South American camelids, particularly llamas, evoke images of Andean mountains, barren grasslands, and Indigenous herders. The scholarship about these animals is abundant yet regionally focused. We know that wild vicuñas and guanacos were among the most important prey for early Andean foragers, and that the subsequent domestication of llamas and alpacas extended their utility to labor and fiber production, making them essential for the development of complex Andean societies such as the Wari, Tiwanaku, and Inca. Caring for these animals remains a vital livelihood for thousands of Aymara and Quechua pastoralists today. Nevertheless, compared to the dozens of valuable zooarchaeological reports and ethnographic accounts detailing the significance of camelids for Andean societies across space and time, significantly less is known about their impact overseas or the various attempts to transform them into a global commodity. Marcia Stephenson’s Llamas beyond the Andes addresses this gap by narrating how South American camelids and their byproducts were commoditized through European global expansion, coherently chronicling the different waves of camelid extraction from the Andes to Europe and beyond through the colonial, imperial, and capitalist eras.
The introduction lays out the book’s scope and motivations, emphasizing the importance of critically examining camelid extraction histories and European colonialism by focusing on indigenous animals and knowledge through specific contact zones—sites of intercultural encounter. The first two chapters explore initial European–camelid relations beginning in the sixteenth century, when “Peruvian sheep” were first described and consumed, eventually leading to the slaughter of thousands solely to extract their bezoars (gastric stones). Nicolás Monardes’s influential medicinal treatise became instrumental in fueling European demand for these stones, particularly among those marginalized from the wealth generated by European colonialism in the Americas. Ironically, it was Andean knowledge that enabled access to bezoars, which also held local cultural and religious significance.
The medicinal connection persists in chapter 3, which explores how during the Age of Enlightenment, initial attempts to export llamas as exotic pets for European monarchs such as Empress Joséphine Bonaparte went hand-in-hand with the ultimate aim of transforming them into sources of wealth—an ambition supported by leading intellectuals such as the Comte de Buffon. Driven by the Enlightenment principle that one cannot possess what one does not understand, some of the first camelid specimens exported to Europe were coveted both alive and dead, as autopsies and taxidermy, along with taxonomy and anatomy, gained prominence.
Chapter 4 focuses on the rise of acclimatization societies and the promise that introducing llamas, alpacas, and other exotic animals could bring new economic opportunities to Europeans. The chapter narrates practical attempts to translocate large numbers of animals from the Andes to Europe. Numerous entrepreneurial figures sought to profit from transporting camelid herds across the Andes and into the Atlantic. Among the most notorious was the Frenchman Eugène Roehn, who managed to export several animals to France. The various vicissitudes encountered along the way, extensively documented in articles and letters, reveal as much about bureaucratic perils as about geographical and disease-related challenges.
Chapter 5 examines the case of the intrepid Charles Ledger, who managed to extract—if not outright smuggle—more than a hundred llamas, alpacas, and even vicuñas from Bolivia through Argentina and eventually to Chile, with the goal of exporting them to New South Wales, Australia. Numerous letters and article dispatches, some written anonymously by Ledger about himself, along with insightful watercolors, provide multiple perspectives on this extraction voyage and the countless difficulties of keeping the herds alive while crossing new ecological and administrative landscapes. Although Ledger’s resourcefulness earned him a reputation as a successful explorer comparable to Livingstone, chapter 6 describes his downfall upon landing in Australia, when his ambitions for fueling a new wool trade boom encountered the harsh reality of broken promises and budgetary constraints.
Chapter 7 advances into the twentieth century, when alpaca and especially vicuña fibers became extremely valuable commodities that, through advertising, signaled luxury, exoticism, and exclusivity. The llama itself became the object of advertising, exemplified by the biography of the celebrity Llinda Lee Llama, iconically portrayed with her long, graceful white neck extending from a taxicab in New York City (an image that also graces the book’s cover)—yet another contact zone mediating the innumerable contradictions between expansionist capitalism and its exotic yet illusory periphery.
In sum, this book masterfully weaves together a remarkable narrative about how European powers repeatedly attempted to alienate camelids from the Andes, revealing both the perniciousness and the limitations of these efforts. The result is a riveting tale of exploitation, extraction, and obliteration but also of struggle and resistance. Llamas beyond the Andes should be read by any academic interested in camelids, pastoralism, and colonialism, as well as by every scholar interested in human–animal relationships and their transformation over time.
