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THE REAL HISTORY

Dear Readers,
People use to think that the civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa (the last Incas before the arrival of the Spaniards), was a war between brothers for the throne. But to think that is to think that the Incas had a social structure exactly the same as the European's monarchies. There was not just ONE Inca, there was a political one and a religious one, fighting for more power when 13 Spanish men conquered them. This is the Guaman Poma's contribution to History. He opened a non-occidental view of the Tahuantinsuyu. Now we know more about the Inca culture than ever, we have a cosmology and a social structure of the Andes. Now we know (with many holes yet) the real past. Now we know.
But there is also a real history of the present, one full of poverty and suffering, but with hope everywhere, like in the Coriteni Tarso forest, where the children are sowing their future.
Learn also about the Lima culture, discover the primates of Peru and enjoy our new section of gastronomic adventure preparing a stuffed potato. Delicious!
Regards,
José and Cynthia

GUAMAN POMA & THE NEW CHRONICLE

In 1908, Richard Pietschmann found on the Royal Library of Copenhague a compact manuscript of 1179 pages, extremely rich in illustrations (almost the third of the work), from the early XV century, called "El primer Nueva crónica y buen gobierno", by Guaman Poma de Ayala. The importance of the discovery brought a whole new light upon the Incan history as well as the conquest of the Inca's Empire and the society during the viceroyalty in Peru. The several studies to this book in the last decades along with other chronicles written between the XIV and the XVI centuries have revolutionized many myths and misconceptions we used to have upon the Tahuantinsuyu, its social structure and the whole Andean culture.
On 14 February 1615, from Santiago de Chipao in the province of Lucanas in the south central Peruvian Andes, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala wrote King Philip III of Spain that he had just completed a "chronicle or general history" It contained, he said, everything he had been able to learn in his eighty years about Andean history and Spanish rule in the Andes.
He added that he would be glad to send his work to the king. Guaman Poma's chronicle of more than a thousand pages had two main purposes: to give the king an account of ancient Andean history from the beginning of time through the reign of the Incas and to inform the monarch about the deepening crisis in Andean society that was a result of Spanish colonization.
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THE CHILDREN'S FOREST OF CORITENI TARSO

In 2001 the Association for children and their Environment began a pilot project called the Children's Forest (BoNi, from the Spanish) in Madre de Dios in the Peruvian amazon. The project requires that the adults in a community hand over to their children a piece of land (2.1/2.5 acres) for them to manage and, in the process acquire knowledge, skills and values concerning the sustainable use of natural resources. Four years later, the BoNi project has been extended to 4 ecosystems in 7 locations in 5 departments in the Peruvian jungle and on the coast, where more than 230 hectares have been handed over to more 700 children.
The first BoNi forest, which arose from the BoNi pilot projects in Madre de Dios is located in a Ashaninka community in Junin area. This is the testimony of Ivan Brehaut, executive director of the Cutivireni Association that encourages the BoNi project in this area.
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LIMA CULTURE

According to the archaeological reserches, specially the study of the pottery found in the area, it had been identified two cultural areas in the central coast of Peru between year 200 b.C and 100 a.C.: the first one at the north of Chillón river, where the people settle down and developed what the archaeologists have named "Baños Boza o Miramar" these present a style same as Salinar culture, and the other one at the south of Chillon river, which is more like Paracas Necropolis culture. Around 100 a.C. and until the 700 approximately it is recognized a unique way called Lima, spread through the valleys formed by Chillon, Chancay, Rímac and Lurín rivers.
CULTURAL INFLUENCE
From IV and V centuries after Christ Lima acquires prestige and it has been copied along the central coast of Peru. But it is apparent that in many cultural patterns of this era were also a marked influence from other kind of traditions from the coast. This shows that the contact with other cultures and regions get increased substantially.
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PRIMAL PRIMATES

There are 32 different species of primates in Peru. These are divided into three large taxonomical families which group together the primates found in the New World: Callithricidae, which includes tamarins and marmosets; Callimiconidae, which comprises one unique species (Goeldi's monkey); and the Cebidae, the largest of the three groups which includes common squirrel monkeys, capuchin monkeys, dusky titi monkeys, night-monkeys, howler monkeys, woolly monkeys and spider monkeys, among others.
Monkeys of the Old World (order Platyrrhini) can be distinguished from those of the New World (order Catarrhini) by a series of morphological differences which arte the product of the adaptation of the latter to the tropical environment in which they live. The most noticeable of these is the shape of their noses. The former (including those of man), feature elongated noses with large nostrils on each side that point downwards while the latter, have wide, flat and often sloping noses.
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