Author: zyasmin

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Readings

Garcilaso and Names

A few days ago, during one of our classes in Cusco, I asked Jon whether there was some sort of resistance between the Indigenous peoples of this region to call themselves “Peruvian.” After all, the word “Peru” and the concept of a “Peruvian” as a whole only came about with the creation of states that colonization caused. It pleased me to see that Garcilaso de la Vega talked about the term “Peru” amongst many of the topics he discusses.

In his text, Garcilaso confirms what I believed to be true in the first place about the term “Peru.” He says that the Indigenous “do not use [the term Peru] because they had no generic name in their language to cover collectively the kingdoms and provinces that their native kings ruled over, such as Spain, Italy, or France, which include many provinces.” Garcilaso suggests that, since there is no significance in the grouping of a specific set of regions to the Indigenous, a word for that grouping does not need to exist in the first place. The fact that this word isn’t used by the Indigenous, therefore, can be considered an act of resistance. It is an act of resistance against the fact that the concept of the country of Peru needs to exist at all.

As Garcilaso describes, the term “Peru” is a misspelling and/or misidentification of another two words. Therefore, for a person who speaks the language of “Beru” and “Pelu,” to say the word ‘Peru” may mean to give in to those who lack knowledge on the subject. It may also mean to be overpowered or overruled as to what something means. For this to occur would be very unfortunate; particularly when an initial explanation for those meanings exists from long ago.

Just in general, it seems as if I have learned a little more about naming conventions since we got to Peru, and especially through this book in our time in Cusco and Pisac. My questions are: who should get to determine the name of a region? Does this answer change depending on whether a significant group that inhabits a region doesn’t recognize it? Similarly, what should make a group of places “significant” enough so that they receive a name that groups them together?

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Readings

Should Guaman Poma Get to Speak?

Earlier today, in an effort to better understand Guaman Poma and his The First New Chronicle and Good Government, I decided to read a little bit of the text’s introduction. Upon getting further acquainted with Poma’s status as a noble, as well as his ability to speak multiple languages, I was reminded of something we had earlier discussed in class. Namely, that the concept of Indigenous writing kind of contradicted the idea of being Indigenous in the first place. This was the case because systems of writing were brought on by colonizers. It got me thinking of whether Poma, who had the ability to read, write, and speak Spanish, was the ideal person to represent all Indigenous people to the Spanish king. Although he undoubtedly meant well, his privileged societal position ensured that, perhaps, his experience was not the same as that of most Indigenous people. I always seem to be coming back to the question of the “real,” and now I’m wondering if one must be part of the “average” of a group in order to be considered a “real” member of the group at all.

Although I don’t remember all of the details, I remember another book I once read that dealt with a similar question. In Primo Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved, Levi notes that he is not the one who is more apt to tell of what happened in the Holocaust, because he survived. If he survived, that means that he automatically didn’t have the worst of it and could not possibly know how to tell of what happened accurately. Poma not only had a decent grasp of Spanish and writing, unlike other Indigenous people; he was also a Christian. His Christianity likely not only impacted his own ideas of right and wrong, but also made it so that he would be viewed more equitably by Spaniards in Peru as a whole. If Poma’s overall treatment under the Spaniards wasn’t as bad as it may have been for others, who is he in being able to make demands or tell a story?

After dwelling upon all this, I continued reading the book’s introduction. This only led me to find out that Poma did not consider himself an “Indian” either. He himself recognized his differences and held himself to a status above that of the “Indians,” which he considers to be entirely commoners. It seems as if Poma holds himself to a status in between that of the Indigenous and the Spaniards, without being mestizo. This is yet another reason why Poma’s voice as a representation for the Indigenous can be contested, regardless of how much Indigenous matters matter to him. Who should get to speak, and does being able to speak contradict the very notion of being one who deserves to speak at all?

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Experience

Experience Blog 2: Cusco’s Reality

Greetings everyone! We are now in Cusco, and have been for the past five days. Unfortunately, my brain seems to be fixated on one particular experience I had. Namely, the ten kilometre run a few of us went on today. It has taken away any kind of functioning I currently have, so I guess I’ll be writing about that today, as well as other things. Perhaps we’ll go in reverse chronological order. 

I barely slept last night, in anticipation of the race that Andree, Gabriel, Cissy, Emily, Anja, and I were going on. In hind-sight, the lack of sleep may have made the experience slightly less pleasant. Nevertheless, we were all up and ready to go by about 6:30. The race started at 9:00, and Anja was my running buddy. (I give full credit to her encouragement for the fact that I got through).

One interesting thing that I got to do through this run was witness some of the less touristy parts of Cusco. Until today, I had only stayed in the general Plaza de Armas area.                                            However, the race started ten kilometres away, somewhere where houses are made of different materials and where the supermarkets are visited only by Cusqueños. I saw more versions of this as we proceeded on our run, until we finally got to the plaza mayor near the hotel. To see the differences between these places brought me back to the question of what the “real” part of an area is. Is the place where we started the race the real part of Cusco, because most people in the city live like how it is there? Is the Plaza de Armas area the real part of Cusco, because that part is what is more internationally represented?

Today was not the only day that I exerted myself. Yesterday, we hiked up the Sacsayhuaman, which was a fair amount of stairs. This activity also made me ask the question of what is real or what is not. Upon speaking with Jon today, he mentioned that the concept of the “hierarchy” we talked about at Sacsayhuaman may not have been necessarily correct, as there are many different interpretations of how this may have looked like. The “real” therefore isn’t totally known. What it truly entails will always be up for interpretation, contradicting the definition of “real” or “fact” itself.

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Readings

Corpus Christi, Peru, and Power

Upon witnessing some of the many activities that occurred for Corpus Christi today, I chose to dedicate my blog post to Carolyn Dean’s Inka Bodies. I found it fascinating to read how Corpus Christi emerged throughout Hispanic America, and particularly in Cusco. I think that to read on this gave me a better insight on what is really being celebrated, and why. Dean says that Corpus Christi “has specifically incorporated references to non- Roman Catholic beliefs and, frequently, peoples. It does so in the form of a triumph, a celebration heralding a victor” (7). In saying this, Dean suggests that the addition of Indigenous Peruvian culture to the Corpus Christi celebration was done in order to demonstrate power over the beliefs Indigenous culture originally belonged to. To them, Catholicism overrode those beliefs. In this case, I question whether Christ being heralded a “victor” is also considered a kind of victory of Christianity over other beliefs in Cusco. This was my impression from the way that Dean worded herself. However, as someone who did not grow up very religious, I hesitate to make assumptions about a festival and celebration that means so much to so many people. I am comically ignorant of things Dean explains – I do not totally understand what  transubstantiation is, and I’m at a point where I am too afraid to ask. The truth is that I know very little about what this festival means or represents at all,  that’s why I’m thankful to be reading Dean’s text as I immerse myself in it.

Regardless of any power dynamics, I see Dean’s text as practically explaining a metaphor for Peru as a whole. The Corpus Christi festival in Cusco requires the demonstration of different cultural traditions, regardless of what the reasons for that may be. Similarly, the cathedral mentioned in José María Arguedas’ Deep Rivers was built by “[t]he Spaniards, with the Inca stones and the hands of the Indians” (10). It was not only the Spanish that built Corpus Christi, just as it was not only them that built the cathedral or anything else in the region. Both Dean and Arguedas demonstrate that Peru would have been a drastically different place today had one of those groups never existed. The Spaniards buildings on top of Inca foundations may make it seem as if they are the ones with power- the ones who are visible. However, as is seen also see through what Dean explains about Corpus Christi, the Indigenous foundation is required for anything made by the Spanish to be visible at all.

 

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Readings

Did Hiram Bingham have Imperialist Nostalgia?

In one of my English courses last semester, we discussed the concept of imperialist nostalgia. Imperialist nostalgia is a concept originally established by Renato Rosaldo. According to Rosaldo, imperialist nostalgia occurs when “people mourn the passing of what they themselves have transformed” or have had a role in transforming. In being nostalgic about it, they tend to even yearn for this past. Echoes of expressions that could be described as imperialist nostalgia stuck out to me from Hiram Bingham’s “The Search for Machu Picchu.” Bingham is an American explorer who spent much time in Peru and supposedly “discovered” Machu Picchu. He says that “there is a fascination here of finding here and there. . . the rugged masonry of a bygone race; and of trying to understand the bewildering romance of the ancient builders who ages ago sought refuge in a region . . .”

By suggesting that he himself is fascinated in finding information on a “bygone race,” Bingham already expresses that he longs to recover information on its culture. To want to recover something is practically synonymous with a yearning for it to come back. Bingham’s additional comments of ancient builders having been involved in some kind of a “romance” emphasizes the fascination he himself describes. To him, Machu Picchu appears to be the setting of a story. It is one of a civilization so far removed from him, that simply to learn about it is like diving into a cool, fictional world. Why wouldn’t he want to be part of that? To have any part of that, of course, he will have to recover what’s left.

Precisely because Bingham longs to bring back Machu Picchu, he too can be considered an imperialist nostalgist. After all, he works as an explorer; he holds the same occupation and forms part of the same group as those who initially interrupted the continued knowledge of Machu Picchu’s presence and Machu Picchu’s continued inhabitation. After all, it is believed that its abandonment was tied to Spanish conquest and/or deaths due to illnesses brought by travelers. Bingham himself is destroying something Indigenous by having this discovery claimed as his own. After all, his “discovery” ensures that the world won’t know that Indigenous peoples did have continued knowledge about this site much before Bingham. The “discovery” of this site becomes White much as was the “discovery” of the Americas — the “discovery” of the Americas that ensured that what Bingham most yearned to bring back became hidden to many in the world for years. Upon contemplating this, one question I asked myself is what makes someone at fault for the past . Could Bingham’s fascination of Machu Picchu have been tied with some sort of hidden guilt?

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Experience

Experience Blog 1: Sacredness in San Isidro

I am currently on my fourth day in Lima! In the time we’ve had so far, I’ve already been through so many experiences.  

I arrived in Lima at about 6:00 am on May 23rd.

Scratch that- I arrived in Callao at about 6:00 am on May 23rd. Even though it is the Lima International Airport, I was not in Lima when I got to Lima – does that make sense? I mean, the Vancouver Airport is in Richmond, so it should.

Well anyways, we spent our first day resting for a while, until we went out on our very first activity as a class – a walking tour of San Isidro. San Isidro is a very nice neighbourhood, and I am very much enjoying my stay here. What struck me most about our tour of San Isidro, however, was the Huaca we visited. In Quechua, Huaca means “sacred place.” Considering that Huaca Huallamarca was a reconstruction of something that existed long ago, its very presence got me to question what deserves to be sacred and who decides it. We were told that some aspects of the Huaca were not accurate to how that area appeared when it was actually used-  some aspects were added based on the imagination of whoever reconstructed it. The reconstruction occurred in the fifties, but the burial ground that was originally there actually belonged to a pre-Incan society. Upon further research about Huaca Huallamarca, I discovered that there is another Huaca, Huaca Pucllana, not too far away in Miraflores. The Huaca in Miraflores apparently includes a restaurant and dining experience. Sure, the imposition of a restaurant in that space makes something new out of it – but it also unmakes and/or takes away from the very reason that area was considered to be sacred to begin with. Although Huaca Huallamarca does not include a restaurant, the fact that it was rebuilt with new, fabricated editions means that it was made into something it wasn’t supposed to be. In that case, perhaps aspects of Indigeneity are “made,” but that doesn’t mean they are real.

I got a proper sleep after two nights in a row of red-eye flights, and embarked on day two. This day was heavy, but enjoyable. We visited Lugar de la Memoria (of which I am still waiting to hear Jon’s thoughts on the matter), and heard about the Senderos Luminosos. The Museo Larco, later in the day, was incredible. The representation of gods as animals in many Ancient Peruvian cultures was news to me, particularly because I did not know too much to begin with about those cultures. To see everything we saw at the Museo Larco was a great way to learn about them. Of course, our day 3 treks through the city centre and to the Brisas de Titicaca complimented this knowledge of Peru, present and past.

Next stop: Cusco! I can’t wait!

 

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Readings

Modernization and Civilization – Not Necessarily a Positive?

Although I really enjoyed pondering through all of our readings for tomorrow, one that really got me to reflect was The Lima Reader’s “The Transformation of Lima after 1895.” José Galvéz’ chronicles of the life and culture of the city during that time emphasize his opinions of what a modern, culturally-adequate city should be. Everything that is newly positive about the city, in his point of view, relates to how close it is to western and particularly European culture. This stuck out to me because it reminded me of a class I took in the first semester of this year. It was called “Issues in Development in Modern Latin America.” Part of what we talked about in that class was development, and how the United States is considered the top of the development scale that every other country has to strive to become like. To be considered “developed,” a country has to leave certain aspects of its own culture to appear more similar to the United States and other “developed” western countries. After all, western ideas of development involve a certain kind of organization, which in itself is cultural. It involves a certain kind of work or education for a set time in the week, and a life in a certain kind of home. The changes that Galvéz describes in Lima involve “[h]armonious foot races, soccer and cricket [that] replaced the deforming and acrobatic systems of bars.” He also mentions how “out went the vehement and often rude debates that took place between candidates vying for the same seat in congress.” The changes he describes as positive not only have to do with Europeanness, but also in an absence of cultural expression. When things become too organized and cookie-cutter, there is no room for a particular culture and individuality for that culture to develop. 

Galvéz mentions that the reforms that take place in Lima bring that country a little bit closer to civilization. In this way, the word “civilization” is practically synonymous to “development.” He believes that the closer the country gets to reflecting the organization and culture of some European countries, the better it’ll be. Unfortunately, to get closer to the western idea of “development” does not mean that everything automatically improves for a country. As mentioned in the opening description for this piece, “the traditional and romantic city, [the limeños] thought, was giving way to a new metropolis filled with crime and danger.” While some things could have been positive about changes made in Lima, new negative aspects of the city undoubtedly occurred with modernization and “civilization.” This, of course, came with a loss of some culture that was distinctly from Lima. One question we can ask from this reading is what makes a certain location or group of people “civilized.” How have we been taught to view this word and how might certain cultures or groups of people be alienated because of it?

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Uncategorized

Peru . . . Here I Come!

It’s 10:15. How much longer are we going to be here? We said we’d be back home by 10:30, but it doesn’t look like that’s the case, because there is no sign of anyone wanting to go home. How do I get out of this?

My heart starts to pound and my forehead starts to sweat. I tap my toes and pace around the room, not wanting to say anything to my friends because it’ll look like I’m not having a good time with them. I was having a good time, but now I’m not. Now we’re not following the set time and, therefore, slowly creeping into there not being a set time. The time I will be going home is now unspecified and uncertain.

I don’t always do well with uncertainty.

Planning things has always been my life. I would be nine, looking through my future high school’s website, wondering if sixteen-year-old me would benefit more from Drama or Cooking. I would be thirteen, avidly looking at which university programs I could take, but also anxiously looking at the clock when out with my friends. I’m better at this now – my heart doesn’t pound as fast, and my forehead sweat has lessened. Nevertheless, I still sometimes look at the clock. Planning not only gives me a rush of excitement about the future, but also gives me control over the situations I’ll be placing myself in.

I planned to go to Peru, that is true. I also get that same rush, thinking about it, as I get when I figure out anything having to do with the future. Not only am I legitimately excited, but I’m also legitimately ready to not be in control over everything I’ll be doing.

Perhaps my number one plan for Peru is to embrace spontaneity!

After all, there are many things about my life which I have not chosen for myself, but have still worked out.

I have not chosen my position as a child of Argentine immigrants, or to be raised in the Vancouver area, or… well, a lot of things.

There are many things I have chosen for myself. I grew up playing soccer/football and I love it. I had an obsession with the history of television sitcoms as a kid. Do with that what you will. Writing has also always been one of my favourite hobbies (evident in my choice to major in English, along with Latin-American Studies).

One thing for sure, is that I do plan on having an amazing time in Peru! Ultimately, I’m super excited to get to know everybody even more and make some awesome memories.

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