Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru

(Paperback)

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When the Spanish arrived in Peru in 1532, men of the Inca Umpire worshipped the Sun as Father and their dead kings as ancestor heroes, while women venerated the Moon and her daughters, the Inca queens, as founders of female dynasties. In the pre-Inca period such notions of parallel descent were expressions of complementarity between men and women.

Reviews

"This is a rich and compelling analysiswell conceived, innovative, and dealing with important frontiers in several fields. It will stand as a very important contribution to anthropology, ethnohistory, Latin American studies, and women's studies."Kay B. Warren, Princeton University

Author Bio

Irene Silverblatt is professor emerita of cultural anthropology at Duke University. She is also the author of Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World.