Author: morgan cooper

(This is gonna be a bilingual post !)

We’ve talked a lot about indigeneity and how we make/unmake it, but we haven’t talked much about the gray area that exists between those two extremes of indigenous and “not”. According to the RAE, “mestizo” means “Born of a father and mother of different race, especially of white man and Indian, or of Indian and white woman” and/or “Coming from the mixture of different cultures”. It differs from a Creole who is of European heritage on both sides, and born in colonial territory. But, as we’ve been uncovering in our course, the indigenous and thus mestizo identity is more complex than the content of blood. Although the meaning of the word mestizo has changed over the years, it has always been a “socially and historically constructed identity” (Martinez-Echazabal). In Comentarios Reales, It is not so clear what relationship El Inca has with his cultural heritage as a mestizo.

Desde el Proemio, hay una ambigüedad sobre sus intenciones, él dice que escribió C.R “forzado del amor natural de la patria” (Voces Proemio.8), pero ¿Cuál es su patria? ¿Patria peruana? ¿Patria Inca? Al inicio, parece que identifica con un indigenismo pre-colonial, “Yo nací ocho años después que los españoles ganaron mi tierra” (Voces 1.XIX.19-20) pero el uso mezclado del “Su” y “Nuestro” en referencia a los Inca crea un conflicto entre su origen y su identidad.

Por un lado, Garcilaso identifica con la herencia Incaica “…sabiendo que un indio, hijo de su tierra (Voces 1.XIX.29-30) y parece que se considera culturalmente incaica “con lo cuales me crié y comunique hasta los veinte años” (Voces 1.XIX.5-6). Especialmente, Garcilaso aprovecha de sus relaciones indígenas para justificar su escritura, “…para que se vea que no finjo ficciones en favor de mis parientes [los Inca]” (Voces 1.XIX.51-52). Aún más, hay un esfuerzo de poner distancia a su herencia europea como “allá los españoles” (Voces 1.XV.25). Parece que no considera a los españoles como parientes cercanos.

Pero en contraste, él también emplea el “Su” para distanciarse de los sellos culturales incaicos, “Me contaban sus historias… larga noticia de sus leyes…como procedían sus reyes… trataban a sus vasallos… su idolatría… sus ritos…sus fiestas… sus abusos… sus agüeros…sus sacrificios…su república” (Voces 1.XIX.8-15). El uso repetitivo del “su” parece contrario a la previa insistencia de su raíces y relaciones como los indígenas incas.

Para ponerlo más complejo, a veces Garcilaso usa los artículos de manera mezclada. En el capítulo XV, el uso del “Su” (vuestro) y el “nosotros” (nuestro) está muy presente. En el mismo pensamiento, aparece el uso de los dos sujetos,

“Inca, tío, pues no hay escritura entre vosotros, que es la guarda la memoria de las cosas pasadas, ¿Qué noticias tenéis del origen y principios de nuestros reyes?” (Voces 1.XV.23-24)

“Empero vosotros que carecéis de ellos, ¿Qué memorias tenéis de vuestras antiguallas? ¿Quién fue el primero de vuestros Incas?… ¿Qué origen tuvieron nuestras hazañas? (ibid. 28-31)

From this discontinuity, Inca Garcilaso shows the complexity of mestizaje identity. The conflict of biraciality means that mestizaje does not fit into any pre-established group. The creation of a “Nuevo nosotros” is fundamental to mestizo identity, His identity as a mestizo is composite of his indigenous heritage, and also his Creole environment. The two cannot be separated without destroying the novel identity and trying to celebrate one while ignoring the other is contrary to their physical existence. Most people we meet and interact with will have some mix of pre-Hispanic and European ancestry. Peruvian culture as we know it now is a mix of pre-Hispanic and European/Western culture.

Does the centering of mestizaje constitute a Making or an unmaking of indigineity in the way which we have been studying it?

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Quotes and analysis adapted from “El desarrollo del mestizaje en Perú por El Inca y José María Arguedas”, Morgan Cooper 2023.

Voces de Hispanoamérica: antología literaria. Eds. Malva E. Filer y Raquel Chang-Rodríguez. 5ª ed. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2017. 66-67.

Martinez-Echazabal, Lourdes. “Mestizaje and the Discourse of National/Cultural Identity in Latin America, 1845-1959.” Latin American Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 3, 1998, pp. 21–42. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2634165.

The conversation we had on Monday about how to define indigeneity brought up many interesting points of view and ways to approach the definition itself or reasons we should back away from applying it at all. One theme that stuck out to me in the discussion and in the reading of “Primer nueva crónica y buen gobierno” was the idea of Sameness and Otherness.

A few people made the argument that using the term indigenous was an imposed colonial (or post-colonial) way of creating an “other”, anything that isn’t part of the colonial regime could be grouped under “indigenous”. A way to categorize an entire pre-existing society of people into a singular, culturally defined box. Some people also proposed that “indigenous” is a term used from within to identify a sameness. A way to gather various voices together and identify under a shared experience which binds otherwise disparate together in a specific way.

In the reading, Guaman Poma also seems to use Otherness and Sameness as a means to an end. It seems to us, Pomas’ objective was most likely to advocate for the improved treatment of the indigenous (Incan) peoples under colonial rule by appealing to the theistic soft-spot of the King. He accomplishes this by Othering the Spanish soldiers from the wishes of the King himself and highlighting the Sameness that the indigenous people have to the Spanish subjectives.

Poma goes about Othering by highlighting the conquistadors’ fall into temptation –  Greed. Using a religiously-backed appeal, he implies that the Spanish conquistadores must be Other to the righteous king himself and therefore not loyal to the wishes or mission of the Spanish.

The implication of sameness can be seen illustrated by the similarities in the drawings of “Adam and Eve” and “The First Generations of Indians Wari Wiracocha Runa” (Poma, 14 and 28).

Both images depict the first people of the respective cultures. Represented is man and woman, working together to sow the land and create life for the continuation of the population. Poma emphasizes the continuous blood lines, which were of importance in Spain, running from Adam/Eve through to Noah and down into the Wari people of now-called Peru, “these were the ones who

left Noah’s ark following the flood, and who multiplied, by God’s command, and filled the world (25). Poma engenders Sameness between the Spanish and the indigenous not just at the level of culture but of shared genetic ancestry, shared Biblical ancestry. He also makes efforts to highlight the religious and non-idolatrous practices of the pre-Incan cultures to emphasize that there is a true “Christian spirit” within them. He even goes as far to say, Christian readers, about these new people! Learn from them how to show faith and service for God, the Most Holy Trinity (27).

I think there’s merit in seeing “indigentity” as a term effective in both capacities but what’s inarguable to me is that the concept itself seems to have been used for a long time as a bargaining chip to get something out of someone.

• What position do you take on the effect of the term “indigenous”?
• Is identification with a specific term in order to accomplish a goal (whether from the inside or out) an inherently flawed use of an identity? Or is it the purpose of identifying a group to begin with?

What a whirlwind Cusco has been. Everything here in the plaza seems to revolve around spectacle through the senses. During our time in Cusco, I feel all 5 of my senses have been continuously engaged (read: overstimulated) almost all of the time.

Sight: We have seen a lot. The Corpus Christi festival, the churches, the Incan architecture, the art, the mountains, the flags, the costumes, the sunsets over white Christ, the strobe lights of Calle Los Plateros. The colors are brilliant and the sun shines down over everything, lighting up the white walls and reflecting off cars and the Golden Incan in the middle of Plaza Mayor. Peruvian women wear brightly colored outfits, wandering around with baby llamas, lambs and goats trying to get a tourist to buy a photo with them. The city’s flag looks 99% like the Pride Flag, not sure if anyone has told the other about that yet? Viva El Peru is emblazoned on a foothill to the east, I can see it directly out my window. I could also see it directly from the bell tower of the now-destroyed Quorikana. Things are no longer covered in gold (Thanks Spaniards circa Sixteenth century), but the golden rays of sun coat everything in a golden hue twice a day. The sunset from saqsayhuaman felt like Monet had painted the sky himself. Perhaps Inti had something to do with it.

Sound: From our well positioned room in Hotel plaza de Armas we are serenaded just about all day with a combination of different marching band tunes, traffic noise including the infamous police whistle in the morning and evening, cars idling away while people chat and amble by, the yells of street vendors pedaling their wares (umbrellas, stools, inflatable hammers, sugar cane, sweaters and mini llamas to name a few frequent ones). On the streets you hear Spanish and English, but I’ve also heard Quechua, German, Dutch, and a smattering of more I didn’t recognize. The themes that the Corpus Christi marching bands played were religious and unknown to me at some points, but often they played American favorites such as the Universal Group opening tune. Odd to carry your patron saint in too but alas.

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Taste: I would be lying to say I’ve had a bad meal in Cusco and I would be remiss to underscore just how incredible the food has been no matter where you eat. We have had a few excellent meals at establishments clearly catering to the tourist flocks, obvious when they immediately hand you an English menu. I’ve also had lunches at the local markets where there barely is a menu. I’ve hand Anticuchos from a street cart and a 7sole fresh pressed juice just about everyday. I can still feel the part of my tongue that was dissolved from the fresh pineapple juice in yesterday’s post-lunch juice stop. Many many pisco sours and a few strong homemade Chilcanos have been enjoyed and then enjoyed even more 10 minutes later. Cusquenos taste better on the terrace wrapped in a blanket watching the sunset. I didn’t like Cherimoya but I try to have Maracuya whenever possible.

Smell: walking through the streets of Cusco, you are assailed by various welcomed and unwelcome smells. Around lunch and dinner time (especially when I’m really hungry…) the whiffs of roasting meats, fats, salt and fresh breads is heavenly. The smells of the plaza mayor the morning after Corpus Christi were more urine-heavy. The great equalizer in a country where it seems impossible to find a free washroom. Along CuyCuy lane, roasted guinea pigs filled the air. About a street over, the garbage truck emptied out the porta pottys. Not as appetizing to say the least.

Touch: The Inca stone is incredibly smooth and you can run your finger along the perfectly matched seams. The rocks are cool to the touch and you can somehow sense just how big they are. The multitudes of available alpaca products range in softness but they are somehow always softer and more delightful than you thought it would. The mini Llamas feel like little clouds. The streets are uneven under your feet, little rocks placed upright instead of flat (why? For traction?) dig into your feet walking around the cobbled streets. The colonial walls are just as uneven but on the vertical plane, why were the Spanish so bad at building when the Inca were so good?

While watching the festivities today from the bar balcony, I observed the celebration of many catholic saints and figures such as San Cristobal and The Virgen, but one stuck out to me in particular. Upon a raised platform, carried by probably 20 or 30 young men, the large rearing up figure of a horse and rider meandered around the chaotic square. Jon told me this figure represented Santiago Mataindios. Santiago Mataindios is a patron saint that represents the murder of indigenous people in the pursuit of evangelization of the Pre-Hispanic populus. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Were hundreds, thousands, of people here to venerate an idol of murder against the indigenous people, in the name of Catholicism? It made me wonder, just how much of a strong hold does Catholicism have on modern-day Cusco and in the context of Corpus Christi, how is indigeneity treated.

Stockholm syndrome is defined as a “coping mechanism to a captive or abusive situation where people develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time (Cleveland Clinic). The parallels seemed undeniable as I watched the mass of bodies engulfed in ritual, one that celebrated the motivational force behind the death, ruin, and destruction for many of their ancestors.

Inka Bodies reinforces that Corpus Christi is a celebration of triumph, triumph of Christianity and of Conquest. The symbols and rituals nested within the festival celebrate the “victory of the Roman Catholic Church over heretics”. Elements such as the litter, the cart, the arch, and the visual and performative aspects of the festival are meant to symbolize the triumph of the Christian God over the Inkaic Sun. The text proposes that the inclusion of indigenous dance, dress, and custom was of no concern to the Spanish as to them it was either “entertaining” or an expression of joy which was read as compliance. Fast forwarding to the modern day festival, the expressions of indigeneity remain woven into the festival for the purpose of spectacle. But behind the spectacle, is syncretism evidence of indigenous permanence or is the willingness to participate in the Corpus evidence of indelible mark Catholicism has left on Peru? Furthermore, Dean refers to Cuzco as “A museum of the Inka, a place where the past was warehoused and brought out for occasional display” (25). The tension between the celebration of the indigenous in an authentic way with the celebration of the modern day Peru was squarely on display today.

Do the celebrations of Corpus Christi and the culture of Catholicism in modern-day Latin America constitute a form of Stockholm syndrome?

Does the spectatorship we are participating in contribute to the celebration of indigeneity or the celebration of the subjugation of the indigenous to evangelization?

Creation myth is a recurring element of indigenous cultures around the world. While we of course can’t possibly have a record of all the versions created by different populations in history, the stories we manage to preserve into today have striking similarities in their motivations, contents, and style.

A through line in creation myths is of course, Creation. Indigenous cultures structured the reasoning for the existence of landforms, animals, and humans around divine interventions. Long before science (in the way we know it now) indigenous cultures celebrated nature and creation in district ways which hopefully we will get to appreciate the remnants of in our course.

The Huarochiri Manuscript is described as “a unique seventeenth-century collection of indigenous and colonial mythology”. In it, a woman “Huaca” is impregnated via a fruit and the existence of animals as well as their public perceptions are explained. This manuscript was sponsored by priest Francisco de Avila to prove the “Indians” were idolators, whose religion he eventually made all efforts possible to erase.

The parallels to both the Bible and the Popol Vuh were interesting to me. As mentioned above, there is of course the virgin birth story and the portrayal of the “mother” as a pristine madonna figure. Virginity is celebrated which is surely indicative of the priests influence on the text. Similar influence can be noted in the Maya K’iche’ creation text Popol Vuh. Although the stories existed orally for many years before being recorded by Francisco Ximenez, it’s not possible to know what was Cristian influence and what was representative of indigenous theology. Yet again, an issue of representation. In “making” indigeneity as these 2 friars claimed to be doing, there is an effective unmaking through the intentional or unintentional translation bias.

The Popol Vuh doesn’t focus on virgin birth, instead telling of how the gods made man first from mud, then from wood, and finally (and successfully) from corn so that he could work and importantly, worship (read: idolatry). The environment, the plants and animals are all explained by divine creation. women do come up though as the gods give the first humans wives to make them content. For me this screams Cristian influence. In the Bible, Eve was made from the rib of Adam to populate the earth and please him. Lastly, a great flood is used by the gods to wipe out their imperfect creations in the Popol, a scene which is ever so familiar to Bible caracters.

The intertwining of these 3 stories as well as the obvious influence of translator bias made me think more about how any text can be considered as a “true” or “primary” source for the study of indigenous cultures. Is it even possible to get to the unbiased and non-christianized version? Who can we really trust and which representations are “good enough”?

The last 4 days in Lima have been an introduction to the modern city of “Lima” and exposure to the evidence of cultures of previous versions of “Lima”. Today I visited Huaca Pucllana which was a temple pyramid dedicated to Lima goddess of the ocean. The Lima occupied this area and constructed this temple complex some 1500 years ago. They would then be conquered by the Wari, the Inca, and of course the Inca would fall to the Spanish in the 1500s. The guide took us around to the different archaeological sites under investigation and gave the group some basic background on the materials, processes, and cultural significance of the site. A good half of our tour group seemed to be only really concerned with getting a great picture of themselves at various different points, and were paying very little attention to the explanation of what they wanted their selfie with. The guide explained to us who were listening that the Lima believed that the ocean was controlled by a goddess and that each night the sea gobbles up the sun. For this reason, the temple venerated a female figure. The contrast of the divine feminine stood out to me as a large man, once again, pushed directly in front of me to take a photo of himself with the adobe bricks. The view from the top was well grey. I imagine on a clear day, the vista out to the ocean and the Andean foothills at your back would’ve felt quite magical and given inspiration to keep building a temple complex year and year again.

Duality is a theme that keeps coming up in Peru. We observed it at Museo Larco in the art and stories of the Moche and Chimu. Highlighted there was the dark/light, dry/wet, day/night, male/female to name a few. Each civilization represented and perhaps perceived these dualities in their own way but the motif repeated over and over, through time and even with social upheaval. Duality is undeniable.

Directly after visiting Huaca Pucllana, I walked into Miraflores and along the malecón. The sea stretched out to my right and on my left raced by cars, buses, combis and the like. Peruvians and their families played in the park while tourists took photos of the same view we all have a photo of. People were there living their normal life, doing the things they feel make the day worth living and although I wasn’t strolling through a modern cathedral, I think people were there participating in the rituals they believe make the next day worth seeing. I wondered to myself, isn’t coming from half a world away to sit and watch the sunset at the Mirador with your lover kinda a pilgrimage in its own right. When the modern day “gods” are the perfect instagram moment, is taking a photo of your partner at every corner an offering in and of itself?

It’s easy for us now to look back on the ancient civilizations and scoff at the lack of understanding or their “pagan” beliefs. But I can’t think of anything more in tune with the real human experience than believing that the ocean is a women and she does indeed swallow up the sun whole every night. And isn’t it more fun to believe that anyway?

Well here we are, in Peru!

Melville had his finger on something, Lima is gray. Flying-in over the northern part of the city, you can understand where the inspiration of “frantic seas” and “tossed pack of cards” come from. One being such a natural, un-changeable description while the other being the result of the imposed colonization of the area. An imposed ‘ordering’. Although no one would say 52 pick-up constituted an orderly game. So what then was the point of all the Spanish hub-bub around the creation of an impossible dream.

Galvez provides an insight to the colonial ideology within the city-centered context. The success of the economy and the value of hard work and dedication (Protestant ideology surely) is emphasized primarily as Limas reason for success as a “city”. Further examples are given such as the increase of cricket games and “noble emulations”. Additionally, the subscription to the European model of work increased and the social currency of employee-ship gained momentum. Lima approached European society administratively, and thus culturally as well. Its noted that “Limas village spirit disappeared” which I think provides an interesting contrast to what we learned at LUM today.

There was a repeated discourse about the need for residents of the highlands to move to Lima as refugees during the time of conflict in Peru. This immigration into “barrios nuevos” is neither ordered nor at the wishes of the “letrado” population, from what we have learned so far. I think it shows the fragility of the idea of planning an ordered city. How can one account for sociopolitical upheavals much less natural disasters such as earthquakes etc. Furthermore, the límenos were able to ignore the majority of the violence during these years by being in a “safe” city but in reality, the leader of the movement was living among them the whole time. What a privilege to not have to fight the battle on your home field. What a privilege to feel entitled to your space in a city in which you were a refugee (in some way or another) while being able to turn a blind eye to the “non-civilized” part of the country.

I look forward to learning more about the complex factors at play and getting multiple viewpoints in the coming weeks. Feel free to answer one of the proposed questions above or add on your thoughts about the duality of city and country life, in their context of Peru during a time of conflict.

Hi all!

I am looking forward to meeting up with you all in just a few days now as we begin our journey in Peru. I am a (now graduated) Spanish student with specific interest in Latin American art and culture. I grew up in the US originally, but now live full time in Vancouver and enjoy the fruits of the Canadian life. In my spare time I enjoy outdoor activities, cooking, and listening to music. Although I don’t play an instrument currently, I would love to learn one day. The last month or so I have been traveling around Mexico through Monterrey, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Mexico City. Each place has been so different!

In terms of the course, I am looking forward to getting a more in depth experience with the culture alongside the readings of the texts. I think immersion in the country and exposure to its cultural landmarks will give the readings and assignments more tangibility. I also hope to practice my Spanish both out in the world and maybe in the readings.

I hope we can make a good little group and have lots of fun along the way as we learn about this intriguing country and culture with Jon.

See you soon!