NAFPS Forum

Hi All!
For my research I'm looking for evidence of exploitation and theft of indigenous South American spirituality and cultures other than Aztec and Mayan; it is not much to find on the net or books, or I'm not searching correctly.
Any help and direction is much appreciated, thank you!  :)

There's quite a few people posing as Inca or "Inka" healers, as they insist on spelling it. Also look for people claiming to be "Andean" healers. That's a red flag to me. I can't imagine I'd take serious someone claiming to be a "Rocky Mountain healer."

You could also do searches on spiritual tourism, esp for tourists who go to S America to take ayahuasca. Also look for those making bizarre claims about the Qero.

I recall we also had one person making claims about being a Mapuche elder, named Perruchon.

Thank you very much, Al, I will look into it!

QuoteFor my research I'm looking for evidence of exploitation and theft of indigenous South American spirituality and cultures other than Aztec and Mayan; it is not much to find on the net or books, or I'm not searching correctly.

Good luck to you!  When I first joined this forum I read alot of the threads and being of Bolivian descent myself it stuck in my head seeing these issues mentioned here a couple times.  You could try searching by checking out the posts of a former poster who was active here a few years ago named Kantuta, who was Bolivian but lived somewhere in Scandinavia at the time.  She is on pg 15 of the "member introductions" page.   

QuoteThere's quite a few people posing as Inca or "Inka" healers, as they insist on spelling it. Also look for people claiming to be "Andean" healers.

Al, I agree that it's almost guaranteed that traditional healers don't travel or work with people from outside their communities, and that would be the first tip-off, LOL  ;)  But in general, I'm not sure what you can tell about someone's identity from their spelling, or using the label "Andean" or "Andino."  I think there isn't really an agreed-on orthography for Quechua and Aymara words so "k" and "c" often seem to be used interchangeably.  Another point would be that "Inca" refers to the pre-contact civilization and its rulers.  Nowadays people would identify themselves as of the Quechua ethnicity.  I think you're prob right that a person usually wouldn't call themselves "Andino," but certainly they might term their culture, music, or food that way.  I mean, not that they wouldn't also have their own ethnicity and/or nationality.  Maybe it comes from the recognition that S. America, like Africa, was carved up into separate countries by the conquistadores, rather than along existing cultural and political lines.

Quote from: RayoDeSol on June 18, 2010, 04:43:45 PM
Hi All!
For my research I'm looking for evidence of exploitation and theft of indigenous South American spirituality and cultures other than Aztec and Mayan; it is not much to find on the net or books, or I'm not searching correctly.
Any help and direction is much appreciated, thank you!  :)

Can't think of anything that would help.

The only person I know that exploits South American native culture is this guy in LA (who has a business) who calls himself El Brujo Amazonico. Does crystal ball & tarot cards.