Andean Tradition Research Articles

Transnationalisme pentecôtiste et précarité enchantée : le cas du Monte de Oración dans la périphérie suburbaine de Lima, Pérou

This article presents the study of a popular Pentecostal center, Monte de Oración (MO), located in the suburban outskirts of Lima, Peru. The MO, founded by an illiterate woman originally from Cuzco, self-proclaimed pastor, began its trajectory (1970s, 1980s) as a community site of Catholic popular piety, anchored in the Andean traditions of mountain worship until it became a family religious enterprise. The MO is connected with some forty independent churches in Lima which organize retreats there and is, as well, in the process of being integrated into the networks of North American missionary denominations. The MO maintains a connection with transnational Pentecostal currents that make sense, locally, through similarity and affinity (Foucault, Han). At MO, are adopted and adapted, with creativity, issues and rites, among others, spiritual warfare, Israelophilia / Zionism, gender complementarity, refusal of vaccines against COVID.

Location of the Underworld in the Andean Tradition

Location of the Underworld in the Andean Tradition

Review: Peru: A Journey in Time, edited by Cecilia Pardo and Jago Cooper

Review: <i>Peru: A Journey in Time</i>, edited by Cecilia Pardo and Jago Cooper

LET'S SPILL THE TEA: ACUTE AORTIC DISSECTION

LET'S SPILL THE TEA: ACUTE AORTIC DISSECTION

La creación de una deidad: el caso de la doncella del Llullaillaco.

El siguiente trabajo constituye una aproximación, mediante un enfoque semiótico, a la significación cultural otorgada a los adornos cefálicos andinos. Múltiples son las evidencias referentes a este particular elemento, pero pocos los estudios respecto de su significación en el pasado. Teniendo en cuenta su materialidad específica y la larga continuidad de tradiciones andinas, que aún incluyen los adornos plumarios en su ritualidad y cotidianidad, logramos una aproximación al rol jugado por estos objetos/agentes dentro de la sociedad inca. El análisis de un contexto incaico particular, la practica ritual conocida como Capacocha, en la cual participó una joven aclla en el volcán Llullaillaco, permite adentrarnos en la comprensión de los procesos de constitución de la identidad personal y el rol de los adornos cefálicos en una interacción constante entre persona/objeto. Son estas relaciones las que van a definir el significado de estos elementos plumarios dentro de las sociedades pasadas.

Transatlantic Obligations: Creating Bonds of Family in Conquest-Era Peru and Spain

During the sixteenth century the journey from Seville to Lima took five months under the best of circumstances. Yet, as Jane Mangan so vividly demonstrates, blood was thicker than water, and the bonds of family that were fundamental to survival in early modern society transcended the obstacles of travel and distance.Transatlantic Obligations makes an important contribution to the current scholarship that emphasizes the connections between Spain and its American colonies. Focusing on the first decades immediately after the Spanish conquest, Mangan analyzes how the subjects of Spain’s new, racially complex empire in Peru negotiated the obligations that defined one’s place in colonial society—husbands to wives, parents to children, sibling to sibling. As much or more than before the conquest, these relationships articulated status and lineage, provided economic security, and demonstrated affection. In the immediate postconquest period, Spaniards and Indigenous people quickly came to understand that both Andean traditions and Castilian law facilitated the creation and maintenance of familial ties, especially through marriage and inheritance.To uncover these relationships Mangan has labored in the archives, doing the rich but often tedious work of combing through notarial records to find the dowries, wills, and licenses to travel in which people expressed their sense of obligation to family members. The payoff for her hard work is great, as she fills the Iberian Atlantic with fathers who love their children, husbands who miss their wives, and sisters who mourn the loss of siblings. Of course, not all of the relationships were positive. Spanish fathers wrested their mestizo children from the arms of indigenous mothers, husbands abandoned wives on the peninsula and mistresses in the Americas, and embittered and scared peninsular women refused to make the transatlantic journey. Yet, even interpersonal conflict was evidence that familial bonds were not broken when a member moved from Spain to the Americas or vice versa; rather, they were extended and accentuated.Although in most cases, Castilian law clearly defined the obligations among family members, Mangan has a keen eye for the ways that love, lineage, and necessity pushed men and women to circumvent, redefine, or even ignore legal norms. Most poignantly, Spanish men who fathered children with indigenous women under a variety of circumstances often expressed strong ties to those children and their mothers. Thus, when the law hindered their illegitimate children’s ability to inherit, many Spanish men invested considerable energy in finding ways to provide for their futures.One of Mangan’s most important revelations is how the Iberian Peninsula was transformed by the family ties that crossed the empire. Spanish fathers took their mixed-race children to Spain to be raised by wives and sisters. Madalena de la Paz, a free black woman, moved from Seville to Lima, but at her death designated her mulata sister in Seville as her heir (105). Enslaved indigenous men and women were brought to Spain by their owners, where they then used the Spanish legal system to sue for their freedom. After the conquest, Peru was deeply changed, but Spain was not the same place either.In this deeply researched book, Jane E. Mangan reminds us that in the wake of the violence of conquest the bonds of family were fundamental to the establishment and perpetuation of the Spanish Empire. It is critical reading for scholars of the Atlantic world.

Coca: The History and Medical Significance of an Ancient Andean Tradition.

Coca leaf products are an integral part of the lives of the Andean peoples from both a cultural and traditional medicine perspective. Coca is also the whole plant from which cocaine is derived. Coca products are thought to be a panacea for health troubles in regions of South America. This review will examine the toxicology of whole coca and will also look at medicinal applications of this plant, past, present, and future.

La escritura y los procesos de occidentalización del mito y legitimación de la imagen en Las Postrimerías de Carabuco

Commissioned by Joseph de Arellano, parish priest of Carabuco (current Bolivia), the painter Jose Lopez de los Rios executed a series of four paintings on the theme of the Last Things in 1683. At the bottom of these paintings he included a narrative cycle of thirty scenes depicting the coming of an apostle to the Andes, and the story of the Cross left by said apostle at Carabuco. These episodes were introduced into half-divided circles, reserving the top for the iconography and the bottom for the written word. This work aims to rethink the relationship between images and writing and demonstrate, in this particular case, that the inclusion of writing worked as an agent of legitimization of iconographic representation in order to Occidentalize the oral Andean tradition.

Object and Apparition: Envisioning the Christian Divine in the Colonial Andes, by Maya Stanfield-Mazzi

Object and Apparition: Envisioning the Christian Divine in the Colonial Andes, by Maya Stanfield-Mazzi. Tucson, The University of Arizona Press, 2013. xv, 241 pp. $50.00 US (cloth). Maya Stanfield-Mazzi examines how new religion was forged through images in the early modem Andes (p. 1). The author divides her book into two parts. Part I focusses on three-dimensional statues in churches, which helped Andeans envision the Christian divine, and Part II on two-dimensional paintings, mostly in private homes for personal devotion. Stanfield-Mazzi uses simple yet elegant prose in the book's seven chapters, introduction, and epilogue. Analyses of fifty black and white illustrations and nine coloured plates add the attractiveness of this well-conceived work. Ample information on pre-Hispanic religious beliefs and customs allows the reader understand the incorporation, acceptance, and modification of Christian symbols, representations, and doctrine. The author contends that if indigenous Andeans were still discouraged from acceding the priesthood [in the late seventeenth-century], as artists they were able participate in the visualization of Christianity (p. 146). The author weaves political, religious, and cultural history into the Andean religious fabric and presents fair and balanced depictions of priests who protected their flock and those who exploited them. Missionaries adopted several strategies inculcate Catholicism. The language barrier hindered the teaching of complex religious principles and no official translation of the catechism appeared in Quechua or Aymara until 1582-83. Political struggles between Dominicans and diocesan priests and between Dominicans and Franciscans further complicated evangelization efforts, though nearly all parties agreed on the importance of destroying pre-Hispanic religious objects, tricks of the devil (p. 10). Missionaries knew that active visualization of the new faith was crucial its success and they adopted several strategies to inspire devotion (p. 12). Successful efforts instruct neophytes began around 1550 when large bultos from Spain arrived in Andean cities populate new Christian churches with naturalistic, polychrome images of Christian deities (p. 59). Visual representations of Catholicism by the hands of Andean artists sparked the creation of a new and independent artistic tradition. Pre-Hispanic Andean traditions contributed the ultimate preeminence of Mary and Christ in artwork and daily devotion. God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the saints received much less attention by Andean faithful and artists. Christ Crucified, prominently displayed in Cusco's Cathedral, became known as Lord of the Earthquakes after being credited with stopping the tremors on the heels of the devastating earthquake of 1650. A Virgin of the Rosary and a Virgin of the Purification became foci of devotion in Pomata and Copacabana. The Virgin's statue in Pomata was imported from Spain. The Virgin Mary in Copacabana was created by the famed Andean artist Francisco Tito Yupanqui. Both statues were accredited with performing miracles. While Amerindian artists clearly influenced this new artistic tradition, it was not because Spaniards had respect for Amerindians. …

Carrying coca: 1,500 years of Andean chuspas

Coca bags, or chuspas, represent one of the most enduring and resilient forms in the rich history of Andean weaving traditions. These small, elaborately decorated bags have been a constant presence in the archaeological, written, and visual record of the Andes for at least 1,500 years. In the details of their design and decoration, chuspa styles are testament to centuries of shifting trends and technologies in Andean textile arts. However, as carriers of coca leaves, chuspas are much more than aesthetically pleasing and technically sophisticated artworks. For millennia coca leaves have occupied an essential and unparalleled place in the daily lives, social customs, and ritual practices of Andean communities, in which chuspas also play central roles owing to their actual and symbolic connection with coca. Worldwide reactions to the plant and legislation of its uses have affected Andean traditions surrounding coca leaves since the Spanish conquest of the Andes in the sixteenth century and continue into the present. Focusing on the collection of the American Museum of Natural History and examples from other museum collections around the world, this book examines the multifaceted history of coca bags, investigating their function and reception and the changes in their appearance. The book reveals how their history is a consequence not only of variations in Andean textile traditions, but also of the story of the sacred and contested substance they carry.

Marcos Zapata's Last Supper: A Feast of European Religion and Andean Culture

In Marcos Zapata's 1753 painting of the Last Supper in Cuzco, Peru, Christian symbolism is filtered through Andean cultural tradition. Zapata was a late member of the Cuzco School of Painting, a group comprised of few European immigrants and handfuls of mestizo and Indian artists. The painters in Cuzco learned mostly from prints of European paintings, and their style tends to blend local culture into the traditional painting of their conquistadors. Imagery was the most successful tool used by the Spaniards in their quest to Christianize the Andean population. By teaching locals to paint Christian subjects, they were able to infuse Christianity into Andean traditions. Zapata's rendering of the Last Supper utilizes this cultural blending while staying true to the Christian symbolism within the subject. Instead of the traditional lamb, Zapata's Last Supper features a platter of cuy, or guinea pig, an Andean delicacy stocked with protein as well as cultural significance. Cuy was traditionally a sacrificial animal at Inca agricultural festivals and in this way it offers poignant parallel to the lamb, as a traditional Christian sacrificial animal.

We Are Originarios …‘We Just Aren't from Here’: Coca leaf and Identity Politics in the Chapare, Bolivia

This article first examines the ways in which coca leaf acquired an important symbolic value in forging a counter-hegemonic discourse that wove together various strands of class and cultural identity struggles in the Chapare province, Bolivia. The second line of enquiry that runs through this article deals with the conflicts that arose when the coca union mutated into a governing political party. Now that the coca growers' leader, Evo Morales, is President of the Republic he is obliged by the international community to reduce the amount of land under coca cultivation. To do this President Morales has had to rhetorically pull coca leaf apart from Andean tradition. This presents a challenge to the integrity of indigenous-peasant based movements in the Chapare because it brings attention to their constructed nature and thus questions the authenticity of the originario identity.

Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco

This book makes an outstanding contribution to the music history of colonial Latin America from a perspective — urban and social — that in the Hispanic world has not received the attention it deserves. Previous versions of some chapters have been published as articles, but this volume presents for the first time an integrated vision of musical activity in Cuzco, the old capital of the Inca Empire, which had a predominantly indigenous population during the colonial period. The book, dealing mostly with the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, begins with a chapter devoted to the urban sound-scape (with particular attention to the role of bells, processions, and domestic music), followed by a chapter about the Cathedral and the Seminario de San Antonio Abad (institutions whose music began to be studied by Robert Stevenson and Samuel Claro Valdés). The remaining three chapters discuss convents and monasteries, urban parishes, and rural Indian parishes. The book’s structure has some parallels with the classic Music in Late Medieval Bruges by Reinhard Strohm (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, rev. in 1999), but Baker does not discuss the music. He states that “focusing on musical practices rather than on musical works, we are better able to demonstrate the central role of music in colonial society, and thereby to combat any temptation to relegate cultural activities to the margins of historical inquiry” (p. 9). Notwithstanding the limitations of Cuzco Cathedral’s sources and the difficulty of access to them, the author utilizes a wide variety of administrative and legal sources from archives in Cuzco (Archivo Arzobispal, Archivo Departamental), Lima (Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, Archivo Arzobispal, Archivo General de la Nación), and Seville (Archivo General de Indias).One of the most original contributions in this book is the study of the unceasing musical activity in the eight Indian parishes surrounding Cuzco Cathedral and in the doctrinas de indios or Indian rural parishes of the Cuzco diocese. Numerous confraternities established in the parishes fostered performances by indigenous musicians, whose repertory included European polyphony as well as pieces related to Andean tradition. Parish musicians usually belonged to these confraternities. Following pre-Hispanic traditions, they received part of their salary not in cash but in kind and sometimes worked for free as a form of contribution to the community. By controlling parish music, the leading Andeans could promote their own interests, maintaining their preeminent position within the colonial social hierarchy. Thus “the development of European-derived music in indigenous parishes cannot, then, be slotted into a vision of colonial power relations based on the polarities of ‘Spanish domination’ and ‘Andean resistance’. There is ample evidence that its adoption was negotiated rather than straightforwardly imposed” (p. 236).A peculiarity in Cuzco was the scarcity of cathedral prebends for musicians. For this reason the cathedral music chapel depended upon local musicians (particularly singers) trained at the Seminario de San Antonio Abad. There were some Indian cantores (singers) who worked at the Cathedral, but Baker suggests that in this case the term referred to instrumentalists. It should be pointed out, however, that musicians were not always local, and that there must have been a certain degree of mobility, as suggested by the fact that the important composer Gutierre Fernández Hidalgo (not mentioned in Baker’s book) was chapelmaster at Cuzco after having served in other Spanish and American cathedrals. According to Baker, the Spanish model, with “a dominant cathedral capilla de música surrounded by weaker, dependent institutions,” was very different from the one in Cuzco, “where many churches strove for a high degree of musical self-sufficiency and no single group dominated the city’s musical life” (p. 88). This comparison, though, is somewhat adventurous, since studies are lacking about Spanish musical institutions other than cathedrals. Particularly relevant in this book is Baker’s study of women’s participation in performances (sometimes of challenging polyphonic works) at the Cuzco convents, and the importance of Indian women for the music performed in beaterios, in contrast to the apparently lesser musical splendor of performances in male monasteries, even though the latter were open to the participation of Indian musicians and others from the Cathedral and the Seminario.In the last section of the book, “Negotiating Harmony,” Baker proposes an idea documented several times throughout the volume: “To a large extent, it was indigenous elites who enabled the propagation of European music in the hemisphere” (p. 248). Since this is such an important statement, perhaps Negotiating Harmony (instead of Imposing Harmony) would have been another appropriate title for this most attractive book. Baker’s agile prose presents a vivid narrative of interest to both musicologists and historians, placing Cuzco on the map of Spanish and Latin American music history during the Modern Age.

The Procession that Travels Inside: Yuyachkani's "Santiago"

In collaborative theater projects like Yuyachkani, it is hard to define the exact moment when a new project begins. Generally we have a very imprecise idea as our initial point of departure and we explore it more fully in the day-to-day work, where it changes a great deal. is a project that began as a processional performance piece in the public plazas before premiering as a theatrical work in its current form, as a largely Quechua-language play focusing on permutations of faith in an almost uninhabited Andean village. The final project arrived as a result of this complex process of research and exploration. has a very long road to its current form, always with the indispensable accompaniment of the writer Peter Elmore, the co-author of the play. This article is available in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol32/iss2/5 The Procession That Travels Inside: Yuyachkani’s “Santiago” Miguel Rubio Zapata Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani “the war is over, but when will peace arrive?”1 The last three inhabitants of an almost empty town one night are locked into a church where Santiago, the town’s patron saint, is venerated. Political violence and illness explain the recent abandonment of the town and the church, located somewhere in the Andes mountains. There are three characters inside the church: Bernardina has lost her twin sons during the time of violence and has promised to take the saint out in procession. She looks for retribution, by way of a miracle from Apostle Santiago, that will make her children reappear. Armando, a businessman and self-proclaimed MC of the festival, wants the saint to process so that life might return to town, and he can continue with his business. Rufino, the church custodian, who inherited the job from his father, does not really care if the procession takes place or not, a reason that the others are suspicious of him. Bernardina thinks that the church is closed because it was hit by lightning; for that reason she feels that everything there remains as if carved in stone. An ancient belief names children born during storms as “Children of Lighting.” Thus, they are destined to become priests in the Andean tradition, and when they are born twins, one of them is dedicated to the service of the God of thunder and storm. She observes the custodian distrustfully and is almost certain that 1 Zapata: The Procession that Travels Inside: Yuyachkani's Santiago Published by New Prairie Press 308 STT that statue has mysteriously and permanently disappeared.

Peruvian Street Lives: Culture, Power, and Economy among Market Women of Cuzco (review)

Linda J. Seligmann, Peruvian Street Lives: Culture, Power, and Economy among Market Women of Cuzco. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004, 249 pp. In Los Rios Profundos (Deep Rivers) (1956), Peruvian writer and ethnographer Jose Maria Arguedas provides a vivid portrait of Peruvian history and culture drawing primarily on Andean lives and customs. In the novel, Arguedas describes markets and the strong character of Andean market women. Market women appear defiant, resolute, yet ambiguous-their lives, as that of the main character of the novel, struggle between their Andean traditions and modern Peru, blurring sociopolitical and geographical boundaries, and in the case of women, trespassing gender and racial categories. Why do markets and market women fascinate academics? In Peruvian Street Lives, Linda Seligmann analyzes the politics of market women and the complexities of Peru's economy. Building on Florence Babb's [(1989)1998] study of women vendors, the author discusses the cultural, political, and economic dimensions of the lives of Cuzqueno market women; specifically, how meanings and practices are performed under uneven development conditions. We should situate Seligmann's research as part of a number of studies about Andean markets as places or terrains where contested identities are negotiated, issues of race, gender and social discrimination are at stake, and power relations are performed (among others see, Babb 1989; De la Cadena 2000; Larson, Harris, and Tandeter 1995; Weismantel 2001). Seligmann's main contribution is to look at the market from a socio-cultural perspective. She describes the market as a in flux, yet it has its comforting rhythms (vii). This is a book about social relations or what the author describes as spatial relations; the chapters of the book provide the rhythm, and the voices of these women (their laughs, gossips, and bad-moods) provide the noise which is an important aspect of markets. The chapters are organized as vignettes that speak of the market, exchange relations, gender ideologies; the world of wholesalers, loans, and credit arrangements, issues of race, religiosity, and political activism. Three main strategies of research link these vignettes into a narrative. First, this is an analysis of how the market is constructed as a locale (space, place) where different interactions take place, or as a nodal point for the convergence of uneven and complex relationships. Social relations and political activism are understood in terms of the conquest of a space (within the market and, therefore, as citizenship rights that are claimed) but also as the disruption of the existing organization (202-205). second, although the author also interviews men, market women are the primary subjects of this story. Their names and life histories show the hardship of their daily struggles for surviving in a hostile environment. Third, it is these women's voices and the author's voice that make this book a dialogue with its spaces of disjuncture, conflict, and points of convergence (13-17). This ethnography is rich in detail and shows the author's ability to collaborate with research subjects. Linda Seligmann has done extensive fieldwork in the department of Cuzco, Peru since the 1970s. Her book Between Reform and Revolution: Political Struggles in the Peruvian Andes, 1969-1991 (1995), describes the politics of the Peruvian Agrarian Reform carried out during the military regime of Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975) and is based on fieldwork in the Sucuani region. And, Peruvian Street Lives is based upon multi-sited fieldwork in Cuzquerfo markets (mainly urban markets) during the late 1990s: a decade characterized by political violence, authoritarianism, military repression, and in seeking to strengthen the state's presence in the provinces, the implementation of austerity measures and Neoliberal laws. Few anthropologists have analyzed the implementation and consequences of these Neoliberal policies in South America; in Ecuador, however, Colloredo-Mansfeld (2001) has studied how Neoliberalism affected the production and commercialization of Otavalo's handicrafts. …

Aguinaldo para las señoras del Perú y otros ensayos, 1854–1869

Francisco Laso (1823–69) is familiar to Latin American art historians as the painter of El Indo Alfarero/The Indian Potter, ca. 1855, and a few other remarkable images of the indigenous people of Peru. Often described as the isolated forerunner of twentieth-century indigenismo, Laso was an enlightened artist whose work was closely associated with the politics of his day. He invested his figures with a powerful dignity in an effort to reclaim the nation’s heritage and revive its ancient cultural and artistic traditions. Peru’s subsequent indigenista movement concentrated on the living traditions and environment of the Andes, not on the past. Laso’s imagery reveals an empathy and respect for the native people, past and present.After the wars of independence, a few Peruvian artists (like others throughout Latin America) attempted to create a national identity free of European restraints. Following the lead of the nation’s intellectuals and the vagaries of new political administrations, artists used imagery to visualize this new reality and assist in the dissemination of the independence message among the population. However, it was a difficult break from the Academic traditions brought by Europeans and learned in European schools and studios. Francisco Laso began his studies in Lima, then traveled to Europe in 1842 to paint in the studio of Charles Gleyre in Paris. Upon his return to Peru in 1847, he began a search for native subject matter (Europeans were already interested in “exotic” subjects). He actually painted his notable El Indio Alfarero in Paris. After a third trip to Paris in 1863–66, he returned to Lima and became an active participant in Peruvian politics, representing Lima in the Constitutional Assembly and devoting himself to writing. Increased involvement with the intellectuals of the day affected his artistic production, although he is still respected as a painter and the premier artist of the republican period and less recognized for his writing.Editor Natalia Majluf is an art historian whose doctoral thesis was titled “The Creation of the Image of the Indian in Nineteenth Century Peru: The Paintings of Francisco Laso.” Undoubtedly, this research required an understanding of his political writings and the intellectual environment of Peru at that time; her publication of these essays may be seen as a tribute to his work and an effort to reclaim the significance of his activities for the nation’s history. Her comprehensive introduction is an excellent summary of his life’s work and puts it into a context of time and place. The introduction describes Laso as writer and political activist, explaining his role in a generation born with independence and given the responsibility to break with the colonial past and establish a new national iconography and symbolic language, both visual and written. As an accomplished and dedicated artist and writer, Laso could do both. The question Majluf wishes to address is, why have his contributions been overlooked?The most immediate response must be that, despite their relevance to an understanding of Peruvian nation building in midcentury, Laso published relatively few essays. Their publication in newspapers, reviews, and journals—often difficult to access—compounds the problem. This publication will change that situation for Peruvianist historians, offering new material relevant to the analysis of the country’s ideological, sociocultural, and political environment. Laso and his generation wanted to transform the entire populace of Peru (including Indians) into informed citizens. Their participation as writers and members of the new governing administration contributed to this effort. However, who was Laso’s audience? Did his words and actions penetrate the entrenched class system and offer new solutions?The essays are written with the energy of nineteenth-century idealism, which has familiar correlations to bohemian counterparts in revolutionary France. There are elements that may seem condescending in its preaching against European artistic domination, and Laso is also less indebted to the Indian artistic heritage (“almost primitive”) than we may hope for today. But it was the middle of the nineteenth century, and the true value of past Andean traditions—pre-Inca, Inca, and colonial—was not yet recognized. The essays must be read in context. They can also be appreciated as the product of an artist who references the language of painting for visual metaphors that are especially unique. I must disagree with Majluf’s comment that a direct correspondence does not exist between Laso’s paintings and writings (p. 17). Although his creative production as a painter diminished after 1860, he continued to write with the passion of an artist, as well as writing about art. These essays establish Laso as a valuable member of the intelligentsia of his day, both as an artist and a writer.

Globalization and the reinvention of Andean tradition: The politics of community and ethnicity in highland Bolivia

(2002). Globalization and the reinvention of Andean tradition: The politics of community and ethnicity in highland Bolivia. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 29, No. 3-4, pp. 228-269.

The Moral Economy of Water: Equity and Antiquity in the Andean Commons

This article focuses on irrigation and water use in a community in the Peruvian Andes, one of numerous villages in the region where these activities are carried out in an unusual way. The practices and principles that make up this tradition, defining the rights and duties of community members in making use of the resource most vital for life, are identified and evaluated based on comparative ethnographic research. It is argued that they provide a highly effective way of managing a scarce and fluctuating resource that is held in common, an older Andean tradition that may have been adopted by the Incas and endorsed as an official policy—all of which might help to account for its wide distribution in the region today. In this particular case, the principles help to create an extraordinary kind of community, a transparent and equitable one in which a basic material symmetry or proportionality is expressed at many levels. This symmetry is closely related to other basic commonalities among community members, but of particular interest are its effects on social solidarity and cooperation and its association with a strong sense of ethnic identity. The implications of this tradition for solving contemporary problems in water management are also briefly discussed, [sociocultural anthropology, irrigation, Andes, common‐property]

Dead Giveaways: Indigenous Testaments of Colonial Mesoamerica and the Andes

Dead Giveaways: Indigenous Testaments of Colonial Mesoamerica and the Andes

Le paradis dans le nouveau monde ? Un messianisme andin d'aujourd'hui

Is Peru a privileged land according to Ezequiel Ataucusi' s folio wers assertations ? Are the Incas going to leave their hiding place in order to ensure the persecuted prophet's triumph ? After giving a brief description of the latter we will present the most marking features of a « new religion » based upon both the Andean tradition and a radical interprétation of the Bible. Furthermore, the surprising fact is the social and political dimension of a movement which does not hesitate to présent candidates for presidency and for Parliament. It may well be said that for the time being this people is sailing with wind and tide !