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  • Essay / Indigenous peoples of Peru: the mountain peoples

    Table of contentsIntroductionEthnographic descriptionConclusionIntroductionIn Peru, there is a group of indigenous peoples called "the mountain peoples". They have a very interesting lifestyle and have been forced, for many years, to adapt to extreme lifestyles to keep themselves and their culture alive. This group of indigenous people live at around 4,700 meters above sea level, which has always been a concern because it requires them to adapt and fight against many elements. They live in the Andes Mountains of Peru, which are beautiful but contain no trees and create many additional problems to this culture's way of life. These problems include low amounts of precipitation, poor soils, and a short growing season. Since this village is located so high above ground level, there is a significant lack of oxygen, so the residents of this community would have had to undergo major adaptive changes within their body's cells to be able to survive in these extreme conditions. (Denevan 2017). This micro-culture has very little contact with other cultures due to a significant language barrier, so they have no way of learning other cultures' ways of life to improve their own, thus, their way of life has not developed much over time. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Ethnographic description The highlanders of Peru live in villages usually made up of small shelters such as stone and turf houses. Unlike most people, they do not consider these shelters their home, but rather a house whose sole purpose is to provide them with shelter and a place to store goods, eat and sleep. They generally spend their days caring for their herds of alpacas on which the survival of the community depends heavily. These alpacas help people with many jobs around their village, such as providing fiber for weaving and dung for fuel, while also providing them with a frequent source of food (Heckman 2015). Since the altitude at which these individuals live gives them little precipitation, insufficient soils, and a short growing season, it is almost impossible for them to grow crops, so their inhabitants raise livestock as an alternative. Due to the lack of flat land for cultivation, terraced fields have also been developed on many mountain slopes in an attempt to increase the amount of land that can be used for agriculture. As agricultural production is additionally difficult for mountain dwellers, they generally keep their resources for themselves and do not export them elsewhere. However, some products that they can grow in large quantities, such as coffee, tobacco and cotton, are exported elsewhere, usually to nearby countries like Colombia. The mountain people of Peru are known for their rare breed of alpaca, called Suri alpaca, well known for its soft and luxurious fiber. The alpaca has become a symbol of their town to represent their pride in being home to this rare breed. People in the mountains of Peru have always faced a difficult language barrier between other communities, which has a significant effect on the economic and cultural expansion of their community. This barrier has both positive and negative aspects on the community, as it makes it difficult for it to develop as a culture, but avoids any form of acculturation so that it is not influenced by other cultures to change its ways of life...