Auteur: Harold Osborne

Jaar: 1968

Druk: niet genoemd

ISBN: 0600036316 / 9780600036319

Taal: Engels

142 pagina's

Uitgeverij: Paul Hamlyn

Achterflaptekst:

The way the great Inca empire fell to a handful of Spanish soldiers is a well-known story, one of history's great adventures and, on the surface, an epic example of the encounters between with Christians and colored pagans during the Age of Discovery.

That much of the triumph was hollow was soon apparent and the tragedy of the fall outweighed the value of the treasure the Conquistadors tore from the civilization they brought down. A priceless store of record, legend and history was lost - ruthlessly destroyed as being the work of the devil. Posterity was left with a great mass of artistic remains and awe-inspiring ruins - and science. The Andean civilizations had no written language and with the last of its priests and learned men went the last hope, it seemed, of learning its secrets.

Were it not, as in the case of Mexico, for the work of a handful of thoughtful enquirers we should be left with no more than exquisite art and great dead cities. But the Spanish chroniclers kept for us at least a part of the lore of this once great people, and they led the way for the archaeologists. Soon a fantastic range of cultures, dating back nearly three thousand years, begin to emerge from the shadows.

Here were empires and great cities, passions and rivalries between great kings, mighty engineering feats - which have never been replaced, even by twentieth-century wealth and technology, and traditions of gods and the children of gods... who called themselves Inca's and ruled as gods.

Our knowledge of the beliefs and traditions of the Andean high cultures, despite the loss of so much evidence, has been implemented with new discoveries and the fact that so much survives in the customs of present day Quechua and Aymara Indians - the direct successors of those who fell to the Spaniards.

And from the farther reaches of the continent, far from the proud Andean world with its glorious past, come the folklore and race memories of the Indians who still dwell in tropical forests, rolling grasslands and water-less deserts. Almost every kind of human experience has become encountered by the peoples of South America and Harold Osborne, himself a resident among the Quechua Indians for a number of years, is uniquely qualified to tell their story. This is a book of absorbing interest and striking beauty, with illustrations drawn from every pat of this strange and fascinating continent. 

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