The President and Fellows of Harvard College Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

How the huacas Were: The Language of Substance and Transformation in the Huarochir Quechua Manuscript Author(s): Frank Salomon Reviewed work(s): Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 33, Pre-Columbian States of Being (Spring, 1998), pp. 7-17 Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20166998 . Accessed: 31/10/2012 14:39
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How

the huacas

were

The language of substance and transformation in the Huarochiri Quechua manuscript

FRANKSALOMON

important verbs relevant to Andean concepts of being have already been well dealt with by researchers: camay, or roughly "to animate, to impart specific form and force" in G. Taylor's article and hua?uy, or "to die" in Urioste's article (1974-1976); about existence (1981).1 Other clues to assumptions in Duviols's and (1978) appear Taylor's (1980) seems of upani, or roughly "shade," which clarifications Quechua supay, or "demon." This further essay usages and implications of the lexicon about being and substance and transformation of beings as we know them from the one and only related to colonial sketches early text that presents an Andean belief an Andean in system language, namely the anonymous of Huarochiri (circa 1608; for Quechua manuscript see Salomon and Urioste translations, Taylor 1987; available 1991). It is important to understand at the start that, while the Huarochiri book contains origin myths, legends, and priestly lore of clearly pre-Hispanic the colonial Quechua derivation, language and the inwhich writing practices they are expressed by 1608 influenced by the Church's labors the former "Language of the Inca" into 1991, Duviols interlingua (Mannheim and Itier 1993). Thus the concepts of being implicit in are colonial Quechua language and writing practices not necessarily disconnected from the largely toward making an evangelical Aristotelian and Augustinian discussion philosophic lies in the background of Peruvian evangelization. The source for the Quechua is a manuscript that had been much

Two of the most

the latter. The master argument of the manuscript concerns how a group of formerly marginal herding under the lineages rooted in the high tundra advanced patronage of the mountain deity Paria Caca into the richer middle and then lower valleys, conquering the same at Yunca time and the peoples, aboriginal welding into the complex themselves ritual regimen the Yuncas had possessed. Itaccords great importance to the is in some aboriginal female deity Chaupi ?amca, who Paria Caca's ways counterpart. down-valley we curb assumptions If that "verbs of being" in the to familiar notions of Quechua manuscript correspond in their semantic and being becoming, regularities domains and usages emerge and become useful for the view. world manuscript's interpreting implicit use the word In this discussion I will occasionally

not with any claim to discovering ontology, ontological inAndean categories thought, but rather using familiar as an aid to textual western ontological categories the attributes we think we exegesis by making explicit in assertions Andean about recognize being, substance, and change. Panayot Butchvarov reviews (1995:490) sense of "first philosophy," in itsAristotelian ontology that is, "the study of being qua being, i.e., of the most that anything must general and necessary characteristics have in order to count as a being, an entity (ens).,f The root problem in ontology is that (at least in languages known to European philosophers) the range of "things" that can be subjects of the verb "to be"?that is, the can as of be that discrete range percepts recognized in features on a common spaciotemporal grounding?is most respects a non-set: not apples and oranges, but apples, events, and abstractions. The common ontological categories are, in Butchvarov's summary: individual things (Socrates, a book) properties (Socrates' baldness, a book's rectangularity) relations (marriage, the priority of one book to another) events (Socrates' death, a book's publication) states of affairs (Socrates' having died, the fact that a book is in print) sets (the set of Greek philosophers or books)

testimonies by multilayered compendium containing settlements on the villagers from a group of agropastoral western Andean heights overlooking Lima and also editorial material by the native researcher containing who gathered the stories. In the paragraphs that follow, come from passages of the former sort, most examples but a few (such as chapter titles, and so on) come from
1. The orthography is colonial. the present essay Throughout is quoted as found in sources lexicon rather than

Quechua

rephonologized.

RES33

SPRING1998

Concerns

include, ontological philosophy some individual things are example, asking whether in the Aristotelian "substances sense, i.e., enduring in their properties and through time and changes all individual things are relations, or whether "whether

of western

for

heading, which similarly offers an introduction This instance is not forced into Spanish:
ymanam chaupi ?amca carean maypim t?an, or

to a huaca.

"How

Chaupi ?amca

any entity has essential not itwould i.e., properties without which properties, exist/' and "whether properties and relations are (Butchvarov 1995:490). particulars or universals" Do the implicitudes of a nonwestern source, the us to glimpse allow of Huarochiri, Quechua manuscript momentary"; about problems of this order? any Andean assumptions out the be worth may trying following suggestions.2 It

was and where she is [situated]'' Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec.

141

Here

and tiascan stand in complementary the former concerns what and how she was, contrast; that is, acted, and the latter concerns where she was,

cascan

concerns being as that is, situated. The distinction versus as existence. situated This particular activity being the of the concepts by quotation separability highlights using different tenses; the great female power Chaupi ?amca "was," "acted" (carcan) in a past-tense form, because prior to the time of writing Christians had and ritual ly deactivated her, but she already desecrated at "is" the time of writing still "situated" (tian), because "is" still hidden where her stone embodiment she was buried (at a specified site, Tumna Plaza). Similar contrasts 14 and 126 of the manuscript. in sections A being may have either or both of these attributes, with somewhat different ontological implications. We will therefore examine each one separately. occur

1 :Cay and qualitative We

tiay are in complementary and dynamic being versus

contrast situated

as being

can start considering the lexicon of being by of the the Huarochiri writer tends that noting language as to place two verbs of being in contrasting opposition, if suggesting them name the that the two between that make anything or anybody ontologically The first substantive chapter (Ch. 1) of the present. is one of the six that have Huarochiri manuscript attributes Spanish-language
Como . . . and fue

headings:
los ydolos . . . y como auia en

Point

1a: Cay denotes

qualitative

being manifested

anteguam[en]te the Natives

in action There does not appear to be any such semantic isolate as mere existence, certainly no verb exclusively as to nonexistence. "to exist" The opposed glossed by best colonial lexicographer, Gonc?lez Holgu?n, "ser de essencia o de understood cay as meaning existencia" ("to be, in the sense of essence or of 1952 [1608]:668). existence," Gonc?lez Holgu?n Like similar verbs inmany languages, cay can function as a simple copula (for example, pirn canqui, or "who are you" [Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991: sec. 238]). As an an agentive form auxiliary verb combined with habitual action (muchac carcan, or "they used [Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. worship" Beyond that, cay brackets together cases of specificity via action
. . .

aquel tiempo los naturales, or "How the Idols of Old Were

How Existed" and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 3 Salomon

The

in interference revealing point here is the Quechua "incorrect" which the non-pluralization, Spanish?not rules (for optional pluralizing simply reflects Quechua's both nouns and verbs), but the fact that the author "ser" with "haber" in a fashion imparallel to contrasted in he was their usual Spanish senses. He did so because two verbs need of a way to translate a distinction between

that posit ontological necessary to the task presence?both that of introducing huacas, is, superhuman beings, but or one to "ser" "haber" (or neither semantical ly congruent are a in later chapter's learn what these verbs "estar").We
2. with section meaning citation In the examples, the abbreviation number, section references "Ch." and are made references to chapters of the original are made to passages by eds. 1991:sec. translation. original, 3) This

it signifies to 7]).

(of condition, attribute, time. In usages through

casac ?ispa Salomon tapuspam, and

being as manifested identity) like:

or ". . . asking, 1991 saying :sec. 472

for example, and Urioste, (Salomon (not page) 3 of the Salomon-Urioste the Quechua with form facilitates comparison in parallel.

ymanam

'how shall I [orwe] be?'"

Urioste, eds.

which

is section-numbered

Salomon: How the huacas were

the petitioner merely wants to know a future qualitative state of welfare (similar usages occur in sections 31, and 286). 131, is distinctive about cay in the texts is a What tendency to include senses translatable as "to act" or "to happen." The nominalized perfect form of the verb cay, or "to be"(casca) means "events" not "entities"?that which somebody or something did. Casca can refer to the sum of a being's activities or its characteristic activities. One might accept a remote gloss like the "nature" of that entity, but "deeds"
cay cunirayap cascanracmi

on sale. With the "dynamic example, of merchandise modifier" it 1973:174) (Urioste -ku, yields tiacoy, or "to text: dwell" or "stay." In the Huarochiri
cananpas sutilla escay runi runahina tiacon, or "two stones

just like people are [located] there even now" Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991 :sec. 18;
see also sees. 14, 32, 34, 50, etc.

is also often
?ahca vira

appropriate:
cochap cascanman

Tiay is the verb that seems to emphasize individuality as a substance: that singularity of huaca that endures its changes and relationships. Tiay often throughout in a permanent the idea of existence location expresses in the form of hard materials, and endurance like rock, or in the form of permanent like corporations, villages or casca is whose ?amca, priesthoods. Chaupi spoken of in a perfect nominalized form, is the subject of active verb seems to have ended. tian long after her "happening" 2: Accumulating action accent ontological and changing situation

tincon, or "this Cuni Raya's deeds ('nature'? Identity'?) almost match Vira Cocha's deeds" Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991 :sec. 7;
see also sees. 1, 126

Gerald Taylor, a careful semantic analyst, also includes culto, or "the religious interaction of people and superhumans," among his glosses for casca (1987:50-51). In the latter sense its semantic component "activity" seems far broader than that implicit in the English verb "be." In the two chapter headings cited above, each heading asks an implicit question as to '"how [the "how was huaca] was." The answers to the question s/he?" is not a statement about either momentary condition or about unchangingly attribute, predicated but the whole is, the story of the person's action?that whole chapter (Chs. 1, 10 for the cited examples). All actor, seemingly told, casca, the "being" of a Huarochiri accentuates the notion of event as constitutive of entity. The huacas have, in some contexts, individuality and are in but others properties, they seemingly imagined as or deeds. of sequences phenomena long-term overarching

modify

Various researchers mentioned below have suggested that inAndean the trajectory of all being speculation, time is uniform. like people, Huacas, through basically a and animals, pass through plants, gradient from kinetic, fast-changing being toward static, hard, more The being. energetic and fateful slow-changing their actions, the farther they move from soft biotic states, to the hard states, full of permanence, full of potential, seen in deified mountains and other land features. This fleshly,

Point

1b: T/ay denotes

situated

being

Tiay inGonc?lez Holgu?n's dictionary meant "sentarse estar sentado, estar en alg?n lugar morar or "to sit down, to be habitar" (1952 [1608]:340), seated, to be in some place, to dwell, to inhabit." He then gives many derived terms, all implying decreasingly kinetic states. For example, he gives a Quechua phrase to the transitive usage "to still comparable English (with forced (something)." Tiaycuchini sonconta literalism one could gloss this as "Imake her/his heart sit") meant "to calm someone's anger." Derivatives meant "to be in an available, motionless state," for

point has already been well explored by Allen and other researchers whose work is summarized below. It is useful to notice, however, that though the myths speak of purportedly continuous entities?substantial beings, in the sense of entities that survive changes of Aristotelian refer to them in their successive property and relations?to states entails emphasizing sorts of different categorical mean I sorts which the of being, by being summarized above by Butchvarov. This shifting emphasis might accent. For example, change of ontological being Paria Caca is spoken of as the following: called 5 eggs 5 falcons 5 heroic "men," collectively (pichcantin)
a snowcapped, and double-peaked voice [that

be the

called "the five of him"

mountain

storm, red rain and yellow

a person

rain, flood and earthslide

is, oracle]

10

RES 33

SPRING 1998

then, is Caca the eponym of? The first three What, in the form of five eggs instances refer to his theophany, five men, each that hatched five falcons who became the founder of one of the five large putative descent as belonging to a single maximal groups understood ethnic entity. In the first three instances then, the category "set" is salient (the ideological ontological implication being the "reality" of the set formed by five related political units). In the first and third, ethnically the category "relation" is salient; the metaphorical tension between human sibling bonds (which have birth order) and the simultaneity of a clutch of eggs (which the five Like hatchlings, lack it) is the main implication. groups are equals by birth, yet like brothers they are not. The fourth, Paria Caca's final form (and his tiascan or located being) accentuates individuality and the category "event," substantiality. The fifth accentuates insofar as Paria Caca was the event, a storm of red and yellow rain. The sixth does as well, but also emphasizes "state of affairs/' namely the state of Paria Caca's having ordained a social order. the perception here embraces The thinking expressed as as ontological of experience ly heterogeneous, Aristotle taught. But it deals with this not in the

noted above, that is, by sorting out to different sorts of realness we can percepts according accord them, but rather by organizing ontological in terms of single beings that unite heterogeneity sorts of realness and demonstrate them through multiple Aristotelian fashion varied manifestations. of eventful being is treated as Thus the accumulation status itself. The conveners of the altering ontological which this from essay derives called attention to meeting a continuum from transitory to durable the concept of modes of being. This idea derives from insights by Catherine Allen (1982) and George Urioste. Urioste's 1981 essay on the death gradient is itself an exegesis of His conclusion has since the the Huarochiri manuscript. date of writing been confirmed by ethnographic findings 1995). His 1980, Salomon (Paerregaard 1987, Valderrama point is that unlike Euro-American models of death, which treat death as a durationless moment of division between the "live" status before expiration and "death" hua?oc after it,Quechua ("die-er") brackets those soon to expire with those recently expired. The moribund and form a single class of beings, the recently deceased the "living" (causad) whose duration extends between and the enshrined ancestor (aya) phases of being. This

L -w
mk

,*;V'^'
^*.-j&?. '-.?

i .^IWHIIIBiii^iiBHBKM^^M^^B
.c^4ii^SiHBB9III^Hfi^H^^^HH^^^^^^^^^HMHHi^^l

^H^BkI^^^HE^^

/^^^: "^sr

--> ^^^QIBHHHI^S^I^^^HIB^seP'C^JSv

Figure 1. The snowcap Rariacaca, in the western Andean cordillera south of Lima, is a permanent manifestation of the multiply realized deity who dominates the Huarochiri Quechua text. This photograph shows the south peak of the double peaked snowcap, which is probably adjacent to Paria Caca's ancient shrine. Photo:
Frank Salomon.

Salomon:

How

the huacas

were

11

transition can be seen as one segment of a more inclusive view of life and death in continuum. Duviols

(1978) and Allen (1982) have each independently

a pervasive "vegetative metaphor," which emphasized connects the tender, juicy, wet character of young beings (new plants, babies) with the ever more firm and resistant, but also dryer and more rigid character of older ones (adults, mature plants) and finally, with the desiccated but enduring remains of beings who have left and been life preserved (preserved crops like freeze-dried or ch'u?u [mummies]). The most permanent of potatoes are all beings features such as mountains geological feature of this cosmology (Rubina 1992). The dynamizing is the circulating and ever re-fecundating relationship located in action and time. The among beings differently source is often called by "soul" (which in the Huarochiri

3: Communication among beings of unequal or metaphysical standing occurs ontological "slides" along the vital gradient

through

Since ritual consisted of reciprocity among beings of all classes, human and nonhuman, it implied communication among beings of unlike ontological in the Quechua source, standing. The rituals described as well as some ethnographical observed which rites, ly a common continuities with have them, embody or genre scenario for this. metaprogram achieving in the example of Paria Caca, As was suggested interest was huacas were cultural postulates whose in the fact that they united in rooted precisely of reality as "persons" heterogeneous perceptions so on. The attributes and event, category, substance, in continuum the vital with different of parts beings to their differing ontological accents, appealed ritual needs, with the predominant mode more to and exalted, permanent, being approach more mutable empowered beings by lower, softer, differing ones. tend to be governed approaches by a fairly are: one sacred (1) at least regular program. The actors being; (2) a person, generally acting as part of a collectivity, transacting a reciprocal gift; and (3) at least one person who acts as mediator. The collectivity and These in divergent actions. The engage enters states of heightened ritual collectivity vitality as inwhich and solidarity, they display themselves more so; alcohol serves themselves 1987) (Saignes only the mediator

of

as a the Spanish word anima, or "spirit") is visualized small flying creature that departs from the dead person, much as a seed departs from a dying plant, and its vitality in a sacred space, Uma Pacha. In idolatry trials, some defendants gave voice to an image of Uma Pacha as being a farm where spirits, like seeds, could flourish back toward fleshly life. The destination of souls is sometimes also identified with the origin shrines a of ego's group, again emphasizing circulating principle. At the highest extreme of permanence, beings of actions actually whose importance?those prototypical existence?are the conditions of shaped spoken of as beings indeed literally become, the ground on which provide, new transient beings emerge. The overall direction is to structures of congruence map general among living human collectivities, ancestral or legendary society is shrines and the consecrated (whose material substance forms and (mountains and waterways), dead), landscape the facts climate). bodies, cosmological (cosmological However this is not to assert that the world of huaca devotees was of the sort that Bellah (1964) recognized in speaking of societies where divinity is so close as to be ontological lymerged with society. Although people, mummies, huacas, and the cosmos are kindred beings, they relate to temporality and the laws of nature in dissimilar ways. The individual being passing through accent or in ontological eventful time actually changes as characteristic association. The mode of life described is characterized of huaca devotees by a complex regimen of ritual behaviors governing between beings of unlike standing. relationships into everlasting material, having hardened or other land features. These most durable namely stone conserves

to liberate huge discharges of social and physical

to deity are made in Invocations energy and appetite. in the inclusive voice, first person plural?interestingly, partakes of the implying that the deity addressed or action of the collectivity. condition I ismore complex. The role of the mediator would describe mediating roles as "slides" along the inwhich of being, continuum humans assume statuses closer to those of the superhuman person addressed. These "slides" often have an aspect of transient death, or transient return from death: Abstention (sa?iyj from "lively" behavior. The mildest degree of distancing from daily life is the preparation required of persons about to perform duties to huacas or recently in contact with them. Persons returning from a visit to the female power Urpay Huachac had to abstain from sex and seasoned food for a year (Salomon and
Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 183), because this huaca unlike

others had no priest and demanded personal contact. Parents who had to ritual ly avert the bad consequences

of

12

RES 33

SPRING 1998

a twin birth?namely, a death to make up for the anomaly of an extra life?likewise accompanied their sacrificial gifts with a year of abstention. These were conditions for dialogue with Paria Caca. The common denominator of ritual abstentions seems to be avoidance of intense bodily
sensations.

4: Passage ontological

between statuses

states accenting dissimilar are expressed with tucoy

5/eep (po?oyj and dreaming (muscoyj: The human sleeper, a person temporarily removed from daily vitality, is into contact with nonhuman brought beings and
knowledge. In chapter 5 (Salomon and Urioste, eds.

the assumption of a magical concerning as a dead with Curi into disguise, Huatya "turning the verb is guanaco," tucoy. This is among the employed most It important words signifying transformation. may usefully be contrasted with cay, or "to be." It has a to that of cay, but usage as an auxiliary verb comparable emphasizing
ynataccho

In passages

process,
pincay casac,

like English
or "shall and Salomon

"get":
I be shamed eds. so?" 1991:sec. 313

1991:sec. 42), Huatya Curi, while sleeping and presumably dreaming, learns from two talking foxes the secret of the illness that afflicted the fraudulent lord Tamta ?amca. This supernatural knowledge would prove the seed of their reciprocal role reversal. The crucial example is chapter 21, entirely concerned with a dream, inwhich the protagonist Don Crist?bal Choque Casa, comes into apparent contact with his deceased (hua?uc) father and into dialogue with the huaca whom that "die-er," that is, (Salomon and Urioste, eds. recently dead man, worshiped
1991:sec. 248).

Urioste,

andman carcoy tucorcan, or "they got swept away into the jungle"
Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 9;

see also 228 and 100, an ambiguous As a freestanding a being assumes could well
?a paria human" caca

instance

inwhich verb, tucoy covers processes a new outer aspect. Some of these be translated as "become":
ru ?aman tucuspas, or "Paria Caca, becoming

Assumption of a deathlike aspect or wearing dead skins: Repeatedly, humans achieve crucial dialogue with superhuman powers by placing on themselves the skins,
that is, outer appearances, of dead animals or people.

Salomon and Urioste, eds. tuylla pachampitac

she turned to stone" Salomon and Urioste, eds.

1991: sec. 74

Huatya Curi acquired the magical power to beat his challenger by turning into (tucoy) a dead guanaco and thereby stealing power from a rival huaca (Salomon and
Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 60). The most dramatic acting imbues of

rumi tucorcan, or "right then and there

1991 :sec. 69

wearing
mask,

death

is the donning of the huayo or flayed-face

a sacrificed captive, which the

made

from

But tucoy is more inclusive, covering sense "to feign, pretend to be":
cay cuni huaccha raya vira cochas purircan, ancha or

as it does

the

wearer with the power of Uma Pacha, the mythical high farm wherein the departing anima of the dead were
replanted and regenerated to (Salomon and Urioste, eds.

tucospalla man"

runa hue ?aupa "In very ancient

ancha times this

1991 :secs. 322-324,

empowered owner of a person the animal

404). The skin of a dead animal also

or the sacred approach patron common and was the most among

Cuni Raya Vira Cocha used to go around posing as a

miserably poor Salomon ancha and Urioste, eds. or 1991:sec. 9

ritual gestures (Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:secs. 21, it is still practiced in at least one of 64, 150, 455-458);
Huarochiri's communities today. Paria Caca consoled his

yachac

tucospa

pissi

yachascanhuan,

"pretending

to be very wise with the little that he knew" Salomon and Urioste, eds.

1991 :sec. 40

people for the loss of a treasured headdress by giving them a wildcat skin: And as he'd foretold, on Chaupi ?amca's festival, in the courtyard called Yauri Cal Iinca, on top of the wall, a very beautifully spotted wildcat appeared. When they saw it they exclaimed joyfully, "This iswhat Paria Caca meant!" and they held up its skin as they danced and sang with it. (Hernando Cancho Uillca, who used to live inTumna, was in charge of it. But by now it's probably gone all rotten.)
Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991: sec. 314

chaypim huanaco tucospa hua?usca siriconqui, or "there pretending to be a guanaco you'll lie dead"
Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 58

instances show that the semantic scope of tucoy includes change of aspect without any premise about a whether change of what Gonc?lez Holgu?n called
"essence" is entailed.

These

Because this noncongruence occurred close to the core meanings of conversion, which Christianity taught

Salomon: How the huacas were

13

Figure 2. Today, inhabitants of Tupicocha, Huarochiri, still don animal skins?most importantly, the puma?to perform festival dances. This puma skin, used by dancers of the Sibimol Society in the Pascua Reyes cycle, is reminiscent of the in the Quechua Manuscript's chapter 24. Photo: spotted wildcat skin mentioned
Frank Salomon.

14

RES 33

SPRING 1998

to think of as a change like the editor/compiler people is the language of "becoming Christian" of essence, when it about talks itself ambiguous religious change.
huaquin pactach runacunaca padrepas christiano pipas tucospapas manchaspallam mana alii cascayta,

in different instances of their of single beings no arose. such The human who existences, problem a to is not dead be" guanaco "becomes/pretends an a unreal real because his for substituting identity evidences is not imputed to him as an unchanging humanity essence in the first place. 5: The hierarchy of durability versus transience received ideas about social rank represents

yachahuanman

or "some people becoming/feigning to be Christians [said] 'Watch out, the padre might find out how bad we've been'" Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991 :sec. 134 Knowing that in at least one of the languages they used, a semantic Andean converts employed isolate that classed together changes of form regardless of "authenticity" of motive, helps one understand why the saw so in many attacks on the sincerity question period of "Indian" Christianity. Spanish Catholics thought the Andean powers' way of influencing native people was by "lying" (llollaycuy) to them, and this may be influenced by the notion that Andean metamorphoses the typical practice of (tucoy) were deceptions, European demons. Converts, on the other hand, may the requirements of Christianity as a have understood matter of changing appearance (much as appropriately one did in huaca devotions) to in order partake of rather than a matter of connected accents, ontological to "essence"?a concept perhaps unavailable changing in a them. The assertion that Andean people engage "double" religious life has been a longstanding one; it is inmiddlebrow of media still prevalent representations as a "veneer" hiding an authentic Andean Christianity culture. This representation, with "core" of Amerindian arises its subtextual imputation of intentional deception, from (among other things) a failure to grasp local and reality. about appearance saddest of many misunderstandings?because went most damaging?that into the making notions It is perhaps the it is the

often

on Up to this point the argument has concentrated the emic viewpoint, ideas implicit sketching expressed in ritual and myth. But these beliefs, of course, an orientation toward a particular observed expressed social authors compiler/editor about this system, viewpoints the latter being apparently a strong Christian convert from the world view of the tellers.) alienated In discourse that refers to the upper brackets of themselves had different social/superhuman/cosmological hierarchy, the salience to "thing," "person") is of the category "set" (as opposed imagery, which places durable high. Ancestor-focused in the natural-social world, beings at apical positions an ideology that reifies the real-life processes expresses of social reproduction into segmented kinship A common example of this is the usage of corporations. inca or sapa inca to identify the person who stands all incacuna (persons highest in the set containing In effect the affiliated to Inka descent groups). as use term of the Inca the name of a eponymous the entire "set" of Inkas. The at lower levels, for example, in the various Huarochiri instances where the firstborn of a sib bears a name that is also that of the sib, so that his name is the name of a category. supreme god-king denotes same structure is pervasive When the tellers assigned Paria Caca supremacy and attributed to him a among the deified mountains, fivefold essence manifested through five heroic and their respective "children," selves anthropomorphic each "child" being the ancestor-hero of a major branch the tellers appear to have of the dominant population, a taxonomic and explaining been recognizing likeness as as well of cultic practice) among (perhaps language known separate, but mutually disparate and politically allied invading populations. and sometimes (Of course a Paria in doing so, they may have been appropriating than the Caca cult older and more multiethnic understood system as itsmembers of the stories, and the Quechua it. (The oral

of colonial

the Church and rural society. relations between the sphere of the This exegesis illustrates why, within huacas, one made transits toward beings of more durable standing by taking on a second skin, an closer to their standing as durable, dry, appearance, across diverse "dead" beings. One might communicate states of being by process of tucoy, changing outer for example, appearance, by costuming oneself as a it or by putting on the huaca's animal to commune with a man to communicate with the of dead face flayed place of the dead. From the huaca "ontological devotees' point of view, inwhich appear as attributes or the

categories"

Salomon: How the huacas were

15

allows; Guarnan Poma 1980 [1615]:113, manuscript 185, 264, 268, 269, 329, 335, 884, 915). These apical beings themselves, including Paria Caca once he to expel older deities, existed in the form of "ascended" matter? hardened and durable geological completely sense. social practices "reified" in the strictest Beings embodying medial and lower nodes of are imagined as former humans or segmentation and humanlike, typically "hardened" by mummification most of the Checa the enshrinement, Quiri Tutay being elaborated example, and ?an Sapa apparently another such. The historical origins of mallkis taken to embody taxa are unknown. But to allow for the heads of medial have thousands of other bodies must relative neglect. The passion for protecting "mothers" and "fathers" of important mummified collectivities (which so fascinated the corporate of "extirpators idolatry") was a part of political symbolic their relative exaltation received inwhich kurakas attributed to ancestors of

6: Notwithstanding includes a trickster relativizes One hierarchies

this schema, mythology principle, which upsets of being

centrally and

interesting properties of the is that it idealizes a priestly order, it manuscript although also contains, as Fioravanti-Molini? (1987) has shown, a that order, namely the principle of principle relativizing the trickster-demiurge. His name in the Huarochiri source is Cuni Raya Vira Cocha. as Rostworowski Raya?is, name a the of (1989) ascertained, far-flung coastal deity associated with the transformation of landforms by water. In the desiccated Andean landscape, water signifies two things: longed-for fertility (via rain or irrigation) and dreaded danger (because rain often takes the form of Half of his name?Cuni devastating earthslides and flash floods). Thus the mythic persona of water tends to be a life-giving but tricky, and dangerous one. In the Huarochiri uncontrollable, Cuni Raya's tricks generally take the form of manuscript, seduction or sexual provocation by magical means, in unwanted (Ch. 2) or elopement pregnancy resulting and irregular unions that (Ch. 31), that is, unpredictable produce fertility but do so inways that upset the normal water does social and productive arrangements?as it gets out of control. when The compiler, like many Europeans, was influenced the but already popularized by equation misleading Vira between Cocha and the God of contemporary Cuni Raya's ability to create whole Catholicism. an allusion to the way landscapes by fiat?probably water can transform land dramatically?led the compiler to think of Cuni Raya as a creator deity, like Dios, the Christians' God. He was therefore puzzled by his inability to verify from oral testimony that Cuni Raya had the expected divine attribute of priority to all other (Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 7, superhumans 189, ch. 15). Cuni Raya Vira Cocha is the exception to every rule one at about huacas. Although point he (like most is said to have lithified in a determinate huacas) place (Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 90), a transformation that usually marks the passage from humanlike action to permanence, he is present at all ages and places, popping up in primordial, mythic, legendary, and Inka times. The invasion of the Spaniards as yet another of his tricks. In in chapter 14 is explained all his interventions, he brings people to act by their

of the most

process,

lines whatever leading (putatively senior) descent achieved and voiced the prosperity the community needs to them. We know from extirpation community's lords who died inquiries into the funerals of Huarochiri in the era of the manuscript that the aggrandizement of leaders to primacy among ancestors continued political after Spanish conquest (Salomon 1995, Marzal 1988, 1998). Saignes The passage to durable being was accordingly in favor of persons unequally though society the interests whom of through kinship corporations were And the transmitted. effectively landscape over which ancestor shrines, huacas, and deified land features were as an could be taken spread integrally naturalized map of social hierarchy, so that one lived enclosed by an all across structure encompassing correspondence distributed levels. ontological to that of The idiom of ancestor cult, as opposed taxa in concretize did focalized deities, persons, apical sets as do the but their names never stood for whole accent seems to highest names. Rather their ontological fall on the category "relation." They were like milestones for measuring the spaces of relatedness. A milestone is a a to but is whose the express thing, thing significance it and other points in space, and the relation between relation called "mile" has no meaning except the space such points. So major ancestors became not to relational of relation but were accented markers just of and affiliation. concepts genealogy political between

16 RES33

SPRING1998

normal desires and expectations, yet in such a way as to about and results. Many transformative disruptive bring include his "becoming/feigning" of these actions of various kinds. appearances beguiling On one level, one might guess that Cuni Raya the paradoxes inherent in irrigation personifies the control of water brings "normal" technology; the landscape the very force that frequently through and reshapes things catastrophically. level, one could think of him as the general it possible the joker in the deck, who made a huaca outlook to include deep appreciation

but not

The coherence

in their manifestations. limited to superhumanity of cosmos was, then, asserted not by a on the part of unifying theory, but by social mediation its inhabitants. They were the ones who brought all sorts of beings things together. into relationship. was It ritual that held

into BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Catherine 1982 "Body and Soul inQuechua Thought." Journal of Latin American Lore 8 (2):179-196. Bel lah, Robert 1964 "Religious Evolution." American Sociological 29:358-374.
Butchvarov, Ranayot

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of Cuni Raya seems to and the unpredictable. mutability In the terminology of occupy a category all by himself. the he Aristotelian points toward is a "thing" ontology, "state This vivid of affairs." permanent deity personifies and focalizes the fragility of all structures and categories even The humor. Andean person struggling to paradox, to his evasive wit as to the source of learn appealed is sometimes cay, which glossed "wisdom" but "discernment" (Gonc?lez Holgu?n 1952 strongly implies to the In Huarochiri, weavers [1608]:148). appealed a to before warp complex trying trickster-demiurge it out, Cuni Raya Vira Cocha" design: "Help me work (Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 8). If the it Huarochiri manuscript suggests a concept of wisdom, of the attribute of being that is the deep appreciation Cuni Raya, stood for. To sum up: the Huarochiri manuscript's tellers seem not to analytically to have been habituated separated like those categories portions of reality?ontological to a web of outlined at the start of this essay?but with persons who each in their socioritual connections and familiarized the multiple embodied complexity about such problems as attributes of "being." Reasoning a corporate kin the relations between a set (for example, one in those of "exists" which and sense, group), not in is abstracted but another, persons, who "exist" in the interaction of beings who accentuate expressed Routine problems about different kinds of existence. entities such as taxa, events, and persons were then unselfconsciously through the idiom of processed as the theWest huacas. What troublingly experienced of experienced reality's incommensurability a on for need the metaphysical ground parts?and in to place them together?found which expression these myths as disparity but also connectedness among as superhuman clusters of meaning beings personified fundamental amauta

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