The Kawki Collection is comprised of archival and published texts as well as recorded sounds and images related to the Kawki language. Jaqaru, a member of the Jaqi family of languages (Jaqaru, Kawki, Aymara), is spoken in the Andes Mountains of Perú by a few thousand people resident both in Tupe and nearby villages and as migrants in cities.
The Kawki Collection is particularly indebted to the work of Dr. Martha James Hardman. During her fifty years of research in the region, Dr. Hardman recorded more than 93 audio interviews with speakers of the Jaqi languages - many now deceased village elders - and transcribed these recordings in as many field notebooks documenting Jaqaru and Kawki linguistics. The Collection is augmented with visual resources, the bulk taken between 1959 and 1975 of villages, farms, market scenes, homes, and schools.