Nazca Lines

Nazca lines in Peru are well known for their geometric precision and ancient images. It is assumed that these lines were created by ancient Nazca civilization almost 2,000 years ago, mainly motivated by religious considerations.

Archaeologically these peculiar features are called “geoglyphs”, a modern composite based on Greek gē = “earth, ground” and glyphō = “carve, cut out, engrave”. Thus, literally “geoglyph” means “ground carving”.

Included among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1994, the Lines are located in the Nazca Desert, a large region between the towns of Nazca and Palpa.

It was suggested that the lines were made in the later part of the Early Intermediate Period by people of the Nazca Culture.

The geoglyphs were mostly made by removing the dark surface layer of the desert varnish (the weathered and oxidized thin top layer) to reveal the pale, ‘sandy’ subsoil.

Most of the lines are depicted as just simple lines and geometric shapes, yet about 70 figures are designed as animals, birds, trees, flowers and humans.
Nazca Lines

Yanomamö tribal

Yanomamö territory straddles the mountainous headwaters of the Orinoco and Amazon river drainage basins along the border between Brazil and Venezuela. They depend on hunting, gardening and wild food for survival. The population has been estimated at about 8,500 individuals in Brazil and 12,500 in Venezuela living in some 250 different, small, independent villages.

The most populated area is situated in the Parima Mountains, between the headwaters of the Rio Orinoco (on the Venezuelan side), and the Rio Parima, Rio Mucajaí, and Rio Catrimani (on the Brazilian slope). They are made up of four adjacent subgroups, divided according to linguistic subdivisions: Yanomae, Yanomami, Sanima e Ninam.

Traditionally, as an interior tropical rain forest society, the Yanomamö followed a mixed subsistence economy primarily of foraging (hunting, gathering, and fishing) and secondarily of farming (swidden, shifting, or slash-and-burn horticulture).

Although hunting accounts for only 10% of Yanomamö food, amongst men it is considered the most prestigious of skills and meat is greatly valued by everyone. No hunter ever eats the meat that he has killed. Instead he shares it out among friends and family. In return, he will be given meat by another hunter.

The first historical mention of Yanomamö, by their earlier name Guaharibo, comes from a Yecuana ally of the Spanish around 1759, who knew all the rivers and passes up to the Orinoco headwaters, where they went to raid.

Until the 1940s and 1950s the Yanomamö were largely unknown to the outside world because they were so isolated, difficult to reach, and lived in an unexplored pocket of the Amazon Basin. The Yanomamö are one of the largest indigenous nations remaining in the Amazon, and supposedly until the 1980s they were one of the least acculturated (changed) by contact with Western society.
Yanomamö tribal

Traditional beverage: Brazilian Indian Kaschiri

This Brazilian kaschiri is brewed from masticated cassava. The alcoholic cassava products are beverages similar to beer or solid foods. To obtain cassava beers it is necessary to hydrolyze the starch before starting fermentation by yeast. Cassava is a shrubby tree with large tuberous roots that are rather immune to insect attack because of the high levels of cyanide in the tuber skin.

The poison is removed by squeezing the grated and ground tubers on water and then heating or evaporating the products. The starchy juice pressed out of ground cassava is fermented or it is chewed in the starchy form, which aids the change into sugar. Nowadays, malting enzymes usually replace saliva.

For Brazilian Indians, this beverage plays a main part in religious feasts and especially in the death-feasts. In this occasion the beverage give the drinkers the power of resistance against evil spirits.
Traditional beverage: Brazilian Indian Kaschiri

Production of masato: beverage based yuka

Masato is a fermented drink based on yuka, which is a big tuber with lots of starch and very little sugar. It is equivalent of homemade beer.

So native Peruvians boil, peel and chew the yuka and let it sit for a few days. First they grate the roots and wash water through the coarse mixture, sieving it thoroughly. This removes a poison, a form of hydrocyanic acid, which occurs naturally in the tuber.

After grating, it is cooked and crushed with a wooden spoon. Normally, the women will around the pot, mashing the cooked tuber. The cooked yuka is then chewed into a paste by women and spit out into a large bowl or kettle. This operation is repeated as many times as is necessary to turn the yuka into masato.

The whole is now mixed with the hands. The enzymes in their saliva break down the starch and turn it into sugar—perfect for hungry yeast. After four days, the paste has fermented. It’s mixed with water, and then served. The drink, a weak alcohol, is traditional consumed in enormous quantities.

Production of masato: beverage based yuka

Yuka tuber

Inca society and corn

Corn was one of the most important foods in Inca society.  They worshipped the goddess Mother Corn. When a new land was conquered, one of the first things the Inca did was to prepare the soil for corn crops.

The Inca of Peru had a well-developed system around corn which included ceremonies for planting and harvest.   At planting they asked the sun to protect the corn from excessive heat, and offered a drink made from maize onto the rivers to ask for water for their fields.

Chicha and alcoholic beverage made from fermented corn, played an central role in the ceremonial and social life of Andean peoples before contact with the Old World. It is a type of beer drunk mostly by Inca rulers and nobles after battle victories and during ceremonies.

They threw corn into the river they were about to cross, or fish in, to propitiate its god.

Corn was a currency with each kernel being a coin. In a transaction, the buyer placed a fistful of kernels on a table. If the seller deemed the number of kernels insufficient, she said nothing but instead stared at the kernels.
Inca society and corn