A proverb tradition
The Andean proverb traditions are among the least covered in English-language scholarship and among the richest. Quechua and Aymara — the two largest indigenous language families of the Andes — each carry compact wisdom literatures shaped by the high country: the seasonal cycle, the long view, the relationship with the Pachamama, and the practical demands of life at altitude.
Many Andean proverbs are ecological in a precise sense. They name observations about weather, about the cycle of planting and harvest, about animals and the mountain. The relationship between language and land is unusually close, and the proverbs pay attention to it.
Ama suwa, ama llulla, ama qhilla
ama suwa, ama llulla, ama qhilla
Three Quechua prohibitions still printed on Andean public buildings — and why a moral code that compresses a whole civilization into a refusal travels so far, even as its Inca pedigree is quietly disputed.