57

Meanwhile, Protestant missionaries developed a
variation which employs some Spanish letters, such as ¢
and qu to represent the Aymara velar stop, in the belief
that their use makes it easier for the Aymara to learn
Spanish. This alphabet, known as the CALA alphabet for
the first initials of the Comisi6n de Alfabetizaci6n y
Literatura Aymara (Aymara Literacy and Literature Com-
mission), was adopted as official by Bolivian government
decree in 1968, apparently without rescinding support. of
the earlier alphabet. Since then the two official Bolivian
alphabets have coexisted in uneasy competition.

Beginning in the 1930s American anthropologists
turned their attention to the study of Aymara society.
The Aymara (1946) and The Aymara of Chucuito, Peru
1. Magic (1951) by Harry Tschopik and The Aymara Indians
of the Lake Titicaca Plateau, Bolivia (1948) by Weston

 

LaBarre are generally considered classics, but research

in the last decade has shown them to be deficient in
important respects, based as they were on data obtained
through mestizos and whites. A more balanced account

is The Aymara of Chinchera, Peru: Persistence and change
in a bicultural context (1964) by John Marshall Hickman,
reporting on a Peruvian Aymara community near that studied
by Tschopik 20 years earlier; Another look at Aymara
personality (1966) by John S. Plummer questioned earlier

negative assessments of the Aymara character. William E.