Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The present work analyzes the transmission of the oral tradition of the indigenous peoples during the colonial and contemporary period and how it was documented in manuscripts, canvases, maps, and genealogies. In these documents, a part of the vision of the Mesoamerican world was expressed: the ritual life, the sacred discourses, the cult of the ancestors and the gods that live in the areas surrounding the towns and in the hills that are considered sacred. One of the main premises that will guide this work is this: the indigenous communities are entities that produce knowledge, a part of which we can see documented in their documentation. The community’s oral narrative is what guides the tlacuiloque (‘scribes’) in the representation of their history.

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In Peru, initial education programs named PRONOEIs (Non-School Programs of Initial Education) for children aged 3 to 5 have been rolled out to the communities over the last decades. They are still widespread in the Andean communities of Ancash, but are little known in the literature on education in Peru.The present article relates a classroom experience in a PRONOEI of an Andean Quechua language community in Ancash and emphasizes the importance of demonstration classes in Quechua. It argues that improved levels of training provided to the promoters would include informing them about the linguistic, psychological and cognitive advantages of using the first language for the development of children. Thus, the promoters would be more inclined to use Quechua in the classroom and to share the importance of this language with parents.

‘Língua geral’ (‘general language’) is the term that describes the language that has developed on the Brazilian coast in early colonial times from the Tupinambá (Tupi-Guarani) spoken by indigenous women and the children they had with their Portuguese husbands. The ‘língua geral paulista’ came into existence in the São Paulo region in the second half of the 17th century, and the ‘língua geral amazônica’ followed a century later in the North of Brazil, starting from Maranhão and Pará and spreading to the Amazonian Basin in the 18th century, when it became a common language of settlers, indigenous people and missionaries. The ‘língua geral amazônica’ is documented by two catechisms and seven dictionaries. Three of them, anonymous undated manuscripts, are analyzed here for the first time. They are identified with regard to their possible authorship, in this case by three German-speaking Jesuits, as well as by as the time and region of their compilation. Two of them are bilingual Portuguese – ‘Língua geral’ dictionaries, a third one, now published, has a second, reverse part (‘Língua geral amazônica’ – Portuguese). Comparing the three dictionaries enables their interrogation for probable historical interdependence. Furthermore, the dictionaries document the evolution of ‘língua geral amazônica’ between Tupinambá and today’s Neengatú of the Upper Rio Negro region in the middle of the 18th century.

Public policies are important for indigenous languages and cultures in Peru.Pre-schooling during childhood is very important for the national education system. Pre-schooling levels have increased over the last 40 years. However, there is a disconnect between increasing national levels of pre-schooling and the attendance of pre-schooling programs for indigenous children. There is a dynamic of inequality in this situation which I will point out in this paper. I will draw some comparisons between national data on pre-schooling and ethnographic descriptions of indigenous infant care patterns. I will point out the importance of a culturally and linguistically sensitive policy for pre-schooling children up to six years old. Many children under six years of age who speak an indigenous language are disadvantaged at this level. I will emphasize the importance of studies of indigenous patterns of childhood and child care. In this context, I shall emphasize the importance of studying the linguistic and cultural background as well as the learning expectations of indigenous children from birth on onwards.

For the first time in history, this article presents recordings of the extinct Mochica language as uttered by its last speaker, Simón Quesquén. It places these recordings in the context of previously unpublished or lost recordings of the same language. It also relates the circumstances in which Quesquén acquired his knowledge of Mochica pronunciation and provides further detail about the vocabulary of the Quesquén family published earlier. The conditions under which the recordings were made are explained prior to a presentation of their structure and content. Finally, it includes a linguistic analysis of a sample of the recorded words in a comparative approach using other related sources to arrive at preliminary conclusions about the contribution this new material makes to the discussion of the pronunciation of the Mochica language.

Introduction to the dossier