Photo Gallery

A boy from the Kogi tribe. The Kogi regard themselves as the ‘elder brothers’ of humanity. They see it as their sacred duty to preserve the ecological and spiritual balance of the Earth. They refer to the rest of modern humanity as the ‘younger brothers’ who are destroying the planet. - Book: Image 18 – Colombia – 1977

The Saraguro in the province of Loja, Ecuador. The topos – the pins used by Saraguro women to fasten their ponchos – are unique to this tribe in that they feature a sun-shaped head. In Peru, they are spoon-shaped. - Book: Picture 37 - Ecuador - 1977

A young lottery ticket seller in Arequipa, which, with a population of 200,000, is Peru’s third-largest city and the most important economic centre in the south of the country. - Book: Picture 184 - Peru - 1969

The village of Acomayo (at an altitude of 3,770 metres) in the department of Cuzco. The pueblo is a residential and productive community which, as an ayllu, dates back to pre-Inca times, although the Spanish determined the location and number of today’s pueblos. One third of a village community’s total land holdings is generally held in common and is also cultivated collectively, although the majority of the descendants of the Incas practise a purely subsistence economy. - Book: Picture 105 - Peru - 1976

A portal in the village of Juli on the south-western shore of Lake Titicaca, which was a religious centre during the colonial period. This is commemorated by a whole series of churches, whose rich interior decoration bears witness to their former splendour. - Book: Picture 132 - Peru - 1976

Bolivian street scene: A boy in the small village of Tiahuanaco, not far from the massive pre-Inca ruin complex of the same name, does his homework on the stone steps in front of his house. - Book: Picture 148 - Bolivia - 1976

Children of the Chipaya culture in the barren Altiplano of Bolivia. The Chipaya are considered one of the oldest indigenous communities in the Andes. They live in a very salty and isolated region near the Lauca River and Lake Coipasa in the department of Oruro. The boys are wearing the typical, coarsely woven, sleeveless garment of the Chipaya people, known as an ‘ira’ or ‘tipoy’. The girls in the background usually wear the traditional, very fine braids (trenzados), which have a distinctly African appearance. The houses in the background are the famous round or rectangular huts (putucus), built from peat and grass sods (tepes) and thatched with straw. This construction method provides perfect protection against the region’s extremely icy winds. – Chipaya – Bolivia – 1976

The Chipaya tribe in the Bolivian department of Oruro, which now numbers just under a thousand people, inhabits a particularly inhospitable region of the Andean high plateau on the Río Lauca, which flows into a salt lake. The Chipayas are the only highland indigenous people who obtain part of their food through hunting, as agriculture and livestock farming alone are unable to meet their needs due to the highly saline soil. At dawn, groups of hunters lie in wait on the lake shore for flamingos, ducks and Andean geese, which they catch using bolas – throwing balls attached to long straps. The word ‘Chipaya’ comes from the Aymara language and means ‘a mat of reed or straw woven with reed cords’. To protect themselves from the strong winds of the Altiplano, the Chipayas have, in fact, had to tie down the thatched layers of their roofs with cords since time immemorial. The belief that the Chipayas are the direct descendants of pre-Inca populations is supported by mummy finds in burial towers from that period, which, amongst other similarities, display the same hairstyles that the women spend hours and hours creating. - Book: Picture 156 - Bolivia - 1976