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On a series of such translations emanated first from the
British and Foreign Bible Society and subsequently from
the United States. Catholic materials (mostly by Bolivian
priests) began to appear in greater numbers also. Later
in the 19th century there began to appear accounts by
European scholar-adventurers of their travels on the
Bolivian and Pervuian altiplano. These usually included
grammatical sketches of Quechua and Aymara or word lists
of numbers, animals, plants, medicines and diseases, and
kinship terms.

The first detailed ethnographic account of the
Aymara was On the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru
by David Forbes (1870), based on research done in Bolivia
and Peru from 1859 to 1863. A British mining engineer
of scholarly bent and the stamina necessary to remain for
Tong periods at altitudes up to 15,400 feet, Forbes was
best at concrete measurement and description of the
activities he witnessed. His account of the Aymara was
somewhat sympathetic, revealing the relentless physical
hardships and social injustices they suffered, but some
of his explanations for Aymara behavior suggest he may
have given too much credence to tales spread by whites
and mestizos based more on myth than on fact.

Forbes gave Aymara names for objects, activities,
and the like most of which, though deformed by an inade-

quate transcription, are recognizable today. His