CHASQUI PERUVIAN MAIL

Year 16, number 34 Ministry of Foreign Affairs Newsletter 2018

Monstrance. Lima, ca. 1740-1760. Gilded silver. 83 × 91 cm. Order of Saint Augustine.

VALLEJO’S CURRENTNESS/ SILVER FROM THE ANDES /

FEAST OF PAUCARTAMBO / THE STORY OF THE ORPHAN
 VALLEJO’S CURRENTNESS
FOR A FREE AND
UNCONDITIONAL POETRY
A necessary reading of César Vallejo a hundred years after the publication of Los heraldos negros [The Black Heralds],
W
hen César Vallejo died
on April 15, 1938 at the
Clínica Arago, where he
was admitted in a comatose state
a month earlier, in Spain, the Re-
publicans were losing a crucial war
for that time, which was also the
raison d'être of the poet during the
last months of his life. Death, which
was one of the major concerns of his
work, did not come on Thursday
as sang the sonnet "Black Stone on
a White Stone": "I will die in Paris
with a sudden shower / A day I
can already remember /I will die in
Paris —and I don’t budge—/ Maybe
a Thursday, like today is, in autumn
/...." Vallejo died on a Friday, but
not on any Friday, a Holy Friday,
the day when the sufferings of Jesus
Christ (the Son of God made man)
end. It was a very significant coinci-
dence because the Christ figure in-
habited the language and imaginary
of the author’s poetic work, but not
in the expected way (the religious
or mystical way); on the contrary, it
interrogated and interrogated itself
about the condition of man and the
state of humankind.
Thus, considering the intention
and the pressing need of his poetry
to interrogate and interrogate itself
about the condition of man and the
state of humankind, César Vallejo is
our contemporary; his work still re-
sounds powerfully today. In each of
the words of his poetry, we find that
concern, not in an abstract way, but
as an emanation and digestion of a
living presence in the world, in the
history and in the course of history.
Especially if we think about his last
years, the Parisian years, the terrible
1930s, which today torment our
conscience again, fearing a horrible
repetition. Vallejo’s poems reflect
the time he had to live in, which
is of deep "restlessness," the time
of "great evils of history" that stun
and plunge man in stupefaction and
chaos," "desaxée"1 as he calls it, where
sense had been lost to a point that
"the buckle of history had broken."
He perceives this with lucidity not
only in his attentive reading of the
world news, but also by taking the
pulse of a sick, omnipotent and or-
phan humankind, which surrenders
to its individuality, giving no space
to solidarity, and only showing the
painful grimace of the exploited, of
CHASQUI 2
Ina Salazar*
his first book of poems.
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza (Santiago de Chuco, 1892 - París, 1938).
the miserable. However, the reason
why Vallejo remains current, if so,
does not lie in a simple possible sim-
ilarity of contexts or the verification
of a perennial concern about the
state of humankind, it is mainly
found in his writing style capable
of continuing questioning us, which
succeeds since it has managed to
become free and unconditional,
in the great way that Vallejo saw in
musician Erik Satie2 consisting in
killing art by means of liberation,
not in the imitation of life, but in
the will to become it, to delete, to
fight against what separates it from
life. José Ángel Valente, who surely
read that beautiful article, expressed
better than anyone else why Vallejo
is one of the greatest Spanish-speak-
ing poets by taking up the words
of the Peruvian author to explain
that his work is one of those few
"particularly free or unconditional
works that suspend the mechanical
sequence in which fashions and
epochs alternate or oppose," works
thanks to which not only languages
survive but "generate new and last-
ing ways of imagining or feeling or,
in short, of being."3
This reflection intends to exam-
ine the capacity of Vallejo’s poetry to
continue appealing to us, exciting us,
interrogating the nature of that cur-
rentness thanks to the study of that
"great way" that makes Vallejo one of
the greatest Spanish-speaking poets.
***
Perhaps not everyone knows
that Vallejo was, at his death, an
unknown author in France, where
he lived. He was barely read in
Spain and Latin America, forgotten
or almost forgotten in his native
country, which he left in 1923,
after publishing Los heraldos negros
in 1919–his first book of poems
still a tribute to modernism. Trilce,
published in 1922, is a radical book
identified a posteriori as an unparal-
leled expression of the poetic revo-
lution produced by the avant-garde
period. Due to these circumstances,
at the ceremony of his burial in the
cemetery of Montrouge, attended
by French public figures such as
Louis Aragon, who delivered one of
the funeral speeches, Tristan Tzara,
Jean Cassou and André Malraux,
as well as the Spaniards Joan Miró
or Rosa Chacel, the tribute paid is
more to the committed intellectual
and communist militant than to the
magnificent poet. When he dies,
nobody had read the work he wrote
in Europe, it remained unpublished
almost in its entirety, and it was
not until 1939 that the poem book
España, aparta de mí este Cáliz [Spain,
Take this Chalice from Me] was pub-
lished, as a tribute to the fight of the
Spaniards for the defense of the Re-
public, and around a hundred other
poems composed throughout the
Parisian years which were compiled
by his widow, Georgette Philippart,
under the title of Poemas humanos
[Human Poems], in a French edition
made with Peruvian historian and
diplomat Raúl Porras Barrenechea.
These compositions reflecting Valle-
jo’s expressive maturity as conquest
of a free and unconditioned or
unconditional writing are the result
of a long journey and work.
To understand him, we must
take into account the unique expe-
rience of a writer born in a small
Andean city in northern Peru,
Santiago de Chuco, who left that
original rural environment, in a
progressive migration to the big city
and modernity–first to the coastal
city of Trujillo, then to the capital,
Lima, and finally, Paris, the City of
Lights. This migration can be seen
as forced for a creator or intellectual
from the province, in a country that
is not only peripheral but also na-
tionally disjointed as Peru. Vallejo ’s
itinerary marked by that condition
seemed marked by a search for
modernity similar to that described
by Octavio Paz: "What is being
modern? It is leaving your home,
your homeland, your language, in
search for something indefinable
and unattainable because it can be
confused with change."4
Although the young César Valle-
jo responded to the modern call,
his life experience and creative
trajectory showed that he did not
get carried away by that adage but
questioned it, and this is seen from
his first book. When one reads Los
heraldos negros, one can notice that
Vallejo is still under the influence
of Modernism that in the Americas
is the movement that in the last de-
cades of the 19th century facilitated
the access to that poetic modernity
inaugurated by Baudelaire not only
for Latin American poetry but also
for all Spanish-speaking poetry.
During Vallejo’s Trujillo years
(1915-1917), in which he wrote most
of the poems of Los heraldos negros,
he immersed in the readings that for
him were still a greater expression
of the modern. He especially read
with total devotion Rubén Darío,
Julio Herrera and Reissig, and also
Baudelaire as well as symbolists like
Samain, Maeterlinck, Rimbaud
and Verlaine, all these authors that
make up the French lyric that for the
modernists was the embodiment of
modernity and that still represents it
for the man from the province who
discovered it in the Antología de la
poesía francesa moderna [Anthology of
Modern French Poetry] by Enrique
Díez Canedo and Fernando Fortín.
However, in the writing process of
Los heraldos negros that occurred
between late 1915 and early 1919,
Vallejo starts to find a personal style
in relation to these models, and this
process can be clearly seen in the
book, in which poems that pay trib-
ute to modernist aesthetics coexist
with luxurious images, mythological
references, worldly sensuality, and,
on the other hand, poems in which
the vital themes for Vallejo are
selected. It is present, in this sense,
the experience of uprooting and
loss of the original unity founded
on the family ties and attachment
to the homeland, in poems such as
Los pasos lejanos [The far steps], A
mi hermano Miguel [To my brother
Miguel] and Enereida, in the section
precisely entitled Canciones del hogar
[Songs of Home], powerful nostalgic
texts of his home and childhood,
and there is also Idilio muerto [Dead
Idyll], an elegiac song to the land
and to the beloved woman of a suf-
fering individual in the city: "What
is she doing now, my Andean, sweet
Rita of the wild rushes and the wild
grape; now that Byzantium suffo-
cates me, and my blood drowses,
like weak cognac, within me..."
This poem sings through the
loss of the beloved, the loss of the
core, of the original space, place
of origin, from which the ego has
had to uproot itself. The figure of
Rita conveys this message clearly in
its intrinsic relationship with the
local nature and the contrast with
the devitalized, decentered reality
that the melancholic, agonistic
individual lives (far from home,
the homeland and love), which
is embodied in the inhospitable
and refined city represented by
Byzantium, turning to typically
modernist imagery such as the taste
of space-time evasion, taste for the
mythological and taste for luxurious
forms. In this way, Vallejo shows
his major aesthetic-poetic referents,
but manages to clearly emancipate
from them by using a familiar and
rural tone and language. This relates
him to a certain nativism, in which
certain similarities are found in the
poetry and imaginary of Abraham
Valdelomar, author of Tristitia and
El Caballero Carmelo, founder of the
Colónida group and the author who
introduced modernity in the then
conservative Lima. Idilio muerto
"It is necessary to emphasize as
determinant the singular experience of
a writer born in a small Andean city of
northern Peru"
expresses, in an apparently simple
way, an existential break and poetic
aesthetic, since Vallejo moves away
from artificial riches, from a pletho-
ra of images to search for "the emo-
tional core of the poem" (Américo
Ferrari), a style capable of narrating
the experience of an individual that
suffers because he aspires to unity
in love or remembers it as an asset
lost in childhood and home.
The man who is taking shape
in Los heraldos negros not only rep-
resents the condition of the uproot-
ed and the migrant, the poetic en-
ergy of Vallejo also turns to deplore
the metaphysical emptiness, that
is, the faintness of the divine as a
condition of the modern individual,
and the author accomplished it not
in an abstract way, but as a first-hand
drama, as in Espergesia, in which the
birth of the individual is inextrica-
bly linked to the "disease" of God:
"I was born on a day / When God
was sick. / [...] / Everyone knows
that I live, / That I chew... and they
don’t know / Why there’s a squeal
in my verse, / The dark uncertainty
of a coffin, /…"
Even though the poetization of
the metaphysical drama translates
the incognito through a certain
secrecy and symbolism of modern-
ist roots, it also goes towards the
personal and familiar through an
earthly, ordinary language, as well
as an expression in which pathos
and humor are not incompatible, as
the last verse emphasizes: "... I was
born a day / When God was sick,
/ Gravely sick."
The "emptiness" in "its meta-
physical air" is already outlining a
precarious state of a man who sees
his old reference points crumble,
and this state of humankind is
accentuated in the second book,
Trilce, whose verses strongly res-
onate. This book was written at
different times, between the end
of 1918 and 1922, by a Vallejo who
lived experiences that marked him
deeply: the death of his mother in
August 1918 when he was in Lima;
an unfair imprisonment of about
three months in the prison of Tru-
jillo between November 1920 and
February 1921 because of violent
events in Santiago de Chuco, and
the brutal end of an intense love
relationship. These experiences are
not the subject of Trilce, but the
underlying layer of the image of a
humankind more orphaned than
ever, one that seems to be unpro-
tected, exposed to a meaningless
existence, which corresponds to a
radical choice of the aesthetic op-
tions: "Murmured in restlessness,
I cross, / My long suit of feeling,
the Mondays / Of truth. / Nobody
seeks or recognizes me, / And even
I have forgotten from whom I might
be. / ..." (XLIX). In Trilce, there is no
point of support, there is nobody,
no instance to protect, reality and
existence are those spikes of the
fence that the poem speaks of and
the individual appears disconnected
from others and from himself.
The 77 dark, painful poems of
Trilce in the radicality of his choices
do not come from nothing. When
he wrote the book, he was aware of
the avant-garde proposals thanks
to the few Spanish magazines that
arrived in Lima (Grecia, Cervantes).
It is there where he read "A hit of
dice will not abolish chance" by
Mallarmé, and he learned of the
existence of Futurism, Dadaism and
Ultraism. That is to say, he became
aware of all that effervescence that
revolutionized the Western poetry,
which forced the limits of the old
conventions, proposing a renewal of
language and a rupture in the pur-
pose of traditional poetry—the cult
of beauty and the demands of aes-
thetic harmony. Vallejo is attentive
to how the declamatory form and
the musical legacy (rhyme, metric,
strophic molds) are discarded, and
how unusual and visionary images,
non-sintaxis and simultaneity, the
new typographical disposition and
the visual effects are given priority.
Vallejo is aware, but he does not
adhere to any of the movements or
proclaimed himself an avant-garde,
as it does, for example Alberto Hi-
dalgo, who published Arenga lírica al
emperador de Alemania y otros poemas
[Lyric Speech to the Emperor of Ger-
many and other poems] (1916) and
Panoplia lírica [Lyric Panoply] (1917),
considered as the first avant-garde
poetic manifestations of the coun-
try, with a strident aesthetic that
exalts speed and machinism as well
as an egotistical "ego-driven" attitude
highly influenced by the Italian Fu-
turism. Vallejo does not follow any
of these movements. It is probably
for this reason that when Trilce was
published, a work considered today
as the most radical and original
avant-garde expression, it sowed
confusion. Readers and critics did
not seem prepared for his extreme
modernity. Very few literary reviews
were published and those who wrote
them, like Luis Alberto Sánchez,
did not understand, did not see
that it was a verbal earthquake that
would change the course of poetry.
Trilce, as Vallejo commented in a
letter to his friend and intellectual
accomplice Antenor Orrego, "has
bounced back from the plant crust,
from the dry skin made of tinder
of Lima's literary sensitivity. They
have not understood anything. For
the majority, it is only the delirium
of a poetic schizophrenia or a liter-
ary absurdity that only seeks street
stridency."
It will never cease to amaze that
the life experience of a poet from
the province in a conservative and
closed capital as Lima of the 1920s
was able to produce a poetry as
radically modern as that of Trilce,
in which it resounds the deep
gaps of the modern Western world
and of that individual who has
CHASQUI 3
been deprived of the old organic
solidarity. Trilce manages to make
the poem into a place of crisis,
where the driving sense of words
and existence is lost and broken
simultaneously. This is expressed in
the first poem that opens up ques-
tioning and "shows an immediate
discomfort" "Who makes so much
noise. ..?" which marks a time of
total isolation, and closes pointing
out that one is in "the mortal line
of equilibrium," in other words, in
that point in which life and lan-
guage are broken. Trilce is the place
of the terrible human vulnerability
and that exposure to the violence of
existence takes form in the violence
that Vallejo inflicts on the language.
Avant-garde audacities and
transgressions are an incentive to
maximize the poetic discourse itself
and produce a word whose expres-
sive impact has no point of compar-
ison with the contemporary works.
Experimentation —the expressive
search that Vallejo undertook with
Trilce was more of an aesthetic
search— makes the creation a risky
act in which the conquest of free-
dom is at stake, an experience of
the possible limits of expression,
as he stated after the publication,
to Orrego, who wrote the prologue
and one of the few persons who
perfectly understood what Vallejo
was doing and the poetic value of
the poem book: "I assume complete
responsibility for its aesthetics.
Today, perhaps more than ever, I
sense a so far unknown but sacred
obligation gravitating over me as a
man and artist: to be free! If I am
not free today, I will never be free.
I feel the arch of my forehead swell
with its most imperious curve of
heroism. I give myself over to the
freest form that I can, and this is
my greatest artistic heritage. God
alone knows the degree to which my
freedom is real and true! God knows
how much I have suffered to keep
this rhythm from overrunning that
freedom and spilling into license!
God knows over what hair-raising
edges I have peered, brimming with
fear that everything in the depths
would die for my poor soul to live!"
The Vallejo writing enterprise
forces the poet to look at what he
calls "the hair-raising edges," to take
the poetic word out of the aesthetic
sphere, to take a step outside art
as Paul Celan 5 would say, with
whom Vallejo had many points in
common, in what they demanded
of the word. This step outside art
is not a mere gesture of transgres-
sion of the uses or traditions but a
vital act since what is at stake is the
integrity of existence, of the "poor
living soul." That is why it is a very
sacred obligation, which is why man
and artist make one. Trilce works as
a "counter-word" (Celan) that puts
to the test the function of repre-
sentation and communication of
language, undoing the tapestry of
rhetoric, tearing apart "all the con-
ventional and mechanical threads,"
thoroughly killing what Orrego in
the aforementioned prologue called
"the style," to get a raw expression
capable to translate the experience
of crumbling of beliefs and certain-
ties, from that state / existence to
CHASQUI 4
the outside elements, in which the
word seems to find enjoyment and
pain. The radical writing that Vallejo
proposes in Trilce is animated by the
utopian desire to find an expression
of the experience lived without me-
diation, of writing that longs to stop
being writing, to stop being a system
of signs ruled by convention, which
is impossible, of course, but in that
anxiety an unprecedented word is
generated, that is to say, a word that
has never been heard before. In that
sense, that desire connects with one
of the deepest aspirations embodied
by the avant-garde, in particular, the
Dadaist, whose actions aimed at
destroying art as an institution, at
destroying what bourgeois society
had made of art, in order to restore
its vital character, as noted by P.
Burger.6
This extraordinary aspiration
defended in Tristan Tzara's man-
ifestos, in the productions of the
Dadaists, as well as in that of the
Surrealists, was also perhaps the
greatest expression of unfulfilled
expectations, not only because of
the recovery effected by bourgeois
society mainly of the plastic cre-
ations but also because, if we speak
of poetry, there was no Dadaist or
Surrealist work that imposed as
such. Trilce and then Poemas hu-
manos seems to me to be the works
that come closest to that aspiration.
Poetry (and art) as vital praxis is
a concern that will be consubstan-
tial with the creative work of Vallejo
until his death and in the Parisian
years. He expresses it explicitly in
his articles and did not miss an
opportunity to distance himself,
on the one hand, from the then
fashionable movements, denounce
the danger of imposture and pose
and, on the other hand, reaffirm
the vital goal of art as seen in his
famous writing entitled Poesía Nueva
"Poetry (and art) as a vital praxis is
a concern that will be inherent in
Vallejo’s creative work until his death."
[New Poetry], 1926: "New poetry is
the name they have called verses
whose lexicon is composed of the
words ‘cinema, engine, horsepower,
plane, radio. jazz-band, wireless te-
legraphy,’ and, in general, of all the
words from contemporary sciences
and industries; regardless of the
fact that the lexicon corresponds
or not to an authentically new
sensitivity ..."
Vallejo points out that sensitivity
is the essential part of it. If you place
importance to the notion of "new,"
which is the case, this must concern
sensitivity, regenerated in depth,
"in an authentic manner" as he put
it. What concerns Vallejo, as was
also crucial for Baudelaire —author
that introduced the poetic moder-
nity— is that poetry accounts from
its very existence of the profound
transformations that modern life
produces in humankind. "Many
times new words may be missing.
Many times a poem does not say
'cinema', having, nevertheless, the
cinematic emotion, in a dark and
tacit way, but effective and human."
The essential is the intimate link
between expression and life. One
regenerates the other and vice versa:
"to awaken new nervous tempers,
deep sentimental insights, ampli-
fying visions and comprehensions
and densifying love: the restlessness
then grows and becomes exasperat-
ed and the breath of life is stirred."
A vital current circulates between
the poet and his poem: "the creator
enjoys or suffers there a life in which
the new relations and rhythms of
things have become blood, cell,
something, in short, that has been
incorporated vitally in the sensi-
tivity," the concept of the "new" is
deprived of its ostensible character
of avant-garde aesthetic standard,"
the new poetry based on a new sensi-
tivity is, on the contrary, simple and
human and at first sight it would be
considered old, or does not receive
much attention about whether it is
modern or not," it does so in favor
of a conception that roots creation
at the very core of its time.
It is no longer a matter of run-
ning after modernity but of know-
ing what it is made of, what type of
man is breeding in it. The poetry
written by Vallejo in Paris from
1923 to the early 1938 explores that
state of humankind, describing that
man. But it does so not from the
distance of the observer but from
the angle drawn by the very slope
of existence, if we speak using Paul
Celan’s words. As recorded, for
example, in the poignant poem
"Alfonso, you’re looking at me,
I see...," which Vallejo wrote in
1937, in memory of his close friend
Alfonso de Silva, a great Peruvian
musician who was already in Paris at
the arrival of the poet in 1923 and
that in those first months became
guide and accomplice of the bohe-
mian and miserable life in the City
of Lights: "Alfonso: you are looking
at me, I see, / from the implacable
plane where the lineal always, the
lineal nevers, dwell / (That night,
you slept, between your dream /
and my dream, on Rue de Ribouté)
/ Palpably, / your unforgettable
cholo hears you walk / in Paris, /
... " Dedicated and addressed to
his friend, this poem that evokes
the difficult life of Latin American
artists, marginal foreigners, without
means, in post-war France in the
1930s, is in continuity with the
other texts of Poemas humanos. Part
of that dialogue is the conversation
that Vallejo had with the other men
who lived the alienating modern
urban experience.
The death of his friend exac-
erbated the intolerable existence,
but, in front of the existential dis-
junction, the word—thanks to its
ritual and memorial value—allows
a reunion with his own humanity.
In this poem and in many others,
there is already a fracture between
the vision of the Vallejo that, like
most Latin American poets, writers
and artists, arrives in Paris with his
hopes up the center of the world
and modernity, and the one of the
Vallejo that first-hand experienced
the deep moral and economic crisis
caused by the First World War," one
of the most frightening experiences
of the world history" that evidenced
"in a field of forces crossing tensions
and destructive explosions, the tiny
and fragile human body" (Walter
Benjamin).
Vallejo verbalized this catastro-
phe in an article of the late 1923
that read: "They walk through the
streets of Paris, bloody and numer-
ous, crippled. He is already the
armless father, the brother with the
wooden thigh, or the son who had
to bend even more than his own old
mother to be able to hear her, or the
husband who, upon his return from
the trenches one bright morning,
when he embraced his wife, had no
other eyes that those of memory to
see her ... They walk, pushed by the
same human delirium as the others;
I have never seen a more dense and
insecure shadow than the one they
cast on the ground.7"
Throughout Poemas humanos,
man emerges as a reified and ex-
ploited being, recording the impact
on the individual of the social and
economic violence of a merciless
capitalism. The unfortunate, the
man who passes with bread on his
shoulder, the one standing on a
stone, through an always-empathic
word, with respect to that forgotten
neighbor, mistreated by the time,
comes alive. The experience that
poetry transmits of that man is
never abstract or purely intellectu-
al, the work of the expression aims
at it being physical and emotional,
to "enter the chest" "with a stick in
his hand" as one Vallejo’s verses
say. The feeling of solidarity, com-
passion, love and identification
with the other, with the neighbor
has a political background and
Vallejo—before the restlessness of
a threatening future, of a capitalist
society that despises human life—
wants to believe that "it circulates
in our badly injured guts and in
the gloomiest disarticulations of
our conscience a new breath, a new
seed of life."8
After 1927, after his readings
and trips to Russia, it is incarnated
in Marxism and the Spanish peo-
ple, a leading actor in the defense
of the Republic, will embody the
Soviet collectivist model, the only
probable "salvation in the face of the
contemporary barbarism" according
to him and when the civil war broke
out, this hope. The people who as-
sumed and took charge of its own
struggle is, according to Vallejo, in
"the avant-garde of civilization," de-
fending with blood —never equaled
in purity and generous ardor— the
universal democracy in danger. The
War of Spain, as Vallejo calls it, is
a war against the fascist forces, and
has a meaning that goes beyond the
national, it is a "throbbing, human
and universal tearing [...] in which
the world is inclined to look at itself,
as in a mirror, overwhelmed, at the
same time, with stupor, passion
and hope," as he wrote in one of
his articles of 1937 in defense of
the Republic.
This terrible war that Vallejo
lived intensely and deeply will out-
live his last hours of agony. He total-
ly committed to supporting actions
and at the same time, he wrote fever-
ishly perhaps the greatest and most
intense book of poems about that
major war. I say this not because of
a supposed historical fidelity but
because it seems to be written in the
midst of a battle, animated by the
desire to extract the creation from
"the deepest and hottest folds of
life," as he says, speaking of Spanish
poets who engaged in this fight. Es-
paña, aparta de mí este cáliz has also
that desire to generate the poem in
the very heart of the conflict and to
exalt the ordinary men that history
has forsaken: Pedro Rojas, Ramón
Collar, Ernesto Zúñiga, in their
humble singularity, built the image
of what is human:
"They have killed him, forcing
him to die / Pedro, Rojas, the
worker, the man, he / Who was
born very little, looking at the sky,
/ And when he grew became red
/ And struggled with his cells, his
"noes", his "and yets," his hungers,
his fragments. / ..." (III), "Ramón
Collar, "yuntero" / And soldier to
son-in-law of your father-in-law,
/ Husband, bordering son of the
old Son of Man! / Ramón of grief,
you, brave Collar, / Champion of
Madrid and with guts; Ramonete,
here, / Your folks think a lot about
your hairstyle!" (VIII).
España, aparta de mí este cáliz cre-
ates a special epic where hope and
agony did battle. While the struggle
of the people is powerfully exalted,
the deep anguish caused by the in-
eluctable advance of the destructive
forces of fascism is also expressed.
Death looms omnipresent as an
ungraspable, threatening entity that
must be fought, besieged: "There
it goes! Call her! It’s her side! /
There goes Death through Irún:
/ her steps accordion, her curse,
/ ..." ("Spanish image of death",
V). The poems do not narrate, the
verb intends to be visionary and the
death as poor and only (individual)
destiny of man is transcended by
the sacrifice of Republican fighters
in favor of a future where "all men
will love each other and eat and
only death will die."
As shown by the well-preserved
manuscripts of this last poetic stage,
Vallejo displays a feverish rhythm of
writing; dates, corrections, erasures
evidence a production impacted by
the war actions. From the word,
Vallejo fights against words. His
creative gesture comes to the rescue
of hope, a vital gesture. He struggles
against himself not to be defeated
by the agony and the tragic course
of events. That is evidenced by the
manuscripts and, more precisely,
the notebook where he wrote his
last texts, which is in fact an "An-
tifascist School Booklet," edited by
the Ministry of Public Instruction
and Fine Arts of the Spanish Re-
public. Vallejo had to take it with
him after his last trip in July 1937
on the occasion of the Second Con-
gress of Writers for the Defense of
Culture. In that so-full-of-symbols
"booklet", he composes/writes the
poems España, aparta de mí este cáliz,
and the latest versions of Poemas
Humanos.
In this last stage of poetic writing
more fruitful than ever, Vallejo com-
poses and/or corrects nearly half of
the texts published posthumously.
The manuscripts help see that he
makes of a poem a battle- and work
field. It is, at the same time, a strug-
gle where words want to be a weap-
on against Fascist deadly forces and
struggles against language, that is,
deep verbal work. The last Vallejo,
although inhabited by the anguish
of events and engaged in that fight,
tirelessly makes his word subject to
the most modern experimentation;
he is particularly interested in, for
example, the cinematographic tech-
niques of Eisenstein and Vertov.
We are able to see it in a note of
1935 when he writes: "a new aes-
thetic: short poems, of varied forms,
about evocative and anticipatory
moments, like L'Opérateur in the
cinema of Vertov."
However, this experimentation
always occurs in order to adjust to
the historical and living human
reality. The work of language is
like the work of modern dancers
who give the impression that
their movements and twists are so
natural when actually they are the
result of a titanic and extremely
technical body exercise. This work
can also be compared to that of the
sculptor, in that willpower, as Juan
Fló says, "extracting the poem itself
from the language", rather than
"expressing a predicted poem with
language".
The exploitation of all strata
of language serves a yearning: to
understand the violence of the
reality of the world with the heart
and with our body, being always
convinced that a vital, lost mean-
ing must be found. In 1928, in one
of his articles, Vallejo says, "One
can possess the knowledge of the
facts, but one cannot possess its vi-
tal significance," defining the man
from modern western societies as
one who "knows everything but
does not understand anything."
This thought is not only away
from the blind faith in scientific
progress, but considers it as one
of the factors causing the fall of
humanity in extreme barbarism.
In a similar way, Walter Benjamin
saw progress as a storm falling on
the angel of History. The poetry
in Vallejo is the other side of the
blind faith in scientific progress
and rationality. The reasoning
word is on the rack, which is con-
tinuously through by the inextri-
cable expression of the affections,
the drives, the never resolved
contradictions; the aim is to make
his word live in the world, that
the trauma and hopes of the time,
"the cordial disaster of hope, the
direct scuffle of man with men,
the small and immediate drama of
the opposing forces and directions
of reality" go through poetry; as
he says, far away from the poets
that he describes as "closed-door
literate" or "in pajamas," and also
distant from a poetry joining the
transmission of an ideological
message, like that of Neruda of
those same years.
***
The universality of Vallejo’s
poetry emerges, although it seems
paradoxical, from its profound
singularity. It is in that freedom
assumed of the cult of the new, to
the frantic desire for renewal of
his contemporary avant-gardism
and that embody the spirit of the
time. Vallejo goes further because
experimentation and experience
never cease to be solidary, it allows
us to hear and understand today the
moving concern about the status of
humankind and its future through
a revival of poetry and language.
Thanks to that, he travels in
the time, he did not stop to feed
the Spanish language poetry from
numerous generations of both the
American continent and Spain, and
the very different aesthetics from
the mid-twentieth century to date.
* Poet, translator and professor of Literature
at the University of Caen, France.
1 Appreciations in the article Una gran consulta
internacional, [A Large International Consul-
tation] dated May 31, 1929.
2 "In Satie we can see how music becomes
such a high and pure form of art, free and
unconditional, that it ceases to be art any-
more. And maybe this is the great way: killing
art by freeing it," at El más grande músico de
Francia, [The Greatest Musician in France]
in Variedades, No. 960. Lima, July 24, 1926.
3 José A. Valente, César Vallejo o la proximidad.
César Vallejo’s poem work. A. Ferrari, Archivos
Collection- Unesco, 1988.
4 Octavio Paz, Los hijos del limo, [The Children
of the Lime] 1974.
5 Paul Celan in El meridiano.
6 At La teoría de la vanguardia, 1997, p. 104.
[Avant-garde Theory]
7 Los mutilados, Claridad, December 1923.
8 As he says in his article Una gran consulta
internacional
CHASQUI 5
 JOHANNA HAMANN:
BODY EXPANSION
Guillermo Niño de Guzmán*
The Inca Garcilaso Cultural Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs pays tribute to the memory of Johanna
Hamann, one of the most outstanding Peruvian sculptors of recent decades.

"
For me, Art is a path to freedom,
a self-knowledge process," was
the answer Johanna Hamann
gave when an interviewer asked her
how she assumed her task.
In addition, undoubtedly, each
of her drawings, engravings and
sculptures was the freest and most
genuine expression of a sensitive
spirit that fought tirelessly to find
her place in the world. Thus, her
imaginative flight was filled with
those celestial questions that we
never finished doing and that have
disturbed our existence since time
immemorial. This reminds us that
Gauguin, while battling with his
demons in his Polynesian exile,
did a painting called Where do we
come from? What are we? Where are
we going?
Johanna Hamann stormed into
the plastic environment before
she was 30. Her first exhibition
(Forum Gallery, 1983) caused an
inevitable shock due to her cour-
age and visceral character. There,
she presented a sculptural group
entitled Barrigas [Bellies] (1978-
1983), consisting of three pieces
representing the belly of a pregnant
woman hanging up from a metal
bar with meat butcher’s hooks.
Made with wire, cloth, plaster
and resin, their shapes impressed as
they showed a gradual tearing, end-
ing with a third womb destroyed,
as if the pregnancy had been inter-
rupted by a brutal abortion.
It was a daring and stark pro-
posal, radiating a shocking beauty.
Hamann seemed to lash out at one Johanna Hamann (Lima, 1954 - 2017).
of the most respected and even
sacred institutions such as mother-
hood. However, her intention was explained. My reactions were a solid creative project. Hamann tions, but also the circumstances
not to scandalize. Her work was bodily, emotional and spiritual, all continued exploring the body and where she created.
the result of an arduous personal one thing. It was violence through went even further in her desire to Definitely, it is clear that her
confrontation. my materiality, it was necessary to undress the body to the ultimate pieces do not celebrate life and na-
In fact, it was a self-exploration, ‘burst’ from my body that prevailed consequences. ture, but confirm their deprivation
since the artist —who, by the way, and burst into space with this par- That is to say, she persisted in and our defenselessness. Hence
had become a mother— had ex- ticular form. Barrigas, for example, her tearing process and revealed those bodies sacrificed, devoid of
perienced in her own flesh the are a question: is it a birth, an abor- the skeleton as a scaffold of the humankind.
changes in the female body due to tion, what is it? body, as shown in Esqueleto [Skel- However, before that night-
gestation. All the artistic materializations eton] (1985). This fundamental marish look, it is difficult to
Therefore, her sculptural work are always —at least the ones that I work is shocked by its muffled establish how much the internal
is a response to an interest in ex- do— questions; questions that I have violence, by the almost obscene conflicts that harassed the art-
ploring the mystery of existence, asked myself and that I expose and exposition of a being whose flesh ist weighed and how much was
even though this involved giving us that remain as questions there." has been removed —maybe flayed, due to the oppression of the
a crude and unattractive vision of Her next exhibition (Camino devoured by a predator or simply, environment. After all, it was an
a crucial stage in women life cycle. Brent gallery, 1985) proved that corroded and deteriorated by unfortunate time in which Peru
"Since my first sculptures, I've that incursion had not been a time—, which makes us calibrate was torn between political chaos
been closer to me physically, she mere attempt, but the start-up of the sculptor’s existential motiva- and terrorist violence. The attacks

CHASQUI 6
became frequent and death lurked
around any corner.
In that sense, one can un-
derstand why Hamann’s vision
became darker and more disen-
chanted. In addition, although
it was not her essential purpose,
we believe that her expression
of horror surpasses the personal
scope and reflects the brutality and
hopelessness of those immensely
unhappy times. How to dissociate
the withered and mutilated bodies
Cuerpo [Body] II (Freedom). 1994-1997. Madera de olivo, 250 × 190 × 90 cm. Alicia Benavides. Collection
portrayed in her sculptures from
those bodies ripped apart by the
explosion of a car bomb?
"My work oscillates between the
complete and the incomplete, be-
tween life and death, between Eros
and Thanatos, she explained once.
I think that due to our incomplete-
ness, life and death are in direct
contradiction, because we are
here... passing." Undoubtedly, this
existential struggle is the sculptor’s
driving force; she rebelled against
the limitations of the human con-
dition by striving to transform mat-
ter and mold it at her will. In that
sense, she resembled the demiurge,
who breathed into clay figures his
breath of life.
In the nineties, Hamann re-
fined her particular style, testing
with different materials and tex-
tures. A series of works, where she
combines stones and wood with
iron saws whose sharp teeth show
extreme ferocity, belongs to that
Photo: JP Murrugarra
period. Despite the fact that the
meaning is obvious, the proposal
was attractive due to the combina-
tion of dissimilar elements, causing
a disturbing tension.
Then, when the new millen-
nium arrived, she dedicated her-
self to articulate weightless metal
bodies that fascinated by their
subtlety and lightness. This exhibi-
tion, which was titled Cuerpo, frágil
refugio [Body, fragile refuge] (Luis
Miró Quesada Garland Room,
2002), represented a very interest-
ing turn because Hamann limited
her usual aggressiveness and man-
aged to sketch a more suggestive
type of sculpture, reflecting an
unsuspected tenderness.
A decade later, she gave a new
twist through her metal and stone
pieces, a collection exhibited in Ese
nudo sutil [That subtle knot] (Ceci-
lia González gallery, 2013), which
was conceived from the drawings
of neurons types made by Santiago
Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish physi-
cian who received the Nobel Prize
in 1906. If before she focused on
the flesh and the entrails, now she
dared to dissect the brain. Hamann
intended to associate the brain fold
and sinuosity, some as strange as
those of the cabbage. It is a stage
of her career where the sensuality
and the enigma of forms hiding the
secret of life predominate.
In 2016, a year before she died
from cancer, the Instituto Cultural
Peruano Norteamericano [ICPNA]
organized a retrospective exhibi-
tion that covered her production
from 1977 to 2015. Undoubtedly,
it was an unbeatable opportunity
to compare the evolution of a
mature sculptor who, from a very
young age, glimpsed her path and
promised to follow it with admi-
rable dedication and coherence.
Her versatility leapt into view,
as proven by those lesser-known
pieces in which she stands out for
her skill and exquisiteness in shap-
ing the human figure.
We must also remember that
she was a remarkable student at
the School of Plastic Arts of the
Catholic University, where she as-
similated the ideas of the sculptor
Anna Maccagno. Later, she would
become professor, a role that she
played with unparalleled energy
and generosity. She also stood out
as a researcher, which allowed her
to obtain her doctorate at the Uni-
versity of Barcelona and published
two books on the Lima urban space
and its monuments.
Johanna Hamann died in 2017,
when she still had a lot to say. Of
an intense, complex, and untamed
personality, she was a woman of
temper that was not inhibited by
any challenge. Passionate in the
highest degree, she possessed an
overwhelming force, which some-
times concealed her terrible lucidity.
* Journalist and writer.
CHASQUI 7

A remarkable exhibition made by the Art Museum of Lima shows the splendor of silverware during the Viceroyalty of Peru and in th
Censer. Lima, ca. 1850-1900. Silver, 27 × 14.2 × 20.3 cm. Private collection, Lima.
F
rom the 16th century the
name of Peru in the universal
imagination was related to a
place abound with precious metals,
in particular, silver. To the fabulous
treasures of the Inca Empire con-
quered by Pizarro and his hosts was
added the discovery of the mines
of Potosí —present-day, Bolivia—
ca. 1545, the richest known site,
whose production revolutionized
the world economy. This meant
the birth of a society marked by
extreme situations, such as the
forced labor of the mitayos and the
opulence of the great viceroyalty
cities. Considering that the omni-
presence of this metal determined
the rhythm of colonial life, a
vigorous tradition of silverware
emerged. This represented a clear
break if compared to the time
before the conquest, but also it
led to the gradual reconversion of
the indigenous artisans and their
traditional techniques.
The aim of this exhibition is to
offer a broad panorama of the his-
tory of silverware throughout the
viceroyalty and the first republican
CHASQUI 8
century, focusing on the evolution
of its trade and on the multiple
uses of carved silver in the reli-
gious, daily and festive life from dif-
ferent sectors of the local society. It
is, however, a story with inevitable
gaps due to the fragility of much of
the material culture of the period,
which includes the massive and
periodic destruction of many silver
sets, either by changes in taste or by
the difficulties marking the Andes
life up to date. Even, due to a metal
whose dynamics was constantly
recycling and moving worldwide,
with a diversity of meanings that
we have just begun to unravel.
The Conquest against the
Indigenous Past
In 1532, the Spanish troops arrived
on the coast of Tumbes, attracted
by the news that spread: the news
spread in Panama about a rich
empire located to the south of the
isthmus. The culminating point
of this initial story was the rescue
that the Inca Atahualpa offered
after being captured in the plaza
of Cajamarca on November 16
SILVER FROM
celebrated art and craft of
Censer in the shape of an armadillo, ca. 1825-1830.Silver, 38.7 × 31.3 × 20 cm. Ferrand
Collection, Lima.
of that year. Coming from all the
Tahuantinsuyo, the treasure was
composed of thousands of pieces
of silver and gold carved by Inca
artisans, whose skill amazed the
Spaniards. However, the canons, so
different from Inca aesthetics and
the "idolatrous" character attribut-
ed to many of these works, contrib-
uted to their massive destruction.
Indeed, with the death sentence of
the Inca, it was imposed a material
value of these objects, whose global
circulation in the form of bullion
and coins marked a turning point
in the economy of the West.
Economy and Spirituality: the
Routes of Silver
An unexpected event consolidated
Peru’s golden legend and boosted
the development of colonial silver-
ware. This is about the discovery of
the "rich hill" of Potosí, in Upper
Peru —present-day Bolivia— ca.
1545, which was soon considered
as the largest silver deposit in the
world.
From that moment, the ex-
traction and distribution of the
Ricardo Kusunoki and Lu
metal established trade routes
known today as silver routes. Al-
though the metal destined for the
Crown travelled —llama ride— from
Potosi to Arica, and then sent by
sea to Lima, it created a network
that included the road from the
vice royal capital to the rich hill,
crossing the Andes.
Along these trade networks
churches and sanctuaries some-
how superimposed making the
displacement of people and goods
sacred. This seemed to confirm the
arguments of some Spanish writers
about the providential meaning of
the conquest of Peru, whose rich-
ness came to sustain the expansion
of Catholicism.
The Ecclesiastical Splendor
Peruvian silverware reached its
greatest splendor and originality
from ca. 1650-1780, coinciding
with the flourishing of the so-called
"major" arts, such as architecture
and painting. Considering a social
space so impregnated with religios-
ity, ecclesiastical pieces were, from
a distance, the most abundant
M THE ANDES
uis Eduardo Wuffarden*
he first century of the Republic. The well-known exploitation of the mining wealth appears as the background that also animates the
f the Peruvian goldsmiths.
Censer in the shape of a lion. Lima, ca. 1760-1800. Silver, 19 × 27 cm. Private
collection, Lima.
and rich, both for their intrinsic
value and for the quality of their
ornamental development. The
most recurrent pieces, which are
still used, are related to the ritual
of the mass and the arrangement
of the altar, (e.g. the chalices for the
consecration of bread and wine,
and the missal stands to hold the
missal, or liturgy book), and the
cruets (to contain water and wine).
Other pieces are less familiar to
the modern spectator, such as
the tabula pacis or osculatorium, so
called because they were kissed —as
a rite— when the priest gave peace
to the faithful. As complement
there were situlae—containers of
holy water that was spread using
a sprinkler or hyssop—censers and
navetas, the latter destined to keep
incense.
The Craft of the Silversmith
Following a common social practice
among their European colleagues,
the vice royal silversmiths used to
be grouped around brotherhoods
devoted to the cult of their patron
Saint Eloy, legendary bishop of
the Middle Ages who would have
worked as such in his youth. Soon
after being formed, the members
of this powerful trade already occu-
pied entire streets in Lima, Cuzco
and Huamanga for developing a
number of crafts, economic and
financial activities, which would
play a crucial role since they were
related to all spheres of civil and ec-
clesiastical life. Especially in Lima,
the great silversmiths managed to
articulate quickly and skillfully
with the Creole elite and with the
vice royal authorities, who were
the axes of the colonial economy,
through different links forming a
solid community of interests.
It was precisely thanks to this
complex network that the vice royal
silversmiths were able to avoid for
centuries the official marking of
silver and the payment of the royal
fifth tax, a fact that has tradition-
ally made it difficult to identify
Peruvian pieces.
Silver and Daily Life
A full expression of the "Indian
luxury", which defined the mood
Chocolate pitcher with pelican and tap. Sierra Sur, ca. 1800-1840. Silver,
22 × 19 × 10 cm. Art Museum of Lima.
of daily life among local elites, was
the use of costly household items
entirely made of silver. As revealed
in testaments and inventories of
goods, there was a very special-
ized terminology to describe the
precious metal objects distributed
in the main houses. Within the
urban manorial life, the silverware
had generated typical typologies
of the country that, according to
all indications, were already fully
established at the beginning of the
18th century. Its peculiar features
made many travelers think of a
sumptuous oriental f lair. The
interior rooms treasured a variety
of pieces, ranging from tableware
to those used for personal hygiene.
In fact, many European travelers
noted their astonishment at the
use of silver in the production
of objects that in Europe were
normally made of less expensive
materials.
The First Republican Century
The elaboration of household
silver ware begins to decline
during the last quarter of the
18th century, as a result of the
progressive decrease of silver
production and the subsequent
replacement of silver ware by
others of less expensive mate-
rials. However, the use of this
white metal was maintained
through the continued use of
family property objects, or with
the eventual elaboration of new
pieces by workshops and master
silversmiths who continued the
colonial tradition, whose work
was encouraged by those who
defended the preservation of
"national traditions." For the
Andean population, the sil-
verware has as one of its main
scenarios the ceremonial and
festive world inherited from the
viceroyalty, which had helped to
shape the collective identities
around certain religious cults
or civil ephemerides. All this
reveals the renewed vitality of an
artistic craft that, in many cases,
is extended until nowadays.
* "Curators of the Plata de los Andes [Silver of
the Andes] exhibition. Treasures of Peru".
CHASQUI 9
 FEAST OF PAUCARTAMBO
Miguel Rubio*
Visual immersion of photographer Pilar Pedraza in one of the most colorful and intense annual
celebrations in the southern Andes.

T
he celebration in honor
of Mamacha Carmen, held
from July 15 to 18 in Paucar-
tambo, Cuzco, is one of the most
important in the southern Andes.
Virgen del Carmen is a symbolic rep-
resentation of the social memory
shared by the village of Paucartam-
bo. Her cult assumed hierarchies
and preserves myths of origin,
determines links and articulates
the social fabric of the community.
Nearly twenty groups of masked
dancers take part in this celebra-
tion; the dancers’ bodies preserve
different memories and narratives,
according to their history and the
social sector to which they belong.
These exposed bodies allude to
commemorations of ancestral ori-
gin: the conflict between Q'hapaq
Qolla and Q'hapaq Ch'unchu, the
main protagonists of the festival,
goes back to the mythical cycle of
the creation of Tahuantinsuyo.
Pilar Pedraza, masked with her
camera, uses the body, captures the
ephemeral fact and brings us back
on paper the image written with
light. Thus, we can access the most
important moments of the festival
from a peaceful village during most
of the year, which alters its daily
existence for the three days and
three nights of celebration. In this
context, the interaction between
actors, residents, and visitors pro-
duces a performative coexistence
of great stimulation for the sens-
es. During those days, daily life
passes impressed by the presence
and activity of masked dancers
who cross the village in groups, or
without them, walking, generating
"relationships" among people. That
is the short-term relationship that
features the bond.
The displayed pictures are
evidence of almost a decade of
consecutive work by the artist at
this festival. Now, almost a decade
later, her photographic dance is
part of that festival.

Masks in Paucartambo
Many characters that we see nowa-
days in the dances have an ancient
origin. Hundreds of dances are per-
formed in Peru, where men talk to
gods, a magical universe populated
with characters and movement, a
wonderful diversity contained in
the masks, always waiting for the
dancer. The masked dancer is the
main entertainer of celebrations
that, over the years, are linked to
his community. They are part of a
conception of life articulated to the
cycles of the earth and its calendar.
There, in an indispensable way,
music, singing, dance, and the dif-
ferent levels of symbolization con-
tained in the body's behavior are
integrated into the different types
of dances, from the celebration of
life to accompany those who pass
away. The images proposed by the
masks in Paucartambo have been
created and recreated over time,
varying both by the characters they
represent (human faces, animals,
devils) and by the materials with
which they have been made (plas-
ter, pressed cardboard, wool, wire
mesh, felt, fiberglass).
The iconographic construction
of the characters represented by
the masked dancers is a collective
task in which all the community
is involved. It is not a solitary de-
cision, it has to do with tradition,
memory and above all how the
collective imagination perceives
them. Therefore, there is a frame-
work of representation that takes

CHASQUI 10
 Pilar Pedraza (Lima, 1965) studied photography and art, received the Latin
American Master of Contemporary Photography Maldefoco (2016) and the
Diploma of Cultural Community Management at the Antonio Ruiz de Mon-
toya University in Lima. She works with artisan photographic techniques and
for eight years, she has been involved in the "Verte-MirArte" participatory pho-
tography project with children and young people in an area on the periphery
of Lima, a project recognized as a Cultural Focus by the Peruvian Ministry of
Culture. She has been invited to share this experience in different universities
and schools of Peru, as well as in Spain, Chile, and Colombia. She has taken
part in several collective projects and has made individual exhibitions in
Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Austria, the United States, Argentina, and Chile.

into account reproduction and
innovation.
Q’onoy, the Night of the Fire
In this scenic festival, we can
recognize a wide range of original
theatricalities, where a complex
relationship between event, oral
history and what constitutes the
sacred ritual and profane ritual
of the dancers is established.
The night of the fire starts the
day before the festival. During
Q’onoy, the Q’hapaq Qolla arrive
at Paucartambo and light bonfires
and fireworks; this is the first "at-
tack", with the strategic purpose
of taking the Virgin, who—as they
assert—belongs to them. Through
desperate and daring actions, they
"burn down" the town, as a demon-
stration of strength and a way of
intimidation. As a response, the
Q’hapaq Ch’unchu react quickly:
they come out to defend the village
and keep them away. King Ch'un-
chu commanding his army imposes
order. When they have controlled
the situation, they put out the fire
and push back the Q'hapaq Qolla,
frustrating their attack and saving
the Virgin.
* Founder and director of Yuyachkani Cultural
Association. He published the books Guerrilla en
Paucartambo [Guerrilla in Paucartambo] (2013), El
Teatro y nuestra América [Theater and our Americas]
(2012), Raíces y Semillas [Roots and Seeds]. Maestros
y caminos del teatro en América Latina [Masters and
Routes to Theater in Latin America] (2011), El
cuerpo ausente [Absent body], first edition (2006),
Notas sobre teatro [Notes about Theater] (2001) and
Allpa Rayku, una experiencia del teatro popular [Allpa
Rayku, an experience of Popular Theater] (1983).

CHASQUI 11

A NOVEL WITHIN A NOVEL IN PERU
An unpublished novel from the 17th century set in Peru as one of its main settings. Here, fragments
from the prologue written by Belinda Palacios, editor of such precious manuscript.
T
he novel Historia del Huérfano
[The Story of the Orphan]
by Andrés de León, resident
of the famous and very noble city
of Granada (1621) is a curious bi-
ographical fiction signed under a
pen name but probably written by
the Augustinian Martín de León
y Cárdenas, which has not been
published until now despite its
undeniable value. It describes the
adventures of "The Orphan", a
young Augustinian friar that had
traveled around the different Span-
ish territories in South America and
the Caribbean, but also the royal
courts in Spain and Italy, before he
decided to retire to live his faith at a
monastery in the city of Lima.
History of a Manuscript
The Hispanic Society of America
(New York) has in its possession the
original manuscript of The Story of
the Orphan under catalog number
B2519, which is very well preserved.
It is the only known copy and we
think this might be a copy ready for
printing prepared by a professional
scribe. The writing dates back to the
17th century and it is quite regular
and easy to read […]".
The manuscript gives us some
dates of his story. As displayed on
the cover, The Story of an Orphan
was written for Juan de López de
Hernani, treasurer of the Royal
Treasury. According to Juan Bau-
tista Muñoz, this individual, whom
the author had met in Lima, was in
August 1621 in the court of Spain,
the same date when Andrés de León
signed his dedication from Granada
[Madrigal, 1996: 156]. However,
we found an earlier date inside the
manuscript on the letter dedicated to
him by Juan de Lucio, resident of the
City of Kings, author of En alabanza
del asumpto [In Praise of the Matter],
where it is read "Of the Kings and
April 3, 1620." On the other side,
the cover is dated "In Seville by
Mr. So-and-so, 1621", which makes
us think that this was the foreseen
publication date […].
Inside the text, page iiiv[sic],
under the signature of Juan de Lu-
cio, we find a drawing made with a
lighter ink: a heart-shaped face with
some sort of a hat next to the date
1705. On the next page (and on the
cover of the manuscript), we can see
a name: Juan de Esquivel y Medina,
who may have had the manuscript
in his possession on that date […].
By the end of the 17th century,
the manuscript went to the Count
of Águila, Mr. Miguel Espinosa
Maldonado Saavedra y Tello de
Guzmán (1715-1784), a scholar and
bibliophile with a vast library, to
which the Americanist, cosmogra-
CHASQUI 12
THE STORY OF THE ORPHAN
Saint Augustine Church, Lima, 1868. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Wash-
ington, D. C.
pher and historian Juan Bautista
Muñoz (1745-1799) was allowed
access […]. The Hispanic Society of
America knows that in the beginning
of the 19th century the manuscript
passed from the Colombian Library
to José María de Álava (1815-1872),
bibliophile and professor of the Law
School in Seville, and finally, to the
Marquis Jerez of the Caballeros,
before the American bibliophile
and founder of the Hispanic Society,
Archer Milton Huntington (1870-
1955) acquired and took it where it
is found nowadays.
The Author
Martín de León y Cárdenas was born
in Archidona, Malaga, in 1584. He
was born to Alonso Ortiz de León
and Juana de Morales, and had three
siblings, namely Inés, Francisco
and Pedro. In 1600, he initiated
the Augustinian novitiate in Seville
at the age of 16, where he took his
vows one year later. We know from
Rafael Lazcano that De León stud-
ied Arts and Theology at St. Acacio
School of Seville and then at the
University of Salamanca. He was or-
dained between 1610 and 1611 and,
a few years later, he travelled to the
Americas, where he was received at
an Augustinian monastery in Lima.
Even though the exact date when he
travelled to the Viceroyalty of Peru
is unknown, we know that he was
in Lima for the funeral ceremonies
dedicated to Queen Margarita in
1612. At that time, Juan de Mendoza
y Luna, Marquis of Montesclaros,
was the Viceroy of Peru (since 1607)
and Fray De León and he became
such close friends that the Viceroy
selected him as one of the executors
of his Last Will & Testament in view
of his upcoming death in 1628 […].
Martín de León y Cárdenas died
in Palermo in November 1655 after
a long life dedicated to the Church
and the defense of the Crown’s in-
terests in the Spanish Italy. He was a
religious man and a true politician,
both aspects being well documented
in our time. Nonetheless, little is
known about his poetic and writer
side: Relación de las exequias [Relation
of Obsequies] and Historia del Huérfa-
no [The Story of the Orphan] are the
only literary works known to him.
The Date
Last but not least, there is only
one issue to clarify: the date on
which this text was written. If we
take into account the chronolo-
gy displayed in the lines of the
manuscript, we can read that the
Orphan returned to the Ameri-
cas after a journey in Europe in
1600 to establish in Santa Fe of
Bogota and resume his religious
duties (notice that this is the same
year when young Martín De León
took his vows for the first time).
And then he came back to the
Augustinian monastery in Lima
in 1607, which coincides with
the real date when the Marquis
of Montesclaros arrived in Peru.
From 1608 to 1612, the Orphan
was sent by his order to serve in
Chuquisaca and Guayaquil, which
allowed him to visit the mines of
Huancavelica and Potosí, then
returning to Lima, where he is
designated as Prior of Chile. The
Orphan claimed that he was too
tired for the position and declined
the offer, preferring to live a quiet
life in the monastery for his last
remaining days. The action in the
story ends between 1612 and 1613,
but the writing process must have
started a few years later […].
In any case, as we can see, the
approximate dates when this text was
written coincide with the years Fray
Martín De León lived in the Augus-
tinian monastery in Lima. During
these years, he gathered with poetry
groups in the city, but especially,
with the Marquis of Montesclaros,
the "first Viceroy poet". It is worth
stopping to analyze this. Pilar Latasa
explains how since the 17th century
a new concept of nobility related
to "virtue and arts" became a trend
among the high Spanish aristocracy,
and how this humanist concept in
nobility travels all the way to the
Americas along with the Viceroys and
their courts. In this context, the so
called Academia Antártica [Antarctic
Academy] is established in Lima,
whose members can be considered
as the first literary generation in
Peru. The ideology and tasks of this
Academy, as well as the names of its
members, are reflected in the Discurso
en loor de la poesía [Speech in Praise
of the Poetry] (1608), a long poem in
tercets with a Classical influence writ-
ten by an anonymous Creole woman
signing under the name of "Madam
of this Kingdom". The activities of
the Academy took place especially
during the last decade of the 16th
century and the beginning of the
17th century. According to Tauro,
its decline must have coincided with
the governments of the Marquis of
Montesclaros and the Prince of Squi-
llace. However, the disbanding of
this Academy did not mean the loss
of the literary force; on the contrary,
it meant that the cultivation of arts
passed to revolt around the figure of
the Viceroy […].
Additionally, we can assume that
it did not take long for Martín De
León to become familiar with this
scene of literary fervor and feel right
at home, as evidenced by his early
participation in such an important
event for the city of Lima as was the
celebrations around the obsequies
for Queen Margarita. This explains
the vast array of poems accompany-
ing the manuscript, the significant
concentration of pro-Creole ideas in
its lines, and the incipient but clear
claim against some governmental
practices of the Crown against
the Indigenous peoples, especially
abundant in the last chapters of the
book: ideas that might have been
commented in these literary circles
that young Martín De León started
to frequent.
Andrés de León. Historia del Huérfano [The Story
of the Orphan]. Biblioteca Castro, Madrid,
2018. Edition and introduction by Belinda
Palacios.
 THE SOUND OF MIGRATION
hen Julio Simeón and
Jaime Moreyra played
together for the first
time in Lima on February 14, they
were two young men coming from
the interior of Peru with certain
aspirations to share their musical
talent with people from Lima. This
ever-growing friendship strength-
ened with every show and Los
Shapis, the name they gave to their
new music group, has not stopped
playing and singing ever since.
Their shows welcome millions of
people and their discography is
quite extensive.
It is not by chance that they
chose the name of the most im-
portant traditional dance from
the town of Chupaca: shapish. This
group dance, declared as national
cultural heritage in 2006, finds its
roots in ancestral rituals related
to the transfer of distinguished
people and warriors to the jungle
and their transformation upon
return. The historical traces that
may have given us some accurate
information about its origin and
symbols are lost; however, what is
important about this celebration
is that it reflects, even now, the
migration and rich miscegena-
tion between the peoples in the
interior of Peru, and shows the
incredible capacity of the villagers
to adapt and recreate themselves
SYLVIA FALCÓN
Qori Coya, 2017.
sylviafalcon.com
Qori Coya [Golden Lady] in Quechua,
traditional language of the Andean
folk in Peru, is the fourth record of
Sylvia Falcón, singer from Lima, which
includes ten of her most famous hits
of Peruvian traditional music for voice
and piano. This record focuses on the
Andean region and includes waltzes
such as "Melgar" by Benigno Ballón
Farfán and the National Anthem
of Peru by José Bernardo Alcedo.
Other hits are the emblematic huaino
"Valicha" by Miguel Ángel Hurtado;
"La Pampa y la Puna" ["Pampas and
Abraham Padilla Benavides*
Los Shapis.
in multidimensional music and
dance expressions that include a
perfectly working complex system
of mystical, religious and histor-
ical aspects, food, attires, which
have been evolving in overlapping
layers shown in their external
expressions.
It is not by chance that the
music of Los Shapis–group of two
friends from Huancayo trying to
succeed in Lima–embodies in their
rhythms, scales, and sounds the
feelings of not only the migrants
from the region of Junín, but also
of the entire migration and misce-
genation process which seems to be
SOUNDS OF PERU
Puna"] by Carlos Valderrama; and "El
Picaflor" ["The Hummingbird"] by
Rosendo Huirse. Falcón follows the
path she marked in her first produc-
tions with the intention of continu-
ing the musical aesthetic of the late
world-renowned Peruvian artist Zoila
Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Cas-
tillo, also known by her artistic name:
Yma Sumac, who showed a wide vocal
register with different tone colors and
sonorities in her career that mostly
developed in the 1950s. This record
has quite a polished artistic image full
of iconography that reveals its relation
to the Andean identity. It was recorded
on March 8, 9 and 13, 2017. Piano
interpretation by Pepe Céspedes.
RUBY PALOMINO,
Tribute to Flor Pucarina, 2018.
The commercial boom of the Peruvian
Andean traditional music started in
the 1960s, at the same time as the
waves of migration to the capital city.
Two of its most famous representatives
were Víctor Gil Mallma (1930-1975),
known as the Andean hummingbird,
and Leonor Chávez Rojas (1935-1987),
known as "Flor Pucarina". The inter-
preter Ruby Palomino dedicated to the
latter her last record that includes the
hits the made the honoree popular.
Photo: El Peruano
the main feature in the formation
of the Peruvian’s identity.
When you leave for a different
and distant place, you really do
not leave entirely: the soul of every
migrant vibrates every day in line
with his or her feelings of rooting
and uprooting. In addition, this
melancholy produces the music
from their home towns, that slowly
fuses with the place that receives
them. Los Shapis, as migrants, have
expressed all of this in their lyrics
and songs with a characteristic
unique sound. They are currently
the most successful representatives
of the chicha genre, but they are
This time, her versions are closer to
the traditional sounds, setting aside
for a while the fusions that she devel-
oped in her first record: "¡Chola soy, y
qué!" ["I am chola, and so what?"]. In
this new record, we can hear a "typical
orchestra of the central region," which
accompanies since the middle of the
20th century the presentations of the
Mantaro Valley area that includes
several saxophones, clarinets, violins
and a harp. The "typical orchestra" has
suffered several variations throughout
the years and now it may include
electronic instruments or others. The
music is vital and their promoters use
every available mean to express their
personal or community world. Ruby
not their sole representatives or
creators. This music is formed by
combining in a different way the
sounds that they have always used
with those that appear every day
in their new lives. This particular
sound accompanies the migrant,
especially those coming from the
Highlands, in their new neighbor-
hood, job, and family. A sound
that outwardly expresses what in-
timately has a lot of concealment,
loneliness, secrecy, as it often hap-
pens with the huaino, from which
in a sense this genre comes.
Migrants are asked to rapidly
adapt to the new space, leaving
behind part of what they are to
become more like someone they
are expected to be. At the end of
the day, both parties—the society
that receives them and the new
member—are destined to grow in
the attempt. Both foster creativity
in the other and pose some chal-
lenges to the other. The music of
Los Shapis has been impregnated
by these deep feelings and is
expressed with these new rhyth-
mic, elements, instruments and
musical forms. Without any hint
of doubt, the chicha and Los Shapis
are fundamental for the music
of migration and miscegenation
in Peru.
* Musicologist, composer and orchestra conductor.
Palomino offers us this world of mi-
grants who want to succeed outside
their homes and keep in their heart
the deepest roots of identity, maybe
instilled by their parents at a very early
age, whom they always miss in their
path to success. It is not by chance that
this record is produced and vocally
directed by her own parents: musician
Polo Palomino and singer Gloria
Ramos. A tribute worth listening to.
CHASQUI
Cultural Bulletin
MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Directorate General of Cultural Affairs
Jr. Ucayali 337, Lima 1, Perú
Telephone: (511) 204-2638
E-mail: boletinculturalchasqui@rree.gob.pe
Web: www.rree.gob.pe/politicaexterior
The views expressed in the articles are those of
the authors.
This bulletin is distributed free of charge by the
diplomatic missions of Peru abroad.
Translated by
Centro de Traducción e Interpretación del
ICPNA
Printing:
Inversiones Iakob S. A. C.
CHASQUI 13
 IMPERIAL CUISINE
Without any doubt, we can find the best and more traditional dishes of Cuzco in the picanterías [restaurant
specializing in spicy dishes], quintas [group of houses sharing the same entrance], chicherías [chicha bars], markets, and
during the pagan and religious festivities. But this city offers much more; for instance, a gastronomic experience of
high altitude ecosystems is "Mil Centro", a restaurant opened in Moray by the award-winning chef Virgilio Martínez.
he Cuzco gastronomy,
of acknowledged ances-
try, has been nurtured
throughout the centuries by the
techniques and traditions of many
different societies such as the Inca,
Spanish, Republican and Con-
temporary, and by the privileged
natural larder located along the
Sacred Valley, where many produce
are grown such as the world's most
delicious giant corn (Urubamba),
and from where we can enter the
Parque de la Papa [Potato Park], a
9,000-ha space with altitudes rang-
ing from 3,400 to 4,900 masl that
is under the control of six commu-
nities: Sacaca, Kuyo Grande, Cha-
huaytire, Pampallacta, Paru Paru,
and Amaru. 700 types of potatoes
are preserved there and tourists
not only visit and admire, almost
daily, the crops but also taste the
delicious potato huatias (see box),
which often include sweet potato,
oka and even broad beans.
Culinary Imprint
Even though some representative
dishes of Cuzco cuisine are remark-
ably similar to those prepared in
cities in the south of Peru (ado-
bo, chairo, tamale, stuffed rocoto
pepper, quinoa pesque, deep fried
pork, Guinea pigs, chupe, etc.),
they have a peculiar touch that in-
fuses originality into them, which
may be a different ingredient or a
variation in its preparation. They
also depend on the vagaries of the
weather or a specific celebration
of a festivity. Cuzco dishes are
seasonal and majestic.
For instance, they prepare
dishes with mushrooms: These
are so little,–and so delicious, as
researcher Rosario Olivas wrote
in her book Cusco. El imperio de la
cocina [Cuzco. The Empire of the
Cuisine] (Publishing Fund of the
CHASQUI 14
Teresina Muñoz-Nájar*
Photo: Mil Centro
with the peculiar regional chicha
de jora [corn beer]. The soltero with
Cuzco cheese has also its imprint:
In addition to the common in-
gredients, such as cheese, broad
beans and corn, you can come
across little tasty bits of pig’s head
or feet. In addition, there is a lot to
be said about the Guinea pig: the
preparation techniques vary from
town to town and are different for
each festivity. But we went for the
Guinea pig stuffed with herbs on a
thick wire that is baked directly in a
Restaurant "Mil Centro" in Moray, Cuzco. stone oven or turns (like a rotisserie
San Martín de Porres University, Besides having mushroom as chicken) over high heat. Cheese
2008)– wild and delicate as any main ingredient, the first sub- with corn, an unbeatable simple
other fruit that grows only attend- lime recipe contains sundried dish, is memorable, especially in
ed by its natural surroundings. Peruvian red pepper, broad beans, February and March, when the har-
Rains can occur from December cheese, potatoes, milk, huacatay, vest of the abovementioned giant
and any Tom, Dick and Harry and lemon grass. Meanwhile, the corn of Urubamba starts, while the
with some curiosity can pick them second recipe has diced fried pota- unique frutillada (see box) is drunk
up. Its permanence in this land toes, onion, parsley and scrambled from November to January, when
is as long as a sigh; therefore, we eggs. On the other side, the stuffed the strawberries are fully ripe.
should prepare them almost im- rocoto pepper acquires a different It is impossible to leave behind
mediately. There are two recipes dimension in the Imperial city: the bread produced in Oropesa,
with mushrooms that are com- instead of baking the peppers, such as the chuta, pan rejilla and
mon in Cuzco picanterías: qapchi they are served crispy as a punch, mollete, inseparable companions of
and revuelto. while the pork adobo joins forces breakfast and adobos, or the sweet
wawas baked for All Saint’s Day.
Cuisine Celebration
From the list of most popular
dishes in festivities, we can men-
THE HUATIA tion the chiri uchu (spicy and cold)
The huatia, as researcher Rosario Olivas explains, is a Pre-Hispanic served during the Feast of Corpus
technique to roast the potatoes by mixing them with hot adobes. For Christi, the most important reli-
its preparation, we need to build an earthen oven with an opening gious celebration of Cuzco accord-
facing the wind direction like the one we use for the pachamanca but ing to Rosario Olivas. "No other
the other way round. According to Olivas, we need to find a place city in the Americas–Olivas wrote
with dry dirt and dig a 20-cm deep hole. The researcher explains that in her book about Cuzco cuisine–
"around the hole put big adobes leaving a free space for a door, then
celebrates with such religious recol-
place two long adobes vertically, putting one over the other." Then we
build the oven shaping it like an igloo, place some straw and wood logs lection in the Holy Sacrament. The
through the door, and start a fire. "Once the oven is hot (45 minutes saints and virgins–15 in total–are
or so), remove the live coals, dismantle the oven, mix the food with carried in procession, outnumber-
the adobes (potatoes, okas, broad beans, etc.) and cover everything with ing the images that take part in the
moist papers and a layer of dirt making sure that there are no gaps for Corpus Christi in Seville (Spain),
the smoke to escape." The banquet will be ready in less than an hour.
where the tradition originated…"
And she adds, "In the eve, all
the images enter the cathedral
in procession. The brotherhoods
and sisterhoods are located at the
atrium and the religious adminis-
trators lavish food and drinks on
the believers, dancers, musicians,
friends, relatives, and on those
holding the image aloft. Everyone
dance happily until the night falls."
One of the best descriptions of
the chiri uro is found in the book of
Luis Huayhuaca Villasante (anthro-
pologist and actor from Cuzco):
La festividad del Corpus Christi en el
Cusco (1988) [The Feast of Corpus
Christi in Cuzco]. According to the
author, it involves "a combination
of multiple ingredients: pieces of
parboiled hen, pork sausage, fresh
cheese, qochayuyo (seaweed), kau kau
(lake fish eggs), vegetable omelets,
roast corn, bits of ch’arki (jerky),"
apart from the baked cuy (Guinea
pig). As Sergio Zapata describes
in his Diccionario de gastronomía
peruana tradicional (Publishing
Fund of the San Martín de Porres
University, 2009) [Dictionary of
Traditional Peruvian Gastrono-
my], this dish goes well with the
FRUTILLADA OR CUZCO CHICHA
"compuesto, liqueur made of sugar
Cuzco inhabitants drink chicha out of habit and necessity. They drink cane, herbs and spices." According
it during lunch in a picantería, or at night, in the closest chichería to to Olivas, the chiri ucho is eaten
their home or workplace. Although Spaniards gave the name chicha with the hands "taking bites of one
to every single fermented beverage in the Americas, the most popular ingredient and then the other."
is the corn chicha and in Cuzco, the chicha de jora (jora is the name of
The researcher also points out that
sprouting corn kernels). "In the chicherías in Cuzco—Rosario Olivas
the seaweed and fish eggs come
wrote—, the chicha is announced with a flag, can of flowers, a sign or
a blackboard at the door." The glass to drink chicha is called "caporal" from Arequipa, the cheese from
and can contain up to 1 liter. In fact, the strawberry chicha or frutillada Puno and this dish is also eaten in
is quite original. festivities by Cuzco peasants: "In
some places it is known as merienda,
MIL CENTRO merienday or andasmastay [snack or
supper] and is usually served in
(Eight courses)
baptisms, marriages, birthdays, at
The most awarded Peruvian chef in recent times came with the idea the end of the harvest season and
to open a new laboratory-restaurant in the same place where the Incas in other important events in the
built circular terraces that as you go deeper into the giant well-like rural life."
structure the temperature, altitude and crops change. There, in "Mil
In Cuzco, everything carries a
Centro", Virgilio Ramírez worships and pays homage to the Andes,
meaning both in the city and the
the mountain chains and the altitude. His cuisine only employs local
produce, which is prepared and served in an eight-course banquet country, and there are endless
reflecting eight high-altitude ecosystems. festivities and countless dishes.
* Journalist and culinary researcher

RECIPES
Taken from the book of Rosario Olivas: Cusco. El imperio de la cocina [Cuzco. The Empire of the Cuisine]

MUSHROOM REVUELTO FRUTILLADA

Ingredients: Ingredients:
3 cups of fresh mushrooms 1 ½ liters of water
2 tablespoons of oil 2 cinnamon twigs
1 teaspoon of ground garlic 3 cloves
½ teaspoon of ground cumin ½ bundle of aromatic herbs (fennel, lemon grass, celery)
½ teaspoon of ground pepper 150 grams of wheat flour
½ cup of chopped onions 1 liter of yellow corn chicha
3 eggs 250 grams of sugar
¼ cup of cooked peas 1 kilo of little strawberries
½ kilo of diced fried potatoes ½ glass of pisco
Add salt to taste 1 tablespoon of toast and ground coriander seeds

Preparation:
Clean the dirt off the mushrooms with a moist cloth. Heat the oil and sauté the
onions with garlic, cumin, and salt. Let the onions brown. Add the mushrooms
and stir constantly, then add the eggs slightly whisked and the cooked peas. When
serving, mix the fried potatoes and sprinkle the dish with chopped parsley.
Preparation:
Bring the water to a boil with cinnamon, clove and the bundle of aromatic herbs.
Dissolve the wheat adding a bit of water, then add the mix to the previous prepara-
tion stirring with a spoon. Let this mix boil until it is cooked. Take away from the
stove to cool. Use a strainer to pass the mix to a ceramic container or chinaware,
add the chicha and sugar. Mix everything together well.

MUSHROOM CAPCHI Wash the strawberries and blend half a kilo. Keep those that are complete. Add
Ingredients: the strawberry mix and the whole strawberries to the chicha. Cover with a cloth
500 grams of fresh mushrooms and put it in a hot place for it to ferment, preferably under the sun. When the
3 tablespoons of oil chicha has fermented enough, depending on the taste of the person preparing
50 grams of chopped onions it, serve it in big glasses with two or three strawberries. Sprinkle some toast and
1 teaspoon of ground garlic ground coriander seeds.
1 tablespoon of ground sundried Peruvian red pepper
One pinch of cumin ROAST LAMB
Salt and pepper to taste Ingredients:
250 grams of fresh cooked broad beans 1 small lamb or 1 leg of lamb
500 grams of cooked medium-sized potatoes 2 tablespoons of ground sundried Peruvian red pepper
250 grams of cream ½ tablespoon of ground garlic
1 twig of huacatay 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 twig of lemon grass 1 tablespoon of oregano
150 grams of fresh cheese 1 tablespoon of chopped lemon grass
2 eggs ½ teaspoon of pepper
250 ml of wine or 100 ml of vinegar
Preparation: 200 ml of oil
Clean the dirt off the mushrooms carefully with a knife and then wash them. Sauté 1-2 tablespoons of salt
the onions with garlic, sundried Peruvian red pepper, cumin, salt and pepper to
taste. Add the cooked broad beans, boiled potato halves, cream, huacatay, and Preparation:
lemon grass, and bring to a boil. Add the mushrooms, bits of fresh cheese and Mix the sundried Peruvian red pepper, garlic, cumin, oregano, lemon grass, pepper,
the eggs slightly whisked. Let the mix to cook and then serve. vinegar or wine, oil and salt. Spread the mix on the lamb and marinate overnight
in the fridge. The next day, put the lamb on a grill placed in a baking dish. Put it
in the oven at high temperature (230°C). Bake it until the meat is well done. This
dish is served with roast potatoes.

CHASQUI 15
 WIÑAYPACHA
Ricardo Bedoya*
Filmed in Aymara in the highlands of Puno, Wiñaypacha has become one of the most important Peruvian
films in the last years.

Rosa Nina and Vicente Catacora, characters of the movie.

U
ntil 1996, film produc-
tions in Peru concen-
trated in its capital city.
Film projects were developed
in the city of Lima and most of
the movies were filmed there.
The panorama has changed in
the last two decades. Nowadays,
"regional" movies outnumber the
films made in Lima. These films
are made in Ayacucho, Puno,
Cajamarca, Cuzco, La Libertad,
Lambayeque, Loreto, and other
regions. One of the most notori-
ous Peruvian films in recent years
is Wiñaypacha (2017) that was
shot in Aymara in the highlands
of Puno by the filmmaker from
Puno Óscar Catacora.
The main characters are two
elderly people that are waiting:
Phaxsi (Rosa Nina) and Willka
(Vicente Catacora), Aymara people
living in the high altitudes of the
Peruvian Southern Andes. They
long for better times and the re-
turn of their son who moved to a
distant city. Meanwhile, they work,
herd the cattle, cook, read the coca
leaves and pay tribute to the apus
[spirit of the mountains], who an-
nounced bad times.
Natural actors with no previous
experience, Nina and Catacora,
offer their wrinkled bodies, vocal
intonations and presence, becom-
ing a permanent image in the
visual field. They contribute to the
realist and humble treatment that
the filmmaker wanted for the film.
With a stable and fixed camera, the
visual approach favors the framing
of physical spaces. There we can
behold vast landscapes that change
with the wind and the weather, as
well as indoor spaces that are the
closest to the characters and their
aged bodies. The action of the nat-
ural elements —both favorable and
destructive— is fundamental for the
drama structure of Wiñaypacha:
The wind, snow, fire and running
water maintain the harmony and
bring unbalance at the same time.
They are essential for the lives of
the characters to continue, but they
also produced the accident that
destroyed their house.
The Andean Plateau is not only
a filming "location," it is also an
existential space. Therefore, the
movie shows, on the one side, a
distant and analytical perception
of the elderly characters and their
world, and on the other side, it
prompts affection for the charac-
ters and arouses expectation for
their fate.
The use of spaces relates Wiñay-
pacha to geopoetic films of radical
modernity, in the same line as
Werner Herzog, Béla Tarr, Lisan-
dro Alonso, or Paz Encina with
Hamaca paraguaya1 [Paraguayan
Hammock].
Its soundtrack has a particular
richness. The content of the dia-
logs may be important, but not
essential. More interesting is the
material nature of the tones and
accents in their speech as well as
the noises in the labor, steps and
movements, and the whistling
wind, until some lengthy silences
become a powerful presence. The
official country is in the interior,
an underrepresented world that
offers a ghostly frame for this
atmosphere of abandonment
and loneliness portrayed in the
images. Wiñaypacha is a unique
film. Even if it seems to refer in its
first minutes to the movie Kukuli
(Luis Figueroa, César Villanueva
and Eulogio Nishiyama, 1961),
this similarity soon fades. By leav-
ing the audience dazzled by an
iconography that was unknown
so far for the movie world, Wi-
ñaypacha displays its Indigenous
origin without denying it. This
makes it the starting point to
propose an experience of sensory
immersion and cinematography
search.
* Film Critic
1 See L’espace cinématografique (2015) by An-
toine Gaudin. Paris: Armand Colin, p. 29.

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