Andean Aymara

Foreign Policy magazine has an article online about modern Tibet. It deals with a variety of political and religious implications of a modern China, but one of the more interesting facets of the article has to do with the effect of tourism on native populations. Such realities are, of course, not just limited to Tibet, though I suppose they tend to be stronger in areas romanticized in the literature e.g. Hilton’s Shangri-La, but also the pyramids of Giza, and, of course Machu Picchu. In all these locations, external market-driven forces encourage peoples to create a Simulacrum from a patchwork of outsider stereotypes and simplified (and often false) historical accounts for outsiders in search of Authenticity.

The exotic romanticisation of the Inca Empire both by part of the visitors but also the locals and even the Quechua themselves permeates Peruvian culture. While the wealth of stylized murals of Incan nobility, indigenous-themed logos, and 3D prints of Machu Picchu may be argued to reflect cultural pride, in a certain sense they also bespeak of the drive of all former colonies to create their own identity through collective mythology.