Adelaar Willem, Muysken Pieter. The languages of the Andes
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254 3 The Inca Sphere
subject is involved. It may be either a mistake, or a sign that the distinction is no longer
actively used by the narrator.
14. “ima-tax
.
ˇcay-ri asna-n madeha henti-man?”
what-SQ that-TO.IR smell-3S string people-AL
‘“What is it that smells of a string of people here?”’
The suffix -tax
.
follows WH-phrases when used interrogatively. The independent suffix
-ri indicates the topic in an interrogation. A Spanish expression madeja de gente ‘string
of people’ appears as madeha hente; its deeper sense remains unexplained. Gelles and
Mart´ınez (1996: 66) translate it as ‘human hair’.
3.2.11 Literary production in Quechua
In pre-Spanish times Quechua was not a written language. Chroniclers of Inca history
and other early colonial accounts emphasise the absence of an indigenous writing system.
Knotted threads, called quipus (Quechua k
h
ipu), were used as a mnemotechnic device for
economic and administrative purposes. To this effect, the Incas maintained specialised
officials, the quipucamayoc (Quechua k
h
ipukamayuq). Entrusted with the keeping of
the quipus, the quipucamayoc relied on their memory in order to supply the additional
information the quipus could not convey. Contemporary witnesses praise the high per-
fection of quipu writing, which remained in use for local administration well into the
colonial period. However, hard evidence that the quipus could represent real language of
any form is lacking, in spite of claims to the contrary by some colonial authors.
42
A set
of heraldic symbols, which were depicted on Inca tunics known as unku,have also been
interpreted as samples of an indigenous writing system. But again, there is no reliable
evidence that these symbols were related to language in any direct way.
Whatever literary production the Incas had was transmitted orally. Samples of such
literature are found in the work of Crist´obal de Molina (1574) and Guaman Poma de Ayala
(1615). Inca literary production has been the object of ill-fated attempts to categorise
it in terms of European literary genres, as a means to enhance the prestige of Andean
culture within an indigenista perspective. Most likely, the literary production of Inca
society mainly comprised myths and folk songs, as is still the case today in traditional
Andean society. Theatre performances, accompanied by chorals, have survived in a
traditional context. Best known is the cycle describing the death of Atahuallpa, the Inca
ruler executed by the Spaniards (Lara 1957; Meneses Morales 1987; Husson 2001).
Such performances, although heavily transformed, may have pre-Spanish roots.
42
The discussion about an alleged literary use of the quipus was revived after the discovery in
Italy of a manuscript attributed to Blas Valera, a dissident Jesuit and defender of the Indians
(Animato, Rossi and Miccinelli 1989). The authenticity of this manuscript remains disputed.
3.2 The Quechuan language family 255
Foralanguage of such importance as Quechua, surprisingly little text material has
survived from the colonial epoch. Without any doubt, the longest and most interesting
text belonging to that period is the Huarochir´ı manuscript (Taylor and Acosta 1987;
Salomon and Urioste 1991). This document was written before 1608 by local literate
Indians on behalf of the idolatry fighter (extirpador de idolatr´ıas)Francisco de Avila,
who used it as an instrument for the eradication of native cults. De Avila was parish priest
in San Dami´an de Checas in the province of Huarochir´ı, in the mountainous interior of
what is today the department of Lima. The Huarochir´ı manuscript contains an overview
of local mythology and interethnic relations, descriptions of rituals and celebrations, as
well as penetrating accounts of the interaction between Christian and native beliefs.
Theatre plays in Quechua became popular in Cuzco towards the end of the seventeenth
century. The themes treated were mostly religious (autos sacramentales, among other
work) and of European inspiration. Although the language was Quechua, the theatri-
cal form (metre, division into acts) was obviously Spanish. Best known among these
theatre plays is the Ollanta(y); for a recent edition see Calvo P´erez (1998a). It treats a
romanticised theme of Inca history, the love between Ollantay, an Inca general of humble
descent, and the Inca princess Cusi Coyllur. Indigenista intellectuals and admirers of the
Inca past have long claimed a pre-Columbian origin for the Ollantay. Obviously, such a
claim can only be upheld for the story underlying the play, not for the play itself. For a
detailed account of the colonial Quechua theatre tradition see Mannheim (1991).
After the Quechua language was banned from public use as a reaction to the Tupac
Amaru rebellion of the 1780s, Quechua literary production all but came to a standstill.
Forarenewed interest in Quechua literature, we must await local indigenista movements
that came into existence in the early twentieth century. These movements were mostly
headed by mestizos, not by traditional Indians. Among those authors who wrote poetry
in Quechua as an expression of individual experience, we may mention the Cuzco
landowner Alencastre, also known under the pseudonym Kilku Warak’a, and Jorge Lira,
a Cuzco parish priest. In Ecuador, the landowners Luis Cordero and Juan Le´on Mera
wrote Quechua poetry around the turn of the century. The Bolivian scholar Jes´us Lara
published several anthologies of Quechua literature of all genres (see, in particular, Lara
1969). For a choice of theatre plays in Quechua dating from the early twentieth century,
authored by Nemesio Z´u˜niga Cazorla, see Itier (1995).
The bulk of twentieth-century Quechua literature, however, is traditional. It consists of
myths, traditional narratives, autobiographical accounts, songs and riddles. Some of these
texts represent blends of Andean traditions and elements imported from Europe. The last
three decades of the twentieth century have witnessed a huge production of anthologies
and compilations of traditional text in different Quechua dialects. To mention just a few
of them, the autobiography of Gregorio Condori Mamani (1977), an illiterate peasant
from Acopia (Cuzco), was taken down in writing by two anthropologists, Escalante and
256 3 The Inca Sphere
Valderrama (cf. section 3.2.10). It is a story of endless suffering and great endurance,
mixed with optimism, which contains much unique cultural and anthropologicalinforma-
tion. Among other valuable text material recorded by the aforementioned anthropologists
is a remarkably authentic account of the violent lives of cattle-hustlers from Cotabambas,
Apurimac (Escalante and Valderrama 1992). Howard-Malverde (1981) contains an ex-
tensive collection of myths and stories from Ca˜nar (Ecuador). Weber (1987a) presents a
compilation of the popular Juan del Oso (John of the Bear) stories in different dialects.
Songs, in particular the highly popular huaynos, constitute an element of daily life in
the Andes. Song texts are modified and adapted according to changing circumstances
in the social and political environment. One of the largest anthologies of Quechua song
texts is La sangre de los cerros (urqukunapa yawarnin), compiled by Montoya et al.
(1987).
Few authors have attempted to write contemporary literary texts in Quechua. Even the
bilingual Peruvian author Jos´e Mar´ıa Arguedas (1911–69) wrote his novels in Spanish
and only some poems in Quechua.
3.2.12 Social factors influencing the future of Quechua
If seen as a unity, Quechua is the most widely spoken Amerindian language today. No
wonder that the issue of its future captures the attention of linguists, language planners
and educators both within the Andean region and elsewhere. In spite of the low social
status of Quechua, many inhabitants of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru are aware of its
native, non-European origin, as opposed to Spanish, once the language of a foreign
colonising power and now of a foreign-oriented ruling class. In 1975, as a result of
agrowing demand for a renewed recognition of national and indigenous values, the
Peruvian military government of Juan Velasco Alvarado issued a decree which put
Quechua on an equal level with Spanish, as the second national language. It was to
remain a symbolic act. The implementation of the decree was largely ineffective, but
it helped to enhance the prestige of Quechua in the eyes of its users. It also generated
agreat deal of discussion on how to secure the future of Quechua and its many local
varieties.
Ever since, the situation in Peru has been marked by a tension between planners
and educators favouring the maintenance and standardisation of the local dialects, on
one side, and those looking for a solution in the sphere of linguistic unification, on
the other. As experts in the Quechua dialect situation (e.g. Torero 1974) observed
that many of the Peruvian varieties were mutually unintelligible, the Peruvian gov-
ernment decided to select six regional standards, Ancash, Ayacucho, Cajamarca, Cuzco,
Huanca and Lamas/San Mart´ın, for which documentation projects were commissioned
(cf. section 3.2.4). This choice was rather artificial in the sense that much dialect diver-
sity existed within the domain of each of the regional standards, in particular Ancash,
3.2 The Quechuan language family 257
Cajamarca, Cuzco and Huanca.
43
Understandably, the regional standards never became
popular, unless they already enjoyed such a status before (Ayacucho, Cuzco).
Rather than government policy, initiatives in the context of international development
cooperation have been relatively successful in supporting and propagating the Quechua
linguistic heritage during the 1980s and 1990s, in particular, the Proyecto Experimental
de Educaci´on Biling¨ue (Experimental Project for Bilingual Education) with its two bases
in Puno and in Quito and, more recently, PROEIB Andes (Programme for Bilingual
Intercultural Education for the Andean Countries) in Cochabamba.
In Bolivia and in Ecuador, where the dialect differences are less outspoken, the devel-
opment of a local Quechua standard may have better prospects than in Peru. In Ecuador
broadcasting programmes in Quechua and a strong native identity feeling, coupled with
a relatively high degree of organisation, have stimulated linguistic unification. For his-
torical reasons standardisation programmes in Ecuador have been independent from
those carried out in Peru and Bolivia. As a result, orthographic usage in Ecuador for a
long time remained different from that in the other two Andean countries. For instance,
whereas the Quechua velar stop was officially written k in Peru and Bolivia, Ecuadorians
followed the Spanish habit of writing qu before the vowels i and e,butc elsewhere.
44
The bilabial continuant, traditionally rendered by means of the combination hu,was
written w in Peru and Bolivia, but not in Ecuador, where it continued to be written hu.
Only since 1998 has the Ecuadorian spelling coincided with the Peruvian and Bolivian
practice (Howard MS).
The issue of how to incorporate conflicting interpretations of the vowel system into
a standard Quechua orthography has been the object of heated debate during the 1980s
and 90s, the central point of contention being whether mid vowels in the environment of
a uvular should be written i, u,ore, o, respectively. An argument frequently advanced
in favour of writing five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) phonetically is that the allophonic vowel
lowering is not entirely predictable; in Cuzco Quechua, for instance, sinqa ‘nose’ is
normally pronounced with a mid vowel [sε
ŋqa], whereas the pronunciation in purinqa
‘he will walk’ varies due to the presence of a morpheme boundary separating the root
from the ending [pur
ŋqa
∼
purεŋqa]. Furthermore, in several present-day Quechua
dialects there are non-borrowed items that have acquired a mid vowel in a non-uvular
43
The Jun´ın–Huanca standard described in Cerr´on-Palomino (1976a, b) presents a synthetic vision
of the Huanca dialects spoken in the Mantaro river valley. Its name suggests that it is also valid for
the Quechua spoken in the northern part of the department of Jun´ın (including the provinces of
Jun´ın, Tarma and Yauli), which differs considerably from the rather innovative Huanca dialects.
As a result, northern Jun´ın is not effectively covered by any of the six regional standards.
44
The Hu´anuco Quechua dictionary of Weber et al. (1998), who use c and qu for the velar stop,
constitutes an exception. Weber (personal communication 2000) notes a strong resistance against
the introduction of k for the velar stop at grassroots level in Peru.
258 3 The Inca Sphere
environment (e.g. Ayacucho Quechua opa ‘dumb’; Santiago del Estero Quechua sera-
‘to sew’).
In spite of all efforts and good intentions, the development of the Quechua language
in Peru (and to a lesser extent in Bolivia and Ecuador) is far from hopeful. Throughout
most of the twentieth century the number of Quechua speakers in Peru remained stable
in absolute terms, whereas the national population was growing explosively. At the
same time, large parts of the country have undergone a language shift from Quechua to
Spanish, mainly along generation lines. The Quechua speakers’ wish for social mobility
for their children is often heard as an argument for not transmitting the language to
the next generation. Bilingualism, seen as an ideal by many language planners, often
proved to be a relatively short station between Quechua monolingualism and Spanish
monolingualism.
Most affected by this process of massive language shift were the Quechua I dialects
of the Central Andes of Peru. If in 1940 the percentage of Quechua speakers in the
highland sector of the department of Jun´ın was still calculated at 75 per cent of the total
population (Rowe 1947), it had fallen to less than 10 per cent in 1993 (Pozzi-Escot 1998:
258). Many varieties of great historical interest, such as (most of) the Huanca dialects
and the dialects of Cerro de Pasco and Tarma, are nearing extinction. Quechua speakers
can still be found among the older generation, but there is little, if any transmission to
the young. At the final stage of the language’s existence most speakers tend to be women
of the eldest generation.
Chirinos Rivera (2001) reports on the distribution of languages in Peru at the distrito
(municipality) level on the basis of data borrowed from the 1993 census. It appears that
even in some of the most Hispanicised areas there are conservative communities which
retain a full use of the Quechua language. Examples are the district of Checras in the
province of Huaura (department of Lima) and the area of Andamarca, Santo Domingo de
Acobamba and Pariahuanca, east of Huancayo and Concepci´on (department of Jun´ın).
In the 1980s and early 1990s, political instability and economic insecurity brought
profound changes to the Peruvian countryside. As a result, entire communities migrated
to urban areas, the Lima agglomeration in particular, as well as other coastal cities. The
department of Ayacucho became the epicentre of violence during this period and lost
25 per cent of its population, mostly through migration. These events were followed by
a process of back-migration between 1995 and 2000 with possible disruptive effects on
the language situation (Chirinos Rivera 2001: 74). Long considered to be a stronghold
of Quechua conservatism, rural Ayacucho and Huancavelica are also feeling the effect
of language shift to Spanish. From the linguistic perspective, the fate of the Quechua-
speaking masses now inhabiting the suburbs and shantytowns of Lima is not known,
but the neighbourhood of centres of Hispanicisation, such as Lima, has never been
favourable for the maintenance of Quechua (cf. von Gleich 1998). As observed quite
3.3 The Aymaran language family 259
adequately by Cerr´on-Palomino (1989b: 27), ‘Quechua (and Aymara) speakers seem
to have taken the project of assimilation begun by the dominating classes and made it
their own.’
3.3 The Aymaran language family
The languages of the Aymaran family (Aymara, Jaqaru and Cauqui) have been studied
somewhat less intensively than those of the Quechuan family with its countless geo-
graphic varieties. However, Aymara itself had the good fortune of being the object of
study of the Italian Jesuit Ludovico Bertonio, one of the most gifted grammarians of
the colonial period. Bertonio wrote two grammars (1603a, b) and a dictionary (1612a),
which are still highly relevant today. Another grammatical description from the colonial
period is Torres Rubio (1616).
In contrast to the name Quechua, there is no likely lexical etymology so far for the
name Aymara (also Aimara or Aymar´a). The term was almost certainly derived from an
ethnonym, the name of a native group occupying the southern part of the present-day
department of Apurimac (now Quechua-speaking). The name of the province of
Aymaraes (capital Chalhuanca), one of the administrative subdivisions of the depart-
ment of Apurimac, reminds us of this historical background.
It is not clear how the name Aymaraes came to be applied to speakers of the Aymara
language in general, but in 1567 it was an established practice, as can be deduced from
Garci Diez de San Miguel’s report of his inspection (visita)ofthe province of Chucuito
(Espinoza Soriano 1964: 14). Garci Diez describes the Aymara of Chucuito, southwest
of Lake Titicaca, as well-to-do cattle-raisers, who were relatively numerous. They shared
the area with the Uro, who were characterised as poor and dependent on fishery.
45
Two
other professional groups, the silversmiths and potters, remain undefined ethnically. For
more discussion of the history of the denomination Aymara see Cerr´on-Palomino (2000:
27–41).
Just as Quechua is also known as runa simi (cf. section 3.2), the Aymara language is
sometimes referred to as jaqi
46
aru ‘language of man’. This denomination is not to be
confounded with that of its smaller relative the Jaqaru language, although, of course,
the two terms share a common etymology.
45
It is tempting to identify the Uros of the historical sources as Uru–Chipaya speakers (cf.
section 3.6). However, modern evidence shows that an Uro way of life depending on fishery and
lake products does not necessarily coincide with a separate ethnic background and linguistic
affiliation. Some typical ‘Uros’, such as the ones inhabiting the islands of the Bay of Puno, are
in fact Aymara speakers. For a detailed treatment of the problem see Wachtel (1978).
46
In the practical orthography developed for the Aymara language the velar fricative or glottal
spirant is represented as j,whereas the uvular fricative is written x (Martin 1988: 25–8, 33). One
should be reminded that Aymara j is the same sound as Quechua h.
260 3 The Inca Sphere
PERU
Canta
Lima
Tupe
Cachuy
Ayacucho
Cuzco
Chalhuanca
CANCHIS
CANAS
Puno
COLLAGUAS
Nazca
Arequipa
Moquegua
Tarata
Tacna
Guallatire
Jopoqueri
CARANGAS
CHIPAYA
Salinas de Garci
Mendoza
Potosí
Morocomarca
Cochabamba
La Paz
Compi
Conima
Oruro
Juli
Sitajara
(Iru-Itu)
Chucuito
San Pedro
de Buenavista
Carumas
BOLIVIA
C
A
U
Q
U
I
J
A
Q
A
R
U
ARGENTINA
BRAZIL
P
A
R
A
G
U
A
Y
C
H
I
L
E
A
Y
M
A
R
A
UCHUMATAQU
Aymaran languages: AYMARA,
CAUQUI, JAQARU
Uru-Chipaya languages: CHIPAYA,
UCHUMATAQU (Iru-Itu)
Areas where a former presence of
Aymaran languages is attested by
substratum, toponymy or historical
records
Map 6 Distribution of Aymaran and Uru–Chipaya languages
A modern basis for the study of both Aymara and Jaqaru was laid by Hardman and her
team of linguists of the University of Florida. Hardman’s grammatical study of Jaqaru
(1966, 1983a) was followed by a collective work on Aymara (Hardman, V´asquez and
Yapita 1974, 1988). Additional work includes Ebbing (1965) and Porterie-Guti´errez
(1988). For Aymara as well, several language courses (e.g. Herrero, Cotari and Mej´ıa
1978; Yapita 1991) and dictionaries have appeared. Examples of the latter are B¨uttner
and Condori (1984) for Peruvian Aymara; and Cotari, Mej´ıa and Carrasco (1978), as well
as de Lucca (1987) for Bolivian Aymara. The only Jaqaru dictionary so far is Belleza
Castro (1995). The parallel structures of the Quechuan and Aymaran languages are
discussed in Cerr´on-Palomino (1994a). Recent important publications which appeared
after the completion of this section are Cerr´on-Palomino (2000) on the Aymaran family
as a whole and Hardman (2000) on Jaqaru.
3.3.1 Past and present distribution
Some aspects of the distribution of the Aymaran languages have been discussed in
section 3.1. Here we present additional, more specific information.
3.3 The Aymaran language family 261
The original expansion of the Aymaran languages appears to have been comparable
in importance to that of the Quechuan languages, with the difference that it remained
limited to the central and southern parts of the former Inca empire. In northern Peru
and in Ecuador traces of Aymaran presence are sporadic at best. Notwithstanding the
fact that some local groups in Ecuador trace their ancestry back to Aymara-speaking
migrants (mitimaes) brought by the Incas, no substantial influence of Aymara has been
found in their present-day language. The use of ˇcupika,anAymara term for ‘red’, in the
Cajamarca dialect of Quechua is one of the very few documented cases of presumed
Aymara influence in northern Peru.
47
Apart from the three Aymaran languages that survive today, other Aymaran languages,
or possibly dialects of those mentioned before, were spoken in several localities of the
department of Lima until the present century (Canta, Huant´an, Miraflores). The lexicon
of the Quechuan dialect of Pacaraos (province of Huaral, Lima; cf. section 3.2.9) is
strongly influenced by an Aymaran language. The Quechua dialect presumably spoken
in the Lima region, which was described by Santo Tom´as in 1560, also contained lexical
items unequivocally derived from an Aymaran language, e.g. hondoma ‘hot bath’, from
Aymara hunt’(u) uma
48
‘hot water’, ‘a hot drink’ (cf. Torero 1996). Aymaran toponymy is
found in the area of Lima, and also in the Mantaro valley region (department of Jun´ın),
inhabited by the ethnic group known as the Huanca. The manuscript of Huarochir´ı
(cf. sections 3.1, 3.2.11) contains several direct references to Aymaran-speaking groups
in the highland interior of Lima.
As we have seen before, evidence of the existence of Aymaran-speaking groups
throughout the south of Peru can be found in the Relaciones geogr´aficas de Indias of the
sixteenth century (Jim´enez de la Espada 1965). In these Relaciones afew words belong-
ing to the local hahuasimi languages are mentioned (cf. section 3.1). They clearly betray
an Aymaran origin, e.g. cabra ‘llama’ (Aymara and Jaqaru qawra ∼ qarwa); asqui ‘good’
(Aymara aski); cf. Torero (1970), Mannheim (1991). Guaman Poma (1615) specifically
refers to some Aymara-speaking areas, such as the highlands surrounding Pampachiri in
the province of Andahuaylas, and parts of the Huanca region. He, furthermore, provides
a number of Aymaran song texts, which have been analysed by Alb´o and Layme (1993;
forthcoming) and by Ferrell (1996). The latter author shows that Guaman Poma’s Aymara
47
One of the arguments advanced by Middendorf (1891b) in favour of the former presence of
Aymara in northern Peru is the frequent use of place names containing the element wari (as in
Huari, a town and province in Ancash). Wari means ‘vicu˜na’ in Aymara. However, wari was also
the name of the central deity in a religious cult situated in the central and northern highlands
of Peru. A relationship with Panoan wari or bari ‘sun’ has been suggested (Torero 1993b:
224).
48
The shape of this expression suggests contact with Aymara itself, not with one of the Aymaran
languages spoken in the province of Yauyos. These have hunˇc
.
’u, rather than hunt’u for
‘hot’.
262 3 The Inca Sphere
wasaseparate linguistic variety, not to be confounded with any of the languages spoken
today. He calls it Aimara ayacuchano (‘Ayacucho Aymara’), considering that Guaman
Poma was a native of the Lucanas region in the south of the department of Ayacucho
(Ferrell 1996: 415).
49
It is not certain to what extent Aymaran languages (or even Aymara) were dominant
in all of southern Peru, but their presence in at least some areas is hardly a matter of
discussion. One such area was the region of Collaguas (see section 3.1). Aymara to-
ponymy can also be found elsewhere in the Arequipa region, for instance, in the name
of some of Arequipa’s townships, e.g. Umacollo (uma qul
y
u)‘water-hill’, or of neigh-
bouring mountains, e.g. Chachani (ˇcaˇcani) ‘mountain of man (or male)’, Anuccarahui
(anuqarawi) ‘dog’s meeting place’. Toponyms of unmistakable Aymara origin can also
be found in the area of Cuzco, in particular, to the southeast of that city in the provinces
of Canas and Canchis, e.g. Tungasuca (tunka suka) ‘ten furrows’, Checacupi (ˇc’iqa kupi)
‘left and right’, Vilcanota (wil
y
ka-n(a) uta) ‘house at/of the sun’.
Aymara substratum is strongly present in the lexicon and the morphology of Quechua
dialects spoken in the departments of Puno and Arequipa. The Aymara influence is very
specific and includes the use of verbal derivational suffixes with their respective vowel-
suppression rules, albeit in an attenuated form (cf. Adelaar 1987; Chirinos and Maque
1996). This influence can only be explained by assuming a relatively recent language
shift from Aymara to Quechua after extensive bilingualism. It cannot be attributed to
borrowing alone.
An intertwined situation of Quechuan- and Aymaran-speaking groups can be recon-
structed for large areas of central and southern Peru, mostly areas where today only
Quechua survives (cf. Mannheim 1991). Close contact between Quechua and Aymara
speakers in situations where the use of either language has become linked to a partic-
ular social division or economic activity has been found in the Bolivian department
of La Paz north of Lake Titicaca. In these situations of language overlapping, either
Quechua may hold a higher prestige than Aymara, or the other way round; see Harris
(1974), cited in Briggs (1993: 4). Recent findings, e.g. near San Pedro de Buenavista,
province of Charcas, Potos´ı, suggest that not all Aymara-speaking communities sur-
rounded by Quechua speakers have been identified so far (cf. Howard-Malverde 1995).
A meticulous account of the distribution of Aymara and Quechua speakers in Bolivia
in the 1990s (including detailed maps) can be found in Alb´o (1995). The maps which
are provided distinguish between areas where Aymara has been predominant tradition-
ally, areas of colonisation, areas where Aymara is giving way to either Quechua or
Spanish, etc.
49
Ferrell considers Ayacucho Aymara to be a manifestation of an alleged, more comprehensive
Cuzco Aymara. The reason for this classification remains unclear.
3.3 The Aymaran language family 263
3.3.2 Homeland and expansion
The more than usual intensity of past language contact, as attested by Aymaran and
Quechuan, indicates that the proto-languages of both groups were spoken either in
contiguous areas, or in the same area in a situation of geographic intertwining (cf.
section 3.1). Since the homeland of the Quechuan languages has been assigned to the
coast and sierra of central Peru, the Aymaran homeland could not have been located too
far from it. And, as the Aymaran expansion, subsequently, went south, not north, it made
sense to look for an Aymaran homeland immediately to the south of that of Quechua.
Following this line of reasoning, Torero (1970) tentatively assigned Proto-Aymaran to
the coastal civilisation of Nazca and the interior Andean region of Ayacucho. At the same
time, he allowed for some overlapping in the province of Yauyos (department of Lima),
where archaic varieties of Aymaran and Quechuan have co-existed until the present day.
The geographic configuration delineated above is not incompatible with the alternative
hypothesis of an original Aymaran homeland further north, in the heart of central Peru
itself. This scenario would imply a partial displacement of the Proto-Aymaran population
by Quechuan speakers somewhere at the beginning of the present era. It is favoured by
the large number of Aymaran place names and borrowings in central Peru and the
intense contact that we must assume to have existed between the two language groups.
The subsequent expansion of Aymaran-speaking peoples, which may have taken place
between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, could have occurred either on their own
initiative, or under the pressure of Quechua-speaking people coming from the north.
The situation of dominance which the Aymara held in the Bolivian highlands until
1600 has already been mentioned. A comparison of the colonial evidence (Bouysse-
Cassagne 1975) with the present-day distribution of the Andean languages clearly shows
that Aymara must have become superseded by Quechua in large parts of the southern and
eastern highlands of Bolivia during the last four centuries. A similar process took place
in many parts of southern Peru. On their way south the Aymaran languages occupied the
place of other, previously present languages. For instance, in the central-eastern part of
the department of Moquegua (province of Mariscal Nieto, around the communities of
Carumas, Calacoa and Cuchumbaya) and in some areas north of Lake Titicaca Aymara
replaced local varieties of Puquina. However, since the beginning of the colonial period,
no further expansion of importance has been reported. Probably as a result of their
more homogeneous background, the present-day Aymara have developed a strongly
articulated ethnic identity, in contrast with most of the Quechua-speaking peoples that
surround them. The latter largely originated from different ethnic groups that became
Quechuanised.
At the arrival of the Spaniards, most of the Aymara were organised in chieftaincies,
some of which had succeeded in retaining a certain autonomy in spite of their subju-
gation by the Incas (cf. Tschopik 1946). Of particular historical importance was the