Salt of the Mountain: Campa Ashaninka History and Resistance in the Peruvian Jungle

For four centuries, the indigenous Campa Ashaninkas of the Peruvian Amazon have fought for their identity and independence in the face of Spanish colonialism and Peruvian national expansionism. Stefano Varese originally wrote about the Campa Ashaninkas in the mid-1960s after three seasons of field research among them and three years of archival research, titling his book "La Sal de Los Cerros" after the conquered Mountain of Salt that had been the center of Camp Ashaninka trade and power for millennia. Updated with a new preface and introduction by the author, "Salt of the Mountain" makes Varese's classic work of anthropology available in English for the first time.

This book has special significance as an early example of engaged anthropology. Varese conducted his research with an explicit commitment to letting the Campa Ashaninkas speak for themselves, using their myths and cosmological interpretations as source material and, with this in mind, attempting new readings of both colonial Spanish and modern Peruvian documents relating to the tribe. He chronicles the relentless success of European geographic annexation and the continuing failure of European cultural assimilation. Living among the Camp Ashaninka, Varese found that their worldview rejects the modern notion that assimilation is inevitable, and he developed a deep respect for the Campa Ashaninkas's fiercely independent spirit. For this reason, he calls his work an "approximation" of their world rather than a description or history of them.

"Salt of the Mountain "is clear and direct proof of what Stefano Varese can do. As a scholarly study, it is the historical re-creation of the drama of the Ashaninka in their confrontation with civilization. As ethnological fieldwork, it is the result of his effort and joy in living the life of the Ashaninka in order to give us their vision of the world, of themselves, and of us, their Others and decimators.""-Darcy Ribeiro, from the Foreword