Hamilton Library Meeting and Article Notes

Yesterday the group met at Hamilton library to organize our information. So far we have been reading the articles listed below on our own time. At the meeting we collaborated our information and found a way to narrow down key information that helps create our powerpoint. We have also been working on a google doc where we have assembled our scientific questions and are beginning to answer them.

Articles we read for this week:

1985 Bastien Qollahuaya-Andean body concepts

Anderson_1987_Why_is_humoral_medicine_so_popular

Balick et al 2008 Feeling the Pulse in Maya Medicine

Geissler 1998 worms_are_our_life

Iyun 1996 Acute Repiratory Infections - mothers preceptions

Pool 1987 Hot_and_Cold_as_an_explanatory_model

Our group has decided to break it down and have each group member research a specific article. We have all read through each of the articles individually and will contribute from this knowledge but this will be a way for us to analyze the articles specifically. I will be analyzing Bastien's article on the Qollahuaya-Andean body concepts.

Here are some key points and notes I have collected from the article.

• Qollahuaya tribe uses a topigraphical metaphor to explain body systems. (Bastien, 596)
• They understand the mountain as a vertical axis of three levels which blood and fat flow. (Bastien, 596)
• Qollahuayans span over nine allyus, however the article draws information from the Allyu Kaata which has three communities: the Nifiokorin, Kaata, and Apacheta. (Bastien, 596)
• These vertical triangular land mass' in which Qollahuayan communities live are called the allyus. (Bastien, 596-597)
• The Apacheta group sees the mountain in three sections, the top containing a head, eyes and a mouth, the middle containing a stomach and heart, and the bottom containing legs and toenails. (Bastien, 597)
• The Qollahuayans understand their body in terms of the mountain and the mountain in terms of their bodies. (Bastien, 598)
• The Qollahuayans conduct rituals and offerings to the mountain in order to obtain a good cycle of health. “Diviners serve coca, blood, and fat in 13 scallop shells to different earth shrines, which are  associated with  topographical features of the three ecological levels and with  anatomical parts of the human body.” (Bastien, 598)
• Body fluids are an important piece of the Qollahuayan’s view of health. They primarily recognize fat, bile, milk, and semen and by-products feces, urine and sweat. (Bastien, 595)
• The Sonco or the heart are where all of the body fluids are separated, distilled and processed. (Bastien, 598)
• “Blood and fat empower the body: blood ( yawar) is the life principle and fat (wira) is the energy principle.” (Bastien, 599)
• Herbalists classify blood based on a system of hold, cold, wet, dry. They often take the pulse to discover what characteristics the blood has. Different characteristics can mean different diseases. For example cold and wet blood is symptomatic of arthritis. (Bastien, 599)
• Qollahuayans believe that body fluids can be dispersed to the environment. They also believe that illnesses can be caused by certain acts within the environment. For example: “diarrhea in children is often believed to be caused by the mother urinating in a cave at  night.” (Bastien, 600)
• The Qollohuayans use herbal medicine with the view that it is the exchange of ingredients between them and the envronment. They administer these herbs in boiling water and make a tea or mate. (Bastien, 601)
• Herbalists use often analyze health on a system of circulation, distillation and elimination of fluids, often times collecting urine samples early in the morning and viewing them in the sun for discoloration. (Bastien, 601)
• “Qollahuaya herbalists classify plants by how they affect the flow of primary and secondary fluids, eliminate noxious by-products, and cleanse passageways.” (Bastien, 603)