Amantani is an island on the

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

vian side of

Lake Titicaca Lake Titicaca (; ; ) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, both in terms of the volume of ...

. According to a 1988

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, it had a population of 3,663 Quechua speakers divided among about 800 families. The most current census (2017) estimates a population of 3,557. The island is circular and about in size. It has two mountain peaks, ''Pachatata'' ("father earth") and ''

Pachamama Pachamama is a goddess revered by the Indigenous peoples of the Andes. In Inca mythology she is an " Earth Mother" type goddess, Dransart, Penny. (1992) "Pachamama: The Inka Earth Mother of the Long Sweeping Garment." ''Dress and Gender: Makin ...

'' ("mother earth"), with ancient

Inca The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

and

Tiwanaku Tiwanaku ( or ) is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and in ...

ruins on top of both. The hillsides are terraced, mostly worked by hand, and planted with

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

quinoa Quinoa (''Chenopodium quinoa''; , from Quechuan languages, Quechua ' or ') is a flowering plant in the Amaranthaceae, amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are high in prote ...

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es, and other vegetables.

Livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

, including sheep, also graze the slopes. Amantani is known as the "Island of the Kantuta", after the

national flower In a number of countries, plants have been chosen as symbols to represent specific geographic areas. Some countries have a country-wide floral emblem; others in addition have symbols representing subdivisions. Different processes have been used t ...

and

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

, which grows plentifully on the island.

Overview

The temples at the top of the peaks are generally closed during the year. Entrance is permitted on the morning of the annual feast day on or around January 20 (the third Thursday in January), at which time the island's population divides in two, with each group gathering at its respective temple. A race is then held from each peak to a point somewhere between the two, and a representative of each group is chosen to run. According to tradition, a victory for ''Pachamama'' portends a bountiful

harvest Harvesting is the process of collecting plants, animals, or fish (as well as fungi) as food, especially the process of gathering mature crops, and "the harvest" also refers to the collected crops. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulses fo ...

in the year to come. Similar to the Taquileños, the inhabitants of Amantani are also known for their

textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

s, as well as their

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

. Most of the inhabitants live in houses of

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

. There is a small health clinic and school on Amantaní. The island has no cars but does have a generator, though it is no longer functional. There are no hotels, but some of the families on Amantani open their homes to tourists for overnight stays and provide cooked meals, arranged through tour guides. The families who do so are required to have a special room set aside for the tourists and must fit a code by the tour companies that help them. Guests typically take food staples (cooking oil, rice, fruits) as a gift or school supplies for the children on the island. Sweets and sugar are not recommended as regular dental care is uncommon on the island. They hold nightly traditional dance shows for the tourists where they offer to dress them up in their traditional clothes and participate. Women of the families also offer self-made alpaca-hats to their visitors as cover for the night-breeze, which the visitors are most welcome to buy at the end of their stay.

Sources

* Jordi Gascón, ''Gringos como en sueños: Diferenciación y conflicto campesino en los Andes Peruanos ante el desarrollo del turismo''. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. *CBC - "INKA POWER PLACES, SOLAR INITIATIONS" by Mallku Aribalo

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amantani Lake islands of Peru Islands of Lake Titicaca

Overview

See also

Sources

References