GLOSSARY

Añu: A species of nasturtium with edible roots.

Aryballus: A bottle-shaped vase with pointed bottom.

Azequia: An irrigation ditch or conduit.

Bar-hold: A stone cylinder or pin, let into a gatepost in such a way as to permit the gate bar to be tied to it. Sometimes the bar-hold is part of one of the ashlars of the gatepost. Bar-holds are usually found in the gateway of a compound or group of Inca houses.

Coca: Shrub from which cocaine is extracted. The dried leaves are chewed to secure the desired deadening effect of the drug.

Conquistadores: Spanish soldiers engaged in the conquest of America.

Eye-bonder: A narrow, rough ashlar in one end of which a chamfered hole has been cut. Usually about a feet long, 6 — inches wide, and 2 inches thick, it was bonded into the wall of a gable at right angles to its slope and flush with its surface.     To it the purlins of the roof could be fastened. Eye-bonders are also found projecting above the lintel of a gateway to a compound. If the “bar-holds” were intended to secure the horizontal bar of an important gate, these eye-bonders may have been for a vertical bar.

Gobernador: The Spanish-speaking town magistrate. The alcaldes are his Indian aids. Habas beans: Broad beans.

Huaca: A sacred or holy place or thing, sometimes a boulder. Often applied to a piece of prehistoric pottery.

Mañana: To-morrow, or by and by. The “mañana habit” is Spanish-American procrastination.

Mestizo: A half-breed of Spanish and Indian ancestry. Milpa: A word used in Central America for a small farm or clearing. The milpa system of agriculture involves clearing the forest by fire, destroys valuable humus and forces the farmer to seek new fields frequently.

Montãna: Jungle, forest. The term usually applied by Peruvians to the heavily forested slopes of the Eastern Andean valleys and the Amazon Basin.

Oca: Hardy, edible root, related to sheep sorrel.

Quebrada: A gorge or ravine.

Quipu: Knotted, parti-colored strings used by the ancient Peruvians to keep records. A mnemonic device.

Roof-peg: A roughly cylindrical block of stone bonded into a gable wall and allowed to project 12 or 15 inches on the outside. Used in connection with “eye-bonders,” the roof-pegs served as points to which the roof could be tied down.

Sol: Peruvian silver dollar, worth about two shillings or a little less than half a gold dollar.

Soroche: Mountain-sickness. Stone-peg: A roughly cylindrical block of stone bonded into the walls of a house and projecting 10 or 12 inches on the inside so as to permit of its being used as a clothes-peg. Stone-pegs are often found alternating with niches and placed on a level with the lintels of the niches.

Temblor: A slight earthquake.

Temporales: Small fields of grain which cannot be irrigated and so depend on the weather for their moisture.

Teniente gobernador: Administrative officer of a small village or hamlet.

Terremoto: A severe earthquake.

Tesoro: Treasure.

Tutu: A hardy variety of white potato not edible in a fresh state, used for making chuño, after drying, freezing, and pressing out the bitter juices.

Ulluca: An edible root.

Viejo: Old.

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