Child of the Snows

Child of the Snows brings to life the world of a sixteenth century Aymara community, one small part of the powerful Inka (Inca) empire. It opens with a pair of 20th century treasure hunters finding the tomb of a child in the snowy Cerro El Plomo mountain of southern Chile, then segues to the naming ceremony for an Aymara toddler-K''uchi-Wara. We learn quite a lot about the community''s culture as it celebrates the Lupaka headman''s son with feast, song, and clever speeches. As K''uchi-Wara grows, we watch bonds develop naturally in this close-knit group. Villagers care for their alpacas, trade wool for food, teach children about their mountain deities. Children play, compete, dream, nag, and question. Life is full-until young K''uchi-Wara kills a white puma and attracts the attention of Inka overlords. At eight, he''s chosen to become a qhapaq hucha, an offering to the Inka deities.

As he and his parents, priests, and an Inka official walk the five million steps south to Cerro El Plomo, K''uchi-Wara questions camel drivers, befriends other qhapaq huchas, sees temples and huge city centers, carved caves and tunnels, and observes the intricate patterns of services the Inka require from various conquered peoples-services which provide grain to arid areas, fish to inland ones, alpaca wool to places where the animals don''t thrive. He, and especially his parents, also see how fully the Inka maintain control of their vast empire-and how powerless any individual Lupaka headman would be against that control.

Besom''s experience as anthropologist, and particularly as scholar of Inkan human sacrifice, leads him to create characters whose deeper questions get careful attention. Do priests and officials actually believe the mythology they teach? Is belief a form of rationalizing--a way to live with actions whose real intent is to intimidate? How does a mother deal with her rage when told it''s an honor to lose her only son? How does a child deal with the knowledge that his own death-and "elevation"--will happen soon? And what about the priests charged with keeping the qhapaq hucha pure as they travel?

Child of the Snows asks these and other questions, even as it looks admiringly at the system created by the Inkas-and even as it marks the end of that empire-itself soon conquered by pale men with guns, ocean-crossing boats, and a different religion. Each chapter of the book opens with an image derived from the sixteenth century chronicles of Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, Christian son of Quecha nobility, and the first to document the harsh transition from one empire to the other.