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An Inca Farmer is an illustrated Children’s book from 1988 presenting us with a lovely inside about the daily life during the Inca period.
On the 34 pages we find pictures and descriptions to the following topics: The peasants, getting married, a farmer’s house, family life, dress and weaving, working on the land, food and drink, festivals and gods, crime and punishment, caring for the old and sick and many more.
Even though being a children’s book, it is very interesting for every age group as a lot of background information and facts are supplied.
Extract from the book:
The Inca farmer sat in the doorway of his small mud-brick home. As dawn broke, he gazed across at the distant snow-capped mountains. Soon the sun would warm the mountain slopes and valleys that were so freezing at night. He huddled inside his loosely woven cloak.
Behind him, in the darkness of their home, his wife was preparing food for the day. A hot stew, some corn, and a drink of chicha. When it was ready, he and his son would leave to work in the fields. First, he had to let out the animals, a few llamas and sheep that spent the night in an enclosure near to the house. During the day, his little daughter would tend the sheep. The menfolk faced the tougher work tilling and planting on the stony ground of the high mountain slopes.
As he rose to go, the peasant saw the huge black form of a condor circling in the sky. He was happy to see the bird because the farmers believed it brought them good luck. Collecting his wooden tools, the father called to his son, and they set off together, in good time, to start work in the emperor’s fields.
The farmer and his family were members of the Inca empire, a civilization that successfully survived in the Andes mountains of South America from about AD 1200 until the Spaniards conquered it in 1532…
