Lifegivers of Tahuantinsuyu

Max Dashu, 1978-88, oil on masonite, 16 sq ft

Collection of the San Francisco Women's Building

Copyright 1988 Max Dashu

The Quechua (Peruvian) name for South America is Tahuantinsuyu: the Four Quarters. The painting envisions the powers and heritages of indigenous South American women.

In the east, Brazilian women paint ceramics near a longhouse. (See detail.)

In the north, farmers of the Guianas till their fields, and a stone jaguar mother rises out of the Colombian Andes. (See detail.)

In the west, an Ecuadorian woman grinds corn on a ceremonial metate, and a Peruvian priestess pours a libation to Pachamama, the Earth Mother. (See detail.)

In the south, a machi (medicine woman) of the Mapuche people drums on a kultrún in Chile, and a young mother blesses her baby before the fire in Tierra del Fuego, in the southernmost corner of Argentina. (See detail.)