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Mountain/Body Metaphor in the Andes

1978; Institut Français d'Études Andines; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3406/bifea.1978.1501

2076-5827

Joseph W. Bastien,

Language, Metaphor, and Cognition

Andeans have employed metaphors to their land and communities since Inca times. The author explains the mountain/body metaphor of Qollahuaya Andeans in Kaata, Bolivia. These Indians live in low, central and high communities on Mount Kaata. These communities are united not only bu resource and spouse exchange but also by their understanding of Mount Kaata according to the anatomical paradigm of a human body. This metaphor is expressed in legends, names of place, earth-shrines, and rituals. The properties of this central symbol are: (1) completeness-(2) stratification; (3) telluric; and (4) metaphorical. The mountain/body metaphor indicates another component of the ayllu: it shows how metaphor provides cultural unification for diverse agricultural levels and different communities in the Andes. The ayllu consists of symbolic as well as social and economic structures. (Symbolic anthropology, verticality, dominant symbol, and ayllu).