Archive of the Cajamarcan Oral Tradition (ATOC)
The Archive of the Cajamarcan Oral Tradition (ATOC) was formed with the records compiled from within the countryside itself since 1981. To begin with, the records were gathered on loose sheets of paper, and then from the notebooks which each member of the community managed.
With the first compilation it was possible to publish the Countryman Library collection, which remains current today. We later turned to recordings on cassette, which were then transcribed and similarly archived.
With the formation of the Countryman Encyclopaedia Project the process of collecting loose papers was underpinned by the publication of our “Notebook of Recovery”, containing blank pages so that pictures can be added, along with thematic and methodological instructions, to provide extra points of interest and guidance to the compilations.
As this process of recovering the oral tradition of our communities involved teachers and school children, as well as students and other people linked to the communities, the archive grew to such an extent that it had to be considered a unique source in its own right. Its expansion continues and information from the countryside is continually collated, which results not only in the conservation of Andean knowledge, but also facilitates the diverse publications of the Network and the consolidation of our own wisdom as it is shared throughout the communities themselves.
