FOREWORD v 
dency to take the cultural background for granted 
causes many important features to be overlooked. 
The local or folk culture is emphasized, while the 
national culture, in which the community parti- 
cipates only to a limited degree, though assumed, 
is not always clearly related to the community. 
In the case of a nation with a mixed cultural back- 
ground, it is very necessary that the community 
be seen as the product of interacting cultures, of a 
complex history, and of particular environmental 
factors. In other words, if culture process and 
change are to be-understood, anthropology cannot 
abandon its interest in the regional and historical 
aspects of the problem, for to do so would be to 
lose reference points. A regional and historical 
survey, therefore, not only makes the community 
selected for intensive study more meaningful as a 
sample of the area, but it places the community in 
cultural perspective. 
The objectives and methods of these studies are 
purely scientific, but the published results wili 
have great value to various practical affairs. 
Striking evidence of this fact is the eloquent ad- 
dress made to the Peruvian Congress by Dr. Luis E. 
Valedrcel, Minister of Education and one of 
Peru’s leading anthropologists. This address, 
which is one of the finest and most compelling 
statements ever made of the national importance 
of anthropology, is reproduced in part in the 
following Preface by Dr. Valcarcel. 
The establishment, under Dr. Valcfrcel’s initia- 
tive, of the Instituto de Estudios Etnolégicos, a 
national agency designed to make social science 
studies of the peoples of Peru, is further evidence 
of Peru’s recognition of the value of anthropology. 
It is of considerable interest that the practical 
importance of anthropology to national life is now 
better recognized in Peru than in the United 
States. In the United States, anthropology is 
gradually claiming greater recognition, but it is 
still widely thought of as dealing with the cultures 
of other peoples but not with our own culture. 
In fact, our past cultural isolation has more or less 
blinded most of us to the fact that we have a 
culture; our way of life is accepted as the natural 
way. In countries like Peru, on the other hand, 
the contrasts between the native Indian and the 
European customs and values are so striking that 
a cultural point of view toward society is almost 
inescapable. For this reason, progressive think- 
ing in Peru readily recognizes that any national 
programs must take into account the different 
ways of life, and that these ways of life must be 
carefully studied if they are to be understood. 
