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Review: The Moche Warrior
Jul. 7th, 2017 10:32 pmAs part of my quest to read things set in different countries, I am now reading Lyn Hamilton's Archaological Mystery series. This week it was The Moche Warrior.
Childish antique store owner finds her co-worker bleeding when she comes back to the shop looking for her keys, then a room explodes revealing a dead man. She ends up going to Peru for clues on who the real murderer/thief/arsonist is. There she works on an archaeological dig near a ceramics factory and commune. Lots of characters and plot twists keep it interesting, even if I want to grab and shake some of the characters sometimes. Plus I learned a bit about Peru.
Central squares
All Peruvian towns have a central square called the Plaza de Armas (Wikipedia says this means "literally Weapons Square, but [is] better translated as Parade Square or parade ground.")
Food
"If there is a national dish in Peru, I decided, it was chicken, pollo. There are as many pollerias in Peru as there are pizzerias at home." (sic - pollerías)
Transportation
"I hailed a colectivo, that particularly Peruvian mode of public transit, a private minibus or van that plies a regular route, a sign in its front and side windows indicating its destination. In addition to the driver, there is an assistant who opens the sliding door and signals the number of empty seats with his fingers. The van barely stops to pick you up and drop you off, but it's cheap, and it gets you there." Sounds easier to deal with than Ghana's tro-tro.
"The flight to Trujillo [from Cuzco] had been uneventful, unless you count playing bingo rather than watching a movie an event, and I found the Vulkano bus station without difficulty. A bus trip in that part of the country, apparently, is an exercise in participative democracy. Passengers preoccupied themselves with shouting instructions to the driver, telling him he was lingering too long at any given stop, or that he wasn't driving to their particular specifications."
Geography
"Peru, it seemed to me, was a land of geographic extremes, from the world's driest desert, the Atacama in the south [the same desert where Chile can produce the cheapest solar energy on the planet]; to some of the richest ocean waters, teeming with marine life, created by the cold Humboldt from Antarctica and the warmer Pacific current coming south; to the Andes, the world's second greatest mountain range. In this part of the world, there are no foothills. You could crawl out of the Pacific, cross a few miles of arid desert, and come upon a wall of rock rising almost vertically from the desert floor. Beyond that is the rain forest, in some case, in others huge grassy plateaus and jagged valleys.
"The area is unstable, geologically speaking, with the oceanic Nazca plate sliding under the South American continental plate at a rate that, while imperceptible to us, is the fastest tectonic activity anywhere. It is this action that created the Andes and an extraordinarily deep ocean trench off the coast. It is also the reason for a geological instability that results in bad earthquakes on a reasonably regular basis and sporadic volcanic activity."
Lima
"For about nine months of the year, the city is blanketed in a grey pall that consists of mist from the sea, the garua, and pollution from millions of cars and factories. It is a damp, gritty greyness that burns your throat and lungs and eyes, and oozes its way into your soul.
"Lima also, to my eyes at least, has the air of a city besieged. Every building, every parking lot, is watched by at least one guard, some of them armed. Restaurants have guards to watch over patrons' cars while they dine; a home with even the slightest hint, a mere whiff of wealth, has a twenty-four-hour civilian guard. Children are escorted to and from school.
"And there is something to fear, make no mistake about it." Terrorists and the desperately poor.
"Perhaps to compensate, Limenos have painted their city the most astonishing hues, colors to banish the greyness and anxiety: sienna, burnt umber, cobalt, and the purest ultramarine, and shades the color of ice cream, soft pistachio, creamy peach, French vanilla, and café au lait."
The Inca
They called their empire "Tahuantinsuyo," Land of the Four Quarters. "At the time of the first European contact with the Americas, Tahuantinsuyo was the largest nation on earth."
The Moche
The Moche is a pre-Incan culture I'd never heard of. They had beautiful, intricate vases, ear jewelry, and other artifacts. They had a system of canals from the mountains to the desert lands with administrative centers in the river valleys. They "had a complex social structure, with an elite, a warrior class, artisans, and commoners; they practiced elaborate rituals, many of them involving human sacrifice; buried their most important citizens with treasures that rival the Egyptians; and had a vivid mythology, tantalizing hints of which remain."
"Their cities held the largest adobe brick structures anywhere, anytime."
The "Moche were the first in this part of the world to use [pottery] molds, that the most common form of Moche pottery were vessels that had spouts in the shape of stirrups, and how it was possible to date the pottery, particularly in the southern part of the Moche empire, by the length of the spout and the type of lip on it." (The Metropolitan Museum of Art has pictures of Moche Decorated Ceramics.)
Drought plus flooding and mudslides led to the culture's demise.
Spanish vocabulary
I ran into these Spanish words:
* huaca - sacred place originating before the Inca, literally "sacred"
* huaquero - tomb raider, robber of sacred places
* garúa - drizzle
* pachamama - earth mother (Andes)
* pacha - baby's bottle (Central America)
* ambulantes - "people who come in from the shantytowns to hawk candy and drinks on the sidewalks"
* colectivo - collective, group; also shared taxi (Andes), bus (Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela)
* chifa - Chinese restaurant (Andes)
* fulana - tart, prostitute (colloquial, pejorative)
* alfajores - "sublime little shortbread sandwiches with a sweetened condensed milk filling" (SpanishDict says in Latin America it's a round cookie with sweet filling but in Spain it's a sweet almond pastry.) (Recipes show they are soft and made with more cornstarch than flour.)
* mancha - stain
* algarrobal - ground planted with carob trees (algarroba = carob)
Supposedly one of the locations was called Nowhere Hacienda, but really it was called Drizzle Hacienda, so I looked up how to say "nowhere" because it seems like a basic word I should know but don't and it's "ninguna parte."
Additional Related Articles
I've decided that when reading books set in other countries to consider doing extra research on some aspect of what I'm reading. This time, I decided to learn more about the pottery (see link above) and huacas (what does that mean--sacred place?).
* "Huaca" (Wikipedia) (read 7/6/17) - A huaca is "an object that represents something revered, typically a monument" either natural or man-made all around Peru. "Since pre-incan times the people developed a system of pilgrimages to these various shrines" and the "Incas elaborated creatively on a preexisting system of religious veneration of the peoples whom they took into their empire."
* "Huaca" (Britannica) (read 7/6/17) - A huaca is a "religious concept that is variously used to refer to sacred ritual, the state of being after death, or any sacred object. The Spanish conquistador Pedro de Cieza de León believed that the word meant “burial place.” Huaca also means spirits that either inhabit or actually are physical phenomena such as waterfalls, mountains, or man-made shrines. The aforementioned shrines, which are found throughout the Inca territory from Ecuador to Chile, may be as simple as stones piled in a field (apachitas) or as complex as stepped pyramids that were once topped with canopies and carved images."
* "Huacas in Cuzco" (Cuzco Eats) (4/20/12) (has pictures) - Huacas are sacred spaces, usually boulders or masses of rock "where the ancestors paid homage and venerated their deities [and] ... where the ancient mummies could be placed and also honored." "Huacas are also famous for being the place in which offerings and sacrifices were made. As a result, they were plundered during the first years of the Spanish invasion. Afterwards the Spaniards destroyed many of them since they considered them heresies against the Christianity they wished to implant. In fact trees and bushes were often planted in front of them to try to impede people from visiting these holy shrines. Today eucalyptus trees surround many of them even though they did not come to Peru from Australia until more recent times."
The main one in The Moche Warrior was surrounded by carob trees, which apparently have some pretty nasty spines.
Childish antique store owner finds her co-worker bleeding when she comes back to the shop looking for her keys, then a room explodes revealing a dead man. She ends up going to Peru for clues on who the real murderer/thief/arsonist is. There she works on an archaeological dig near a ceramics factory and commune. Lots of characters and plot twists keep it interesting, even if I want to grab and shake some of the characters sometimes. Plus I learned a bit about Peru.
Central squares
All Peruvian towns have a central square called the Plaza de Armas (Wikipedia says this means "literally Weapons Square, but [is] better translated as Parade Square or parade ground.")
Food
"If there is a national dish in Peru, I decided, it was chicken, pollo. There are as many pollerias in Peru as there are pizzerias at home." (sic - pollerías)
Transportation
"I hailed a colectivo, that particularly Peruvian mode of public transit, a private minibus or van that plies a regular route, a sign in its front and side windows indicating its destination. In addition to the driver, there is an assistant who opens the sliding door and signals the number of empty seats with his fingers. The van barely stops to pick you up and drop you off, but it's cheap, and it gets you there." Sounds easier to deal with than Ghana's tro-tro.
"The flight to Trujillo [from Cuzco] had been uneventful, unless you count playing bingo rather than watching a movie an event, and I found the Vulkano bus station without difficulty. A bus trip in that part of the country, apparently, is an exercise in participative democracy. Passengers preoccupied themselves with shouting instructions to the driver, telling him he was lingering too long at any given stop, or that he wasn't driving to their particular specifications."
Geography
"Peru, it seemed to me, was a land of geographic extremes, from the world's driest desert, the Atacama in the south [the same desert where Chile can produce the cheapest solar energy on the planet]; to some of the richest ocean waters, teeming with marine life, created by the cold Humboldt from Antarctica and the warmer Pacific current coming south; to the Andes, the world's second greatest mountain range. In this part of the world, there are no foothills. You could crawl out of the Pacific, cross a few miles of arid desert, and come upon a wall of rock rising almost vertically from the desert floor. Beyond that is the rain forest, in some case, in others huge grassy plateaus and jagged valleys.
"The area is unstable, geologically speaking, with the oceanic Nazca plate sliding under the South American continental plate at a rate that, while imperceptible to us, is the fastest tectonic activity anywhere. It is this action that created the Andes and an extraordinarily deep ocean trench off the coast. It is also the reason for a geological instability that results in bad earthquakes on a reasonably regular basis and sporadic volcanic activity."
Lima
"For about nine months of the year, the city is blanketed in a grey pall that consists of mist from the sea, the garua, and pollution from millions of cars and factories. It is a damp, gritty greyness that burns your throat and lungs and eyes, and oozes its way into your soul.
"Lima also, to my eyes at least, has the air of a city besieged. Every building, every parking lot, is watched by at least one guard, some of them armed. Restaurants have guards to watch over patrons' cars while they dine; a home with even the slightest hint, a mere whiff of wealth, has a twenty-four-hour civilian guard. Children are escorted to and from school.
"And there is something to fear, make no mistake about it." Terrorists and the desperately poor.
"Perhaps to compensate, Limenos have painted their city the most astonishing hues, colors to banish the greyness and anxiety: sienna, burnt umber, cobalt, and the purest ultramarine, and shades the color of ice cream, soft pistachio, creamy peach, French vanilla, and café au lait."
The Inca
They called their empire "Tahuantinsuyo," Land of the Four Quarters. "At the time of the first European contact with the Americas, Tahuantinsuyo was the largest nation on earth."
The Moche
The Moche is a pre-Incan culture I'd never heard of. They had beautiful, intricate vases, ear jewelry, and other artifacts. They had a system of canals from the mountains to the desert lands with administrative centers in the river valleys. They "had a complex social structure, with an elite, a warrior class, artisans, and commoners; they practiced elaborate rituals, many of them involving human sacrifice; buried their most important citizens with treasures that rival the Egyptians; and had a vivid mythology, tantalizing hints of which remain."
"Their cities held the largest adobe brick structures anywhere, anytime."
The "Moche were the first in this part of the world to use [pottery] molds, that the most common form of Moche pottery were vessels that had spouts in the shape of stirrups, and how it was possible to date the pottery, particularly in the southern part of the Moche empire, by the length of the spout and the type of lip on it." (The Metropolitan Museum of Art has pictures of Moche Decorated Ceramics.)
Drought plus flooding and mudslides led to the culture's demise.
Spanish vocabulary
I ran into these Spanish words:
* huaca - sacred place originating before the Inca, literally "sacred"
* huaquero - tomb raider, robber of sacred places
* garúa - drizzle
* pachamama - earth mother (Andes)
* pacha - baby's bottle (Central America)
* ambulantes - "people who come in from the shantytowns to hawk candy and drinks on the sidewalks"
* colectivo - collective, group; also shared taxi (Andes), bus (Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela)
* chifa - Chinese restaurant (Andes)
* fulana - tart, prostitute (colloquial, pejorative)
* alfajores - "sublime little shortbread sandwiches with a sweetened condensed milk filling" (SpanishDict says in Latin America it's a round cookie with sweet filling but in Spain it's a sweet almond pastry.) (Recipes show they are soft and made with more cornstarch than flour.)
* mancha - stain
* algarrobal - ground planted with carob trees (algarroba = carob)
Supposedly one of the locations was called Nowhere Hacienda, but really it was called Drizzle Hacienda, so I looked up how to say "nowhere" because it seems like a basic word I should know but don't and it's "ninguna parte."
Additional Related Articles
I've decided that when reading books set in other countries to consider doing extra research on some aspect of what I'm reading. This time, I decided to learn more about the pottery (see link above) and huacas (what does that mean--sacred place?).
* "Huaca" (Wikipedia) (read 7/6/17) - A huaca is "an object that represents something revered, typically a monument" either natural or man-made all around Peru. "Since pre-incan times the people developed a system of pilgrimages to these various shrines" and the "Incas elaborated creatively on a preexisting system of religious veneration of the peoples whom they took into their empire."
* "Huaca" (Britannica) (read 7/6/17) - A huaca is a "religious concept that is variously used to refer to sacred ritual, the state of being after death, or any sacred object. The Spanish conquistador Pedro de Cieza de León believed that the word meant “burial place.” Huaca also means spirits that either inhabit or actually are physical phenomena such as waterfalls, mountains, or man-made shrines. The aforementioned shrines, which are found throughout the Inca territory from Ecuador to Chile, may be as simple as stones piled in a field (apachitas) or as complex as stepped pyramids that were once topped with canopies and carved images."
* "Huacas in Cuzco" (Cuzco Eats) (4/20/12) (has pictures) - Huacas are sacred spaces, usually boulders or masses of rock "where the ancestors paid homage and venerated their deities [and] ... where the ancient mummies could be placed and also honored." "Huacas are also famous for being the place in which offerings and sacrifices were made. As a result, they were plundered during the first years of the Spanish invasion. Afterwards the Spaniards destroyed many of them since they considered them heresies against the Christianity they wished to implant. In fact trees and bushes were often planted in front of them to try to impede people from visiting these holy shrines. Today eucalyptus trees surround many of them even though they did not come to Peru from Australia until more recent times."
The main one in The Moche Warrior was surrounded by carob trees, which apparently have some pretty nasty spines.
