Page 187 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
P. 187

Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION







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Carrying this story shifts the focus of my life. It has given me moments of transcendent beauty and 

wonder. Taken me places I never would have gone otherwise—to a remote canyon high in the 

Peruvian altiplano, where the children crowded around our camping stove, transfixed by the magic of 


the blue gas flame.



Carrying this story fills me with fear and doubt. I worry that I will not live up to what has been entrusted 


to me. I dread being accused of cultural appropriation because of my lack of Andean blood. I know that 

the lives of pre-conquest Andean women are shrouded in uncertainty. These women did not get to tell 


their own stories. The little we know has been distorted by the interpretations of everyone from Spanish 

conquistadores to modern tour guides. There is no “true” story. Yet I’m still concerned about getting it 

wrong.



















































Talking with women weavers on the Island of the Moon, Bolivia






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