Aymara women play a major role in regional marketing
of agricultural produce. Aymara families that move to
the cities maintain close ties with their villages and
frequently own agricultural property at several ecologi-
cal levels, a system of vertical archipelagos that has
existed since prehistoric times (Murra 1968 and 1972).
Aymara is also spoken in the environs of Arica,
Chile, and is taught at the Universidad del Norte in
that city (Juan de Dios Yapita, personal communication).
It may also be spoken along the Chilean border of the
Bolivian department of Oruro. Whether the Aymara popula-
tion of Chile is native or predominantly of recent Bolivian
or Peruvian Aymara settlers also needs further clarifi-

cation.
1-1.2 Status

Both Bolivia (in 1970) and Peru (in 1971) have
recognized Aymara as a national language, together with
Quechua and Spanish, but this action has failed to alter
the social fact that monolingual Aymara speakers are
effectively barred from active participation in national
life (Hardman et al. 1975:3.2). This situation is offset
by the efforts of small but active groups of Bolivian
Aymara speakers to educate other Aymara and the public
at large on Aymara language and culture and to stimulate

the production of written literature in the language.