in living as a community with everything that surrounds us. One of the main activities of our people is the growth of agricultural diversity, focused mainly in the potato, the broad beans, the quinoa, the barley and other crops, each one is planted and cultivated in an specific way and it is consumed in a different way. The families cultivate with a loving raise, before, they used to do a ritual to ask for permission to the Pachamama (Mother Earth), to the Achachilas (mountains), when the carnivals arrived we congratulated the animals, the house deity and most importantly the seeds, because it is all part of our food sovereignty.

That is how our grandparents raised, that is why we most remember and preserve the customs, so that way our plantation can flourish and obtain an abundant crop, besides our meals are healthy and nutritious. There is a periodicity in our food, for example in January and February we eat the grains, in March the broad beans and the green potatoes, in April and May is the big crop and a lot of tubers are eaten, in June and July we eat the processed tubers, in July the barley and the broad beans, and from August to December we eat the food from the crop and the exchanges.

The food varies according to the circumstance of the raising life of the families, like:

  • Marking (Rituals for the cattle)
  • For making someone a godparent of your children.
  • For making houses.
  • Weddings (Moments of joy)
  • Funerals (Moments of sadness)
  • Human Cycle (From the moment you’re born to the moment you die there is food for each moment).

Exchanges and barter

Since always our grandparents have searched for ways, or mediums to obtain food sovereignty, because of this, that they mobilized from region to region, from basin to basin, to obtain diversified food.The families that live in the highlands called Suni raised cattle and were at the same time farm settlers, because of this, that they needed to travel to agricultural areas to make barters and for this porpoise they carried wool, knits, fresh meat, chalona meat, to obtain fresh agricultural produces. This exchanges exist up to nowadays, just that now they mobilize by car.

Unhealthy habits

The technological package is present in the productive activities that some peasant families do, with the fertilizers you can produce faster, but when the people consume this polluted food they age faster and our health decreases.Another factor that affects people’s health is the clothing, before, the rural families used to wear garments according to the weather where they lived, the garments where knitted with sheep’s wool, alpaca, lama or cotton; while nowadays some people wear garments made in the industry, synthetic clothing bought in fairs or markets and it makes them sweat a lot, and gives them diseases of the skin and in their entire body.

Losing the knowledge about the healing properties.

Many of our knowledge about the healing properties of certain herbs or plants is being lost. When someone’s feet hurt, or their head or their bones they think that the only option is to go to the hospital or to a health centre.We receive births at home, in the hospitals there are many diseases, it is not a warm place like a home.

The disease is a person

The disease is a person, if the disease is a man you won’t get it so strong, if the disease is a woman you will be very sick, sometimes they say that the disease, just as a person would, comes and visits you. And, like a person, one disease does not only have one origin, but many origins, that is why each person is cured in a different way, there are no absolute recipes.

We descend from a culture of life

Life is communitarian, reciprocal, everyone is equal, no one is superior to the other, there is equality, we live in equivalence, in a harmonious conversation with lots of respect. Is a coexistence of reciprocity and the mother earth rises us with reciprocity, the dialogue with the earth is one of much respect. Our Aymara people had their own religiosity ten thousand years ago, talking with the plantation, with nature. That is how we the Aymara people live, we have our own way to live with nature and its deities.

Document Type

Conference

Eliana Apaza-abstract-chi.docx (17 kB)
Chinese Version_Abstract

Eliana Apaza-abstract-es.doc (33 kB)
Other Language_Abstract

Recommended Citation

Apaza, E. (2012, December). Our food sovereignty and well living In the Peruvian High Plains. Paper presented at 2012 International Conference on Sustainability & Rural Reconstruction, Southwest University, Chongqingng, China.

Share

COinS
 
Dec 8th, 5:00 PM Dec 8th, 6:15 PM

Our food sovereignty and well living In the Peruvian High Plains

We the aymara people in the region of Puno in Peru, consider that everyone’s life is important, that is why our life is based in living as a community with everything that surrounds us. One of the main activities of our people is the growth of agricultural diversity, focused mainly in the potato, the broad beans, the quinoa, the barley and other crops, each one is planted and cultivated in an specific way and it is consumed in a different way. The families cultivate with a loving raise, before, they used to do a ritual to ask for permission to the Pachamama (Mother Earth), to the Achachilas (mountains), when the carnivals arrived we congratulated the animals, the house deity and most importantly the seeds, because it is all part of our food sovereignty.

That is how our grandparents raised, that is why we most remember and preserve the customs, so that way our plantation can flourish and obtain an abundant crop, besides our meals are healthy and nutritious. There is a periodicity in our food, for example in January and February we eat the grains, in March the broad beans and the green potatoes, in April and May is the big crop and a lot of tubers are eaten, in June and July we eat the processed tubers, in July the barley and the broad beans, and from August to December we eat the food from the crop and the exchanges.

The food varies according to the circumstance of the raising life of the families, like:

  • Marking (Rituals for the cattle)
  • For making someone a godparent of your children.
  • For making houses.
  • Weddings (Moments of joy)
  • Funerals (Moments of sadness)
  • Human Cycle (From the moment you’re born to the moment you die there is food for each moment).

Exchanges and barter

Since always our grandparents have searched for ways, or mediums to obtain food sovereignty, because of this, that they mobilized from region to region, from basin to basin, to obtain diversified food.The families that live in the highlands called Suni raised cattle and were at the same time farm settlers, because of this, that they needed to travel to agricultural areas to make barters and for this porpoise they carried wool, knits, fresh meat, chalona meat, to obtain fresh agricultural produces. This exchanges exist up to nowadays, just that now they mobilize by car.

Unhealthy habits

The technological package is present in the productive activities that some peasant families do, with the fertilizers you can produce faster, but when the people consume this polluted food they age faster and our health decreases.Another factor that affects people’s health is the clothing, before, the rural families used to wear garments according to the weather where they lived, the garments where knitted with sheep’s wool, alpaca, lama or cotton; while nowadays some people wear garments made in the industry, synthetic clothing bought in fairs or markets and it makes them sweat a lot, and gives them diseases of the skin and in their entire body.

Losing the knowledge about the healing properties.

Many of our knowledge about the healing properties of certain herbs or plants is being lost. When someone’s feet hurt, or their head or their bones they think that the only option is to go to the hospital or to a health centre.We receive births at home, in the hospitals there are many diseases, it is not a warm place like a home.

The disease is a person

The disease is a person, if the disease is a man you won’t get it so strong, if the disease is a woman you will be very sick, sometimes they say that the disease, just as a person would, comes and visits you. And, like a person, one disease does not only have one origin, but many origins, that is why each person is cured in a different way, there are no absolute recipes.

We descend from a culture of life

Life is communitarian, reciprocal, everyone is equal, no one is superior to the other, there is equality, we live in equivalence, in a harmonious conversation with lots of respect. Is a coexistence of reciprocity and the mother earth rises us with reciprocity, the dialogue with the earth is one of much respect. Our Aymara people had their own religiosity ten thousand years ago, talking with the plantation, with nature. That is how we the Aymara people live, we have our own way to live with nature and its deities.