Atahualpa Emperor of the Incas and Quechua culture

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/southamerica/quechuan.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atahualpa

This the story of the capture and execution of Atahualpa through the duplicity of the Spanish conquistadors and Francisco Pizarro who were to burn him alive unless he converted to Catholicism and then strangled him afterward.

Terrace farming and irrigation

Pilgrimages known as APUS

A llamera is pictured

Those who speak Quechua as their first language are called Quechua Indians
by the dominant Spanish-speaking cultures. However, most Quechua speakers, who
live in numerous distinct cultural groups, prefer to identify themselves with
their Inca heritage. The Quechua refer to themselves as Runa, 'the people'.
Quechua language and culture were found in some cities of the Andean
highlands, including the old Inca capital of Cuzco in Peru, as well as
Cochabamba in Bolivia. Later, millions of Quechua families migrated from
the countryside to such national capitals as Lima, Peru, and Quito, Ecuador.
Communities of Quechua origin have also sprung up in places like Washington
D.C.; New York City; Madrid, Spain; and Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Many people
mistakenly assume that the Inca Empire spread the Quechua culture throughout the
Andes region. In fact, Quechua culture originated in central Peru at least
a thousand years before the rise of the Inca Empire in the early 1400's.
Most scholars believe that the Quechua language spread up and down the Andes as
a trade language, long before the Inca adopted it.

Quechua farming techniques have adapted to the ecological demands of the varied Andean landscape, a steep continuum of warm valleys, high plains, and cold upper slopes. They use sophisticated irrigation systems to water their fields and often preserve food by freeze-drying it in the cold mountain air. Llama and alpaca herds supply meat, wool, grease, fertilizer, fuel, and leather. These animals also serve as beasts of burden. Quechua-speaking groups built bridges and roads throughout the Andes, many of those routes are still in use today. Quechua artisans produced high-quality textiles and pottery. Traditional religious practices include the ceremonial use of coca leaf and pilgrimages to sacred mountains, known as Apus.
One of the most well known features of the Quechuan culture is that it is a culture that places great emphasis on community and mutual help (ayni). The social system is based on reciprocity: you help your neighbors, they do something for you in return.
The following are some common dances and rituals of the Quechuan culture. Qamili is a dance is practiced on a grand scale with a huge chorale and special dresses. It comes from the cities of Maca and Cabanaconde. Saratarpuy is a special variation of Qamili and it is practiced when people are sowing corn. To celebrate that special event they dance the saratarpuy, hoping they will have a good harvest.
A llamera is a Quechuan girl who takes care of the llamas. Llamera dances are very pretty, and were composed by the llameras who dance and sing while pasturing their animals or while traveling with the llamas along the lonely mountains. In the present, it is not just the mountain girls who sing and dance this but also girls in every city of the Andes in any major event or celebration.
The Quechua culture is a strong culture with its own unique history and life-style that has lasted for many years. Despite earlier oppression by the Spanish, the Quechua culture still remains strong in many areas today.

Quechua People Carol Cumes

The unique Quichua culture is as a result of their wanderings south along the ridges and valleys of the Andes and East into the rain forest of the Amazon. Other pouints worth noting are the following:

• they were the earliest conquered peoples of the Incas


• The Inca Empire spoke the same Quichua language


• Spanish colonization resulted in their level falling drastically


• November 16, 1532 The Inca Emperor Atahualpa was captured by Francisco Pizarro a main event of our history but more of that event later.


• Consequently, further Spanish expansion resulted and the diseases they brought greatly wiped out indigenous populations having no immunity to these diseases


• Ethnic Quichua from the speakers of Quichua. There is a distinction . The speakers total about 10 million. Many speakers of what are now dead languages adopted Quichua.


• Some have suggested that there are more speakers now than when the spanish first arrived.


• The Quichua were pre literate and recorded events by tying knots on ropes. From early on,they intermarried with the Spanish to have a separate ethnic group of Mestizos.


• Remote communities would be where to venture to locate pure blood Quichua.


• Roman Catholicism is widespread existing alongside pagan and animist tradition.


• The Latacunga festival of the Virgin attests to this religious plurality of coexistence.


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http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/southamerica/quechuan.html yet tb read

http://www.alpacas.com/AlpacaLibrary/QuechuaAbandonedRace.aspx yet to be read

http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org/text?people=Quichua

With a population around 2.5 million, the Quichua groups of South American
Indians are the largest of any American Indian group in the World today.
Aymara-Quechuan languages (of which the Quichua speak many dialects) are
collectively the most widely spoken of all indigenous languages in South
America. The Quichua are also the only people to have migrated both south along
the ridges and valleys of the Andes mountains and east into the rainforest of
the Amazon Basin. This early divergence in their migration paths has created
distinct mountain- and jungle-Quichua identity and culture.
The Quichua were
among the earliest peoples to be conquered by the Inca empire. Ironically, the
Inca empire itself consisted mainly of people who spoke the same Quichua
language! It wasn't until Spanish colonization, though, that their population
level fell drastically. One of the most important dates in history is associated
with this decline. November 16, 1532 marked the capture of the Inca Emperor,
Atahuallpa, by the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro. This blow to the
Incas was the single biggest factor in allowing further Spanish expansion in the
region, bringing with them the diseases that would eventually wipe out millions
of native peoples.
Today we must distinguish ethnic Quichua from speakers of
Quichua. The latter total somewhere around 10 million, since many speakers of
what are now dead languages later adopted Quichua as their language. Numbers are
impossible to confirm, but some have suggested that there are more
Aymara-Quechuan speakers in South America today than when the Spanish first arrived.
Spanish colonization
has, over the past five hundred years or so, created interesting mixtures in
Quichua culture. Before the Spanish arrived, the Quichua were pre-literate -
having no true writing system. However, they developed an interesting way of
recording events by tying knots in cord. Inter-marriage with the Spanish was
practiced from the early days, creating "Mestizos" who are virtually counted as
a separate ethnic group! One has to venture into remote communities these days
to find majority "pure-blood" Quichua. While Roman Catholicism is today
widespread following the efforts of (mainly Spanish) missionaries, pagan and
Animist tradition happily co-exists alongside it.
For example, some of the
photographs on this page were taken at the annual two-day La Virgen de las
Mercedes festival (known locally as the Fiesta de la Mamá Negra) in Latacunga,
Ecuador. Officially a Roman Catholic religious celebration, as you would
expect, local alcohol bars are closed on the first night of the
festival. The second day begins with a traditional mass; it is easy to believe
you are in Rome itself. Immediately after mass, a statue of the Holy Virgin is
carried through the streets. Locals throw garlands at the statue in hopes of
receiving blessing and good favor. Then, just as the day before, cross-gender
dressing and masked-costume street dancing form the bulk of the activities. The
public parade of sacrificed, butchered pigs, adorned with other dead animals as
well as packets of cigarettes and bottles of wine and liquor are also to be
seen. Men wear these ritual, pagan offerings to the spirits like a backpack as
they accompany the dancers and musicians through the streets. I know of no
official comment on this "Roman Catholic" festival from The Vatican, but it
surely must not approve!

Chakra Vajrayana Bonpo tradition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra

Vajrayana and Tantric Buddhist teachings involve a voluminous list of topics in Tibetan Buddhist teachings. Energy imbalanxces give rise to the rationale of balancing the chakras and the healing systems for such balancing as well as shamanic healing have come to the fore,attempting and often syuccessful at holistic healing. Symptomatic of imbalances are the following:

• losing touch with feelings and sensations






• living in one's head-subtle anxieties arise






• the person reaches out for "compensating" experiences






• The kye-rim (Tibetan) and dzog-rim (Tibetan) stages work with the 'chakra' (Tibetan: khorlo). --- the two Tietan stages above are involved with the balancing.





• pranic centers movement of prana can not be separated from experience-each of the 6 major chakras are linked to each of the 6 experiential qualities of the 6 realms of exiastence





• Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche uses an isnightful conputer analogy in which the chakras are likened to hard drives and one file is always open. What is displayed by the file shapes experience.
  





• Yoga opens the chakras and filters in positive experiences, qualities associated with a particular chakra. This would presuppose what chakras are weakened and out of balance and would imply which therapy map as it were would be most appropriate in balancing them and opening them. I recall reading where the Christ opened the chakras of the Magdalene to experience the Christ in other realms. Could this be what the secrets of the gnostics consisted of, and what the Christ alluded to as ,in part, the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven.? How many were privy to all of these secrets we could never know, at least not in the present. Just conjectural at present.





• A seed or syllable evokes the password to open the file or chakra. The supreme improtance of chanting and mantras in the Eastern traditions or ,in the semitic tradition, of utterance of speech or correct words, the power of words to create worlds, if we only knew the words to utter in our blighted ignorance.





• Tantric practice produces bliss, I am assuring myself, blissful states even though short lived,and leads to control over perception and cognition.Some would say a never ending state is tantamount to becoming a god, bodhissatva or like compassionate individual who cannot die.

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According to contemporary buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku, the heart
chakra is very important for the feeling of existential fulfillment.[citation
needed]
A result of energetic imbalance between chakras is an almost
continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people
lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of
dissatisfaction. That leads to looking outside for fulfillment.
When people
live in their heads, feelings are secondary, they are interpretations of mental
images that are fed back to the individual. When awareness is focused on
memories of past experiences and mental verbalizations, the energy flow to the
head chakra increases and the energy flow to the heart chakra lessens. Without
nurturing feelings of the heart a subtle form of anxiety arises which results in
the self reaching out for experience.
When the throat chakra settles and
energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart chakras, one is able
to truly contact one's senses and touch real feelings.[10]
Chögyal Namkai
Norbu Rinpoche teaches a version of the Six Lokas sadhana which works with the
chakra system.[citation
needed]
The kye-rim (Tibetan) and dzog-rim (Tibetan) stages work
with the 'chakra' (Tibetan: khorlo).

Bön
Chakras, as pranic centers of the body, according to the Himalayan Bönpo tradition, influence the quality of experience, because movement of prana can not be separated from experience. Each of six major chakras are linked to experiential qualities of one of the six realms of existence.[11]
A modern teacher, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche uses a computer analogy: main chakras are like hard drives. Each hard drive has many files. One of the files is always open in each of the chakras, no matter how "closed" that particular chakra may be. What is displayed by the file shapes experience.
The tsa lung practices such as those embodied in Trul Khor lineages open channels so lung (Lung is a Tibetan term cognate with prana or qi) may move without obstruction. Yoga opens chakras and evokes positive qualities associated with a particular chakra. In the hard drive analogy, the screen is cleared and a file is called up that contains positive, supportive qualities. A seed syllable (Sanskrit bija) is used both as a password that evokes the positive quality and the armor that sustains the quality.[11]
Tantric practice eventually transforms all experience into bliss. The practice liberates from negative conditioning and leads to control over perception and cognition.[11]
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche teaches a version of the Six Lokas sadhana which works with the chakra system.