Inka Bird Idiom - (Pitt Latin American) by Claudia Brosseder (Hardcover)

About the Book

How Indigenous People Used Feathers as a Significant Way of Symbolic Communication in the Andes

Book Synopsis

From majestic Amazonian macaws and highland Andean hawks to tiny colorful tanagers and tall flamingos, birds and their feathers played an important role in the Inka empire. Claudia Brosseder uncovers the many meanings that Inkas attached to the diverse fowl of the Amazon, the eastern Andean foothills, and the highlands. She shows how birds and feathers shaped Inka politics, launched wars, and initiated peace. Feathers provided protection against unpredictable enemies, made possible communication with deities, and brought an imagined Inka past into a political present. Richly textured contexts of feathered objects recovered from Late Horizon archaeological records and from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century accounts written by Spanish interlocutors enable new insights into Inka visions of interspecies relationships, an Inka ontology, and Inka views of the place of the human in their ecology. Inka Bird Idiom invites reconsideration of the deep intellectual ties that connected the Amazon and the mountain forests with the Andean highlands and the Pacific coast.

Review Quotes

In her insightful and beautifully illustrated book, Claudia Brosseder appeals to readers interested in the rich cultural tapestry of the Andean region and brings new understanding to the meaning of birds and feathers in Inka civilization. Through meticulous research, Brosseder offers a valuable cultural study explaining how birds and feathers were not merely elements of the natural world but held profound metaphorical and ritualistic significance. Inka Bird Idiom is a compelling work that deepens the understanding of Andean civilization and its profound connections with the natural world and religious beliefs.-- "Hispania"

A wide-ranging and thought-provoking review of bird imagery and featherwork in the Inca Empire and colonial-era Andean chronicles. Brosseder offers a welcome new resource that will be of interest to scholars in multiple disciplines.-- "Hispanic American Historical Review"

While maintaining the utmost academic rigor, Inka Bird Idiom is an inviting text for anyone interested in learning more about the Andes, the Amazon, the Inkas, birds, and feathers.-- "A Contracorriente"

In this fascinating and beautifully illustrated book, Brosseder explores avian species, ranging from the caracaras of the high Andes to lowland Amazonian macaws, as prime structuring principles in Inca ontology, ideology, and power relations.-- "Choice Reviews"

In this amply illustrated and beautifully written book, Brosseder scours archaeological and ethnohistorical records to reveal the meanings of birds and their feathers to the Inkas. While fine Andean featherwork has long been admired as craft, Brosseder's study sheds new light on why birds were so integral to the visual cultures of Andean peoples across both time and space.--Carolyn Dean, University of California at Santa Cruz

What are we to make of stuffed ducks that Atahualpa sent to Pizzaro before they met? How is the Virgin Mary associated with parrots? Why are bundles of feathers offered to the sacred? Birds and their feathers in all their various roles in Andean, and especially Inka, society before and after the conquest are examined herein. Their materiality and meanings are the heart of Brosseder's exquisite study. What unfolds here is the Andean perspective and use of this incredibly vibrant resource that is so rich and powerful and beyond the Western imagination.--Thomas Cummins, Harvard University

About the Author

Claudia Brosseder is associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.