Moon, sun, and witches : gender ideologies and class in Inca and colonial Peru / Irene Silverblatt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Silverblatt, Irene, author.

Contributor:

American Council of Learned Societies.

Series:

ACLS Humanities E-Book.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Incas--Social life and customs.

Incas.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxiii, 266 p. ) ill. ;

Edition:

8th print.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1987]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When the Spanish arrived in Peru in 1532, men of the Inca Umpire worshipped the Sun as Father and their dead kings as ancestor heroes, while women venerated the Moon and her daughters, the Inca queens, as founders of female dynasties. In the pre-Inca period such notions of parallel descent were expressions of complementarity between men and women. Examining the interplay between gender ideologies and political hierarchy, Irene Silverblatt shows how Inca rulers used their Sun and Moon traditions as methods of controllingwomen and the Andean peoples the Incas conquered. She then explores the process by which the Spaniards employed European male and female imageries to establish their own rule in Peru and to mak enew inroads on the power of native women, particularly poor peasant women. Harassed economically and abused sexually, Andean women fought back, earning in the process the Spaniards' condemnation as "witches." Fresh from the European witch hunts that damned women for susceptibility to heresy and diabolic influence, Spanish clerics were predisposed to charge politically disruptive poor women with witchcraft. Silverblatt shows that these very accusationsprovided women with an ideology of rebellion and a method for defending their culture.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chronology

I. PRODUCING ANDEAN EXISTENCE

II. GENDER PARALLELISM IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES

III. GENDER PARALLELISM IN THE IMPERIAL ORDER

IV. IDEOLOGIES OF CONQUEST IN THE AYLLU

V. TRANSFORMATIONS: THE CONQUEST HIERARCHY AND IMPERIAL RULE

VI. UNDER THE SPANISH: NATIVE NOBLEWOMEN ENTER THE MARKET ECONOMY

VII. WOMEN OF THE PEASANTRY

VIII. POLITICAL DISFRANCHISEMENT

IX. CULTURAL DEFIANCE: THE SORCERY WEAPON

X. WOMEN OF THE PUNA

XI. A PROPOSAL

Appendix: Ayllu, Tributed Ayllu, and Gender

Glossary

A Note on Sources

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

1st print.: cop. 1987.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781400843343

1400843340

OCLC:

1259321110