Muskuy Yachay Archives
Materials related to Kichwa-language muskuy narratives of the Runa of Ecuador
Contents: About the Collection | About the About Page | Tech
About the Collection
The Muskuy Yachay Archives is a collection of photographs, videos, and texts that relate to the storytelling tradition about muskuy– dream and other visionary experiences– among Kichwa-speaking Runa of the tropical lowlands of Ecuador. Muskuy is a state of enhanced perception during which Runa perceive more of the actions and intentions of other persons, allowing them to foresee future events and understand causal relationship of current predicaments. Commonplace muskuy experiences are ones that determine cause and treatment of illness, and that forecast major life events. The stories of muskuy experience are circulated orally in the compendium of community ancestral knowledge.
The original documents of this collection are a sample of recordings and photographs that were created between 2012-2017 in the Napo and Pastaza provinces of Ecuador as part of Lisa (Warren) Carney’s doctoral dissertation research. Some materials in the collection are videos of dream narratives, while other videos and photos show aspects of daily life that have bearing on the interpretation and comprehension of these stories. Carney learned from and collaborated with several Runa women and men, principally: Carmen Andi, Pedro Andi, Elodia Cadena, Luisa Cadena, Bélgica Dagua, David Dagua, Delicia Dagua, Elodia Dagua, Richar Emunda, Gerardo Gualinga, and Inés Shiguango. Interviews were conducted in several settings, mainly at the speakers’ homes or on the property of the Andes-Amazon Field School at Iyarina Lodge in Venecia del Norte, Ecuador, run by Professor Tod D. Swanson of Arizona State University. For this reason, North American undergraduate and graduate students are occasionally present for storytelling events, as are several leading scholars in Kichwa area studies.
Future versions of this collection will also be open for contributions by the public. Contact Lisa W. Carney (lisawcarney@gmail.com) with suggestions, questions, and comments.
Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder
This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source tool for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-STATIC methodology.
This site is built using CollectionBuilder-gh which utilizes the static website generator Jekyll and GitHub Pages to build and host digital collections and exhibits.