18 fun Facts About Peru
Peru is located around the central portion of South America and is known as the basket of civilization for all of South America. Peru dates back into antiquity and is fun and interesting place to explore . Here are some fun facts about Peru that you may enjoy
1. Peru itself is one of the top twenty largest countries in the world and is populated by over 30 million people.
2. The country has a very diverse religious presence most are catholic, Greek Orthodox and Baptist.
3. The main language that is spoken in Peru is Spanish
4. The main source of employment in Peru is of manual labor trades such as mining and fishing. Trade is very important, because the country has a rich collection of natural resources that make it unique in South America.
5. The culture of Peru is one that is traditional Spanish but the native Indians of Peru have managed to keep their historic traditions alive and well and is seen throughout Peru.
6. Besides Brazil Peru is the only other country in south America currently to have a literate population above 90% their schooling system is second to none
7. The national health care system in Peru is also the best in South America most people can expect to have a long life well into their 70s.
8. The national sport of Peru is Football (Soccer)
9. The largest province in Peru is Lima
10. The art heritage of south America is located in Lima Peru with over 250000 ancient and modern art collections
11. Peru culture on cuisine is considered one of the most diverse in the world. In January 2004
12. Peru traditional Dances are native in origin, Some show the affect of christen influence on the natives of the country when missionaries stumbled through
13. Inca trail to machu picchuis one of the Top tourist destination in Peru
14. The country of Peru is bordered by 5 different countries
15. It is customary that all children attend a primary and secondary school or education.
16. Peru declared its regional independence from Spain in early eighteen hundreds
17. A lot of native Peruvians speak their original inherited language besides Spanish
18. The Capitol of Peru is Lima; it is one of the largest capitols in South America by population.
Peru is a very interesting country and these are only small 10 facts about it but to really experience the history and evolution of this prosperous people you will have to visit.
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Legends of Peru – Legend of the Ayar Brothers
This legend is about four Ayar brothers, Uchu, Manco, Cachi and Auca, created by Viracocha to rule the world, who lived in a cave in Tampu Tocco mountain close to the Pacaritambo, house of daybreaks, settlement 33km from Cusco.
The four brothers, with their wives, left the cave and went in search of a better land. The brothers lost no time getting rid of Cachi due to fear of his magic. Cachi was tricked to return to Pacaritambo where he was hastily trapped for eternity in the cave.
Several stops along the way, farming, working, and then continuing they came to Uchu should remain at Quirirmanta at the bottom of a hill. He was transformed into a renowned huaca named Huanacauri.
As the remaining siblings tried to get to the place of their journey they met with opposition from the natives. They were forced to return to Matagua. While there Manco ordered Auca to the place that he had thrown the magic cane and go populate the place. So obediently Auca flew there and as he set his feet down on the ground he was changed into stone, a sacred guanca.
After several years only one Ayar Manco with his wife Mama Ocllo finally reached the place where Cusco was built. It was him according to legend who was the forefather of the Inca dynasty, changing his name to Manco Capac.
Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo were children of the Sun, holding a civilising mission. As a result they were intermediaries between the Sun and man, emerging from the waters of lake Titicaca to teach the people about cultivation and irrigation of the land, and handicrafts. Mama Ocllo taught the women spinning, weaving and sewing. The tribe of Manco Capac was called Hanan Cuzco.
This central creation myth not only represents an Inca reworking of ancient Andean beliefs but also preserved Christian influence. Manco Capac was known as the god of the Sun and when he died at a very old age the Incas built the Temple of the Sun on the spot where he died.
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7 steps to Peruvian Cultural Immersion
Peru lies in the west of South America, bordered by Ecuador, Columbia, Brazil, Boliva and Chile, with the Pacific Ocean on the west. You will find that immersing yourself in the culture of Peru is an experience not to miss, being one of the most diverse of South America. This is added to by the natural isolation with the Andes mountains in the west and the Amazon River, travel on foot discouraged. The Peruvian culture has been preserved for thousands of years.
1. To truly immerse yourself in the Peruvian culture you need to experience the country’s past alongside the modern world today. The modern culture of Peru combines all of the best features of its ancient heritage well, giving you a good insight today of it’s past. The best way to start your immersion of Peru’s culture is to visit historical locations that can be found around Peru. You can visit the various ruins, Pisac Ruins and Ollantaytambo’s Fortress Ruins, to get a feel for the culture of the Incan empire. This is a good point to start your immersion into Peru’s culture.
2. A second way to continue with your Peruvian cultural immersion is to look around for and experience the natural preserves that can be found around Peru. Embrace the natural beauty of the historical sanctuaries which protect places containing relevant natural value with a special meaning such as very important historical facts. At the same time with the focus on ecotourism, reducing the impact on the natural environment, alongside ethical tourism concentrating on ways to preserve local economies and communities, Peru is an ecotourism paradise. You can come to appreciate the environment better, finding out how the indigenous people interact with different parts of their environment.
3. Continuing your immersion in the Peruvian culture it must be remembered that nature and history are only a starting point. By now you will be hungry and with food the next stop on your agenda it is important to note Peru has a varied cuisine. With a combination of European and American, as well as Moorish, African and Chinese culinary traditions all playing a part, there was an influence it the development of a Creole cuisine. In the larger towns you will find a better variety of types of food with various restaurants selling locally produced food. It is an excellent way to taste the cuisine within Peru.
4. Peru has two main seasons so to travel there the peak season (dry) is June till August. It is the best but busiest time to visit. The wettest months of December to March make it a very wet and muddy place to visit, though many of the fiestas happen during the wettest months and go on regardless as the rain never lasts more than a few hours at a time. You can immerse yourself in the Peruvian fiestas and festivals as they have 3,000 in all, such as La Virgen de la Candelaria, Carnaval and Semana Santa. These holidays, a mixture of Christian and pagan festivals, will show you the blend of Christianity and the ancient beliefs, immersing you further into their diverse culture.
5. As in the past communities of Peru today gather in the main areas of the towns, the plazas, where the life of the town will be seen as active and bustling. If you wish to walk downtown in Lima then do so carefully, but here you will be surrounded by smells as powerful as the visual onslaught of the colour splashed bazaars of hawkers offering all necessities tax free. Here you will see a raw down to earth culture, take in the smells and tastes.
6. Another way of immersing yourself in the culture of Peru is by meeting people, talking to them about their lives. The local markets and shops are ideal places to begin. You will meet local artisans in their shops or in the main plazas of the towns, learn about their families and their ancient traditions up close. This is a great way to relax and unwind as well as being an ideal time to mingle in an unstressed atmosphere.
7. A final way to immerse yourself in Peruvian culture is to volunteer in one of the many programs from around the world involved in fighting poverty, the lack of education and health services. Nongovernment Organisations run these programs, at varying lengths to help those in need due to economic difficulties. It is a great opportunity for you to experience first hand Peru as tourists very rarely ever get the chance, truly immersing yourself in the culture of the country.
These steps are a way to immerse yourself in the culture of Peru. As with any foreign country you will in this way see the world of the Peruvians as through their eyes. You will see Peru from an inside viewpoint. When planning a visit plan your itinery and make the most of your time there. Following these guidelines will help you make your trip to Peru unforgettable.
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Peru People and Preserved Culture
There are many reasons why Peruvians have been naturally divided since pre Columbian times. There are many natural boundaries between them from the deserts along the western coast line to the formidable Andean sierra mountains that rise nineteen thousand feet into the air. The majority of the territory in Peru compromises highlands in between the two. With these natural divide many problems were posed in the development and integration into a single society
The end result in this is a significant regional diversity, and an abundant quality of different services and standards of living. All across Peru there is a uneven distribution of services including health, education, and police coverage.
When we first look into the Peruvian culture, it seems significantly divided between the colonial and indigenous societies. This is where the divide is more significant between living in the cities and the mountains. In the colonial town the people can trace blood lines back to the original Spanish conquest of 1536. Like most that have come before them Lima is the most populated and where European visitors will feel most comfortable with the diversity of cafes and markets.
On the other side, Mountains rural communities dream of owning simple pleasures like televisions and blue jeans. This does come into conflict with tradition cultural values as well. The main cultural values that the mountainous culture has is they struggle to maintain a standard of living like there ancestors in a very divers and rapidly changing world. Most of them still own traditional family farms which they base their lively hood off of. The farms are or charkas are done by hand or with assistance from farm animals.
The social complexity of the rural communities in the Andes differs greatly from its European descendants. From work, marriage, and land ownership all is centered on the complex family structure called the ayllu which dates back to the ancient Inca times. One of the main objectives of the ayllu is the focus and organization of sharing work exchange.
Over the centuries, there has been a long integration of culture mixing; creating a mestizo which is a person is part European and part Indian heritage. Today most Peruvians would fall into this category. In Peru you can become a mestizo not only by birth but by choice. So socially the divisions in Peruvian society can the racially just as culturally defined.
The Andes have two large main groups; the larger of the two speaks a language called Quechua. The smaller of the groups speaks a language called Aymara and is settled to the south east of Bolivia around Lake Titicaca. Beyond these obvious traits there are a couple of others there is a group of Peruvians called Morochucos of Pampa who have lighter colored eyes and hair and speak a language called Quechua
The most dominate cultural class in the Andes is called Misti and they mostly speak the language of Queschua and share other cultural trait. They enjoy a more modern existence because of easier access to education, healthcare, and other luxuries. A little farther north in the middle of the Amazon jungle there are an additional 60 indigenous groups that are currently known. Each group of people carries there own traits and values that have been handed to them throughout the generations. They consist up to ten percent of the total population of Peru.
Peru also enjoys a modern history rich in cultural diversity. In the nineteenth century wealthy European land owners brought in African black slaves to work there lands and repress the local Indians. When the move from east to west started from China and Japan the owners used this cheap labor to build a modern railway through the Andes.
Most of the people that live in the mountainous regions of Peru live a harder than normal existence while battling poverty and being removed from modern amenities. While doing this they are retaining a unchanged loyalty to their devoted ancestral heritage. They are worldly identified to the outside world by their brightly colored homemade costumes, Yet they are still eager to share in the world modernized luxuries like education, electricity, sewage, and running water. But instead of improving these communities they are quickly disappearing due to the large scale migration to the suburbs of larger cites of Peru.
Peru also does have what would be comparable to the US middle class. But, still this set of people is not easily defined. With the convenience of modernization the middle class kind of took on its own life both in Lima and other Cities. The growth was due in large part to the diversification of the economy and to the expansion of the Peruvian state, both as a entrepreneur and the need for public services. Most if it started during the early 1070s due to the penetration of roads and mass communication began to reach a larger audience.
Today the largest city in Peru is Lima, the capitol which has become what is everything wrong with Peru. Because, most if not all government services and policies take effect in the city of Lima instead of spreading it out more evenly across the country. They are grossly inadequate to sustain Peru’s massive population of over seven million people from this one city.
One thing that is very noticeable in today Peruvian society is the reemergence of the informal economy. The national economy has shrunk in the last few years but has led to the abundance of market streets and corner neighborhood bartering for sustaining a quality of life. Ambulantes or street vendors are found on every corner of the city with which you can buy anything your heart desires.
Despite decades of political upheaval and social unrest, Peru can now be seen to be entering a more stable phase in its history. An increasing level of governmental consistency and growing economic strength has led to growing confidence from within.
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The Sacred Traditions of the Andean Culture of Peru
The rich and powerful spiritual legacy of the Andean civilization is only now being properly recognized after 500 years of obscurity. This article takes a look at some of these traditions. Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley hold Retreat programs in the Andes and Amazon where we work with many of the traditional shamans and healers.
The Mesa Nortena is a particular ceremonial tradition best conserved in the region of ‘Las Huaringas’, high and remote sacred lakes in the northern Department of Piura.
There are probably only a few good maestros who continue this ancient tradition in Peru today. The rest simply work with the externalities of the mesa, while giving their clients minimal doses of the visionary San Pedro cactus. Originally more importance was given to the medicine, which must be in the organism of the participants as well as the maestro for the power to flow. The mesa then served to intensify the power of the plant.
An altered state is needed to enter the symbolic world of the objects on the mesa (the word refers to the altar as well as the ceremony itself). The abundance of macerated plants, perfumes and smells employed in the mesa function to move the feelings associated with one’s memories. At a deep level, sensations are translated into vibrations which the medicine brings to consciousness so that associated hurt and pain can be ‘re-membered’ again and a new attitude can emerge.
The singado, or absorption of macerated tobacco juice through the nostrils involves another power medicine which is used to intensify the San Pedro at regular intervals. The instruction from the maestro to pour up the left or right nostril reflects the notion of duality found in shamanic disciplines all over the world: masculine and feminine, hot and cold, upper world and earth, expansion and contraction, flowing and stagnant. Illness arises from one of these polarities loosing equilibrium. The word singado comes from the Quechua word singa meaning nose and is perhaps an Andean notion of Pranayama!
The tendency to commercialize a tradition is inherent in urbanization and seeing things for their utility and business. For example mesas are sometimes held so that lawyers win legal battles. Piles of documents are laid on the mesa so that the power works on them and they win their case. In this way a shamanic ceremony is degraded to folklore. We can try to reconstruct the original tradition to how it was in pre-Colombian times and remove the images of Sarita Colonia and the other saints, crucifixes, photos etc., which have accumulated throughout the centuries and evolved the mesa into the mestizo tradition which survives today. Left behind are the ancient stones, magic plant brews and the enchanted waters of the lakes of Las Huaringas, being the original elements, which have survived underneath.
Ofrenda
An ‘ofrenda’ is the most important ceremony used by Andean Indians to relate with Mother Earth. The ofrenda is a symbol of reciprocity with nature and its purpose is to teach us to reproduce this attitude. Through it we speak back to nature saying we understand the message and concord.
The ofrenda which is also known in Spanish as a ‘pago’, is not
a ‘payment’ to nature as the Conquistadores saw it, implying a sinister pact with nature spirits. Additionally, they accused the Indians of being miserly because they preferred to pay symbolically rather than with real money!
An ofrenda is an expression of gratitude, not of debt or obligation. Neither is it selfish to want things for ourselves as some people see it even today. It is true that urban people in Peru have started to make ofrendas for reasons such as wanting their businesses to flourish, but good business can equally imply good health, and harmony to the community and for the natural world.
In an Andean community realities are closer to earth than they are in the city, it is more important that the cattle do not die than to have more private possessions. Hence in the country there is a better understanding of the shamanic meaning of the ceremony, the re-establishing of relationship to nature. This is why we need a little preparation so that an ofrenda can work for us too.
Pachacuti
We live in a time of the fulfillment of an ancient Inca prophecy. This is the time of the new Pachacuti, a great change bringing with it a new relating to the Earth (Pachamama). Each Pachacuti is a era of time about 500 years. The last Pachacuti occurred with the Conquest in the early 16th century, and the Q’ero (Inca) priests have been waiting ever since for the next era, when order would start to emerge from chaos. The current Pachacuti refers to the end of time as we understand it, the end or death of a way of thinking and a way of being. A new relationship with the living Earth, and an emergence into a golden age of peace. There are many indications that changes in human consciousness are taking place, yet there is still a long way to go. The traditional ways can inform us and show how we can re-engage with the sacredness of life and the Earth so we too can more fully participate in the new Pachacuti.
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