Page 279 - Perú indígena y virreinal

kind of arrangement due to a perceived incompatibility between a market economy, linked to individualistic values, and a socialist system.
To begin with, Andean society could never have been purely socialist due to the presence of vast numbers of autonomous groups, like the Incas and the Curacas, who attained numerous privileges like the use of servants, the ownership of large herds of animals and vast extensions of land. In the past, as well as nowadays, the concept of the individual was important. It is true that kinship, reciprocity and redistribution were emphasised, yet as we have seen, a margin was always available for individual initiative.
Andean socialism is an invention of the 18th Century, inspired by the Neo-Platonism of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, which served our Marxist thinkers to legitimise their political proposals making them inherent to the idiosyncrasies of the Peruvian. This not being the case, recognising the creative capacity of the individual and having a longing for diversification, the market economy did not have any major problems adapting to the Andean reality. This adaptation can be observed, in the numerous fairs that spread throughout the land and the wide range of itinerant traders that appeared.
However, it is important to admit that this type of economy, introduced by the Europeans, has some discrepancies with societies that privilege reciprocity and redistribution, as is the case with the Andean society. In consequence, the friction produced was inevitable, but yet again the Andean creativity came to the fore in the attempt to reconcile both. This was achieved thanks to the capacity for diversification; whereby some of the produce was designated to be sold in the market and the rest for its consumption by the community. In the community of Andamarca this is the case: the continuation of the cultivation of corn is intended to conserve cultural identity, while cattle is raised for their projection in national markets. Other communities have taken a similar approach, but with varieties of the same product. This is the case of some communities in the north of Huancavelica, who have opted to maintain the cultivation of some varieties of potatoes to reinforce their traditional culture, while other heavier, but not as tasty varieties are destined to be sold to local restaurants, thereby satisfying their economic demands.
On the basis of this commercial experience, expanding it was not difficult when relocating to the coastal cities. The migrants, being little inclined to dependent work that did not offer greater opportunities for stability, found in informal commerce the best alternative for their survival and well-being. This explains their great expansion and extraordinary capacity to face the worst crisis Peru has lived through in its republican history.
The fact that they took on an informal structure, is not only due to the difficulties generated by the national legislation and by the excessive bureaucratisation, but also because they were always on the margins of the State’s institutional apparatus. Given that the State was overwhelmed by the profound transformations originating from the clash between the speed of the massive migrations and a an enormous degree of centralisation, it is understandable, that to satisfy their needs for order, the Peruvian people have resorted to their own traditions that fortunately, are based on a profound sense of social solidarity and freedom. It is for this reason that neither delinquency, nor subversion, nor hunger, nor even epidemics like cholera have decimated them. Peasant Patrols, Mothers’ Clubs, Glass of Milk Project, Community Kitchens, have emerged as samples of the many resources that can be mobilised by a creative society; one that is a lover of diversity and solidarity, that is strongly predisposed to democracy, and that knows how to grow, balancing tradition with modernity.
cosmovision and ideology in the pre-hispanic andes Andrés Ciudad Ruiz
Conditioned by our conception of the world and our religious ideas, we are accustomed to judging the ideologies of non-Western peoples as very simple creations and, in view of our incapacity to define them, we subject them to mental schema and criteria that are not
especially appropriate. In large part this is what happened with the Spanish who made contact with the Andean settlements in the 16th Century. These peoples passed on their cultural heritage to us through their visions, their legends and their accumulated experience. This information is hardly negligible, given that it constitutes the main source of knowledge at our disposal when it comes to tackling the subject we are addressing. In working with illiterate cultures, we face a number of serious limitations when it comes to discovering aspects relating to their cultural superstructure, limitations that can be overcome in part through analogy, the help of complementary disciplines and increasingly sophisticated methodologies. Even so, the gaps in our knowledge sometimes prove to be unbreachable. Andean religion must be viewed from this perspective: the body of documentary evidence produced throughout the Colonial Period is imposing and sometimes extremely detailed. However, once we pass the threshold of Inca imperial expansion, Andean ideology fades into a blurred mass of suppositions based on the documentation provided by its archaeological and iconographic context.
The Andean region is a multiple universe in terms of environment and culture, which is why, when we observe it from an anthropological point of view, the question arises as to whether one or various religions actually existed. History throws up various similarities and differences in the religious thought found within this multifarious Cultural Area, both in terms of time and space. However, the conclusion we would have to draw is that there was a basic shared tradition, centred more on the core of the region than the periphery. The Incas, in this respect, did not limit themselves to being the last- minute inheritors of pre-Inca culture, but constituted a further element in the ideological dynamic of the pan-Andean tradition. A universal religious order coexisted in the Andes with the idiosyncrasies of each specific territory and culture, sustained as it was by contact and exchange between the various regions, a relationship that bound ideology with economic, political and cultural institutions. This religious order reasserted itself or declined in accordance with the historical developments that took place throughout the pre-Hispanic period.
MAGIC AND SPIRITS IN THE HUNTER AND GATHERER TRADITION
This shared conception of thought systems began with its own hunter and gatherer tradition, one in which animism and shamanistic practices resolved the anxiety of the early Andean groups. The oldest settlers in the region must have believed in spirits and supernatural forces, to whom they attributed the changes they observed in the stars and in nature, as well as the fate of their very lives and subsistence. It is evident that in their earliest cultural experiences, their observation of such phenomena must have been as superficial as their nomadic lifestyle dictated. However, little by little Andean Man began to define space, becoming aware of the possibilities of extracting resources from these areas, becoming increasingly dependent on them and, as a consequence, matching their potential to his needs. It was during this process of observation, for example, that he selected those beings and forces of nature that would have greatest ideological significance: this explains why some textiles were already decorated during the Preceramic Period, such as the piece found in Huaca Prieta featuring the image of a bird of prey, and why the wall paintings found in caves and in shelters at Toquepala or Junín present animals of economic importance, which must have participated in the propitiatory rituals that ensured the success of these human settlements.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ANIMISTIC RELIGION: NEOLITHIZATION
The neolithization of the Andes was a phenomenon of extraordinary complexity that is embodied in a mosaic of cultural traditions, in which the settlers gained a deeper understanding of the star cycles and natural phenomena they experienced, an aspect that becomes important when it comes to defining their ideology and calendars, along with the rituals associated with them. Their development towards an agricultural system, combined with the risks entailed in abandoning a way of life they had practised for thousands of years, led them to adopt a number of propitiatory rituals. This went hand in hand with their success in hunting and its strong magical associations, placing an emphasis on agricultural fertility and the development of the family group, and also giving
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