My questions about what materials the Spanish would have used to construct their buildings has been answered (at least in Cusco). I’m deeply saddened. I think the grandeur of the Catedral del Cuzco would not even have come close to the grandeur of Saqsaywaman.
When we visited Qorikancha, the tour guide told us the walls of the temple had been painted over with plaster, and holes had been made for the hanging of colonial paintings. But all that was shaken off in an earthquake (I can’t recall which one). In the aftermath of earthquakes, the Spanish buildings would lie in ruins on the ground, while the Inca walls would remain standing. I felt grimly satisfied. Perhaps this is Pachamama’s revenge. Pachamama feels the damage inflicted by the colonizers firsthand and decides to act on behalf of her children. Pachamama said NO to plasters and paintings, and YES to potatoes.
I was also deeply saddened to learn the Avenue El Sol is built on top of a large river. The river still runs beneath the road and, according to the tour guide, should become visible again further down. I have yet to confirm this for myself, but it’s in my plans for the next few days. I wish I got the name of the river.
Arguedas writes about the lines and stones of the Inca walls as rivers:
“The wall was stationary, but all its lines were seething and its surface was as changeable as that of the flooding summer rivers which have similar crests near the center, where the current flows the swiftest and is the most terrifying.”
At Saqsaywaman, the tour guide told us about the drainage systems built into the walls. I wonder if they’re still operational to some degree, even with most of the stones robbed. The walls would have literally become rivers during the six months of rain. I wonder if this runoff, and the runoff from the agricultural terraces, would have fed the river below the Avenue El Sol.
So I think about what it means for colonial forces to steal the stones take away the river. In a way, they’re robbing Cusco of the same thing. I think about the painting over of the stones and the paving over of the river. Is this meant to cover what was here before; to make invisible the forces that shaped the land before the Spanish arrived? The colonizers are rewriting the narrative through reshaping the land.
I believe the colonization of the people is intimately intertwined with the colonization of the land. On our walk up to Saqsaywaman yesterday, I observed the sheer number of eucalyptus trees growing on the slopes of the mountains. And it was pretty much only eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus has long since taken up the space previously occupied by various native Andean species, in the same way that archbishops took up the space previously occupied by Inca Roca.
2 replies on “big rocks, also rivers, and a bit of tree”
It’s so interesting to think about all the changes that the Inca walls have seen or been through… plaster, earthquakes, destruction, heavy rain… and yet the foundations still stand despite it all. It’s kind of like ‘if a penny could talk’ kind of situation, what could the Inca stones tell us? The walls and living stones have seen so much.
“In the aftermath of earthquakes, the Spanish buildings would lie in ruins on the ground, while the Inca walls would remain standing.” It is interesting how we can make a “topographical” reading of indigeneity. For example, when you remind us how the introduction of species into Andean territories modifies the landscape, or even more so, the channeling of the river that ran alongside the Qorikancha transforms the environment. However, the latter is a project of contemporary Peru. This also makes us think about the way in which the Peruvian nation covers or uncovers indigeneity.