Customer Reviews

Warriors of the Clouds: A Lost Civilization in the Upper Amazon of Peru

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I was looking for information on Machu Picchu, when I came across this gem. The cover stirred up fantasies of Shangrila. I was intrigued, ordered it, and was delighted.This is a photographic exploration of Kuelap, a mysterious citadel in the high Andes, discovered seventy years before Machu Picchu. The Chachapoya, or Cloud People (understandably so-called) were the inahabitants of this remote and inaccessible area.Keith Muscutt has provided a detailed and interesting text to accompany this visual feast. He photographs the present inhabitants of the region, supposedly the ancestors of the builders of Kuelap. Perhaps or perhaps not, but interesting anyway.The photographs of tombs built vertically in the cliff side are indescribable. All in all I highly recommend this, whether the interest is information or pleasure. Both are to be found in these pages. Thorough and interesting and visually beautiful.

This was an extremely well researched and fascinating book to read. Having been to Machu Picchu myself I was totally absorbed in this other ancient Peruvian culture. A must read for all archaelogy enthusiasts!

The Chachapoya, or Cloud People, created a complex civilization in the upper Amazon of northern Peru in the terrain separating the Marañon and Huallaga basins. Keith Muscutt spent over 20 years studying the civilization. His book is a treasure of careful and vivid writing, enhanced by wonderful photographs of a breathtaking landscape.

The Chachapoya were conquered by the Inca around A.D. 1475, and shortly thereafter were decimated by Spanish colonial rule. Pedro Cieza de León described the Chachapoyas: "They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen in Indies, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas' wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple .... The women and their husbands always dressed in woolen clothes and in their heads they wear their llautos, which are a sign they wear to be known everywhere."

Descendants of these people still live in the region amid the ruins. Muscutt offers splendid color plates of cliff-side tombs mixed with photographs of modern-day village life. His photos also capture the forest-choked valleys, high-altitude lakes, and orchid-studded vegetation.

Vincent Lee's maps of of Vira Vira are excellent. The bibliography, compiled by Douglas Sharon and Muscutt, is first rate. Muscatt traces some of the life of Benigno Añazco, who spent 36 years deep in the Andean forest, founded 14 settlements, abandoned his wife and many children, married one of his daughters, killed his son-in-law, fought drug peddlers, and sought to re-establish the Inca Empire.

According to chachapoyas.com , a website devoted to this book, Keith Muscutt is Assistant Dean of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A native of England, he has traveled widely in the United States, Mexico, and Peru, photographing and writing articles about rock art and pre-Columbian remains. He is the founder of the Fundación Benéfica Niños de Chuquibamba, which promotes the health and education of children in the remote Andean village shown on the cover of this book.

Although the book is ten years old, nothing seems to have supplanted it for a student of the Chachapoyas.

Robert C. Ross 2008

Although written not long before the author cites theories about precolumbian southamerican civilisations that are from the 50s of the past century. American civilisations are older than 3000 years and are not founded by sibirian hunters passing the glaciars of polar circle. This are theories from the past. Coming to the area of the Cachapoya one is expecting some helpful maps but no crude freehand sketches of the territory. The photos of bromelias, trees and vegetation, cows, school-children and local villages are nice but not of any interest for the culture of the chachapoya. Although no lingual remains exist, the author is ready to state that they came from the caribean sea!
This is nothing more than a account of a journey-worthless for people who wants to visit the places because informations about location like "between the river Maranon and the river xy" are not to be found in nature.
I would not recommend this book, only to see the pictures of some overgrown sites its too expensive.

One of the world's greatest civilizations was the Incan civilization. The Incas settled in Western South America, along the Andes range. This civilization was very similar to the Great Aztec Civilization. The Incas had adapted to their environment. They built terrraces and were skillful builders. Find out how the Great civilization adapted to their environment and how they were conquered by Pizarro's trickery...