Second Sunday reflection; bodies in Cusco’s Corpus Christi

Throughout our week spent experiencing Cusco’s iteration of Corpus Christi, I have been trying to see how the Catholic celebration attempts (or doesn’t attempt) to reflect Peru’s deeply entrenched ‘hybridism’ (syncretism? I keep changing my lingo) that we have read so much about. Dean’s book focuses especially on ‘Cusco’s Corpus Christi’ as unique, so I had high but tempered expectations. As I observed, I was frankly not all surprised – which was, dare I say, surprising in and of itself – by how the celebration represented Andean indigeneity. Corpus Christi employed the classic colonial tactic of making bodies invisible, one that we have observed constantly in the Canadian nation-state’s historical and contemporary treatment of indigeneity within its arbitrary borders. A major example of this was the lack of pronounced indigeneity in the enormous crowd. Of course, this brings into question what indigeneity even looks like, which is a generalization I do not wish to invoke. Rather, I am noting the lack of emphasis, of pronunciation, that caught my eye. The absence of bodily representations, such as garb or dance, was striking. Furthermore, there was the infamous moment when the guy delivering the mass (before the virgins and whatnot were paraded about) emphasized the deep Catholicism of Cusco’s Corpus Christi, albeit with “an Andean face”, which was clearly an attempt to liken it to more ‘pure’ forms of Corpus Christi, like the one in Spain. If it wasn’t obvious, the Catholic Church does not want to acknowledge the hybridity of Peru. However, what I find so beautifully ironic about these shitty colonial attempts at erasure is that they don’t work at all. I will say that if I wasn’t searching for indigeneity, or rather being conscious of its lurking presence (thanks LAST 315!), I may not have noticed it at all. The native Andean potatoes placed at the feet of the virgins, for example, or a face with markedly indigenous garb jutting out of the beams that supported one of the virgin floats. Or, perhaps, the chicha morada being guzzled by some dude as he egged on his buddies who bent underneath the weight of a priest float (correct me if it wasn’t a priest, I don’t know my Catholicism). More important than the ironically visible, though, is the invisible indigeneity that teased my nostrils, taste buds, and fingertips. When I searched beyond the sharpness of Catholic sound or my keenness at the sight of a virgin fight, I was struck by the strong presence of Andean indigeneity. The smell of roasted guinea pigs that I failed to try; the taste of chicha morada in my mouth and its fragrance on the breath of others; the re-purposed Inca stones that people brushed against, bounced off, and leaned against as they wrestled the virgins through the square. Indigeneity was, in fact, everywhere.