The recent discovery in Lima's National Museum of History of a sixteenth-century inspection of the royal repartimiento of Yanque Collaguas in the district of Arequipa, has stimulated a search for further important documentation about the region. The investigation was made possible by financial support from the Ford Foundation under its Peruvian program for projects in the social sciences (PA73–807). The project is coordinated by Dr. Franklin Pease G. Y., with the active participation of Dr. N. David Cook, Professor Juan Carlos Crespo (Catholic University, Lima), and Dr. Alejandro Malaga Medina (University of San Agustin, Arequipa).

Mientras que la población de la Europa Occidental en el proceso de su historia étnica comenzó el paso de las nacionalidades (o sea pueblos) a las naciones, en el lejano e incógnito continente, todavía no descubierto, tuvo lugar un complicado proceso de formación de nacionalidades. Y una de las nacionalidades más numerosas y poderosas que se formaba en el continente era la de los quechuas a los cuales con frecuencia se ha aplicado el término no muy adecuado de “incas.”

United States studies in Latin American history, since their emergence as a distinct body of literature in the early years of the twentieth century, have been much more tradition-bound than their counterparts in United States and European history. More descriptive than analytical, they concentrated on diplomatic, military, political, and institutional history. They were legalistic and elitist in their approach, a reflection in part of their subject matter. But many other factors accounted for their traditionalism. Narration and description seemed justifiable first steps in a field practically devoid of serious scholarly attention. The dearth of research aids and the accessibility of certain types of source materials influenced the nature of the work undertaken. Less tangible factors were also present. It was easy to justify studies about former Spanish territories later incorporated into the United States since, after all, such studies were really a part of “American” history, and a “romantic” part at that. A case could also be made for the study of Spain and her empire in the new world. Once Europe's greatest military power and master of a world-wide empire, Catholic, aristocratic Spain subsequently became the rival of England, source of the dominant liberal, protestant culture of the United States. Moreover, as the United States itself began to acquire overseas colonies, was it not important to assess more objectively the Spanish experience with empire? But what was the importance of studying the dismal and chaotic post-independence history of Spain's former colonies in America? Perhaps concerned about the reception of their work in an area many people considered marginal, United States historians of Latin America produced impeccable scholarship on themes of proven acceptability. Working largely in isolation from United States social scientists, unlike their colleagues in United States history, they remained remote from the fascinating tools and concepts being developed in other disciplines. Moreover, although many first-rate scholars contributed works of solid worth and enduring value, the field as a whole seems to have failed to attract the most imaginative and original minds.

THE GOVERNMENTS OF LATIN AMERICA, HAVING BEEN PREOCCUPIED MAINLY with industrialization since World War II, began to give more attention to social development during the Sixties. Priorities of development policy, stressed under the Alliance for Progress, now include education and health; improvements in both areas are regarded as means of raising output as well as furthering social progress. Analyses of Latin America's human resources, however, have concentrated mainly on manpower requirements and corresponding educational needs. They have been supported by evidence of high returns to investment in education,2 while studies of the region's health conditions have yielded no comparable evidence in support of health sector investments. Health improvements are evident, but economic analysis has not yet shown to what extent they are attributable to health expenditures alone. Poor health is closely associated with poverty, low education, and rural residence, but causal relationships among these and other variables remain largely unexplored.

In two decades, Brazil has shed the image of a stagnant agrarian state and emerged as one of the world's largest agricultural exporters. The price of this metamorphosis has come high: land, resource, and capital concentration; massive rural-urban migration; shortfalls in domestic food supply; and ecological deterioration along the expanding agricultural frontier. Major transformations in the structure of agricultural production have accompanied these changes, and they have led to new patterns in the organization of agricultural work and associated social relations in production. Perhaps the most visible social product of agricultural modernization has been the temporary wage laborer, known commonly in Brazil as the boia fria.

This article with commentaries is presented experimentally in response to suggestions made to the editor by representatives of the LARR Board at the Ithaca meetings that topical articles of the type developed in Current Anthropology be solicited for the Review. The Current Anthropology (*) treatment consists of commissioning a specific article on a theme of moment, then circulating it prior to publication among a group of experts for commentary and publishing both together with a rebuttal by the author. Time did not permit a complete imitation of the process, but with the kind cooperation of the author and his sponsoring organization we have obtained permission to circulate in advance an article of interdisciplinary import which has appeared only recently in Spanish and printed the reactions of a selected group of experts in distinct disciplines. Neither did time allow the author his rebuttal in this issue, but we shall reserve space in Number 3 should he care to make use of it.

The present-day boundaries of Guatemala and nearby areas, including the Yucatan, encompass the Maya, whose presence can be traced to 2,500 B.C. (Coe: 1966). The Maya have experienced a great part of general evolution, passing from the hunter and gatherer to agricultural/technological levels; they have organized as bands, tribes, and chiefdoms and now live within a modern nation state. Throughout this progression they have had to contend with forces in the natural environment and still continue to adapt to it with many of the techniques assumed to have been part of their cultural repertoire during the phase of sedentary village life in the area. The lack of settlement pattern studies in the Peten region has produced a situation in which the localized definition of tribal society is not yet complete (Sanders and Price: 1968), and until archaeology unearths the remnants and reflections of their struggle, we will be unable to do more than make broad assumptions about Mayan society and culture in the middle Formative period.

Spoken on the high Andean plains of Peru and Bolivia from Lake Titicaca to the salt flats south of Lake Poopó, and in northern Chile, Aymara is the most widespread member of the Jaqi language family whose sole other remnants, spoken in Yauyos, department of Lima, Peru, are the nearly extinct Kawki and the still vigorous Jaqaru. Aymara is estimated to have over a million and a half speakers in Bolivia, roughly 350,000 in Peru, and an unspecified number in Chile, bringing the total to nearly two million.

In analyzing the historical development of Meso- and Andean-American society, historians have stressed the hacienda's destructive impact on native settlements, which, once broken down, became disposed to the adoption of Spanish traits. This view focuses primarily on the hacendado's acquisition of Indian land and labor and the resultant destruction, partial or complete, of traditional Indian forms of cultivation, trade, and ultimately social relationships. To the extent that the hacendado forced communal Indians to resettle in newly opened lands, cultivate European crops, and engage in European trade, he encouraged the Indians to abandon their traditional rituals and adopt readily available Spanish patterns as replacements.