[Aztlan] Pre-Columbian Society of Washington DC March Lecture

[michael ruggeri]

March 5, 6:45 PM
Pre-Columbian Society of Washington DC Lecture
"The Oracles of the Ancient Andean World: Were They True Oracles?" 
Marco Curatola Petrocchi is a professor of history in the Department of Humanities at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru in Lima 
All sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chronicles and accounts of the Inca and the other Andean peoples are full of references to "oracles" and oracular practices. Thanks to the documentary sources, we know that in the Inca Empire that developed in the XV century in the Andes there were famed oracular centers--centers that were the hub of pan-Andean pilgrimages, like those of Pachacamac, on the central Peruvian coast; Titicaca, on an island in the lake of the same name; Catequil, in the northern Peruvian highlands; as well as several others of regional and interregional significance. But, can we legitimately assume that pre-Hispanic Peru had divinatory centers with analogous characteristics to those of the oracles of Classical Antiquity? Or are we instead being ethnocentric when we talk of “Andean oracles”, and applying Western concepts to phenomena that have little or nothing in common with the historical experience of the Old World, ultimately hindering a proper understanding of them? In other words, were ancient Andean oracles true oracles? The lecture will answer this question. 
Sumner School, 
1201 17th Street, NW, 
17th and M Streets, across the street from National Geographic. Metro: Farragut North (on the red line) and Farragut West (on the Blue/Orange line).
Washington, DC 
http://www.pcswdc.org/