Lambright Creating The Hybrid Intellectual - Subject, Space

Creating
the Hybrid Intellectual
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The Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory
Series Editor: Anı́bal González, Yale University
Dealing with far-reaching questions of history and modernity, language and
selfhood, and power and ethics, Latin American literature sheds light on the many-
faceted nature of Latin American life, as well as on the human condition as a
whole. This series of books provides a forum for some of the best criticism on
Latin American Literature in a wide range of critical approaches, with an emphasis
on works that productively combine scholarship with theory. Acknowledging the
historical links and cultural affinities between Latin American and Iberian litera-
tures, the series welcomes consideration of Spanish and Portuguese texts and top-
ics, while also providing a space of convergence for scholars working in Romance
studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and literary theory.
Titles in Series
Santa Arias and Mariselle Meléndez, Mapping Colonial Spanish America: Places
and Commonplaces of Identity, Culture, and Experience
Alice A. Nelson, Political Bodies: Gender, History, and the Struggle for Narrative
Power in Recent Chilean Literature
Julia Kushigian, Reconstructing Childhood: Strategies of Reading for Culture and
Gender in the Spanish American Bildungsroman
Silvia N. Rosman, Being in Common: Nation, Subject, and Community in Latin
American Literature and Culture
Patrick Dove, The Catastrophe of Modernity: Tragedy and the Nation in Latin
American Literature
James P. Pancrazio, The Logic of Fetishism: Alejo Carpentier and the Cuban Tra-
dition
Frederick Luciani, Literary Self-Fashioning in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Sergio Waisman, Borges and Translation: The Irreverence of the Periphery
Stuart Day, Staging Politics in Mexico: The Road fo Neoliberalism
Amy Nauss Millay, Voices from the fuente viva: The Effect of Orality in Twentieth-
Century Spanish American Narrative
J. Andrew Brown, Test Tube Envy: Science and Power in Argentine Narrative
Juan Carlos Ubilluz, Sacred Eroticism: Georges Bataille and Pierre Klossowski in
the Latin American Erotic Novel
Mark A. Hernández, Figural Conquistadors: Rewriting the New World’s Discov-
ery and Conquest in Mexican and River Plate Novels of the 1980s and 1990s
Gabriel Riera, Littoral of the Letter: Saer’s Art of Narration
Dianne Marie Zandstra, Embodying Resistance: Griselda Gambaro and the Gro-
tesque
Amanda Holmes, City Fictions: Language, Body, and Spanish American Urban
Space
Gail Bulman, Staging Words, Performing Worlds: Intertextuality and Nation in
Contemporary Latin American Theater
Anne Lambright, Creating the Hybrid Intellectual: Subject, Space, and the Femi-
nine in the Narrative of José Marı́a Arguedas
Dara E. Goldman, Out of Bounds: Islands and the Demarcation of Identity in the
Hispanic Caribbean
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Creating
Subject, Space,
and the Feminine
in the Narrative
of José Marı́a Arguedas
Anne Lambright
Lewisburg
Bucknell University Press
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The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lambright, Anne.
Creating the hybrid intellectual : subject, space, and the feminine in the
narrative of José Marı́a Arguedas / Anne Lambright.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8387-5683-6 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8387-5683-2 (alk. paper)
1. Arguedas, José Marı́a—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Women in
literature. 3. Femininity in literature. I. Title.
PQ8497.A65Z698 2007
863⬘.64—dc22 2007011077
printed in the united states of america
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Contents
Acknowledgments 7
Introduction 9
List of Abbreviations 39
Part I: The Narrative Set in the Highlands
1. The Early Arguedas: Subject and Space in His First
Short Fiction 45
2. Yawar Fiesta: Mapping a Highland Town 74
3. The Feminine and the Hybrid Intellectual: Los rı́os
profundos 104
4. The Feminine in the Totalizing Vision of Todas las
sangres 142
Part I: The Narrative Set on the Coast

5. Mapping Space and Subject: The Crisis of the Feminine
in El Sexto 189
6. Losing Ground: El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo
and the Struggle of the Semiotic 216
Conclusion 257
Notes 262
Works Cited 284
Index 293
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Acknowledgments
IT IS FORMULAIC TO SAY THAT MANY HAVE HELPED ONE ON THE JOUR-

ney from idea to manuscript, but such is the case here. This book is
the product of over a decade of grappling with the work of this great
Peruvian author, and perhaps my first words of appreciation should
go to Arguedas himself for providing me, and the world, which
such thought-provoking literature.
This book is a significant rewrite and extension of the disserta-
tion I presented for completion of my Ph.D. at the University of
Texas at Austin, and I will begin my acknowledgments there. One
of my greatest debts goes first and foremost to my teacher, disserta-
tion advisor, and friend, José Cerna Bazán, currently of Carleton
College, who has had a great influence on the way I read and think
about literature and whose guidance through the initial stages of
this work was invaluable. Along these lines I would also like to
thank Naomi Lindstrom and Margot Beyersdorff, both of the Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin, for their careful readings, thoughtful
comments, and encouragement to take my study to the next level.
Since graduation, and in my quest to expand my research and
turn my initial ideas into a broader study, many people have con-
tributed to this project in diverse ways. My sincere thanks to Rolena
Adorno of Yale University for her unwaivering belief in my work,
for her mentorship and guidance in recent years, and to Josefina
Ludmer, also of Yale University, for her keen readings of early ver-
sions of several chapters, for her mentorship, and for her enthusi-
asm for this project. Another extraordinary mentor has been Vicky
Unruh of the University of Kansas, who has taken an interest in my
research and in my career when she has no real reason to do so.
A special, heartfelt thanks goes to Elisabeth Guerrero of Bucknell
University, one of those rare, faithful friends, who has read virtu-
ally every word of this study and never once complained. Her sharp
insights and careful readings have greatly influenced this book.
Along the path from idea to manuscript, many people have
helped out in casual and not so casual ways, through conversations,
suggestions, contacts, and a general show of interest that are neces-
7
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8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
sary to keep one writing. My trips to Peru would have been much
impoverished without the kind attention shown to me by Alfredo
Bushby, Carmen Ollé, Carla Sagastegui, Melvin Ledgard, members
of Yuyachkani, and countless others.
At Bucknell University Press, I must especially thank Anı́bal
González Pérez, of Yale University and editor of this series, for his
enthusiasm for this project and generous guidance through this
process; Greg Clingham for his assistance; and the anonymous
reader, whose comments were essential to the polishing of the
book.
I would also like to mention specifically Lidia Santos of Yale Uni-
versity, Enrique Meyer and Priscilla Meléndez, also of Yale Univer-
sity, and my colleagues in Hispanic Studies at Trinity College:
Gustavo Remedi, Thomas Harrington, Moisés Castillo, Marı́a Silvina
Persino, Anne Gebelein, and all of my colleagues in the Department
of Modern Languages and Literature and in the Latin American and
Caribbean Studies Program. Sharon Foerster of the University of
Texas at Austin has been a wonderful friend and source of support; I
am especially grateful for her understanding in the times that this
book had to take precedent over our coauthored works.
Special kudos go to Rosalie Angelo, administrative assistant of
the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at Trinity Col-
lege, for all of her help in copies and mailings, and for her sunny
disposition and selfless assistance.
I must further mention that this work was in part supported by a
research grant from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin Ameri-
can Studies at Harvard University and by a research grant from my
home institution, Trinity College. I thank both for their generous
support of this project.
I especially wish to mention those dear friends who have provided
love, encouragement, intellectual stimulation, ideas, and moral sup-
port over the years: Anne Gebelein, Elisabeth Guerrero, Ramonita
Marcano-Ogando, Cristina Moreiras, Celio Pichardo, Steve Pitti,
Angel Rivera, Dina Rivera, Alicia Schmidt-Camacho, Laurietz Seda,
Yolanda Torres, and Gareth Williams. And, of course, my family,
especially my mother, Jeanie Lambright, my in-laws, José Ismael
and Lottie Irizarry, and my siblings Allen and Cara.
Un agradecimiento especial a mis hijos, Corazón, Isis, Paloma,
Mobey y Maya, por no tocar a la puerta ni pasarme el teléfono
cuando estaba trabajando y por aplaudir de manera entusiasta el tér-
mino de cada capı́tulo—ahora ponemos música y ¡a bailar!
Por fin, no hay palabras en ningún idioma que puedan expresar
lo endeudada que estoy con mi esposo, Guillermo Irizarry, a quien
dedico este libro.
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Introduction
IN AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAY, JOSÉ MARÍA ARGUEDAS WRITES

of Apurı́mac River (whose name in Quechua means ‘‘god who
speaks’’), which runs from the Mismi mountain through the high-
land regions of Ayacucho and Cuzco, eventually combining with
four other rivers to form the great Amazon:
No se ve el rı́o pero su canto grave y eterno lo cubre todo. Y está en el
corazón de los hombres que viven en la quebrada, en su cerebro, en su
memoria, en su amor y en su llanto; está bajo el pecho de las aves canto-
ras que pueblan los maizales, los bosques y los arbustos, junto a los
riachuelos que bajan al gran rı́o; está en las ramas de los árboles que
también cantan con los vientos de la madrugada; la voz del rı́o es lo
esencial, la poesı́a y el misterio, el cielo y la tierra, en esas quebradas
tan hondas, tan bravı́as y hermosas.
[One cannot see the river but its deep and eternal song covers every-
thing. And it is in the heart of the men who live in the ravine, in their
mind, in their memory, in their love and in their crying; it is under the
breast of the songbirds that go down to the great river; it is in the
branches of the trees that also sing with the winds of the early morning;
the voice of the river is the essence, the poetry and the mystery, the
heavens and the earth, in these deep, brave and beautiful ravines.]1
This passage succinctly and beautifully captures those aspects of

Arguedian narrative that are at the center of this study. The river,
which, according to Arguedas, runs deep beneath and drives all as-
pects of the Andes, also serves as undercurrent and driving force
for the great Peruvian writer’s narrative, joining with other natural
elements, with music, with indigenous peoples and their culture,
and with female characters to form what I call ‘‘the feminine’’ in
Arguedian narrative. It is a formative aspect of those Andean peo-
ple who live near it—part of the minds, hearts, and emotions of the
subjects that Arguedas affectionately and arduously endeavors to
evoke in his writing. The river’s movement also demarcates a spa-
tial-temporal mapping of Peru that contests previous literary geog-
raphies and other dominant imaginings of the country, urging the
9
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10 INTRODUCTION
national cultural imagination to open itself up to the Andes, to ac-

cept highland culture as a primary base for the Peruvian nation.
This study elaborates on Arguedas’s use of the feminine in his
narrative recreations of Peru and in their expression of the writer’s
national vision. I argue that Arguedian narrative establishes an al-
ternative to the traditional Western masculine/feminine hierarchical
opposition, based in part on the prominent place the feminine holds
in indigenous culture.2 Furthermore, this analysis examines the
place of the intellectual, specifically, what I term the ‘‘hybrid intel-
lectual,’’ in the process of ideating the national vision. As will be-
come clear in my analysis, much of Arguedas’s fiction—as well as
numerous essays—is devoted to theorizing who may speak for Peru
and how that speaking is best accomplished. In this sense, his narra-
tive participates in a debate that reaches back to his Andean prede-
cessors El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616) and Felipe
Guaman Poma de Ayala (1535– ; dates unknown). These men, both
mestizos—people of mixed Spanish and indigenous heritage—
wrote to correct what they saw as seriously flawed representations
of their people, history, beliefs, and cultures by dominant discourse
of their times.3 Recalling the work of these first Peruvian ‘‘hybrid
intellectuals,’’ a type later lost over centuries of social and cultural
oppression, Arguedas is recovering their mission with and through
his narrative, as he proposes a modern version of the hybrid voice.
Often his novels and short stories are narrated in the first person
by a character that constitutes a literary projection of the author
himself. Through these first-person narrators and other key charac-
ters, Arguedian fiction posits this potential Peruvian subjectiv-
ity—an amalgam of the two opposing, sometimes antagonistic,
sometimes complementary, worlds that make up the Peruvian high-
lands and that dominate the national imaginary. The hybrid intel-
lectual begins the task of unraveling dominant discourse on the
nation and proposing alternative ways of understanding, and being
in, Peru. Of central importance are the visions of the nation-space
and national subject set forth by this intellectual, and the role of the
feminine in developing these alternatives. Indeed, the hybrid intel-
lectual identifies strongly with the feminine, and it is through the
feminine that he most clearly speaks.
Arguedas: A Brief Biography

José Marı́a Arguedas was born October 18, 1911, in Andahuay-
las, Apurı́mac province, in the Southern Peruvian Sierra, the second
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INTRODUCTION 11
of five children.4 His father, Vı́ctor Manuel Arguedas Arellano, of
Cuzco, was one of many of the poorer branches of ‘‘decent’’ fami-
lies who, for economic reasons, were forced to take a profession;
Vı́ctor chose law. José Marı́a’s mother, Victoria Altamirano Na-
varro, also of a poorer but distinguished family from San Pedro de
Andahuaylas, died in 1914, a fact that would underlie much of Ar-
guedas’s later sufferings and psychological traumas. Arguedas was
left for three years with his paternal grandmother until his father
remarried the widow Grimanesa Arangoita de Pacheca; José Marı́a
and his older brother Arı́stides were sent to live in their stepmoth-
er’s hacienda in San Juan de Lucanas, near Puquio, in the depart-
ment of Ayacucho (the other siblings had already been portioned
out to other family members). The time spent in San Juan de Luca-
nas would be definitive in the author’s formation as a person and as
a creator (in fact, his first novel, Yawar Fiesta, is set in Puquio).
In Cinderella-like fashion, Grimanesa and her son, Arguedas’s
older stepbrother, banish the boy to live with the Indians and as a
servant, even though he is a member of the ‘‘white’’ upper classes.5
This close contact with the indigenous culture not only provides the
child with a much-needed maternal love, it also gives him intimate
access to the culture and soul of the indigenous people, a position
enjoyed by few in his situation, later recreated with much care in
his literary writings as an adult.6 During this period, he learns to
speak Quechua fluently (he says, better than Spanish), and im-
merses himself in autochthonous Andean culture. His love for the
indigenous people of the highlands drives his eventual career as a
cultural anthropologist; Arguedas is widely considered the fore-
most Peruvian anthropologist of his time and is especially revered
for his transcriptions of Andean myths and folklore and for his
detailed analysis of contemporary Andean life. In his ethnographic
essays, Arguedas significantly contributes to the knowledge of An-
dean music, dance, festivals, and religious and social practices, and
he reveals a deep concern for the rapid changes highland society
and culture experience as modernity encroaches upon traditional
life. His fluency in Quechua strongly influenced his Spanish-lan-
guage narrative, and he created a notable corpus of Quechua-lan-
guage poetry.
But, as is evident in letters and reflections written as an adult, his
childhood experiences also caused him irreparable psychological
damage. In a 1962 letter to Chilean poet Pedro Lastra, for example,
he writes, ‘‘Peru is such a beautiful country, as profound as it is
cruel. This great struggle used to stimulate me; it inspired me: but
after some really difficult psychological problems that I couldn’t
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12 INTRODUCTION
conquer, I became depressed. . . . The horrible childhood and ado-

lescence that I had planted in me some very disturbing seeds that
developed when my strength was wiped out by personal prob-
lems.’’7
One of the primary sources for this psychological trauma is Ar-
guedas’s stepbrother who, at age eighteen, returns from his studies
in Lima shortly after José Marı́a’s arrival at the hacienda. The
young man, who will later serve as a model for a fundamental char-
acter in Arguedas’s works, the gamonal, or hacienda owner, abused
the sensitive boy, treating him as one of his servants and tormenting
him verbally and physically. Particularly traumatic is the step-
brother forcing the boy to accompany him on his sexual ventures
and to witness his raping of local indigenous women. Later, Ar-
guedas would often recount these episodes and the disastrous effect
they had on him.
By 1921, Arguedas and his brother had had enough and escaped
to the hacienda of their father’s half-brother, Manuel Perea, where
they remained for two years. It is during this time that José Marı́a
comes to know comuneros, Indians living in independent commu-
nities, unlike the colonos who had been tied to his stepmother’s ha-
cienda. He meets Felipe Maywa, a community leader who will
forever be a strong presence in his life, as well as other figures that
later become characters in his fiction. These were happy years for
the author. Eventually, though, Vı́ctor comes for his sons, and the
three spend two years traveling before settling in Abancay, where
Arguedas is enrolled in school. His time in Abancay inspires his
most important novel, Los rı́os profundos (published in English in
1978 as Deep Rivers).8 In 1925, the family makes a trip to the haci-
enda of another aunt and uncle. While there, Arguedas catches his
right hand in a sugar mill and permanently mutilates several fingers,
a fact which would add to the shy, sensitive boy’s timidity.
Over the next years José Marı́a continues to travel with his father
and is enrolled in several different schools. Perhaps this frequent
dislocation contributes to the sense of strangeness, of not belong-
ing, which permeates the writer’s life as well as his work. As will
be discussed later, a sense of constant displacement will be an im-
portant theme in Arguedas’s work. The forastero, or the stranger—
the one who brings something from the outside—is also the agent
of change, of renovation, the bridge that ties Peru together.
José Marı́a finally completes his secondary education in Lima
and, at age twenty, enters the Universidad San Marcos in Lima.
That same year, Vı́ctor dies, leaving his sons destitute. Arı́stides
and his new wife leave Lima, but Arguedas, not wanting to give up
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INTRODUCTION 13
his studies, stays. While at the university, Arguedas becomes active
in the Communist Party as well as the literary circles of Lima. Dur-
ing this time he publishes Agua (Water, 1935), his first collection
of short stories, and works on a short-lived literary magazine, Pala-
bra: En defensa de la cultura (Word: In Defense of Culture), with
historian Alberto Tauro and critic Augusto Tamayo Vargas, among
others. In 1937, Arguedas completes his studies in literature, de-
spite university strikes and closings, but does not receive his degree
because he spends his last year, 1937–38, as a political prisoner in
the dreaded ‘‘El Sexto’’ prison. Arguedas draws upon these years
for the basis of his novel, El Sexto (1961, El Sexto Prison).
After leaving prison, in 1939, Arguedas marries his first wife,
Celia Bustamante Vernal, sister of Alicia Bustamente, a central
figure in Lima literary circles of the time. They had met when Ar-
guedas was at Universidad San Marcos, and the Bustamante sisters
had visited Arguedas and other friends while they were in prison,
bringing them beds, books, and food. Arguedas soon receives an
appointment as a teacher of Spanish and Geography at a new high
school in Sicuari, Canchis province. The return to the highlands
was, according to Arguedas, providential. In a 1939 letter to José
Ortiz Reyes, Arguedas writes, ‘‘The Sierra dazzled me upon my re-
turn. I became very sensitive. I couldn’t hear a huayno (a typical
highland song form) in the streets without being extremely moved;
I followed the singers—here they sing in the streets during the festi-
vals—fighting back my tears.’’9 The return to the Sierra would pro-
vide Arguedas the time and the inspiration to complete his first
novel, Yawar Fiesta (1941, published in English in 1985 as Yawar
Fiesta). He writes of this time in Sicuari as very happy; he was
newly married, working with young highland mestizos—people of
mixed Spanish-indigenous heritage—and finding time to write and
research.
In 1942, however, Arguedas returns to Lima to take a teaching
position at the Colegio Nacional Alfonso Ugarte. In 1944, Ar-
guedas moves to the Colegio Nacional Nuestra Señora de Guada-
lupe; it is during this time that he suffers his first psychological
breakdown. His state would leave him unable to write for many
years; indeed, his next work of fiction, the novella Diamantes y
Pedernales (Diamonds and Flint), will not appear until ten years
later. In the interim, Arguedas renews his university studies at the
newly created Institute of Ethnology at the University of San Mar-
cos, from which he will graduate with a thesis on the evolution of
indigenous cultures in the Mantaro Valley and the town of Huan-
cayo. During this time, Arguedas is also offered several govern-
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14 INTRODUCTION
mental positions, including Conservator and later head of the

Folklore section in the Ministry of Education and Head of the Insti-
tute for Ethnological Studies of the Museum of Culture. In 1958,
he publishes his canonical novel, Los rı́os profundos, a semiautobi-
ographical bildungsroman that cinched his international reputation
as a writer of indigenous issues. In 1959, after having spent six
months in Spain on a UNESCO scholarship, researching for his
doctoral dissertation, Arguedas begins teaching courses in ethnol-
ogy at San Marcos and writing El Sexto. In 1962, he begins teach-
ing Quechua at the Agrarian University and, in 1963, he presents
his doctoral thesis, ‘‘Las comunidades de España y Perú’’ (The
Communities of Spain and Peru). This same year he is named Di-
rector of the Casa de la Cultura del Perú, a post he holds until, for
political reasons, he resigns in 1964, the same year as the publica-
tion of his fourth novel, Todas las sangres (All the Bloods), and his
appointment as Director of the National Museum of History.
In 1965, Arguedas divorces Celia Bustamante and, in 1967, mar-
ries Sybila Arredondo, whom he had met during one of his numer-
ous visits to Chile in the 1960s. Arguedas had a great love for Chile,
home of his psychiatrist, Dr. Lola Hoffman. In 1966 Arguedas at-
tempts suicide for the first time, and during the sixties he would
often retreat to Chile to recuperate emotionally, visit his psychia-
trist, and find the energy and peace to write. On November 28,
1969, in the midst of writing his acclaimed last novel, El zorro de
arriba y el zorro de abajo (released posthumously in 1971, pub-
lished in English as The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from
Down Below in 2000), Arguedas finally commits suicide, shooting
himself twice in the head in his office at the Universidad Agraria de
la Molina, where he was the chair of the Sociology Department; he
died three days later, never having awoken from his coma.
The image Arguedas created of himself often differs from what
appears to be the reality of his life, as has been demonstrated both
in studies and collections of letters that have been published in re-
cent years. For example, Arguedas insisted on different occasions
that he had been a monolingual Quechua speaker until the age of
five or six (at one point he even insisted, until the age of sixteen).
Roland Forgues quite convincingly argues that this is impossible.
Both sides of Arguedas’s family were white; he was raised by his
mother to age two and a half and then by his grandmother to age
five. It can be assumed that, though the regions in which he lived
were as much as 90 percent Quechua speaking, his family members
spoke Spanish to him.10 Yet the representation of himself as primar-
ily a Quechua speaker is fundamental and has a profound effect on
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INTRODUCTION 15
his creative and intellectual production. It was so central to his per-
sona that it would remain virtually unquestioned until after his
death.
Arguedas also strives to paint himself as a provincial, noncosmo-
politan writer, an act that culminates in a highly public dispute with
Julio Cortázar, in which Arguedas accuses the Argentine writer,
and other members of the Latin American Boom, of being unable
to write authentically about the Latin American experience.11 Ar-
guedas speaks often of his ‘‘humble’’ intellectual background and
of how his rather shaky membership in two highly different worlds
affected his writing. In a 1962 letter to Chilean writer Pedro Lastra,
for example, Arguedas describes his feeling of alienation in Lima:
‘‘I am a man from a village (who feels) rather crushed by this de-
vouring city.’’12 Yet, interviews and letters paint a different story of
the education of Arguedas—one of a young man who, along with
his brother, in the library of an uncle’s hacienda found and de-
voured three novels by Victor Hugo; who as a secondary-school
student read and admired Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darı́o and French
romantic novelist Alexander Dumas, and later encountered Nietz-
che and Schopenhauer; who as a university student discovers and
begins to read quite critically Peruvian writers such as José Marı́a
Eguren, Luis E. Valcárcel, Enrique López Albújar, and the great
Marxist philosopher José Carlos Mariátegui. Throughout his life
Arguedas continues to read extensively and greatly admires the
works of Peruvian poet César Vallejo, Mexican writer Juan Rulfo,
Colombian Gabriel Garcı́a Márquez, and Chilean poets Pedro Las-
tra and Nicanor Parra. He shows ambivalence towards Cuban Alejo
Carpentier and sharply criticizes Cortázar and Mexican Carlos Fu-
entes. Furthermore, Arguedas was a highly respected intellectual
both nationally and internationally, invited to speak and teach at
universities and conferences throughout Latin America, the United
States, and Europe.
Another, parallel, fallacy is Arguedas’s insistence that he was not
a professional writer, as if his five novels and numerous short sto-
ries were somehow accidental, or intended for the provincial audi-
ence to which the author claims to belong. Letters to Pedro Lastra,
to Arguedas’s uncle José Manuel Perea, and to Peruvian poet Man-
uel Moreno Jimeno show a very different story. As early as 1936,
Arguedas writes to his uncle, ‘‘I dedicate myself to literature, and
that’s my profession now; economically it gives me nothing, but
I’m no longer an unknown, our last name has reached a fair stand-
ing. I say this, of course, not because of some stupid, egotistical
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16 INTRODUCTION
pride; I feel satisfied because this relative prestige will help me later
to fulfill my duty as a man who desires to be useful.’’13
Seventeen years later, in 1953, having by now published Yawar
Fiesta, several short stories, and numerous ethnographic articles, he
writes to the same uncle, ‘‘I didn’t choose a profession; I was born
with one that never, or very rarely, throughout history has (made)
money: literature. Literature is prestigious but rarely covers the
basic necessities.’’14 Putting aside the possibility that Arguedas was
subtly seeking financial assistance, in these letters one sees two
very professional concerns—that of money and that of prestige.
These are constants in the letters to Lastra (dated 1962–69), which
show Arguedas often sending Lastra copies of his novels and short
stories for sale in Chile, writing to ask about the status of the sales
and of his earnings, and sharing news of possible translations and
publications in Germany and Italy, and how much these could earn
for him. Letters to Moreno Jimeno reveal not only concerns with
the diffusion of his work and his economic situation, but also with
the progress of his aesthetic endeavor.
Of course, when Arguedas claims he is not a ‘‘professional’’
writer, he is purposely problematizing the term, provoking a debate
on the supposed dichotomy of the provincial and the cosmopolitan
in Latin American literature, shaking his finger, so to speak, at
those who aim their writing at an international (more lucrative) au-
dience and, in Arguedas’s eyes, turn their back on Latin American
reality. Ultimately, it is for this aspect of his narrative, combined
with his intriguing biography, that Arguedas is best known nation-
ally and internationally. He strove to present the indigenous culture
with as much authenticity as possible, as is evident in the abundant
use of Quechua and other linguistic experiments in representing the
speech of the Indians through the literary language, Spanish. Yet
Arguedas did not limit himself to strictly indigenous themes. Ar-
guedas’s Peru is one that highlights the marginal on many levels,
stems from the autochthonous—understood as indigenous, but also
as mestizo culture—and revels in its heterogeneous complexity, not
always felicitously, but certainly intensely. Understanding the irre-
solvable heterogeneity of his homeland, Arguedas sought in his
narrative to engage many of the principal elements of Peru.
Arguedian Narrative in Its Critical Context

Of course, representations of the indigenous cultures of the
Americas in Spanish-language discourse begins with Christopher
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INTRODUCTION 17
Columbus’s diaries of his first voyage and the people he encounters
upon arrival. Regarding modern representations of the indigenous
peoples in Latin American literature, literary criticism identifies
three main tendencies: indianismo, indigenismo, and neoindi-
genismo. Primarily a nineteenth-century phenomenon, though with
clear resonances in some more contemporary texts, indianismo
tends to express a sentimental attachment to an idealized indige-
nous past, often as part of a creole nationalist project. On the other
hand, indigenismo, which arguably begins with one of two Peruvian
novels, El Padre Horán (1848, by Narciso Aréstegui), or Aves sin
nido (1889, by Clorinda Matto de Turner), concentrates on the so-
cial problems of contemporary indigenous people, whose situation
is viewed from the outside, by a bourgeois elite. Neoindigenismo,
the term most used to describe Arguedas’s narrative, coincides with
other aesthetic renovations proposed by Latin American writers be-
ginning in the mid-twentieth century (such as those put forth by
writers of the so-called ‘‘New Narrative’’) and seeks to represent
the indigenous world more authentically, to give greater narrative
presence and cultural agency to the indigenous peoples, and to ex-
press the cultural and social complexities of the heterogeneity that
marks Latin American countries.15 The terms also refer to political,
philosophical, and artistic movements of the times.16
Arguedas’s work builds upon of a trend of Peruvian indigenista
writers beginning in the late nineteenth century. Spearheaded by
Manuel González Prada (1848–1918), this group of intellectuals is
particularly concerned with the role of the Indian in the process of
modernization. They blame the country’s slow development on the
oppression of the majority of the population within the semifeudal
social system of the Andes. They ask how best to bring the indige-
nous peoples and cultures into the twentieth century, to incorporate
them more fully in national intellectual, cultural, and political life,
and to draw on them as resources in the modernization of Peru. Be-
sides Matto de Turner (1852–1909) and González Prada, other im-
portant writers of this period are Ventura Garcı́a Calderón
(1886–1959) and Enrique López Albújar (1852–1966). More con-
temporary with Arguedas, and somewhat more similar in terms of
aesthetic preoccupations, are Ciro Alegrı́a (1909–67) and Manuel
Scorza (1928–83). To be sure, this literary and artistic concern with
the role of the Indian in national discourse is a Latin American
phenomenon, with other notable authors in countries with large
indigenous populations: indigenistas Alcides Arguedas (Bolivia,
1879–1946) and Jorge Icaza (Ecuador, 1906–78), and neoindi-
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18 INTRODUCTION
genistas Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala, 1899–1974) and Ro-

sario Castellanos (Mexico, 1925–74), to name a very few.
A thinker who greatly influenced Arguedas, José Carlos Mariá-
tegui (1894–1930), writes at the beginning of the twentieth century
of the ‘‘problem of the Indian’’ and the necessity of incorporating
the indigenous element into any true social revolution. For Mariá-
tegui, literary indigenismo must first aim at ‘‘una reinvindicación
de lo autóctono‘‘ [repairing the injustices done to the Indian].17 Ma-
riátegui criticizes previous indianista tendencies, which glorified
the Incan Empire, perpetuated a sentimental idealization of the pre-
Colonial past, used the Indian as symbolic decoration, and ignored
the current state on the Indian. He also writes of the process of mes-
tizaje, the mixing of Spanish and indigenous races and cultures, a
phenomenon that has produced ‘‘una variedad compleja, en vez de
resolver una dualidad, la del español y el indio’’ [a complex species
rather than a solution of the dualism of Spaniard and Indian].18 For
Mariátegui, it is the task of the indigenista intellectual to represent
that complex reality, especially in its socioeconomic manifesta-
tions.
One of the first literary critics to write extensively about Argue-
das’s work, Ángel Rama places his writing in a ‘‘third period’’ of
literary indigenismo, after the first period, led by Manuel González
Prada and marked by such writers as the Peruvian poet José Santos
Chocano, and the second, dominated by Mariátegui and his journal
Amauta. While for Rama both early periods tend toward an ideal-
ization of the Indian, the critic argues that Arguedas fights against
‘‘the narrowness of the indigenista concept that the Amauta genera-
tion used,’’19 and that the author focuses on the manner in which
the indigenous communities themselves confront modernization, as
well as on the profound effect indigenous cultures have had on the
dominant, nonindigenous faction of the Andes. Using a term bor-
rowed from the Caribbean anthropologist Fernando Ortiz, Rama ex-
amines the literary manifestations of the transculturation of the
Peruvian Sierra. For Ortiz and Rama, the complex encounter of di-
verse cultures in Latin America has resulted in a phenomenon of
transculturation that, unlike acculturation, has not resulted in the
loss of autochthonous cultures but rather a profound transformation
of both hegemonic white and dominated indigenous (and, in many
cases, African) cultures, and in the formation of something entirely
new. Regarding the literary portrayal of transculturation in Latin
American literature, Rama states that this third period of indigen-
ismo ‘‘will have . . . a dominant ‘‘culturalist’’ tone and will no
longer revolve exclusively around the Indian, in which case its very
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INTRODUCTION 19
denomination will begin to be questionable, to the point that this
opening up would be able to present itself as a true foundation of
the national period, of the culture of the country, the antecedent of
profound political and social modifications that would soon be in-
troduced.’’20
In line with this argument, Rama introduces the term mesticismo,
claiming that Arguedas’s texts, and those of other writers like
him—Rama mentions Rulfo and Brazilian author Augusto Roa
Bastos; we should also include female Mexican writer Rosario
Castellanos—are the literary representations of the processes of
transculturation and mestizaje.21
In her superb study Between Two Waters: Narratives of Trans-
culturation in Latin American Literature, Silvia Spitta provides a
most eloquent and useful definition of transculturation. For Spitta,
while acculturation implies an irremediable loss of one’s language,
culture, and history, transculturation is ‘‘the complex processes of
adjustment and re-creation—cultural, literary, linguistic, and per-
sonal—that allow for new, vital, and viable configurations to arise
out of the clash of cultures and the violence of colonial and neo-
colonial appropriations.’’22 Writing specifically of Arguedas’s case,
Spitta observes Arguedas’s recognition that transculturation began
with the Conquest and continued to the present day, ever-changing,
continually inventing new ways to resolve the conflict of competing
cultures. She argues that ‘‘Arguedas derived an immense relief and
hope from finding that the processes of transculturation had been at
work since the Conquest and that Indian culture would be ‘‘saved,’’
in one way or another, in cultural mestizaje. But he also realized, to
his dismay, that transculturation did not take place uniformly
throughout the Andes. In fact, the degree to which individual An-
dean communities had changed was proportional to their relative
isolation from urban centers, particularly Lima.’’23
Along with his many ethnographic essays on Andean culture, Ar-
guedas’s fiction explores the amazing diversity of expressions of
transculturation found in Peru—in a multiplicity of spaces, sub-
jects, communities, linguistic traits, and cultural processes, per-
formances, and artifacts. In particular, he becomes increasingly
interested in the effect of communication between the highlands
and the coast on these manifestations.
In sum, Arguedas’s representations of Peru are much more com-
plex than those of his predecessors. Arguedian narrative empha-
sizes moveable, rather than fixed, identities, heterogeneous spaces
occupied by a variety of subjects, complicated linguistic and cul-
tural interactions, a highland society and culture already infused
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20 INTRODUCTION
with the indigenous element at all levels, and a coastal society that
is being transformed by a rapid Andean migration. His multifaceted
view of Andean, and indeed national, society is accompanied by an
intricate aesthetic project. It is by reading both what is portrayed
and how it is portrayed that one can best understand the writer’s
national vision.
Creating the Hybrid Intellectual: Space and Subject

This study proposes the hybrid intellectual as visionary of an al-
ternative national culture based on the indigenous-mestizo culture
of the Peruvian Sierra. I assert that, in his search for a literary voice
with which to speak as a provincial writer in a cosmopolitan literary
world, Arguedas—the consummate hybrid intellectual—finds that
voice in the feminine. An examination of the literary construction
of the hybrid intellectual, the spaces of resistance he envisions, and
the trajectory of the feminine in Arguedan narrative sheds new light
on the understanding of the literary progress of his national vision.
Kaja Silverman argues the importance of ideology in the mythi-
cal construction of a society: ‘‘it is through ideological belief that a
society’s ‘reality’ is constituted and sustained, and that a subject
lays claim to a normative identity.’’24 Silverman speaks of the
‘‘dominant fiction,’’ the vehicle through which ideology works to
‘‘command a subject’s belief’’; for Silverman, the dominant fiction
is ‘‘not only . . . that which mediates between the subject on the one
hand, and the symbolic order and the mode of production on the
other, but . . . that which functions to construct and sustain sexual
difference.’’25 Along with working to construct sexual difference,
the dominant fiction serves to hierarchize it. That which is mascu-
line supports and sustains the nation; that which is feminine is
threatening to it. As he structures his narrative recreation of Peru-
vian society, Arguedas challenges a dominant fiction whose ideol-
ogy would set definitive, hierarchical boundaries that subordinate
the feminine and the indigenous culture. Arguedas’s narrative is the
process of creating new locii of meaning, giving political voice to
the Other, and producing sites which allow for the disputing of the
dominant fiction. In doing so, he avoids a frozen, set solution and
instead animates a play between dominant and Andean culture,
coast and the highlands, the masculine and the feminine. His narra-
tive is constantly moving between the opposing symbolic systems
that dominate Peru, to find points of mediation between the two.
In this sense, Arguedas’s narrative can be best understood in
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INTRODUCTION 21
terms of mapping, as the Andean intellectual works to set up, de-
fine, and spatialize the text of the Peruvian Sierra. On this map, Ar-
guedas plots national subjects, their positioning and movement,
their constructed and imposed borders, their interactions and their
divisions, their individual fragmentation, and their fragmented
communities. Arguedian narrative creates a new cartography,
which is superimposed on already existing mappings—dominant,
official, canonized—to reveal the latter’s fissures, ruptures, and in-
consistencies, and to delineate what Steve Pile and Michael Keith
call ‘‘geographies of resistance.’’ In his introduction to a volume of
essays by the same name, Pile contends, ‘‘geographies of resistance
do not necessarily (or even ever) mirror geographies of domination,
as an upside-down or back-to-front or face-down map of the
world.’’26 Pile argues that, if indeed authority appears to control
space, by dividing it, defining it (as a whole and in parts), designat-
ing its proper uses, and controlling movement within and across its
boundaries, resistance is nonetheless able to create its own spaces
outside authority’s control. Writes Pile, ‘‘resistant political subjec-
tivities are constituted through positions taken up not only in rela-
tion to authority—which may well leave people in awkward,
ambivalent, down-right contradictory and dangerous places—but
also through experiences which are not so quickly labeled ‘power’,
such as desire and anger, capacity and ability, happiness and fear,
dreaming and forgetting.’’27 These complex, heterogeneous, subtle-
yet-powerful forms of resisting are given expression in Arguedian
narrative, and in his fiction the writer maps the geographies in
which they take place. The writer gives narrative agency to the in-
digenous people and shows them as active resistors of their im-
posed sociocultural situation, as well as creators of their own
culture, identity, and subjectivity, rather than as passive receptors
of violence and oppression. Understanding the spatialization of re-
sistance in these narratives is essential to understanding Arguedas’s
national vision.
Arguedian fiction, along with many of its principal characters,
moves along and through a wide range of spaces that make up Peru,
such that the impression left on the reader is much less that of a
fixed, identifiable geography and more so one of fluidity, move-
ment, and, above all, unhomeliness. For the Andean, or serrano,
intellectual, ‘‘home’’ will and must be an in-between space—
between cultures, languages, and geographical spaces—one of per-
manent displacement. Homi Bhabha, drawing on Freud’s idea of
the unheimlich and on the work of Frantz Fanon, discusses the idea
of the ‘‘unhomely’’ as ‘‘inherent in that rite of extra-territorial and
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22 INTRODUCTION
cross-cultural initiation. The recesses of the domestic space become

sites for history’s most intricate invasions. In that displacement, the
borders between home and world become confused; and, uncannily,
the private and the public become part of each other, forcing upon
us a vision that is as divided as it is disorienting.’’28
Arguedas’s narrative draws an image of a nation filled with sub-
jects in constant movement among a wide variety of physical
spaces and cultural fields (marked by differing languages, values,
and traditions), and whose modernizing process only increases the
complexity of cross-cultural contact. This is unhomeliness on a
more general, social level, but Bhabha also tells us, ‘‘the unhomely
moment relates the traumatic ambivalences of a personal, psychic
history to the wider disjunctions of political existence.’’29 This ob-
servation is most significant for the study of Arguedas and his nar-
rative, as in his writing we see the political implications of the
personal traumas of this enigmatic writer.
Due to his rather unique position as a member of the dominant
culture with strong intellectual, cultural, and affective ties to the in-
digenous world, Arguedas is able to bring a distinctive perspective
to his literature, challenging previous visions of native peoples and
their place in national discourse. At the same time, his peculiar
status—as a subject caught between cultures—was a source of great
personal affliction. Arguedas would state on many occasions that
he never felt quite a member of any culture, always out of place
even among his beloved indigenous friends. In his writing, he often
relates his position to the Andean categories of ‘‘orphan’’ (huér-
fano) or ‘‘foreigner’’ (forastero), considered among the most unfor-
tunate of people, precisely for their lack of home or connection with
a family or community. In this sense, Arguedian narrative becomes
a search for home, a space through which the author endeavors to
reconcile the multiple and contradictory positions society obliges
him to occupy. Thus, to return to Bhabha, the political implications
of his narrative (both as product and as task) rest in Arguedas’s
obliging national discourse to make room for that which it margin-
alizes, in the nation and in the author himself. The unhomely in
Arguedian writing reflects both the personal and political trials and
endeavors of this Andean writer.
On a literary level, we see the unhomeliness of the multiple tex-
tual projections of the writer himself—the hybrid intellectual—in
the young male protagonists of many short stories and the novels
Los rı́os profundos and El Sexto, as well as in the role of author of
the diaries of El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo. We also see
the unhomely nature of other subjects Arguedas brings to Peruvian
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INTRODUCTION 23
narrative, be they the violent, oppressive, yet culturally complex
Andean landowners (gamonales), the ambivalently located mesti-
zos, the women of various social positions, or the indigenous sub-
jects who move about the highlands or migrate to the coast. We also
see the unhomely in the very act of narration, in the comings and
goings of the narrative voice, and in the texts’ travels through the
heterogeneous spaces that compose their literary recreations of
Peru.
The unhomely in Arguedas is a question of space and subject
within space, but it is also affected by the feminine, which serves
as a sort of narrative or discursive ‘‘home.’’ Arguedas paints a Peru
that is fragmented in its heterogeneity and whose dominant culture
has trouble reconciling its various constituents; most importantly,
he shows a Peru whose dominant culture seeks to marginalize its
indigenous-mestizo element and, thus, a large part of its popula-
tion.30 Through his narrative, Arguedas calls for a new form of mes-
tizaje that will give a central place to the indigenous element of the
nation. In the process of narrating his new national vision, Ar-
guedas relies heavily on the feminine as an agent of change and a
voice for his vision, opposing it to the masculine, which supports
and sustains the predominant power structures and works to subor-
dinate the feminine.31
Aspects of the Feminine/The Feminine as Code
Female characters, ‘‘feminized’’ male characters, elements asso-

ciated with the feminine such as music, dance, and nature, and the
feminine in literary language—notably in the form of the semi-
otic—form what I have come to call a ‘‘feminine code,’’ which
plays a significant—arguably the most significant—role in the liter-
ary articulation of the author’s national vision. With regard to fe-
male characters, just one aspect of the feminine discussed in this
study, throughout his writings Arguedas emphasizes woman as life
source, unifier, purifier, and redeemer, often complementing the In-
dian as a basis for his vision. Of course, there is a broad range of
women in Arguedian narrative—coastal whites, serrana whites,
mestizas, indigenous—yet almost all are invariably shown to be
victims in some manner of dominant masculine culture. Arguedas
shows the suffering of women under patriarchal order, as they are
subject to real and symbolic violence not unlike that waged upon
the indigenous peoples and their culture. As a character in Todas
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24 INTRODUCTION
las sangres expresses, it is precisely women’s suffering that con-

nects them with indigenous culture.
Indeed, Arguedas essentially unites the Indian and the woman as
constitutive of the ‘‘feminine’’ element of the world, as opposed to
the ‘‘masculine,’’ represented by the white (and at times mestizo)
males of the dominant society. In his narrative set in the Peruvian
Sierra, particularly in Los rı́os profundos and Todas las sangres,
while highlighting their oppression, Arguedas emphasizes a bond
between Indians and women and the revolutionary potential of the
feminine. Arguedas’s vision is often expressed through feminine
voices, and the narrator uses various techniques to highlight the
feminine; indeed, the male narrator consistently identifies with the
feminine. These techniques emphasize the importance of the femi-
nine in the greater social vision of the texts.
Until very recently, criticism of Arguedas’s narrative, even the
most insightful and revealing, has ignored the role of the feminine.
Antonio Cornejo Polar, for example, reflects on an absence of inter-
esting women characters and sees the totality of the narrative as a
‘‘search for the father.’’32 Sara Castro-Klarén, who has written some
of the sharpest interpretations of Arguedas, criticizes ‘‘the second-
ary and objectified position of the woman in the societies that Ar-
guedas creates and recognizes as reality throughout his entire
work.’’33 Currently, however, critics have begun to pay more atten-
tion to the role of ‘‘the feminine’’—understood almost exclusively
as women characters—in his narrative. Roland Forgues maintains
that ‘‘woman is, together with the indigenous community, one of
the principal components of the narrative structure of the Arguedian
literary work.’’34 Luis A. Jiménez and Ivette Malverde-Disselkoen
both analyze the roles of female characters in Los rı́os profundos;
Ana Marı́a Gazzolo examines women in Arguedas’s last novel. Me-
lissa Moore astutely argues that ‘‘the context of ethnic and gendered
mixing in Arguedas is marked by the feminine figure, on which it
ultimately depends’’; for Moore, the mestiza is the most revolution-
ary figure in Arguedian narrative.35 Certainly, we can think of im-
portant mestizas—doña Felipa and the chicheras in Los rı́os
profundos or Vicenta in Todas las sangres—but there is also a sig-
nificant narrative identification with white women (both those from
the coast and members of highland aristocracy) and, less fre-
quently, with individual indigenous women.
While often idealized, many women characters are portrayed as
energetic, selfless forces of redemption and resistance, a counter-
balance to men and to masculine culture, which is represented as
violent, corrupt, and degenerate. In Arguedian narrative, women,
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INTRODUCTION 25
themselves marginal to dominant culture, are often spokespeople of
the author’s national vision—one that springs from the marginal el-
ements of society. Many female characters serve as intermediaries,
bridges between cultures, able to unite and construct a new commu-
nity. Others appear as victims of gross repression and sexual vio-
lence, but also, I argue, hold important narrative functions in the
expression of Arguedas’s national vision. As can be gleaned from
his fiction, Arguedas sees woman’s potential in her intuition, her
emotion, and her connection with nature, all of which enhance her
capacity to identify with indigenous culture; it is her marginal posi-
tion and her suffering in a masculine-dominated culture that allow
her a privileged position in Arguedian narrative.
Furthermore, historically speaking, the author’s linking of
woman and Indian is not casual. Thinkers such as Enrique Dussel,
Walter Mignolo, and Iris Zavala, among many others, have pointed
to the Eurocentric ‘‘invention of America’’ (to use Edmundo
O’Gorman’s term); in its zeal to affirm the inferiority of the ‘‘New
World,’’ discourse of the conquest repeatedly describes the newly
encountered ‘‘Other’’ as immature, irrational, corporeal, uncivi-
lized—in short, feminine. Rolena Adorno explains that from the be-
ginning of the conquest of the New World the European explorers
used symbols associated with the feminine to describe or define the
Indians: ‘‘Indians in America were considered to be like women and
children in Europe, given more to emotion than reason, naturally
inclined more to sensuality than to the sublime.’’36 Adorno exam-
ines several colonial writings about the Indians to show that they,
like women, were coupled with nature, the body, and the nonratio-
nal. Upon meeting a new Other, the European conquerors (men)
resorted to the Other whom they had best defined to that point,
woman, to find similarities, to construct definitions, and finally to
affirm their own superiority. The pairing has persisted to modern
times; as Marcia Stephenson observes: ‘‘the prevailing historical
tradition has consistently aligned rural indigenous peoples with the
feminine insofar as they are perceived by the (white) metropolitan
creole elites as being outside the dominant symbolic order.’’37
Within Peruvian narrative tradition, one finds unfortunate anteced-
ents in indianista works that feminize indigenous subjects to justify
their marginalization (a treatise by Enrique López Albújar, for ex-
ample, employs a variety of such associations in an examination of
the ‘‘psychology’’ of the Indian).38
A more ‘‘positive’’ linking of the feminine and the indigenous in
Peruvian narrative may be found in Matto de Turner’s 1889 Aves
sin nido, in which the main female character, Lucı́a, a white woman
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26 INTRODUCTION
from the coast, defends an indigenous family against injustices suf-

fered under a ruthless dominant serrano society. While the work
contains many strong female characters who work to confront in-
justices against indigenous peoples, a closer look at this break-
through novel (one many consider the first indigenista work)
reveals that Lucı́a’s ultimate purpose is to acculturate the two In-
dian girls she adopts and to bring them into a national community
based on a Eurocentric view of the nation; the novel is ultimately a
defense of dominant, coastal values and lacks any authentic por-
trayal of indigenous society. Arguedas’s treatment of the feminine/
indigenous connection is far more complex. By linking the femi-
nine and the Indian, Arguedas participates in a long tradition that
identifies the two, yet he does not do so to support the official
world, but rather to challenge it textually.
Even so, the treatment of women characters per se is perhaps one
of the most problematic aspects of the ‘‘feminine code’’ in Argued-
ian narrative. On one hand, women appear as redeemers, bridges
between cultures, purifying aspects. On the other, women are ob-
jects of men’s sexual desire and violent impulses. Arguedian narra-
tive is ambivalent and ambiguous in its treatment of female
characters, at times admiring, almost worshipping, women, and at
other times fearful of them, especially of their roles as sexual be-
ings. Arguedas often falls into the same problems of representing
women and understanding women’s place in culture as do other
male writers. In this sense, Arguedas’s treatment of women is the
least revolutionary and most reactionary aspect of his treatment of
the feminine, and one must look beyond female characters, into the
deeper aspects of the feminine code to find its most interesting ap-
plications.
Lest this study appear to idealize Arguedas’s treatment of wom-
en, it is important to point out what his narrative does not accom-
plish. With respect to woman’s sexuality, it is almost always
presented as perverse—intercourse is usually conceived of as rape
or as an impure, guilt-ridden act.39 French feminist Luce Irigaray
contends that freeing women’s sexuality requires a total ‘‘re-evalua-
tion’’ of Western culture, because this culture is founded upon the
exchange of women. Arguedas appears to recognize this as a funda-
mental problem but proposes no satisfactory solutions. Regarding
questions of sexuality, women in Arguedian narrative will almost
invariably be victims of symbolic and real violence (verbal degra-
dation, rape) or participants in perverting relationships (prostitu-
tion). To be clear, this must be understood as a perversion of the
feminine by abusive masculine power, not as coming from the fem-
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INTRODUCTION 27
inine. Even the maternal aspects of womanhood so celebrated in
Arguedian narrative come more from the image of nurturing than
from the concept of a productive, positive female sexuality. Male-
female love is virtually absent from these fictions.
Irigaray traces how Western mythology connects love with a pri-
mal chaotic state from which man flees: ‘‘From this perspective, it
is understandable that love should appear to be a sin. Indeed, it de-
stroys human identity. It annihilates bodies and spirits in a drive
towards perpetual, undifferentiated coupling, without rest or re-
spite, without intelligence or beauty, without respect for living
human beings, without proper deification of them. In this unceasing
drive, the very rhythms of natural growth—and particularly those
of birth—are abolished, as this drive is akin to an imperialistic
neutral-male that has been uprooted from the space-time of life on
earth.’’40
Arguedian narrative certainly dramatizes the extreme loss of
which Irigaray writes. Indeed, perhaps the most problematic aspect
of Arguedian narrative is not feminine sexuality (which we could
argue is not represented, that is, it is virtually absent in terms of
female desire), but masculine sexuality. Masculine desire in Ar-
guedas carries the same problems as those described by Irigaray,
when referring to Western culture in general: ‘‘it is male or neutral
attraction determined no doubt by a desire to return to the mother’s
womb and enjoy exclusive possession of the fertility of the womb
in order to maintain one’s vitality. The most positive aspect of love
would still be the desire to return to the procreating whole, regard-
less of the body or sex of the procreator. The most negative aspect
would be the need to destroy, even oneself, even life and the lifeg-
iver by destructing any cohesiveness.’’41
In the narratives studied here, Arguedas generally paints male-
female relationships as destructive, lacking any possibilities of co-
hesiveness or true unity. These relationships parallel those of
whites and Indians in a broader critique of Western patriarchal cul-
ture. The fluctuating Western male desire for and repulsion of the
female Other and the indigenous (male or female) Other represents
a possession and destruction fundamental to the construction of its
own self-identity.42
In Arguedas’s exploration of racial and sexual oppression, indig-
enous women are often, though not always, the main focus of vio-
lence, and women of various classes and ethnicities are portrayed
both as victims of patriarchal culture and as agents of change. If
indeed Arguedas’s first short story, ‘‘Warma kuyay,’’ narrates the
rape of a young indigenous woman by the local landowner, the in-
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28 INTRODUCTION
digenous Irma of Diamantes y pedernales and the indigenous-

mestiza Vicenta of Todas las sangres manipulate their relationships
with white landowners in their favor and to the benefit of the greater
indigenous community. On the other hand, la Opa, the much-
commented-upon, demented woman in Los rı́os profundos, is
white, and while she is the victim of the sexual exploits of the stu-
dents of the boarding school where she lives, she also has moments
of strong narrative presence and power. Furthermore, white women
of the upper classes may be safe from rape, but they are neverthe-
less shown to be objects of an idealized desire that alienates them
from social action and isolates them in bourgeois homes.
Thus, Arguedas’s narrative treatment of women is complex, often
ambiguous, at times contradictory. However, as this study will
stress, the writer’s investment in the feminine goes beyond the pres-
ence of women in his work. Arguedian narrative develops a series
of elements that form a complex of meaning realized not only
through plot and character development, but also at the level of lan-
guage and narrative structure. He is writing against a symbolic sys-
tem that is based on what Pierre Bourdieu terms ‘‘masculine
domination,’’ a type of ‘‘symbolic violence, a gentle violence, im-
perceptible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the
purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition (more
precisely, mis-recognition), recognition, or even feeling.’’43 Bour-
dieu argues that, ‘‘this extraordinarily ordinary social relation thus
offers a privileged opportunity to grasp the logic of the domination
exerted in the name of a symbolic principle known and recognized
both by the dominant and by the dominated—a language (or a pro-
nunciation), a lifestyle (or a way of thinking, speaking and act-
ing)—and, more generally, a distinctive property, whether emblem
or stigma, the symbolically most powerful of which is that perfectly
ordinary and non-predictive property, skin colour.’’44 In this man-
ner, Bourdieu comments on the affinity of gender and racial oppres-
sions upon which Arguedas draws in his fiction. Arguedas seeks to
overturn the symbolic violence that underlies and sustains these
forms of oppression and to put forth a new symbolism that ques-
tions the traditional hierarchy of domination and facilitates the in-
terplay of oppositions. In this sense, it is essential to look beyond
the plots of the narratives, and the social interactions related within,
and delve deeper into the symbolic system explored in Arguedas’s
writing.
Western thought, like other cosmologies, has traditionally found
many ways to justify the cultural subordination of women and the
feminine by men and the masculine. One of these ways is the sym-
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INTRODUCTION 29
bolic linking of the feminine with nature and the masculine with
culture. Nature is seen as something wild and threatening to culture
and therefore something that must be conquered, dominated, and
controlled.45 By virtue of her connection with fertility and the
process of reproduction, woman has been placed in a hierarchical,
binomial Western symbolic system in which all ‘‘opposite’’ pairs
seemingly lead to the most basic opposition in Western symbolism:
man/woman. Structuralist anthropologists, led by Claude Lévi-
Strauss, put forth this bipolarization, or opposition of the sexes, as
universal and, to a certain extent, a natural outcome of the biologi-
cal functions of each sex. However, several key studies of certain
non-Western cultures have called into question this theory and show
that not only is the association between nature/woman, culture/man,
not universal, the opposition of the sexes and resultant subordina-
tion of the feminine is also not an inherent part of every culture.46
Andean culture understands the masculine/feminine binary in a
different way than Western culture. In her study of Sonqo, in
Urubamba province, Catherine Allen writes that the people of the
highland community ‘‘think of the world in a highly sexualized
way—sexualized, not in a erotic sense, but in the sense that at any
given moment, the object or activity at hand assumes a value asso-
ciated with the sexes and with their interrelationship.’’47 Some ac-
tivities are ‘‘male’’ and others ‘‘female,’’ but may be performed by
members of either sex. In the same manner, elements of nature are
identified as male or female, but pair up with or have attributes of
their opposites. Anthropologists have identified an ‘‘Andean com-
plementarity’’ by which all aspects of the Andean cosmos have both
a masculine and feminine side that, rather than being antagonistic,
work together in the functioning of the universe. In her analysis of
an indigenous celebration in a village in the department of Cuzco,
for example, Inge Bolin notes a basic equality of the sexes with
respect to their perceived value for society and observes ‘‘the com-
plementary opposition of gender lines and their potential of integra-
tion and cooperation.’’48 Regina Harrison explains that Andean
cultural categories maintain an emphasis on spatial relations, which
reveal a ‘‘basic generative metaphor, one of symmetry and bal-
ance,’’49 while Lawrence Carpenter observes that in the Quechua
language group two different components ‘‘are closely tied to each
other and not in opposition, as they are in many Indo-European cul-
tures. This allows for freedom of movement between the two and
helps to maintain both components in harmony, ensuring the indi-
vidual’s well-being.’’50
In his analysis of myths collected in Vicos, anthropologist Ale-
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30 INTRODUCTION
jandro Ortiz Rescaniere notes a similar treatment of the concept and

play of oppositions. The myth of ‘‘Adaneva’’ (Adam-Eve) describes
how the people of Vicos came to be. In a revealing melding of An-
dean and Christian tradition, the myth of ‘‘Adaneva’’ tells how Ad-
aneva (the name itself a revealing mix of the masculine and the
feminine), creator of the first humanity, falls in love with ‘‘La Vir-
gen Mercedes’’ and with her engenders a son, Mañuco, creator of
the second humanity. After being abandoned by Adaneva, la Virgen
Mercedes raises her son, who eventually finds his father and sets
out to destroy ‘‘los Antiguos’’—the ancient ones—thereby initiat-
ing the second humanity, the new world order of which the Vicosi-
nos are a part. According to Ortiz Rescaniere’s analysis, these two
humanities ‘‘are conceived as opposite and exclusive (one must be
destroyed for the other to exist). But at the same time, it is insinu-
ated that both have a common tie (Adaneva is the creator of the
first humanity and the father-maker of the second).’’51 Thus, Ortiz
Rescaniere, too, observes this play of opposites in Andean culture
as quite different from the always antagonistic relationship of oppo-
sites found in Western culture.
Of further interest in this study is Ortiz Rescaniere’s analysis of
the role of the woman (in this case, the Virgin of Mercy) in the
relationship of opposites. Specifically regarding the ‘‘Adaneva’’
myth, Ortiz Rescaniere argues, ‘‘woman fulfills a role of indispens-
able link between the father and the son. . . . Then we can appreciate
that Mother Earth and in general woman, is a mediator between the
men from above and from below, between rich and poor.’’52 This
observation is of utmost importance in that the role of the woman
that Ortiz Rescaniere observes will be continued and echoed in Ar-
guedas’s own female characters.
Tristan Platt argues that Quechua cosmology can be reduced to
the basic opposition of the masculine and the feminine and that this
division gives the Quechua culture its basic structure. Studying the
Macha, a Quechua-speaking group near Potosı́, Bolivia, in an area
divided between the mountains and the valley, Platt notes that the
spirits of the mountain peaks (jurq’u) are considered masculine,
while the water that flows down from those peaks (warmi jurq’u)
are their wives. By extension, the space of the mountains is a mas-
culine one, while that of the valley is feminine; the relationships
between the inhabitants of each region are marked by this under-
standing. Platt finds that things related to ‘‘above’’ are masculine,
while those related to ‘‘below’’ are feminine, yet each realm has its
feminine or masculine side as well. For example, Hanan Pacha, the
upper dimension, or the sky, is dominated by the masculine sun
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INTRODUCTION 31
(Tayta Inti), which is complemented by the feminine moon (Mama
Killa), while Ukhu Pacha, the realm of the earth, is dominated by
the female Pacha Mama, who is accompanied by her husband,
Pacha Tata. Platt contends ‘‘the sun is fully Masculine and the earth
fully Feminine, while their respective spouses are logically and
symbolically imperfect.’’53
Between the two zones is Kay Pacha, ‘‘this zone,’’ the intermedi-
ate area where human life exists. Platt states, ‘‘human life is danger-
ous but fruitful, because humanity unfolds in a point in which the
divinities of above share their limits with the divinities of below.
The same sexual ambiguity operates here too, in such a way that the
‘Upper Half’ can be considered Masculine and the ‘Lower Half,’
Feminine.’’54 Regarding the importance that both aspects play in
human life, Platt continues, ‘‘the ideal structure of the cosmos is
dual, thus it confronts both aspects at the same time, in order to
benefit from the antagonistic but complementary forces that de-
velop around it.’’55 It is this compatibility that Arguedas is working
toward in his narrative construction of mestizaje.56 His writing un-
covers the patriarchal national discourse on which Peru is founded,
recreating it to deconstruct it and propose an alternative—some
would say utopian—to the current dominant fictions.57
This endeavor reflects the indigenous concept of pacha kuti (pa-
chacutic), which Rowe and Schelling define as ‘‘the turning upside
down and inside out of time and space.’’58 Within this concept, ‘‘the
notion of historical change is . . . articulated with the idea that the
lower or inside world . . . will exchange places with our present
world. The lower world, region of chaos and fertility, becomes the
source of the future, an extension of the belief that the dead return
to the present time and space during the growth season . . . , engen-
dering the growth of crops.’’59 If the lower or inside world is one
dominated by the feminine, then the process of historical change,
for the Andean indigenous mind, is one mediated through the femi-
nine. Thus, it is logical that Arguedas, in his search for a narrative
expression of his vision for Peru, should articulate such a vision
through the feminine.
In his narrative, then, Arguedas turns to Andean culture, creating
a ‘‘feminine’’ (the subaltern, the oppressed, the Andean-indige-
nous) that he juxtaposes to a ‘‘masculine’’ (the dominant, Western,
‘‘white’’ world), in an effort to bring the former into full play with
the latter. In his writing, there is a constant tension between these
two poles where the binary oppositions so often noted in his
work—coast/highlands, Western culture/indigenous culture, Span-
ish/Quechua, modernity/tradition, writing/orality—are concentrated.
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32 INTRODUCTION
In this study, when I speak of the masculine and the feminine in

Western culture, I am speaking of that which is traditionally associ-
ated with men and masculinity (the public sphere, the Law, the
word, rationality) and women and femininity (private space, nature,
the maternal, the body, the nonrational) in the Western tradition,
which is the tradition Arguedas builds upon (and contests) in his
narrative. Though I realize the categories are arbitrary, I chose not
to make a judgment on the veracity of linking these qualities with
gendered terms, because these categories themselves are rarely
called into question by Arguedas. Rather than questioning rational-
ity as a strength exclusive to the masculine, for example, or the
feminine’s ties to nature, Arguedas criticizes the subordination and
marginalization of the feminine and those traits traditionally associ-
ated with it. Arguedas questions the location of meaning in ‘‘the
masculine’’ and suggests an alternative means of constituting soci-
ety and the subject that incorporates ‘‘the feminine’’ more fully.
The Arguedian narrative project is an endeavor to construct a Pe-
ruvian identity through a textual engagement of difference as
marked by the feminine and indigenous elements in Peruvian cul-
ture. As Stephen Frosh writes, women and the feminine ‘‘are con-
structed as literally marginal to (on the margins of ) rational,
masculine discourse; femininity marks the difference between what
is symbolisable and what is not; consequently, between what can
be controlled and what threatens to explode, engulf or subvert.’’60
Arguedas recreates those marginal, subversive, potentially explo-
sive elements in his literary texts as a means of exploring or theo-
rizing their possibilities for Peruvian national culture. We can
especially appreciate these narrative efforts on the level of dis-
course, an important aspect of any work of fiction but of special
note in Arguedas’s writing, as the author endeavors to find an An-
dean voice in a Western literary language (Spanish) and genre (the
novel). To better understand the originality of Arguedian discourse,
we again turn to the workings of the feminine, this time as the semi-
otic in language.
Language and Culture:

The Semiotic in Arguedian Narrative
For Arguedas, indigenous culture is both a product and an instru-

ment of survival, a space of resistance against the dominant fiction,
in-between rather than fixed, representative of, or constituted by
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INTRODUCTION 33
dominant culture. Arguedas’s enunciative project is, to quote
Bhabha, to ‘‘provide a process by which objectified others may be
turned into subjects of their history and experience.’’61 One of Ar-
guedas’s greatest challenges in this endeavor is to create a literary
language through which his ‘‘objectified others,’’ the indigenous
people, may speak in Spanish and within the genre of the novel,
both domains of the dominant culture.
Arguedas reflected on this problem frequently and publicly, in
essays such as ‘‘Entre el kechwa y el castellano la angustia del mes-
tizo’’ (1939, Between Quechua and Castilian, the Anguish of the
Mestizo), and ‘‘La novela y el problema de la expresión literaria en
el Perú’’ (1950, The Novel and the Problem of Literary Expression
in Peru). He notes that his problem is not simply a question of style;
it cannot be solved by attempting to recreate a regional Andean
Spanish, for the writer of the Andes does not deal exclusively with
a dialect, a differentiated form of Spanish. Rather, the writer of the
Andes must face and attempt to resolve the bilingual reality of the
region. In this case, the writer ‘‘must solve a greater problem, while
on the other hand counting on an advantage especially pursued by
the artist; the possibility, the necessity of the most absolute act of
creation.’’62 This creation of a unique literary language is one of
Arguedas’s greatest contributions to Peruvian literature. He makes
it clear in his reflections that the literary language he is creating is
a fiction; the majority of the Indians in the Andes at the time he is
writing are monolingual Quechua speakers—they speak Quechua
among themselves and with members of the dominant classes.
The author determinedly refuses to resort to a simple deforma-
tion of the Spanish language, a discourse that represents the broken
Spanish spoken by Quechua speakers as they learn the dominant
language; his is not the Spanish of Quechua speakers who have mi-
grated to the city, for example.63 Rather, he seeks ‘‘universality
courted and sought without disfiguration, without discrediting the
human and earthly nature which I tried to show without yielding a
whit to the extensive and apparent beauty of the words.’’64 He
accomplishes this through a variety of resources: the use of untrans-
lated Quechua words and Quechua syntax, as well as the reproduc-
tion of certain traits characteristic of Quechua grammar, such as the
avoidance of verbs of being, an excessive use of the diminutive, the
suppression of articles and certain pronouns, prepositions, and con-
junctions, the repetition of words and phrases in twos or multiples
of two, the overuse of the gerund, the direct translation of certain
turns of phrase, and the transformation into Quechua of Spanish
words, using, for example, phonetic changes to represent an An-
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34 INTRODUCTION
dean pronunciation of a Spanish word or employing Quechua suf-

fixes for the diminutive (cha) or for the possessive (y).65
Equally pertinent in Arguedas’s writing, are those extradiscur-
sive elements he brings to the text: music, dance, murmurings, si-
lences. Julia Kristeva’s theory of the semiotic and the symbolic is
particularly useful in understanding the importance of these ele-
ments in Arguedian narrative. As Kristeva maintains, the speaking
subject is one split between the unconscious and the conscious; in
the analysis of discursive production, two signifying processes, or
‘‘modalities,’’ must be recognized as working together to generate
meaning—the semiotic and the symbolic. For Kristeva, the first, the
semiotic, is that which postulates ‘‘not only the facilitation and the
structuring of disposition of drives, but also the so-called primary
processes which displace and condense both energies and their in-
scription.’’66 Kristeva defines these drives of the semiotic as ‘‘dis-
crete quantities of energy [which] move through the body of the
subject who is not yet constituted as such and, in the course of his
development, they are arranged according to the various constraints
imposed on this body—always already involved in a semiotic proc-
ess—by family and social structures.’’67 Family and society are
governed by the other modality, the symbolic, that which is or-
dered, regulated, subject to law. The symbolic is the modality of
sign and syntax, grammatical function, the subject’s relation to so-
ciety.
Kristeva proposes that the human psyche needs a balance or har-
mony between the symbolic and the semiotic to function properly.
It could be argued that Arguedas shows Peru as a nation in a state
of psychosis, its oppositions in its self-constructed image out of bal-
ance. By returning the semiotic (in Arguedas’s case, through indig-
enous culture and speech) to national discourse, Arguedas brings
the semiotic back into dynamic interaction with the symbolic. It is,
in a very broad and metaphoric sense, an attempt to resolve a na-
tional psychosis that is in part due to a rejection of the feminine. Of
the masculine/feminine dynamic in society, Kristeva writes of two
powers that compete to share out society, ‘‘one of them, the mascu-
line, apparently victorious, confesses through its very relentlessness
against the other, the feminine, that it is threatened by an asymmet-
rical, irrational, wily, uncontrollable power.’’68 The threat and the
promise of the feminine, in its various manifestations—as women,
indigenous culture, nature, music, dance, or the semiotic in lan-
guage—take on a central importance in Arguedian narrative and,
by following its trajectory, we can better understand his national
vision. It must be stressed here that Kristeva’s theory of the inter-
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INTRODUCTION 35
play and the interdependence of the symbolic and the semiotic reso-
nates with the system of Andean complementarity described above.
It is for this reason that I find her writings so useful in reading Ar-
guedas. By examining the interplay of the semiotic and the sym-
bolic in Arguedian narrative, we are able to more fully appreciate
the depth, indeed, the revolutionary nature, of his national vision.
We can see how his vision goes beyond a social and political propo-
sition to embrace as well an aesthetic ideal that in turn endeavors to
interrupt the dominant symbolic system and propose an entirely
new conception of culture.
Linking the semiotic to the indigenous and the feminine runs the
risk of tying these two cultures to childhood, immaturity, the pre-
social—and thus falling into categories well established through
nineteenth-century Latin American positivism. Of course, I do not
aim to identify Quechua and the Quechua culture as semiotic, and
thus somehow ‘‘lesser’’ than Western language and culture. Rather,
my purpose here is to identify how the semiotic comes to function
in Arguedas’s literary creation (and, by extension, his national vi-
sion). I do see the feminine and indigenous cultures as points of
entry of the semiotic into Arguedian narrative, but stress that these
aspects are given values other to those ascribed to them in dominant
ideology. The feminine, the indigenous, the semiotic are starting
points for a necessary social and symbolic revolution. It is through
these elements that Arguedas theorizes possibilities for change.
And, most importantly, it is through examining the trajectory of
these elements in Arguedian narrative that one can trace the path of
his vision from an almost exuberant optimism to an exhausted
sense of failure. Again, in Arguedas this oscillation between hope
and despair takes place at the level of events narrated (plot) and of
the language of narration. Indeed, by the time of the writing of El
zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, perhaps the only speck of hope
left in Arguedas’s writing remains at the level of the text, of lan-
guage itself.
One semiotic aspect of the text that Kristeva identifies is the
music of the literary language. For Kristeva, bringing the musicality
(intonation and rhythm) of language to the text foregrounds or ex-
poses the semiotic in language and calls into question the very sep-
aration of the symbolic and the semiotic.69 As Arguedas begins to
experiment with language, he brings new rhythms and intonations
to the text, such that the literary language he proposes as best capa-
ble of expressing Peru in all its complexity is one imbued with the
semiotic. Beyond the musicality of language, the representation of
music, song, and dance, important aspects of indigenous culture,
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36 INTRODUCTION
are of central importance in Arguedian narrative. These inserted

genres, whose materiality is impossible to reproduce in the text, be-
come conduits for the semiotic in the fictions. The scenes that re-
produce music and dance are also by far those of greatest narrative
significance, of concentration of meaning and intricate cultural ne-
gotiations. It is, again, through the feminine and its discursive part-
ner, the semiotic, that Arguedas’s vision is made manifest.70
Along with the powerful cultural instruments that are music and
dance, textual representations of nature become further points of
entry for the semiotic. Nature’s sounds—the murmurings of the riv-
ers, the songs of birds, the rustling of tree branches—and sights—
the colors of flowers, light and darkness—are used to highlight
important scenes, such that nature seems to give its approving nod
or disapproving frown to almost everything represented in the fic-
tions. Thus, nature, music, dance, the semiotic in language, indige-
nous peoples, and female characters join to form a feminine ‘‘code’’
in Arguedas’s work through which Arguedas finds his most power-
ful voice.
I realize that by focusing on nature, music, and the semiotic in
relation to the feminine, at times my arguments run the risk of
sounding too essentialist. In partial response to this potential prob-
lem, I turn to a few words of the theorist Gayatri Spivak: ‘‘I think
it is absolutely on target to take a stand against the discourses of
essentialism, universalism as it comes to terms with the univer-
sal—of classical German philosophy or the universal as the upper-
class male . . . etc., but strategically we cannot. Even as we talk
about feminist practice, or privileging practice over theory, we are
universalizing. Since the moment of essentializing, universalizing,
saying yes to the onto-phenomenological question, is irreducible,
let us at least situate it at the moment; let us become vigilant about
our own practice and use it as much as we can rather than make the
totally counter-productive gesture of repudiating it.’’71
I believe that in his literary use of this feminine code (which I
stress, is my term, not Arguedas’s), Arguedas is strategically taking
on dominant discourse by appropriating its language and seeking to
overturn it. Irigaray argues that ‘‘patriarchal cultures have reduced
the value of the feminine to such a degree that their reality and their
description of the world are incorrect. Thus, instead of remaining a
different gender, the feminine has become, in our languages, the
non-masculine, that is to say, an abstract non-existent reality.’’72
The same could be said of the value of non-Western cultures in
dominant Western society, and it is this negating of the indigenous
and of the feminine that Arguedas strives against in his writing. It
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INTRODUCTION 37
is my argument that by tracing the trajectory of the feminine code
in his work—by situating it in its moment(s) (Spivak)—we can best
follow his national vision—his own revaluation of a culture of dif-
ference (Irigaray)—from its most triumphant (namely, in Los rı́os
profundos) to its most tragic (in his final novel).
This Study
This book is divided into two sections; the first treats the narra-
tive set in the highlands. Within this section, chapter 1 examines
Arguedas’s first writings, a series of thirteen short stories, and their
attempts to capture life in remote Andean villages. In these brief
narratives, the author introduces central figures and themes that will
be developed throughout his narrative. Thus, the reader encounters
the world of the hacienda, with its abusive owners and subjected
Indians and begins to appreciate Arguedas’s early experiments with
language and narrative perspective. These writings contain the first
manifestations of the hybrid intellectual—a young boy of the domi-
nant classes who feels a deep connection to the indigenous culture
and people and who becomes an advocate for their interests.
Chapter 2 focuses on Yawar Fiesta, particularly on its mapping
of a small town of the highlands. In this novel, music, dance, and
nature assume important positions as expressions of resistance to
dominant oppression. The reader also encounters several national
subjects whose types will be central to Arguedas’s presentation of
an alternative national vision in subsequent narrative. Chapter 3 ex-
amines one of Arguedas’s most important novels, Los rı́os profun-
dos, and its development of the feminine. In the novel, Arguedas
presents ‘‘feminine’’ spaces that are sites of resistance to the offi-
cial, masculine spaces that dominate Peru. Los rı́os profundos also
develops the character of the hybrid intellectual and reveals its
strong ties to the feminine. Chapter 4 considers Todas las sangres,
an attempt by the writer to represent ‘‘all of Peru’’ in the space of
the novel. The analysis of this novel concentrates on Arguedas’s
critique of the modernizing project in Peru and his presentation of
an alternative process of modernization. Again, Arguedas’s vision
is voiced through, highlighted by, and based upon the feminine.
The second section of the study is devoted to narrative set on the
coast, where the author’s vision changes dramatically. Challenged
in an official, dominant world that would marginalize the indige-
nous elements of the nation, Arguedas seems to often lose his narra-
tive voice, or at least falter in his endeavor to present his national
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38 INTRODUCTION
vision textually. His difficulties are linked in a fascinating manner

to a textual struggle of the feminine. Chapter 5 then studies El
Sexto, closely based on time the writer spent in the Lima prison of
the same name. We see in this novel a degeneration and at times
even a silencing of the feminine, which corresponds to a rather de-
spairing vision of national culture as presented within the prison
culture. Finally, chapter 6 is a reading of the diary and fictive por-
tions of the posthumous novel, El zorro de arriba y el zorro de
abajo, where attempts to silence the feminine are represented
alongside textual triumphs of the same, corresponding to an alter-
nating between despair and hope that marks the text. This chapter
reads the progressive failure of the feminine to speak as intimately
related to the final fate of the text (abandoned through the suicide
of its author).
My purpose here is to perform a close, detailed reading of the
narrative, and to specifically include works that have been less
studied—such as the short stories and El Sexto—to identify their
relationship with the more critically acclaimed works and to high-
light their contribution to Arguedas’s elaboration of his national vi-
sion. For this reason, my reading may at times run the risk of
appearing repetitive or formulaic, but it is designed to show the
depth and breadth of the feminine code in Arguedian narrative. The
various works play off each other in ways that can often only be
appreciated by working through them in a systematic manner. As I
have said, Arguedas’s work has often been accused of misogyny
and sexism, but I believe that by elaborating the feminine code in
these texts—uncovering its various manifestations—we can come
to a more complete understanding of the role of the feminine in his
work and, furthermore, a deeper understanding of the trajectory of
his national vision in his narrative. Toril Moi defines feminine writ-
ing as ‘‘writing which seems to be marginalized (repressed, si-
lenced) by the ruling social/linguistic order.’’73 With this definition,
we could take our argument to the extreme and think of the totality
of Arguedas’s work as a ‘‘feminine’’ project, that is, in its expres-
sion of views, relationship to subjects, explorations of spaces, and
use of a literary language marginal to those of the dominant order,
Arguedas’s takes on somewhat ‘‘feminized’’ role within national
literature.
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Abbreviations
‘‘AM’’ ‘‘Amor mundo’’

DR Deep Rivers
ES El Sexto
FF The Fox from Above and the Fox from Below
OC1 Obras completas 1
RP Los rı́os profundos
TS Todas las sangres
YF Yawar Fiesta
YF, 1985 Yawar Fiesta, English Translation
ZZ El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo
39
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Creating
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I
The Narrative Set in the Highlands
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1
The Early Arguedas: Subject and
Space in His First Short Fiction
BEFORE THE 1941 PUBLICATION OF YAWAR FIESTA, HIS FIRST MAJOR

work, Arguedas published twelve short stories: ‘‘Warma Kuyay
(Amor de niño)’’ (Puppy Love, 1933), ‘‘Los comuneros de Ak’ola’’
(The Ak’ola Indians, 1934), ‘‘Los comuneros de Utej Pampa’’ (The
Utej Pampa Indians, 1934), ‘‘K’ellk’atay—pampa’’ (The K’ellk’a-
tay Pampa, 1934), ‘‘El vengativo’’ (The Revenge, 1934), ‘‘El carga-
dor’’ (The Carrier, 1935), ‘‘Doña Caytana’’ (1935), ‘‘Agua’’ (Water,
1935), ‘‘Los escoleros’’ (The Schoolboys, 1935), ‘‘Yawar (Fiesta)’’
(1937), ‘‘El barranco’’ (The Ravine, 1939), and ‘‘Runa yupay’’ (The
Census, 1939).1 Along with the novel El Sexto, these short stories
are among his most critically ignored texts; certainly they do not
offer the rich interpretive possibilities of later works.2 However, it is
possible to read these early efforts as explorations and experiments,
testing ground for the longer works. Indeed, from the beginning we
see certain themes and motifs that would later be more fully ex-
plored and developed in the novels. Among these are: 1) his experi-
mentation with language, with how to bring the Quechua voice into
the Spanish literary tradition; 2) his description of life in the Sierra,
as an almost anthropological attempt to record and preserve the in-
digenous experience; 3) his concern with the place of the Sierra
within the Peruvian national imaginary; 4) the demarcation of the
oppositions which he sees as defining Peruvian culture; 5) his cre-
ation and projection of possible mediators of these oppositions,
namely, in the form of the fictionalization of the author himself;
and 6) his creation of what we might call ‘‘spaces of resistance’’
to the dominant culture, spaces where these oppositions might be
highlighted, questioned, given different meaning, or temporarily
deferred.
In a 1950 essay, ‘‘La novela y el problema de la expresión litera-
ria en el Perú,’’ Arguedas writes, ‘‘people speak of the indigenista
novel, and my novels [sic] Agua and Yawar Fiesta, have been called
45
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46 CREATING THE HYBRID INTELLECTUAL
indigenista or Indian. And that is not the case. It’s a matter of their
being novels in which Andean Peru appears with all of its elements,
in its disturbing and confused human reality, of which the Indian is
only one of many different characters.’’3 It is indeed in the early
short stories and his first novel that Arguedas begins his quest to
create a narrative that best expresses the complexity of the Peruvian
highlands as he saw and experienced them. We see in this early nar-
rative the development of several aspects that will become charac-
teristic of Arguedian narrative: the use of focalisers related to light
and sound to highlight key events and figures; the portrayal of the
opposing forces that demarcate Peruvian (Andean and national) so-
ciety and possibilities (spaces, elements, subjects) for bridging the
gaps between them; the portrayal of the dominant fiction and resis-
tance to that fiction; and an experimentation with language in an
effort to represent in Spanish a social reality and cultural exchange
that often takes place in Quechua.
The primary concern of these early writings, however, is above
all a vindication of indigenous culture. Arguedas is writing against
national culture as imagined and portrayed by dominant society,
and even against contemporary indigenista currents, whose por-
trayal of indigenous culture Arguedas finds deficient, and often
damaging, and whose national projects he considers inadequate. In
the above-mentioned essay, Arguedas asks, ‘‘How long will the
tragic duality of Indian and Western endure in these countries de-
scended from Tahuantinsuyo and from Spain? How deep is the cur-
rent that separates them? A growing anguish oppresses whoever
contemplates the future from inside the drama. These adamant peo-
ple—the Indians—who transform everything alien before incorpo-
rating it into their world, who will not even let themselves be
destroyed, have demonstrated that they will not yield to anything
but a total solution.’’4
What this ‘‘total solution’’ might be, one must try to glean from
Arguedas’s writings; it is hardly clear and often ambiguous and
contradictory. Glimpses of its promise can most often be found in
forces and moments of resistance portrayed in the narrative.
The stories are of varying literary quality, and some are more re-
vealing of Arguedas’s central concerns than others. Though its
complexity does not approach that of the later novels, this early nar-
rative is a significant advancement from the monolithic portrayal of
the Sierra found in early Peruvian indigenismo. Rather than explor-
ing resistance from the point of view of the dominant culture, and
thus trying to legitimate it through the dominant culture, Argued-
as’s narrative springs from the indigenous culture, from the other
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1: THE EARLY ARGUEDAS 47
side of the binary, and shows how this culture conceives itself not
solely, or even primarily, as a reaction or resistance to the dominant
culture, but as a vibrant, creative source in and of itself. Thus Ar-
guedas’s work offers an alternative to the dominant fiction, a third
space in fiction that potentiates a revolution in Peruvian national
imagination.5 This narrative portrayal of resistance that Arguedas
offers, however, is not entirely optimistic or utopian; rather, it
shows the ways in which the dominant fiction seeks to control and
contain any challenge to that fiction. The real point of resistance,
then, comes in that which the dominant fiction cannot or will not
acknowledge and articulate.
Michel de Certeau writes, ‘‘Innumerable ways of playing and
foiling the other’s game, that is, the space instituted by others, char-
acterize the subtle, stubborn, resistant activity of groups which,
since they lack their own space, have to get along in a network of
already established forces and representations.’’6 De Certeau differ-
entiates between what he calls ‘‘strategies of resistance’’ and ‘‘tac-
tics of power.’’ The former acts within the boundaries designated
by the dominant culture or authority, the latter, outside the same: ‘‘I
call a strategy the calculation (or manipulation) of power relation-
ships that becomes possible as soon as a subject with will and
power (a business, an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be
isolated. It constitutes a place that can be delimited as its own and
serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority composed
of targets or threats . . . can be managed.’’ On the other hand, a
tactic has no ‘‘proper’’ space; without a place, it lacks the ability to
position itself with respect to its enemy, to maneuver, strategize,
and gain vantage points. ‘‘It takes advantage of ‘opportunities’ and
depends on them, being without any base where it could stockpile
its winnings, build up its own position, and plan raids. What it wins
it cannot keep. . . . It must vigilantly make use of the cracks that
particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of the proprietary
powers.’’7 Commenting on de Certeau’s theories, Steve Pile writes:
‘‘It may, at first glance, appear that de Certeau is suggesting that
the powerful control space and that resistance can do no more than
act out of place, but it can also be argued that tactics of resistance
have at least two ‘surfaces’: one facing towards the map of power,
the other facing in another direction, towards intangible, invisible,
unconscious desires, pleasures, enjoyments, fears, anger, and hopes—
the very stuff of politics.’’8
Arguedas’s narrative moves towards this understanding of resis-
tance, presenting a more complex treatment of the relationship be-
tween the oppressors and the oppressed than had been seen before
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in Peruvian literature (or, perhaps, since Guaman Poma).9 With his

short stories, Arguedas begins his narrative journey in search of a
‘‘third space,’’ to use Bhabha’s term, a space-in-between that would
allow for a more dynamic interaction of the components that make
up Peru.
It is in these stories that Arguedas first presents readers with the
world of the Peruvian Sierra as he saw and experienced it, a society
sharply divided in terms of race and class, a nation filled with indig-
enous people and imbued with their culture, yet officially ruled by
white, criollo values. White versus indigenous forms a base opposi-
tion upon which the society is built, and this opposition is as much
bond that holds the society together as it is poison that debilitates it
and prevents it from forming a solid community that could work
together for the future. Indeed, the author shows how the social
structure of the Andes really weakens all of its components and
ruins the lives of all of its members. Reflecting on the dual reality
of Peru, in ‘‘La sierra en el proceso de la cultura peruana,’’ Ar-
guedas writes, ‘‘Many centuries have passed since the conquest of
Peru by the Spaniards and the Indian still exists, he makes up
45.86% of its population, according to the 1940 census, and cultur-
ally he is different from those who have been assimilated into West-
ern civilization. He has changed much in the course of those
centuries as a consequence of the constant efforts he has made and
makes to adapt himself to the great changes in Western culture, . . .
the Andes defended and continues to defend, like a giant amour,
not only the indigenous culture of Peru but of all the colonial tradi-
tion.’’10
For its undeniable presence in all aspects of the Peruvian nation,
Arguedas insists that the indigenous culture be conceded an appro-
priate corresponding presence in the Peruvian national imaginary.
Through his literary recreations of the highlands, the writer endeav-
ors to give the Andes a protagonistic role in dominant discourse on
the nation.
As part of his bringing the Sierra to the national text, Arguedas
paints a thorough portrait of highland society, its structures, dynam-
ics, and participants. At the upper end of the Andean social hierar-
chy is the gamonal, the wealthy landowner who controls vast areas
of land and the towns and communities encompassed by and sur-
rounding his hacienda. The gamonal, as Arguedas paints him, is at
once above the law and the maker and enforcer of his own law. He
is cruel, greedy, and selfish, driven only by his desire for wealth and
for sustaining his position. Below him are the vecinos (also called
principales, mistis, or grandes señores), local ‘‘decent’’ families of
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lesser wealth, who spend their time trying to earn the good graces
of the gamonal; he controls them by providing them with alcohol
and, once they are drunk, has them perfom humiliating tasks for his
pleasure. The town priest and local government officials, many sent
from the coast, also bow to the wishes of the gamonal. Of this
group, Arguedas writes, ‘‘the man who has assimilated to Western
culture constitutes a minority in the towns and small cities of the
Sierra.’’11 Indeed, he explains that even those considered ‘‘white’’ in
the Andes have strong connections to indigenous Andean culture:
‘‘Many men belonging to the so-called ‘upper’ class, because in
their cities they represent modern civilization and because of their
economic power, have closer ties than one would suspect with val-
ues characteristic of the mixing of Western and Indian cultures:
they sing bilingual (Quechua-Spanish) verses, dance huaynos—
typical Andean music—, drink chicha—corn beer—.’’12
Under this ‘‘aristocracy’’ come the mestizos, men of mixed Span-
ish and indigenous ethnicity, who often work for the gamonal as
overseers or in petty jobs. In these early stories, mestizos seem a
rather lost class; with no strong identification with either group,
they may sympathize culturally with the Indians (speaking Que-
chua, singing huaynos, dancing, participating in festivals) but be
tied politically and economically with the white ruling classes. Of
the mestizo, Arguedas writes, ‘‘the mestizo is the most debated and
least studied man in Peru. . . . there are infinite grades of mixing; . . .
he who is formed in the small towns in the Sierra is very different
from he who appears in the cities; . . . in places such as Ayacucho
and Huaraz, one can find mestizos who can hardly be differentiated
from Indians and others that we could call representative of the man
who is completely assimilated in Western culture.’’13 In later writ-
ings, mestizos will emerge as central to the articulation of Argued-
as’s national vision.
Finally, there are the comuneros, members of independent indig-
enous communities of varying degrees of prosperity and power. In
Arguedas’s writings, prosperity and power are directly linked to the
degree of independence of the community. That is, self-determin-
ing, land-owning communities are stronger, wealthier, and more
united. They guard their autonomy through a communal ethic in
which everyone works together for the common good. Communi-
ties that are more subjected to the authority of the gamonal are
poorer and weaker. They are also, as a result, less secure in their
ability to effect change and confront authority. Two other important
Andean subgroups, colonos—Indians tied to specific haciendas—
and pongos—Indian servants in landowners’ homes—have no sig-
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nificant presence in these early narratives, but will be of importance

in later works.
While Arguedas’s narrative creation of this world will grow in
richness and complexity throughout the trajectory of his fiction, in
these short narratives, certain themes and figures begin to emerge.
The gamonal, for example, is a key figure in many of Arguedas’s
writings on the Sierra. Modeled to a great extent on his stepbrother,
Arguedas’s gamonal is violent, lascivious, capricious, and miserly.
Three of the short stories, ‘‘Los comuneros de A’kola,’’ ‘‘Agua,’’
and ‘‘Los escoleros,’’ recount gamonales hoarding water so that the
indigenous communities do not have enough for their fields.
‘‘Warma Kuyay’’ and ‘‘Los escoleros’’ tell of daños, the practice of
capturing animals that have wandered onto the gamonales’ lands;
the gamonales either charge the owner a high ransom or pay him or
her a ridiculously low price for the animal. If the owner refuses ei-
ther option, the animal is left in a corral to starve to death. The ga-
monal is also shown to be perversely violent and arbitrary in meting
out ‘‘justice.’’ He symbolizes a most perverse form of masculinity.
Often the only citizen to carry a gun, he may shoot and kill Indians
with impunity, a fact of which the latter are well aware. The gamo-
nal, to an extent, is driven to violence and abuse by a dominant
society that esteems money and material possessions above all, val-
ues consistently shown in Arguedian narrative to proceed from
Western, not indigenous, culture. The mistis and the mestizos are
easily bought by alcohol or a few cows; they have no sense of moral
purpose or direction (though, of course, those most adversely af-
fected are the indigenous communities and individuals).
First, communities are often pitted against one another by the ga-
monales or are unable to fight their oppression because members of
the communities are afraid of the gamonal. In ‘‘Los comuneros de
Ak’ola,’’ Arguedas writes of the Ak’ola community, which decides
to rebel against the system of water distribution, yuku punchau (in
which they are only allowed water one day per week), and take
water from the reserve themselves. The narration compares don
Pascual, the leader of the Ak’ola community, with the head of the
Lukanas community:
La verdad es que los comuneros lukanas eran más sumisos para el prin-
cipal, más obedientes y humildes. Don Raura, tayta de lukaninos, era
muy amiguero de don Ciprián, se hizo engañar con un poco de cañazo
y un par de yuntas y desde esa vez les hablaba a los comuneros para que
se fueran como perros ante el principal. . . . era un k’anra (sucio) ven-
dido al principal
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En cambio el tayta de ak’olas, don Pascual, era indio liso y no se
pegaba nunca al principal. . . . miraba de frente a la cara, con insolencia,
no como el resto de ak’olas que eran cobardones y maulas.
[The truth is that the Lukanas were more submissive, obedient and hum-
ble before the landowner. Don Raura, leader of the Lukanas, was very
friendly with don Ciprián, and allowed himself to be fooled by a little
alcohol and some yokes of oxen and since then when before the land-
owner spoke to the Lukanas as if they were dogs. . . . he was a dirty
k’anra, a sell-out.
On the other hand, the leader of the Ak’olas, don Pascual, was a plain
Indian who never got close to the landowner. . . . He looked him straight
in the face, with insolence, not like the rest of the Ak’olas who were
cowardly and bad.]14
When the Ak’olas arrive at the reservoir, they are met by the Lu-
kanas, who have been incited by the local landowner, don Ciprián,
to attack the Ak’ola and prevent them from taking the water. The
words of don Pascual during this encounter reflect his frustration
with the division among the indigenous communities: ‘‘¡Mal-
haya!—se dijo tristemente el tayta de Ak’ola.—¡Si esa rabia fuera
contra el principal . . . !’’ [‘‘How awful!’’ thought the Ak’ola leader,
sadly. ‘‘If only this anger were directed at the landowner . . . !’’]
(OC1, 18). Don Pascual tries to convince the comuneros to redirect
their anger towards don Ciprián, but don Raura provokes a fight
between the two groups. At that moment, Don Ciprián arrives with
three mestizo aids, kills don Pascual, and chases away the rest of
the Indians, from both communities. The narration ends: ‘‘La pelea
sirvió de pretexto y ya no hubo más yaku punchau jueves ni
viernes. Toda la semana fue desde entonces para el principal don
Ciprián Palomino’’ [The fight served as a pretext and there was no
longer any yaku punchau Thursday or Friday. From that time on the
entire week belonged to the landowner don Ciprián Palomino.]
(OC1, 19).
The comuneros’ uprising is an example of de Certeau’s ‘‘tactics
of power.’’ It lacks a designated space and is, above all, taking ad-
vantage of an opportunity. As such, the comuneros are unable to
gather strength (that is, an identifiable advantage) from their ac-
tions. As de Certeau points out with respect to tactics of power,
what they win they may not keep. However, this does not mean that
this (crushed) rebellion and others like it are worthless, or without
potential or real effects. Rather, in his narrative portrayal of don
Pascual’s resistance, Arguedas is revealing to us the other face of
the dynamics of power, the struggle for and over space which,
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while as individual events may be ephemeral and apparently fruit-

less, is, as a whole, never-ending, persistent, and transformative—
the water slowly eroding the rock and creating the canyon.
Indeed, beyond the oppression, the violence, and the lack that
marks the Sierra under its semifeudal system, Arguedas shows an-
other side, those ‘‘spaces of resistance’’ in which the indigenous
culture shows its potential—the energy and drive that marks it and
that could be tapped if the indigenous culture were allowed its place
as a legitimate base for Peruvian national culture. Within this por-
trayal, one can see the early influence that Mariátegui and the prin-
ciples of Marxism exerted on Arguedas’s work. In ‘‘Los comuneros
de Utej Pampa,’’ he writes of the importance of land in giving the
indigenous people power and as a means of resisting oppression by
the mistis. The narrator of the story explains:
Los utej no son indios humildes y cobardes, son comuneros propieta-
rios. Entre todos, y en faena, labran la pampa, y cuando las eras están
ya llenas, tumban los cercos que tapan las puertas de las chácaras y
arrean sus animales para que coman la chala dulce. Utej es entonces de
todos, por igual; el ganado corretea en la pampa como si fuera de un
solo dueño. Por eso los utej son unidos y altivos. Ningún misti abusa ası́
no más de los utej.
[The Utej are not humble or cowardly Indians; they are property-own-
ing comuneros. Everyone, together, works the land, and, when the fields
are full, they pull down the fences that block the entries to the granges
and herd their animals on so they can eat the sweet green maize husks.
Utej, then, is for everyone, equally; the animals run about the fields as
if they belonged to the same owner. For this reason the Utej are united
and proud. No misti abuses the Utej.] (OC1, 23)
This story exhibits a narrative characteristic that will mark Argued-

as’s fiction, the strong identification of the apparently omniscient,
removed narrator with the indigenous people and culture. The nar-
rator assumes speech patterns similar to those used to express the
language spoken by indigenous characters (often, Quechua trans-
lated to Spanish, which begs the question of whether the narrator
does not imagine himself a Quechua speaker as well, translating his
words for a Spanish-speaking literary audience). As well, the narra-
tor frequently comments upon situations in a way that indicates ap-
proval of the indigenous culture and criticism of the dominant
culture. In this story, for example, when one of the mistis insults an
Utej leader, don Victo Puso, the Indian returns the insult, and the
misti backs down, claiming he does not wish to provoke the Indian
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because he has the face of a killer. The narrator, proud of the
strength exhibited by the indigenous people, himself responds to
these words, with language that reflects some of the qualities (repe-
tition in groups of two or multiples of two, a poetic-like rhythm)
used by Arguedas to portray indigenous speech: ‘‘¡Asesino! Co-
munero más bien, comunero propietario, dueño de la tierra, dueño
de su alma’’ [Murderer! Comunero really, comunero proprietor,
owner of his own land, owner of his own soul] (OC1, 23).
Utej is shown to be a well-armed, thriving, growing community,
in contrast with another local community, San Juan, whose poverty-
stricken members are forced to work as servants to the mistis. Don
Victo and the Utej desire to help those of San Juan. Don Victo asks:
‘‘¿Por qué sanjuanes pobres y los utej, acomodados? Porque utej
tenemos tierras y ustedes son sirvientes no más de don Pablo Led-
esma. La tierra es principal, sanjuankuna; comuneros sin tierras,
tienen que recibir en el lomo el zurriago y la saliva de los mistis
maldecidos. Comuneros propietarios, como utej, se rı́en de los prin-
cipalitos, de los cachacos’’ [Why are the Sanjuanes poor and the
Utej, comfortable? Because we have land, and you are just servants
of don Pablo Ledesma. Land is the key, people of San Juan; comu-
neros without land feel on their backs the whip and the spit of the
damned mistis. Proprietary comuneros, like the Utej, laugh at the
little land-owners, at the police] (OC1, 24). In the end, don Victo
incites the San Juan community to rebel against the landowner, and
the story ends with the promise of revolution. The reader never ex-
periences the revolution; nevertheless, the potential is there in the
great numbers of indigenous people and in their strength and power
as they work as a community.
If open revolution is not permitted within the narrative space, Ar-
guedas shows other ways in which this strength and unity lead to
great accomplishments. ‘‘Yawar (Fiesta),’’ precursor to the novel
Yawar Fiesta, tells of the indigenous communities of Puquio work-
ing together to build a marketplace, a task they accomplish in re-
cord time. Their labor and sense of achievement give the Indians an
understanding of their own power and their central place in Peru-
vian (serrano) society: ‘‘¿Quién podı́a decir ahora que no eran los
comuneros los dueños del pueblo? ¿Quién? Ahı́ estaban, apretados,
desbordándose en la plaza. Alegres, con sus corazones sin mancha,
sin oscuras historias, sin remordimientos; libres, sanos y dispuestos
a dar todo lo posible por el bien del pueblo. ¡Los indios!’’ [Who
could say now that the comuneros were not owners of the town?
Who? There they were, squeezed together, overflowing from the
plaza. Happy, with their hearts free of stains, of dark histories, of
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remorse; free, healthy, and willing to give everything possible for

the good of the town. The Indians!] (OC1, 129). The narration goes
on to say that the fifteen mistis, on the steps of the town hall,
seemed like foreigners, like new arrivals from a country where ‘‘la
ambición, el pillaje, el odio, la envidia y la traición, eran dueños de
todos los corazones, de todas las conciencias. Ninguno de esos es-
taba tranquilo, ninguno de ellos estaba sano. Esos no eran dueños
del pueblo, eran como su tumor’’ [ambition, stealing, hatred, envy
and betrayal owned all hearts, all consciences. Not one of them was
calm; not one was healthy. Those were not the owners of the town,
they were like its tumor] (OC1, 129). Though the mistis later appro-
priate the marketplace to create a Spanish-style bullring, the Indians
are very conscious of the space as theirs: they built it; they brought
the bulls to fight in it.
Eventually they take over the ring to perform an Indian-style
bullfight, in which a condor—symbol of the Andean world—is tied
atop a bull—symbol of the Spanish world. The condor pecks at the
bull to enrage it and make it more aggressive. The symbolism of
the condor over the bull is significant for the indigenous people—it
marks a return of the indigenous culture to its rightful place at the
peak of the Andean cultural and social hierarchy. Nevertheless, the
story does not entirely support the ritual and thus is indicative of
frequent ambiguities in Arguedas’s attitude towards Andean cul-
ture. While the narrator expresses pride in the Indian’s sense of
power and community, he is also disgusted by the posture of the
mistis, who delightedly prefer the indigenous spectacle, through
which they are able to witness the bloodshed of the many Indians
severely mamed or killed by the bulls. Thus, the tradition is ambiv-
alently portrayed, with a desire to celebrate indigenous expression
undermined by a repugnance at the mistis’ delight in their suffering.
Alongside the narrative recreation of the traditional Andean
world, with all of its problems and potential, Arguedas offers a
view of the changes this world is experiencing, specifically in refer-
ence to its position within the Peruvian nation and its relationship
with the coast. Indeed, one of the principal binomial relationships
presented in Arguedian narrative is that of coast/Sierra, which
could also be translated as center/perifery, dominant national cul-
ture/marginal or subaltern culture, and modernity/tradition, and
which has significant ties to the white/Indian dichotomy. However,
as occurs with bipolar oppositions in Arguedian narrative, these two
spaces, coast and Sierra, are not mutually exclusive, nor entirely
antagonistic. Rather, Arguedas works towards a representation of
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the dynamic interplay which could, and often does, exist between
the two.15
In fact, the dominance and power of the coast is really secondary
in these short stories compared to the rejuvenating potential that
surges from this cultural space. While the reader is told of the times
soldiers are sent from the coast to quell indigenous uprisings, these
scenes are not portrayed narratively in the short stories; the physical
force of the coast is not made a tangible part of the narrative space.
Certainly, the power of the center is always present, in the back-
ground, in the air, in the minds of the Indians who are afraid to
rebel owing to their memories of the massacres of past rebellious
Indians. However, Arguedas shows, there is a new force rising from
the coast, one which in the end may actually give the Indians the
knowledge and power to subvert authority and rebel against the op-
pressive system under which they live.
This force is a new group of people—the serrano migrants to the
coast who return to the Sierra. On the coast, these individuals,
mostly young male Indians, experience a change of identity as they
form part of the working class. There, many learn Spanish for the
first time, they learn to read and write, and they are exposed to the
teachings of Marxism through the activities of the unions. Often, it
is on the coast that they develop a sense of identity within the larger
Peruvian nation (rather than simply within the borders of their na-
tive region) and, thus, a sense of their ability to effect change on a
national level. Many of these early short stories by Arguedas begin
to delineate this new figure, the serrano transformed by his (primar-
ily his) experience on the coast. Don Pascual of ‘‘Los comuneros
de A’kola’’ himself is one of these figures, having traveled to the
coast and studied there; he and similar figures from this early narra-
tive serve as precursors to important Arguedian characters, such as
the indigenous leader Rendón Wilka in Todas las sangres. In the
early short stories, the change in these men is seen as, for the most
part, positive (though there are negative aspects, which will be dis-
cussed later) because they return from the coast with revolutionary
ideas and a sense of political self, which are meant to rejuvenate the
Sierra, to help modernize it and bring it into the nation without los-
ing its sense of identity. The individuals return thoroughly ‘‘mes-
tizo,’’ in that they speak, read, and write Spanish and have a greater
understanding of the working of Western culture. Nevertheless, they
have not lost their indigenous selves, their sense of rootedness in
and obligation to the communities from which they came.
Marisol de la Cadena writes of this new national subject, based
on anthropological studies in Cuzco some fifty years after the mo-
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ment of which Arguedas is writing, but with striking similarities to

the Arguedian characters. For de la Cadena, the subjects she stud-
ies, ‘‘cuzqueños commoners with recent or remote peasant back-
ground,’’ ‘‘asserted mestizo identity as a social condition with room
both for literacy and urban education and for the concentration of
regional costumbres, the customs that they call authentic or neto
and that I term ‘indigenous’ for lack of a better term.’’16 De la Ca-
dena continues with an important observation, ‘‘for working-class
cuzqueños self-identification as mestizos implies changing social
conditions, but not cultures.’’17 De la Cadena chooses the term in-
digenous mestizos to speak of these people, whose experience in
urban centers (in the case of de la Cadena’s study, Cuzco, in the
case of Arguedas’s narrative, coastal cities) has not changed their
fundamental identification with indigenous culture. For these peo-
ple, explains de la Cadena, ‘‘De-Indianization . . . means shedding
the markers that indicate the social condition of Indianness. . . .
Within this process, a de-Indianizing individual can be mestizo and
indigenous at the same time. This individual (the indigenous mes-
tizo) considers herself neto and thus familiar with practices deemed
extraneous to the dominant culture—and at the same time under-
stands practices that are perceived as belonging to the dominant na-
tional formation.’’18 It is this indigenous mestizo, which de la
Cadena studies many years later, that Arguedas begins to delineate
in his early narrative. The figure will have an even more prominent
place in the novels, as a subject with the potential to transform the
Peruvian national-cultural configuration.
Along with this new national subject, we begin to see in these
early short stories another subject central to Arguedian narrative,
the ‘‘hybrid intellectual,’’ a member of the white ruling classes who
befriends and identifies with the indigenous communities and who
is prepared to fight for them. In several of the short stories, the nar-
rator, due to his familial circumstances, embodies a projection of
Arguedas himself—a boy without a mother and a son of an absent
lawyer, abandoned by his stepfamily and beloved by the Indians.
As will be discussed further, this character finds himself ever in be-
tween, balancing his identity between two cultures, never quite be-
longing to either. While this situation frequently pains the young
protagonist, he also recognizes its power. As a member of the ruling
classes, he can fight for the indigenous people in a way they often
do not dare to; he can turn his hatred and anger into action, albeit
literary. With these early projections of himself into the written
text, Arguedas is laying the groundwork for one of his most impor-
tant novels, Los rı́os profundos, which will more fully delineate Ar-
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guedas’s concept of the hybrid intellectual and the potential of this
new subject within the nation and national discourse.19
It is through this character and his relationships with his environ-
ment that we begin to see the importance of the feminine, both as
female character and as elements associated with the feminine
code, as the hybrid intellectual has several significant relationships
with women and frequently highlights the feminine in Andean cul-
ture. While the feminine in these early works does not have the im-
portance it will in subsequent narratives, we can begin to see certain
aspects that will be developed later. In Arguedas’s writing, it is
often women who are able to recognize in the young hybrid intel-
lectual a special sensibility for the indigenous people and culture.
Women frequently serve as maternal figures for the parentless
child-protagonist and as bridges between the boy and the indige-
nous world, as well as forces of resistance in and of themselves.
Like female characters, the feminine elements of nature, song, and
dance, the semiotic, are important refuges for the boy and points of
connection with indigenous culture. The early short story that most
powerfully highlights a female character, ‘‘Doña Cayetana,’’ dem-
onstrates the importance of women and the feminine in the forma-
tion of the hybrid intellectual.
One of the few individualized female indigenous characters in
Arguedas’s work (often we encounter groups of indigenous women,
or strong individual mestizas or white women), doña Cayetana is
without family, living with her beloved dog, Curunelcha, under the
protection of a hacienda owner. As a seamstress, she is revered for
her work, as well as beloved for her kind spirit and generosity.
Doña Cayetana lost her only son, a renowned musician in the area,
when he was recruited by the army and killed accidentally while
practicing maneuvers. The story focuses on the relationship be-
tween the young narrator, a literary projection of Arguedas as a
child, and the woman:
Apenas me conoció doña Cayetana se prendió de mı́. No recuerdo con
precisión los detalles de nuestro primer encuentro; debió venir junto con
todas las mujeres del pueblo a ponderar mi belleza, pero mientras las
otras regresaban de tarde en tarde, doña Cayetana me esperaba todas las
mañanas en el patio de la casa con un ramito de flores, se acercaba a mı́
con gran respeto, me agarraba las manos, las besaba varias veces con
una dulce y simpática expresión en los ojos. A los dos o tres meses yo
la querı́a ya muchı́simo.
[As soon as she met me, doña Cayetana latched on to me. I don’t re-
member exactly the details of our first encounter; she must have come
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along with all of the townswomen to ponder my beauty, but while the
others returned an occasional afternoon, doña Cayetana waited for me
every morning in the patio of the house with a small bunch of flowers,
approached me with great respect, held my hands and kissed them many
times with a nice, sweet expression in her eyes. Within two or three
months I already loved her dearly.] (OC1, 49–50)
The narrator’s fair curls capture the attention of the woman, who,
‘‘como toda india, . . . era supersticiosa’’ [like all Indian women, . . .
was superstitious] (OC1, 47), and one day the seamstress invites the
boy to her home and requests that he sit on an altar she has con-
structed, so she can adore him. The scene is disturbing to the young
child, who quickly leaves, and the incident is temporarily forgotten.
The situation comes to a head, however, during an opening mass
for the town festival. At this time, doña Cayetana kneels before the
boy and kisses the ground, crying in Quechua, ‘‘¡Es él! ¡Es él!’’ [It
is he! It is he!] (OC1, 52). Then, when rejected by the frightened
child, the woman hides under an altar to the Christ Child. From that
moment, doña Cayetana changes, driven crazy by her obsession
with the boy. The narrator recounts: ‘‘al atardecer, el pueblo pudo
ver algo increı́ble, vergonzoso y conmovedor: doña Cayetana com-
pletamente ebria con la reboza colgada de un hombro, sin sombrero
y con el traje medio caı́do, gritando en la plaza palabras asquerosas
y persiguiendo a pedradas a su Curunelcha querido’’ [at dusk, the
town witnessed something incredible, shameful, and moving: doña
Cayetana completely drunk, with her shawl hanging from her
shoulder, without a hat, and with her dress half falling off, yelling
disgusting words in the plaza and throwing stones at her beloved
Curunelcha] (OC1, 53–54). When the boy appears, to rescue the
dog, the woman accuses him, ‘‘¡Supay! ¡Supay!’’—Devil, Devil in
Quechua—and she is taken to jail for insulting the son of the dis-
trict judge. The next day, the child’s father takes him away, to the
capital of the province, placing him in a more ‘‘Western’’ environ-
ment.
The interactions between doña Cayetana and the boy are complex
and ambiguous. On the one hand, the narrator describes the rela-
tionship as very happy, comforting, and significant. On the other
hand, the association also highlights the unhomeliness of the boy’s
situation. Unable to insert himself fully into indigenous culture—
both his physical appearance and his social position place him in
the dominant culture—he nonetheless yearns for a strong connec-
tion with the indigenous world. The narrator recounts:
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Las señoras de la capital, por congraciarse con el juez, me llevaban a
las haciendas, a las huertas de duraznos y manzanas, a la orilla de los
rı́os, procurando hacerme olvidar la costurera. Pero todo fue inútil; no
pude alegrarme durante mucho tiempo en ninguna parte. Mi amistad
por doña Cayetana fue muy dulce y profunda para morir pronto; su re-
cuerdo sigue aún perdurando y suaviza mi existencia; me acompaña en
el camino arduo como una sombra fresca, como si el Curunelcha cami-
nara siempre junto a mı́, mirándome con sus ojos tranquilos y hermosos.
[The women of the capital, to get into the judge’s good graces, took me
to their haciendas, to the peach and apple orchards, to the banks of the
rivers, trying to make me forget about the seamstress. But it was all in
vain; I couldn’t be happy for a long time anywhere. My friendship with
doña Cayetana was too sweet and deep to die suddenly; her memory
still lives on and lightens my existence; it accompanies me on this hard
road like a cool shade, as if Curunelcha were always walking beside me,
looking at me with his beautiful, tranquil eyes.] (OC1, 55)
The boy, then, is forever on the border between two worlds, in a

perpetual ‘‘in-between’’ (to return to Bhabha) that makes him of no
place and at the same time occupying a privileged position. His
point of entry into the indigenous world is often through the femi-
nine, and it is frequently the masculine—the boy’s father, the ga-
monal, the law—that disrupts this connection.20
We can see the metaphoric significance of the feminine in another
story, ‘‘El vengativo.’’ In this work, the narrator reveals a letter he
received long ago from a friend, don Silvestre, in which the misti
recounts with some horror a terrible crime he has commited. After
having discovered that his young, white lover has also had sexual
relations with Tomascha, an Indian, don Silvestre kills the young
girl and sends the Indian away. On the one hand, the woman is seen
as a means of socially elevating Tomascha; don Silvestre tells him,
‘‘Yo hombre, tú hombre. Tomascha. Esa mujer ha sido de los dos’’
[I, a man, you, a man. Tomascha. That woman has been with both
of us] (OC1, 33). Indeed, don Silvestre sees the Indian’s response
to his rage as one of uncommon serenity and strength. The young
female, on the other hand, is seen as the one to blame, principally
for her attraction to the Indian and to indigenous culture, shown
through the speech with which she addresses Tomascha. The Indian
describes how the girl seduced him, saying, ‘‘¡Tomascha! ¡Pareces
ak’chi!’’ [Tomascha! You look like an ak’chi!] (OC1, 34), using the
Quechua word for a sparrow hawk.
It is unclear in the narration whether the girl truly did seduce the
Indian, whether she was raped by him, or whether they had sexual
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relations at all; the girl dies affirming her innocence. What is more
important is the effect of the feminine on the relationship between
these two men and on the misti himself. If it is the feminine that
can connect the two cultures, then it is the feminine that must be
destroyed, as don Silvestre brutally does, stabbing the girl to death.
Tomascha is sent away, refusing the money offered him, thus sever-
ing the previously rather affectionate relationship between the two.
Don Silvestre describes himself as empty, ill, and lost, as if in the
slaying of the feminine he had killed some important aspects of
himself. At the end of the letter, don Silvestre writes, almost as a
shameful admission, ‘‘soy hombre de sierra y tengo alma de mes-
tizo’’ [I am a man of the Sierra and I have the soul of a mestizo]
(OC1, 39). One can see in this statement, written within the descrip-
tion of the girl’s funeral, the town’s mourning, and his own sense
of being now a lost man, the misti’s recognition of the role of the
feminine in his society and in his own identity, and of his need, as
a misti, to destroy that very influence. Although, in terms of discur-
sive style and of national vision, this story is perhaps one of the
least interesting, recalling nineteenth-century Romanticism with its
emphasis on passion and the effects of emotion, the narrative is re-
vealing of one of the roles assigned to women throughout Argued-
as’s writing: that of a potential bridge between cultures, of an
innocent victim (like the indigenous cultures) of dominant society,
and that of an essential element in the complex Andean world.
Agua
The fundamental characteristics of Arguedian narrative that

begin to emerge in these early short fictions can be appreciated in
detail in the three stories, originally published separately, that Ar-
guedas chooses to make up the volume Agua: ‘‘Warma kuyay
(Amor de niño),’’ ‘‘Agua,’’ and ‘‘Los escoleros.’’21
In his notes that accompany a 1954 edition of the collection, pub-
lished together with a later work, Arguedas writes:
Agua was certainly written with hatred, with a pure fit of hatred; the
kind that stems from universal loves, there, in the regions of the world
where there are two bands confronting each other in primitive cruelty.
Because the stories of Agua contain the life of small-town Andean
Peru, in which the members of the traditional factions are clearly con-
centrated, portrayed, and placed in confrontation. There, there are only
two classes of people that represent two implacable and essentially dif-
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ferent worlds: the landowner, thoroughly convinced, through the acts of
centuries, of his human superiority over the Indians; and the Indians,
who have arduously conserved the unity of their culture, by the very
fact of being subjected to and confronted by such a fanactical and bar-
baric force. (OC1, 77)
The stories share a common geographic focus, a small Andean

town and a common narrator-protagonist—the young hybrid intel-
lectual in formation—and together begin to flesh out many of Ar-
guedas’s early literary and political preoccupations. The passion
with which the writer lived his early years among the Indians is felt
in the energy of the prose, in the loving recreation of the indigenous
characters and their surroundings, and, indeed, in the unabashed ha-
tred of the misti class.
The first story, ‘‘Warma Kuyay,’’ narrates the inability of el Kutu,
an Indian, to avenge the rape of his partner Justina by don Froylán,
the owner of the hacienda where they live. A young boy, Ernesto,
the narrator-protagonist and a literary projection of a young Ar-
guedas, tries to convince el Kutu to kill don Froylán.22 El Kutu re-
sponds, ‘‘¡Déjate niño! Yo, pues, soy ‘endio’, no puedo con el
patrón. Otra vez, cuando seas ‘abugau’, vas a fregar a don Froylán’’
[Forget it, child! I, well, am an Indian, I can do nothing against the
boss. Later, when you are a lawyer, you will get don Froylán]
(OC1, 9), highlighting the impossibility of action due to the Indi-
an’s position, and contrasting it to the potential for action on the
part of the narrator, a white member of the ruling classes, due to his
social status. El Kutu ends up releasing his anger on the gamonal’s
prize livestock, beating the animals almost to the point of death.
This action shows the extent to which the anger caused by their
situation affects the Indians, as the indigenous people are shown
normally to have much love and respect for animals. His oppressed
situation destroys el Kutu, makes him not himself, unable to love
or protect his love, removed from nature rather than connected lov-
ingly to it. Eventually, el Kutu must abandon the hacienda and head
for the interior; he is deterritorialized as well. The young narrator
shows great anger towards el Kutu, both for his refusal to stand up
to don Froylán and for his abuse of a calf. He calls him a coward, a
dog, and says he has ‘‘sangre de mujer’’ [woman’s blood] (OC1,
11), but it is also shown through the narration, especially in the con-
text of the other stories, that el Kutu really has no choice, that his
situation makes him, so to speak, less than a man.
The image of the loss of masculinity is often evoked in these
early fictions. Roland Forgues comments on what he calls the ‘‘de-
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virilization of the Indian’’ in Arguedas’s narrative: ‘‘rather than a

chauvinistic concept, to which Arguedas is always more or less im-
plicitly opposed, the idea of de-virilization of the Indian has a very
broad meaning, relating to childhood, orphanhood, the plundering
of land and the loss of a means to work.’’23 Indians who refuse to
confront the abuses of their masters are said to be like women in
their cowardice. However, the insult ‘‘woman’’ in this narrative
stems more from social gender constructions and conventions than
from any misogyny on the part of the author. If ‘‘mujer’’ in the ab-
stract means cowardly or weak, many women characters are shown
to be much more vibrant, powerful, and redeeming than their male
counterparts. Most Arguedian women in these early narrations, as
unattainable love objects or as maternal figures, are venerated by
the narrator-protagonists and are contrasted with degraded mascu-
line characters who, as gamonales, are heartless and senselessly vi-
olent or, as indigenous characters, are fearful and ineffectual. In
‘‘Warma kuyay,’’ Justina represents the purity of the indigenous
culture, and her rape mirrors that of indigenous society by the con-
quering Spaniards. El Kutu’s refusal to avenge the violation, com-
bined with his later beating of the animals, reveals how far removed
from his true manliness, as understood by indigenous culture, he is.
The indigenous man, like the misti, is a degenerate, harmed by a
social model determined by corrupt values and hatred and violence
toward the Other.24
Ernesto’s reaction to el Kutu’s behavior is to insist that he leave
the village, for the boy intuits that the Indian’s actions, which re-
flect his affective distance from ideal indigenous values, demand
his physical removal from his community. Furthermore, the child
determines to replace the man, by vowing eventually to take re-
venge against don Froylán. Here, the future hybrid intellectual is
shown as one who could potentially defend the Indians, who under
current circumstances cannot defend themselves. Nevertheless, he
is also a conflicted individual, caught between two worlds, living
the unhomely. This precarious situation is highlighted in the narra-
tion’s opening scene, which recreates an indigenous space and the
boy’s place within it. Among a group of Indians in a patio, the boy
praises the singing Justina, who admonishes him to go to where his
‘‘señoritas’’ are, and the Indians begin to dance: ‘‘se agarraron de
las manos y empezaron a bailar en ronda, con la musiquita de Julio,
el charanguero. Se volteaban a ratos, para mirarme, y reı́an. Yo me
quedé fuera del cı́rculo, avergonzado, vencido para siempre’’ [they
held hands and began to dance in a circle, to the music of Julio, the
charango player. From time to time they turned around to look at
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me, and laughed. I remained outside the circle, ashamed, forever
defeated] (OC1, 7). The boy sits atop a wall of an old mill and from
that vantage point observes the scene, transmitting the words of the
song Justina sings and narrating the movement and interactions of
the Indians among themselves. It is through the feminine that the
narrator (and by extension the reader) enters the inner circle: ‘‘Ese
puntito negro que está en el medio es Justina. Y yo la quiero, mi
corazón tiembla cuando ella se rı́e, llora cuando sus ojos miran al
Kutu. ¿Por qué, pues, me muero por ese puntito negro?’’ [That little
black dot in the middle is Justina. And I love her, my heart trembles
when she laughs, cries when her eyes look at Kutu. Why, then, am
I dying for that little black dot?] (OC1, 8).
In this scene, and homologous representations of indigenous so-
ciety in Arguedas’s work, the narrator-protagonist brings the reader
to the ‘‘wild zone,’’ as defined by Elaine Showalter, drawing upon
the work of anthropologist Edwin Ardener. Showalter observes
that, since dominant culture controls the means through which soci-
ety circumscribes and communicates culture, ‘‘muted groups must
mediate their beliefs through the allowable forms of dominant
structures.’’25 She borrows from Ardener’s assertion that female
culture retains a zone (which Ardener terms ‘‘wild’’) that lies out-
side of and is therefore unknown to dominant masculine culture.
Men and male culture enjoy a similar zone, which is also inaccessi-
ble to female culture (Ardener imagines the two cultures as overlap-
ping circles that share a common middle but have separate outside
‘‘crescents.’’) But, Showalter explains, ‘‘in terms of cultural anthro-
pology, women know what the male crescent is like, even if they
have never seen it, because it becomes the subject of legend. . . .
But men do not know what is in the wild.’’26 Like female culture,
indigenous culture in Peru is ‘‘muted,’’ there being an indigenous
‘‘wild zone’’ which, like woman’s, is inaccessible and unimagin-
able to dominant national culture. The indigenous ‘‘wild zone’’ is
what the dominant culture does not see and, in this sense, where
indigenous power lies. It is what is most real and true of indigenous
culture, as it lies outside of the dominant culture’s visual field, owes
no allegiance to dominant culture’s ordering of ideas, and is not
filtered through the dominant imagination.
In this scene, Ernesto assumes the role of the anthropologist, the
observer who sees, records, and translates for dominant culture
what is inside the wild zone. As narrator, he transcribes and relates,
in textual form, the music and dance, the semiotic elements given
expression through the indigenous bodies. The narration recounts:
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los indios volvieron a zapatear en ronda. El charanguero daba vueltas

alrededor del cı́rculo, dando ánimos, gritando como potro enamorado.
Una paca-paca empezó a silbar desde un sauce que cabeceaba a la orilla
del rı́o; la voz del pájaro maldecido daba miedo. El charanguero corrió
hasta el cerco del patio y lanzó pedradas al sauce; todos los cholos le
siguieron. Al poco rato el pájaro voló y fue a posarse sobre los durazna-
les de la huerta; los cholos iban a perseguirle, pero don Froylán apareció
en la puerta
[the Indians began again to dance in a circle. The charango player pirou-
etted around the circle, encouraging the others, yelling like a colt in
love. A paca-paca bird began to whistle in a willow that was bowing by
the banks of the river; the voice of the damned bird was frightening. The
charango player ran to the patio gate and threw stones at the willow; all
of the Indians followed him. Soon the bird flew away, to perch on the
peach trees in the orchard; the Indians were going to follow him, but
don Froylán appeared at the door] (OC1, 8)
As will occur often in Arguedian narrative, the semiotic is abruptly

interrupted, the act of cultural resistance crushed, by the symbolic
in the form of the gamonal. Not unlike other hybrid intellectuals
before him (Garcilaso de la Vega, Guaman Poma de Ayala), the boy
records the tensions and discord between the dominant and indige-
nous cultures and provides a literary expression for the latter.
Nevertheless, again, this narrator is very conscious of his position
as an outsider, especially as, grown, educated, and on the coast, he
is physically and culturally removed from the Andes. The story
ends, ‘‘El kutu en un extremo y yo en otro. Él quizá habrá olvidado:
está en su elemento; en un pueblecito tranquilo, aunque maula, será
el mejor novillero, el mejor amansador de potrancas, y le respetarán
los comuneros. Mientras yo, aquı́, vivo amargado y pálido, como
un animal de los llanos frı́os, llevado a la orilla del mar, sobre los
arenales candentes y extraños’’ [El Kutu at one extreme and I at
another. Perhaps he has forgotten; he is in his element; in a tranquil,
though bad, town, he must be the best herdsman, the best filly
tamer, and the Indians must respect him. Meanwhile I, here, live
bitter and pale, like an animal from the cold plains, taken to the
edge of the sea, over strange and burning sandbanks] (OC1, 12). As
with all Arguedian narrative, ‘‘Warma kuyay’’ is not only a literary
construction of this new, complex, and promising intellectual fig-
ure, but also a concrete example of what this character, in later
years, educated and far from his roots, would end up producing.
Thus, the reader appreciates in this and the other stories in Agua the
beginnings of Arguedas’s concern for finding an appropriate liter-
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ary voice for the novelistic expression of indigenous culture. Of
‘‘Warma kuyay’’ he writes: ‘‘The Spanish was sweet and appro-
priate for expressing the intimate trances, mine, the story of myself,
my romance. I know that even in this story the Spanish is imbued
with a Quechua soul, even though its syntax is barely altered’’
(OC1, 77–78). Language becomes yet another element through
which Arguedas aims to bring the indigenous culture to national
textual and cultural expression. The lyricism and recourses to Que-
chua modalities of speech that begin to be noted in this, Arguedas’s
first published short story, will strengthen as the writer matures.27
‘‘Agua’’ recounts the yuku punchau, the process of dividing water
access, in the town of San Juan. Pantaleoncha, or Pantacha, a bugle
player who has recently returned from the coast, is irreverent
towards the mistis and the local gamonal, don Braulio, and eventu-
ally convinces his fellow comuneros, the sanjuanes, to take over
the water distribution. The rebellion ends when the other Indians
are intimidated by don Braulio, who shoots and kills Pantacha.
Once more, the first-person narrator is Ernesto, who admires Panta-
cha and vows to continue his work. The space recreated in ‘‘Agua’’
is indicative of the decaying social system of the area. The action
of the narration takes place in the town square, described as in
ruins, and yet also presented as a space with potential for transfor-
mation.
Change is above all initiated in and through the bugler’s music:
‘‘En el silencio de la mañana la voz de la corneta sonó fuerte y ale-
gre, se esparció por encima del pueblecito y lo animó. A medida
que Pantacha tocaba, San Juan me parecı́a cada vez más un verdad-
ero pueblo; esperaba que de un momento a otro aparecieran mak’-
tillos, pasñas y comuneros por las cuatro esquinas de la plaza’’ [In
the silence of the morning the voice of the bugle sounded strong
and happy, it dispersed above the little town and enlivened it. As
Pantacha played, San Juan appeared to me evermore a real town; I
expected that at any moment the mak’tillos—young men—
pasñas—young women—and comuneros would appear in the four
corners of the plaza] (OC1, 58). To be sure, music enjoys a privi-
leged place in this narrative and takes on a transformative value,
reviving the sleeping town and embuing it with an atmosphere of
fiesta, of carnival. As Mikhail Bakhtin observes, carnival tradition-
ally has provided ‘‘a second life of the people, who for a time en-
tered the utopian realm of community, freedom, equality, and
abundance.’’28 The bugler’s music, upon providing this atmosphere
of carnival, offers an outlet for cultural expression to the repressed
community. Certainly music is portrayed here as touching and al-
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tering everything; in a passage characteristic of Arguedian writing,

the narrator relates the intimate connection between nature and hu-
manity, mediated in this case by music:
Alegremente el sol llegó al tejado de la casitas del pueblo. Las copas

altas de los saucos y de los eucaliptos se animaron; el blanqueo de la
torre y de la fachada de la iglesia, reflejaron hacia la plaza una luz fuerte
y hermosa.
El cielo azul hasta enternecer, las pocas nubes blancas que reposaban
casi pegadas al filo de los cerros; los bosques grises de k’erus y k’antus
que se tendı́an sobre los falderı́os, el silencio de todas partes, la cara
triste de Pantaleoncha, produjeron en mi ánimo una de esas penas dulces
que frecuentemente se sienten bajo el cielo de la sierra.
[The sun happily arrived on the rooftops of the little houses of the
town. The high tops of the elders and the eucalyptus trees livened up;
the whiteness of the tower and the façade of the church reflected
towards the plaza a strong and beautiful light.
The tenderly blue sky, the few clouds that rested almost glued to the
hill tops; the gray forests of k’eru and k’antu trees that blanketed the
hillsides, the silence all around, the sad face of Pantaleoncha, produced
in my spirits one of those sweet sadnesses that one frequently feels
under the Sierra sky.] (OC1, 58)
The play of light and colors, the movement and animation of natural
elements that mirrors that of the people, and the effect of nature and
music on the narrator, all present in this brief passage, will become
central elements of Arguedas’s prose throughout his writing. This
is one of many ways in which Arguedas foregrounds the semiotic
in his work, bringing it into full play with the symbolic and high-
lighting the importance of its expression in discourse on the nation.
Nature and music appear as potentiating forces, able to inspire,
renew, and enliven, creating a new plaza that is a great contrast to
the one described in the opening paragraphs. The combination of
the various manifestations of the feminine—the indigenous culture,
music, nature—create a third space, to use Bhabha’s term, where
the subaltern culture can find a locus for resistance and cultural af-
firmation.
In this short story, his indigenous companions again profoundly
touch and transform Ernesto, the hybrid intellectual in formation.
The narrator, it is important to emphasize, is the product of these
narrated experiences, the full-grown hybrid intellectual speaking
from a distance, in Lima, of his memories of these formative years.
Unlike ‘‘Warma kuyay,’’ in ‘‘Agua’’ the narrator remembers him-
................. 16448$ $CH1 08-14-07 14:09:55 PS PAGE 66

self more clearly as part of the community, speaking of himself
within a nosotros—a we—that confronts the dominant culture. Re-
ferring to the tinkis, a stronger, more independent community that
also comes to the yuku punchau, the narrator reflects, ‘‘En medio
de los tinkis más que nunca me gustó la plaza, la torrecita blanca,
el eucalipto grande del pueblo. Sentı́ que mi cariño por los comu-
neros se adentraba más en mi vida; me pareció que yo también era
tinki, que tenı́a corazón de comunero, que habı́a vivido siempre en
la puna, sobre las pampas de ischu’’ [Among the Tinkis I liked the
plaza, the white tower, the large eucalyptus of the town more than
ever. I felt that my love for the comuneros deepened into my life; it
seemed to me I was also Tinki, that I had the heart of a comunero,
that I had always lived in the puna, over the fields of ischu grass]
(OC1, 64). The connection is such that upon Pantacha’s death, Er-
nesto takes the place of the rebellious Indian: ‘‘Salté al corredor.
Hombre me creı́a, verdadero hombre, igual a Pantacha. El alma del
auki Kanrara me entró seguro al cuerpo; no aguantaba lo grande de
mi rabia. Querı́an reventarse, mi pecho, mis venas, mis ojos’’ [I
jumped into the passageway. I believed myself a man, a true man,
like Pantacha. The soul of the auki Kanrara entered in my body; I
couldn’t stand my great rage. My chest, my veins, my eyes wanted
to explode] (OC1, 80).29 He picks up the Indian’s bugle and throws
it at the gamonal, splitting the man’s head. Of importance in this
passage is the use of ‘‘hombre,’’ the ‘‘verdadero hombre,’’ the true
man, being he who is willing to rebel against dominant forces and
defend his people. Here, the two ‘‘true men’’ are Pantacha, an indig-
enous man who, having spent time on the coast, has returned with
new knowledge and a sense of resolve and rebelliousness, and Er-
nesto, the white child with an affinity for indigenous culture. Both
are able not only to see the faults and failure of the current order
but also to imagine a better, alternative society. Thus, Pantacha en-
visions a system of water distribution controlled by the indigenous
communities, and Ernesto feels himself sufficiently invulnerable to
attack the most powerful man in the region. Both of these tactics of
power, opportunities seized in the moment, are short lived, as Pan-
tacha is killed and Ernesto is sent away by the town mayor who,
due to his affection for the boy, disobeys the gamonal’s order to
kill him.
The boy runs away toward what he considers the closest society
to the alternative that he imagines: the community of Utek’pampa.
In this community, he tells the reader, don Braulio does not dare
wreak havoc. Again, the joy of nature reflects the power and dignity
of this community; the narrator describes how every aspect of na-
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ture—the skies, the cornfields, the birds, the cattle, the horses—
exhibit boundless energy and happiness in the fields of Utek’pampa.
People are equally affected by the area: ‘‘¡Utek’pampa: indios, mis-
tis, forasteros o no, todos se consuelan, cuando la divisan desde lo
alto de las abras, desde los caminos!’’ [Utek’pampa: Indians, mistis,
foreigners or not, everyone is consoled when they see it from
above, from the roads!] (OC1, 75–76). The contrast between the
description of the vibrance of the community and its surroundings,
and the decadence of San Juan’s town plaza is evident; as an inde-
pendent community, the former is a vibrant, viable alternative to
the latter. The narrator cries out to the community, ‘‘¡Utek’pampa
mama!,’’ indicating an awareness of a maternal, originating energy
in the place. He cries for the Indians he leaves behind, for their suf-
fering, and begs the Inti, the Sun god, that all principales may die,
as he heads towards Utek’pampa.
In narrative terms, ‘‘Los escoleros’’ is the most complex of the
three stories included in this collection. It takes place in a variety of
spaces—the town square, the countryside, the hacienda—includes a
larger assortment of characters, and represents many manifestations
of Andean culture. As Silverio Muñoz correctly notes, despite the
apparently simple plot, ‘‘the writer has been able to create a very
wide spectrum of social coordinates that convert the story into an
exemplary microcosm of the Andean tragedy, while at the same
time permitting . . . a better definition of the narrator.’’30 The story
tells of the life of the narrator-protagonist, Juan, again a projection
of Arguedas, among the A’kola. It focuses on several school-age
indigenous boys (hence the title, ‘‘Los escoleros’’), but brings in
many other indigenous characters, the local gamonal, don Ciprián,
his foreman, and his wife, doña Josefa. The main point of conflict
is again the abuses of the gamonal, exhibited above all in his prac-
tice of gathering the animals of the comuneros in order to charge
daños. This exploitation culminates when don Ciprián steals la
Gringa, the best cow in the region, from an indigenous widow,
claiming he had found the cow on his lands. The landowner had not
been able to tolerate an Indian’s owning the best livestock. When
doña Gregoria refuses the man’s offer to buy la Gringa, don Ci-
prián shoots the cow. Juan insults the gamonal and embraces the
dead Gringa; later don Ciprián jails both Juan and the widow’s son,
for their insolence and defiance.
At times the narration dwells on anthropological details, explain-
ing to the reader diverse elements of indigenous culture. For exam-
ple, the story begins with a game of wikullo, which the narrative
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voice explains consists of carving out a figure called a wikullo from
large leaves and throwing it, the object of the game being to throw
one’s wikullo farther than others.31 The narrator-protagonist ex-
plains how he and Bankucha, an expert wikullo thrower, compete
against each other. He describes in detail how Bankucha selects and
creates the wikullo, the postures the boys assume to throw the ob-
ject, and the emotions they experience as they play. In another in-
stance, the narrator depicts an insult competition, another form of
Andean cultural expression. As well, there are many examples of
song and dance in the story. Thus, the story undertakes a complex
and varied representation of Andean indigenous culture.
Again, the feminine has a significant role in this short fiction,
namely in its manifestations as nature and music and in the role of
female characters. In a scene when the boy is alone in the country-
side, the narrator describes the enlivening effect of the sun on the
fields, mountains, and on the boy himself: ‘‘la salida del sol en un
cielo limpio siempre me hacı́a saltar de contento’’ [the sunrise in
the clean sky always made me jump for joy] (OC1, 92). The boy
is so imbued with indigenous culture that he participates in such
indigenous spiritual beliefs as animism.32 After working a while in
the fields, he begins to climb the local auki, Jatunrumi, and feels
the mountain’s power over him: ‘‘¿Bajar? ¡Nunca! Jatunrumi me
querı́a para él, seguro porque era huérfano; querı́a hacerme quedar
para siempre en su cumbre’’ [Descend? Never! Jatunrumi wanted
me for himself, surely because I was an orphan; I wanted to stay
forever in his peak] (OC1, 93). But the boy quickly recalls the sto-
ries of Indian boys who have been devoured by the mountain and
begins to fear for his life. Both the love and fear of nature found
within indigenous culture are felt by the boy. To escape, he tries to
distance himself from indigenous culture: ‘‘¡Jatunrumi Tayta; yo no
soy para ti; hijo de blanco abugau; soy mak’tillo falsificado.
Mı́rame bien Jatunrumi, mi cabello es como el pelo de las mazor-
cas, mi ojo es azul; no soy para ti, Jatunrumi Tayta!’’ [Jatunrumi
Tayta, I am not for you, son of a white lawyer, I am a false mak’-
tillo! Look at me well, Jatunrumi, my hair is like that of corn, my
eye is blue; I am not for you, Jatunrumi!] (OC1, 94). The scene
reveals once again the unhomely position of the narrator-protago-
nist, whose very survival depends on his ability to negotiate two
cultures. This constant play of approaching and distancing marks
Arguedian narrative.
There is a similar play for the main female character in the work,
doña Josefa. Wife of the gamonal, she enjoys a social position and
suffers an enforced loyalty that separates her from indigenous cul-
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ture, but whenever the landowner is away, her love for the Indian
world is allowed to manifest itself:
Esos dı́as en que el patrón recorrı́a las punas eran los mejores en la casa.
Los ojos de los concertados, de doña Cayetana, de Facundacha, de toda
la gente, hasta de doña Josefa, se aclaraban. Un aire de contento
aparecı́a en la cara de todos; andaban en la casa con más seguridad,
como verdaderos dueños de su alma. Por las noches habı́a juego, griterı́o
y música, hasta charango se tocaba. Muchas veces se reunı́an algunas
pasñas y mak’tas del pueblo, y bailaban delante de la señora, rebosando
alegrı́a y libertad.
[Those days in which the landowner went out to the punas were the best
in the hacienda. The eyes of all concerned, doña Cayetana, Facundacha,
of everyone, even doña Josefa, cleared up. An air of happiness appeared
in everyone’s faces; they walked around the house with more security,
like true owners of their own souls. At night there was play, shouting,
and music, they even played the charango. Often some pasñas and mak-
’tas from the town got together and danced before the owner’s wife,
overflowing with happiness and freedom.] (OC1, 97)
Doña Josefa assumes her role as patrona, presiding over the haci-
enda, but her leadership is decidedly different from that of her hus-
band. The narrator describes her as ‘‘humilde, tenı́a corazón de
india, corazón dulce y cariñoso. Era desgraciada con su marido;
pero vino a Ak’ola para nuestro bien. Ella lo comprendı́a, y lloraba
a veces por nosotros, comenzando por su becerrito Juancha. Por eso
los ak’olas le decı́an mamacha, y no eran disimulados y mudos para
ella’’ [humble, she had the heart of an Indian, a sweet and loving
heart. She was unhappy with her husband, but she came to Ak’ola
for our good. She understood and sometimes cried for us, beginning
with her little lamb Juancha. For this reason the Ak’olas called her
mamacha, and they did not change themselves or become mute
around her] (OC1, 103). Mamacha, for the Quechua culture, be-
yond ‘‘mother,’’ connotes the origin, the creation, and the term is
used to convey great respect and love for those it names.
Doña Josefa plays huaynos, Andean music, on the guitar, and in-
cites young people to dance and Juan himself to sing.33 The narrator
affirms, ‘‘Sin necesidad de aguardiente y sin chicha, doña Josefa
sabı́a alegrarnos, sabı́a hacernos bailar. Los comuneros no eran di-
simulados para ella, no eran callados y sonsos como delante del
principal; su verdadero corazón le mostraban a ella, su verdadero
corazón sencillo, tierno y amoroso’’ [Without needing to resort to
alcohol or corn beer, doña Josefa knew how to make us happy, how
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to make us dance. The comuneros were not different around her,
they were not quiet and dumb like with the principal; they showed
her their true heart, their true simple, tender and loving heart]
(OC1, 102). In this sense, doña Josefa gives form to the semiotic
and highlights its role in cultural expression. If the feminine, under-
stood as woman and as the semiotic (in music and dance), serves
as facilitator and expression of indigenous culture, the symbolic,
embodied by don Ciprián and dominant political and productive
forces, represses it. The narrator tells the reader, ‘‘de dos, tres dı́as,
el tropel de los animales en la calle, los ajos roncos y el zurriago de
don Jesús, anunciaban el regreso del patrón. Un velito turbio apa-
recı́a en la mirada de la gente, sus caras se atontaban de repente,
sus pies se ponı́an pesados; en lo hondo de su corazón temblaba
algo, y un temor frı́o correteaba en la sangre. Parecı́a que todos
habı́an perdido su alma’’ [after two, three days, the rush of animals
in the street, the rough calls and the whip of don Jesús, announced
the return of the landowner. A troubled veil appeared over the eyes
of the people, their faces turned stupid all of a sudden, their feet
became heavy; the depths of their hearts trembled a bit, and a cold
fear ran through their blood. It seemed that everyone had lost their
soul] (OC1, 98). It is the feminine, then, that gives the people their
soul, and the symbolic that crushes it.
This role is evident in the function of music and dance, which
turn spaces of domination, such as the patio of the hacienda, into
spaces of resistance. It is also evident in other female characters,
such as doña Cayetana, the cook, who, like doña Josefa, serves as a
maternal figure for the boy. When don Ciprián’s foreman punishes
the boy for not completing his work, doña Cayetana and doña Jo-
sefa heal his wounds. The narrator recounts the cook’s love and
concern for the boy, as well as the effect of her voice on the protag-
onist: ‘‘Doña Cayetana tenı́a corazón dulce; en su hablar habı́a
siempre cariño. . . . Me gustaba el hablar de doña Cayetana, en su
voz estaba la tristeza, una tierna tristeza que consolaba mi vida de
huérfano, de forastero sin padre ni madre’’ [Doña Cayetana had a
sweet heart; her speech was always filled with love. . . . I liked doña
Cayetana’s way of speaking, in her voice was sadness, a tender sad-
ness that consoled my life as an orphan, as a foreigner with no
father or mother] (OC1, 91).34 Returning to Kristeva, it is apparent
that the aspect of doña Cayetana’s voice that most affects Juan is
the semiotic (the sadness underlying her words) rather than the
symbolic (the words themselves). It is the affective value of the re-
lationship with the feminine that most readily touches the boy.
As for Juan himself, again the narration emphasizes the unhome-
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liness of the narrator-protagonist. On the one hand, he feels free to

openly defy don Ciprián because of his social status, ‘‘¡Cipriancha,
yo no te respeto, yo soy wikullero, hijo de abogado, misti perdido!’’
[Cipriancha, I don’t respect you, I am a wikullo player, son of a
lawyer, lost misti!] (OC1, 88). In this imaginary confrontation with
the gamonal, Juan shows disrespect and aggression in his use of the
diminutive, Cipriancha. He also very succinctly summarizes his
own situation; he is a wikullero, an expert player of the indigenous
game, as well as the son of a ‘‘lost,’’ that is, impoverished, misti.
He also notes on several occasions that he is a ‘‘mak’tillo falsifi-
cado,’’ a false indigenous boy, a position that is both detrimental
and advantageous. If his status keeps him always on the margins of
the culture he loves, it also affords him a privileged position. He
observes, ‘‘Yo no era un mak’tillo despreocupado y alegre como el
Banku. Hijo de misti, la cabeza me dolı́a a veces, y pensaba siempre
en mi destino, en los comuneros, en mi padre que habı́a muerto no
sabı́a dónde; en los abusos de don Ciprián; y los odiaba más que
Teofacha, más que todos los escoleros y los ak’olas’’ [I was not a
carefree and happy mak’tillo like el Banku. Son of a misti, my head
ached sometimes, and I always thought about my future, the com-
uneros, my father who had died I knew not where, about the abuses
of don Ciprián, which I hated more than Teofacha, more than all
the schoolboys and the Ak’olas] (OC1, 96). Later he reiterates,
‘‘Yo, pues, no era mak’tillo de verdad, baiları́n, con el alma tran-
quila; no, yo era mak’tillo falsificado, hijo de abogado; por eso pen-
saba más que los otros escoleros; a veces me enfermaba de tanto
hablar con mi alma, pero de don Ciprián hablaba más. Otras veces
sentı́a como una luz fuerte en mis ojos:—¿Y por qué los comuneros
no le degüellan en la plaza, delante de todo el pueblo?’’ [I, well,
was not a true mak’tillo, a dancer, with a tranquil soul; no, I was a
false mak’tillo, son of a lawyer; for this reason I thought more than
the other schoolboys. Sometimes I became sick from speaking so
much with my soul, but of don Ciprián I spoke more. Other times I
felt something like a strong light in my eyes: why don’t the comu-
neros cut his throat in the plaza, in front of the whole town?] (OC1,
102). This is the story that most directly speaks to the potential of
this hybrid figure: that he can think, that he can imagine unimagin-
able possibilities. These thoughts will be those that the hybrid intel-
lectual later voices through his fiction, an act of resistance that he
can realize because of his unique position.
Again, this figure, the hybrid intellectual in formation, will ap-
pear in later narrations, most notably in Los rı́os profundos, and, as
an adult, now ‘‘formed’’ by the narrated (and unnarrated) experi-
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ences, as the author of the diaries woven through El zorro de arriba
y el zorro de abajo. These early short stories introduce this charac-
ter and intimate his importance to future discourse on the nation.
Indeed, it is this very discourse that the early short fictions begin to
call into question and refute, in practice offering alternative visions
of Peru and its national culture. Thus, Arguedas begins to delineate
the spaces, figures, language, and belief systems that mark the An-
dean world, in an endeavor to highlight the importance of the Sierra
in the national imaginary. As has been argued, the feminine plays a
central role in the development of an alternative national vision, and
this element must be understood in broad terms (as woman, but also
as nature, music, the semiotic) to appreciate its impact in Arguedian
narrative. These early short stories, insufficiently recognized by
critics, hold some vital keys to the understanding of Arguedas’s vi-
sion, elements that the hybrid intellectual, product of a childhood
similar to the one he narrates, will continue to develop as he refines
both his art and his understanding of his nation.
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2
Yawar Fiesta:
Mapping a Highland Town
YAWAR FIESTA (TRANSLATED BY FRANCES HORNING BARRACLOUGH IN

1985 as Yawar Fiesta) tells the story of the preparations for and the
realization of the festival of Saint John the Baptist on the twenty-
eighty of July, in the 1930s, in the highland town of Puquio, capital
of Lucanas province. In this town, the celebration includes a turu-
pukllay, an indigenous form of bullfighting, popularly known as a
yawar fiesta (blood festival), owing to the many deaths it often
causes. A Subprefect from the coast finds the practice barbaric and
determines to prohibit the celebration, replacing it with a more typi-
cal Spanish-style bullfight, complete with a Spanish-born matador
brought from the coast.1 He is able to convince most of the local
vecinos to agree to the prohibition, about which they do not inform
the local indigenous communities until the day of the event. At first,
the comuneros accept the mandate and agree to watch from the
stands, but they rebel and take over the bullfight upon seeing what
they perceive as cowardice on the part of the Spanish bullfighter.
Yawar Fiesta is a significant advance in Arguedian narrative,
building on several important elements that have been and will con-
tinue to be fundamental aspects of his prose. Music and dance truly
come to the forefront as spaces of resistance and as signs of rebel-
lion. Arguedas begins an intricate experimentation with the con-
cepts of space and time, which will be key features of his later
writings. And, of course, the writer continues his search for the best
way to represent the Quechua language, culture, and mindset for
Spanish-speaking audiences. Finally, the author continues his quest
to make the Sierra and indigenous culture principal players in Peru-
vian national narrative.
If in the short stories Arguedas sought to realize this project
through representation of life in the Andean village, this time he
moves to the small city, Puquio, a provincial capital. Nine years
after the publication of the novel, Arguedas would publish ‘‘Puquio,
74
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2: YAWAR FIESTA: MAPPING A HIGHLAND TOWN 75
una cultura en proceso de cambio’’ (Puquio, a culture in the process
of change), an anthropological essay on the town, in part to accom-
pany and better explain the setting of the novel. At the time of the
setting of the narration—the 1930s—Puquio consisted of four ay-
llus: the Chaupi and the K’ollana, whom Arguedas calls ‘‘her-
manos,’’ and which had a greater misti and mestizo population, and
the K’ayau and Pichk’achuri, also ‘‘brothers,’’ with greater indige-
nous populations. Of the concept of misti, Arguedas writes: ‘‘the
misti is not white, it is a name used to designate men of Western
or almost-Western culture who traditionally, since Colonial times,
dominated the region politically, socially, and economically. None
of them is still, of course, purely white or purely Western. They are
creoles.’’2 Arguedas explains that the Spaniards arrived late to the
region, and that in no other district in the province have the indige-
nous people had as much authority as in Puquio—until the mid
1940s, the Indians presided over the weekly town meetings and
over the distribution of water.
With the construction of a road connecting Puquio to the coast in
1926 (an event narrated in Yawar Fiesta), Puquio becomes an active
commercial center. In a 1938 anthropological essay, ‘‘El indigen-
ismo en el Perú’’ (Indigenismo in Peru), Arguedas comments on the
impact the new roadways had on the indigenous communities; areas
previously geographically isolated were suddenly exposed to many
aspects of modern living. At the same time, indigenous peoples left
their communities, which he describes as frozen in time and lacking
any possibilities for social and economic ascension, and headed for
the cities of the coast. With increased communication with the out-
side world, Arguedas claims, ‘‘the Indian ‘became insolent’ before
the traditional local leaders . . . ; Indians of the free, land-holding
communities; the mestizo becomes a businessman and also ‘‘be-
comes insolent.’’3 The traditional ruling classes had two alternatives
in dealing with these changes: democratize or flee. Arguedas re-
counts that communities such as Puquio responded by modernizing
their political structure. The process and effects of these dramatic
changes are at the center of Yawar Fiesta and, later, will be further
explored in Todas las sangres. Arguedas is narrating a rupture with
a lifestyle that is inadequate for the types of transformations the
country is experiencing. In this novel, he puts forth a new national
subject—the indigenous-mestizo—as a midway point, a bridge be-
tween indigenous and white cultures, and a figure capable of creat-
ing a specifically Andean modernity.
Arguedas observes that ‘‘ancient norms are being broken with
progressive speed. The ‘society’ formed by the families of the old
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landholders, mistis, has disappeared; it no longer exists.’’4 Now, he

explains, small business owners form the majority, as the ‘‘aristoc-
racy’’ has moved to the coast. Arguedas notes the importance of the
mestizo (more precisely, the subject that Marisol de la Cadena calls
the indigenous-mestizo) in this changing society, as Indians desire
for their children to become mestizos. Indeed, the mestizo takes a
new place in Arguedian narrative with Yawar Fiesta; no longer the
cowardly pawn of the misti, mestizos are often shown as defenders
of indigenous culture and possible links or bridges to white culture.
This hopeful figure is again a new type of national subject that Ar-
guedas begins to delineate for Peruvian narrative and which he sees
as having revolutionary potential, narratively and beyond. Of the
changes in Puquio, Arguedas remarks, ‘‘we are convinced that this
is not the normal change of habits from one generation to the next,
a very slow change in the small isolated cities of the interior, but a
true revolution of norms.’’5 For Arguedas, the mestizo is at the cen-
ter of this revolution.
Resisting Geographies
What is now known as the first chapter of the novel, ‘‘Pueblo
indio’’ (Indian town), actually did not appear with the first edition
of the book but was added years later, like the article on Puquio, a
recognition that the majority of the novel’s readers would not know
or understand the setting. In fact, the first two chapters of the novel
are highly descriptive, mapping out the town and relating its cus-
toms, life, and structure; as Cornejo Polar notes, ‘‘it is assumed that
the novelistic world is foreign and mysterious for the reader.’’6 For
this reason, the first chapter begins and is realized through the point
of view of the outsider, a traveler coming to Puquio (on the new
roadway) from the coast. From the start, a dichotomy is set up be-
tween an ‘‘us’’ (the people of Puquio, including the narrator) and a
‘‘you/them’’ (the reader and the people of the coast). Arguedas’s
desire to place this dichotomy, fundamental to Peruvian national
identity, at the forefront of the novel points to its importance in his
national vision. The novel will sustain a constant dialogue, explicit
and implicit, between these two domains and will begin to suggest
possibilities for realizing a more dynamic, inclusive exchange.
‘‘Pueblo indio’’ begins with the entrance into Puquio of an out-
sider arriving from the coast, pausing atop the Sillanayok’ moun-
tain to view the town. Yet, the narrator clearly identifies himself as
an insider: ‘‘¡ver a nuestro pueblo desde un abra, desde una cumbre
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donde hay saywas de piedra, y tocar en quena o charango, o en
rondı́n, un buen huayno de llegada!’’ [To see our town from a pass,
from a mountaintop where there are magic heaps of stones the trav-
elers leave, and to play an arrival huayno on a quena or charango or
on a harmonica!].7 The emotions felt by the insider, playing Andean
music on traditional instruments, is something that will remain for-
ever foreign to the costeño, and yet there seems to be a desire to
communicate that emotion, to explain and somehow share (again,
here we see Arguedas the mediator, the translator, the bridge be-
tween cultures). The narrator notes that people from the coast can-
not see their towns from above or afar, and thus cannot experience
this kind of joy.
Commenting on the act of looking down on a city, de Certeau
writes (in 1984) of the experience of a man looking down on New
York City from a tower of the former World Trade Center: ‘‘His
elevation transfigures him into a voyeur. It puts him at a distance.
It transforms the bewitching world by which one was ‘‘possessed’’
into a text that lies before one’s eyes. It allows one to read it, to be
a solar Eye, looking down like a god. The exaltation of a scopic and
gnostic drive: the fiction of knowledge is related to this lust to be a
viewpoint and nothing more.’’8 For de Certeau, there exists in man
a drive to see his habitat from above, to make a text of it, to read it.
But, de Certeau asks, ‘‘Is the immense texturology spread out be-
fore one’s eyes anything more than a representation, an optical
artifact? . . . The panorama-city is a ‘theoretical’ (that is, visual)
simulacrum, in short a picture, whose condition of possibility is an
oblivion and a misunderstanding of practices. The voyeur-god cre-
ated by this fiction, who, like Schreber’s God, knows only cadavers,
must disentangle himself from the murky intertwining daily behav-
iors and make himself alien to them.’’9
For de Certeau, there is a great difference between the text that is
theorized (and never very accurately) by the observer from above
and that created by the inhabitants below, in their daily maneuver-
ings throughout the city (‘‘an urban ‘text’ they write without being
able to read it’’).10 From the very first chapter of Yawar Fiesta and
throughout the entire novel, Arguedas negotiates these perspectives,
making us, the readers, at once the alienated observers from above
and the practitioners, the walkers, below. The narrative moves con-
stantly among these perspectives in an effort to at once create and
theorize the ‘‘urban’’ space (text) of the small highland city.
Of course, the city to which de Certeau refers is a much different
one from that portrayed in the novel, or existing anywhere in the
Peruvian highlands, but his meditation has a particular applicability
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here, especially with respect to Yawar Fiesta where, if one were to

identify a protagonist, the town itself plays the central role, as an
imagined, created, and lived unit(y). Arguedas uses the space—the
literary projection of the very real Puquio—to portray national (An-
dean) subjects, explore power and its workings, and create the dom-
inant fiction in order to destroy the same, by presenting its fissures
and resistance to its mandates. As those who observe from above
and outside (the traveler and the readers) are brought down into the
town (into the text), they are met with these plays of power and
contradictions, as well as many ‘‘unreadable’’ moments. The am-
bivalence in the treatment of the characters and their actions is the
result of the very lack of ‘‘rational transparency’’ in the daily life
of Puquio. In the novel, the traveler-reader observing and walking
through the city-text will often be shown as ‘‘surprised’’ by what
is encountered. The principal surprise will come from Arguedas’s
creation of the highland town, which at once creates and decon-
structs the dominant discourse of power, and proposes alternatives,
possibilities that will be taken up and expanded in later writings.
The traveler enters Puquio first through the Pichk’achuri commu-
nity, then through that of the K’ayau, then climbs a small hill and
enters the commercial area, ‘‘el sitio de los mestizos; ni comuneros
ni principales, allı́ viven los ‘chalos’, las tiendas son de las mestizas
que visten percala y se ponen sombrero de paja’’ (YF, 9) [It is the
mestizos’ place; it’s not for the Indian comuneros or prominent citi-
zens; that is where the ‘‘chalos’’ live;11 the shops belong to half-
caste women who wear percale clothing and straw hats (YF, 1985,
3)]. At the end of this section, ‘‘casi de repente,’’ (almost all of a
sudden) the traveler arrives at the Girón Bolı́var, the street where
the vecinos live: ‘‘—¿Qué?—dicen los forasteros. Se sorprenden’’
(YF, 9) [‘‘What?’’ the strangers exclaim in surprise (YF, 1985, 3)].
The street, connecting the Plaza de Armas, the main square, with
that of the Chaupi ayllu, is clean and well cared for. It seems the
people from the coast are not prepared for the complexity of the
Andean town. In Chaupi begins Calle Derecha, the indigenous
street, and on the other side of the Girón Bolı́var is the K’ollana
ayllu, not visible from atop Mount Sillanayok’. Finally, in the Plaza
de Armas are the best homes; ‘‘allı́ viven las familias de mistis que
tienen amistades en Lima—‘extranguero’ dicen los comuneros—,
las niñas más vistosas y blanquitas’’ (YF, 10) [that’s where the misti
families who have friends in Lima live—‘‘foreigner,’’ the Indian
comuneros call them—the showiest, lightest-colored girls (YF,
1985, 4)]. There, the town ends. Using traditional Andean symbol-
ism, the narrator explains, ‘‘el Girón Bolı́var es como culebra que
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parte en dos al pueblo: la plaza de Armas es como cabeza de cule-
bra, allı́ están los dientes, ‘los ojos’, la cabeza, la lengua—cárcel,
coso, Subprefecto, Juzgado—; el cuerpo de la culebra es el Girón
Bolı́var’’ (YF, 10–11) [Girón Bolı́var is like a snake that cuts the
town in two; the Plaza de Armas is like the head of the snake; there
are the teeth, the eyes, the head, the tongue—jail, animal pound,
Subprefecture, Court—; the body of the snake is Girón Bolı́var (YF,
1985, 5)]. In Andean symbolism, the snake is an auki, a demigod,
that devours all in its path. By resorting to this image, Arguedas is
connecting misti society to this all-consuming creature. This is the
serpentine space of the mistis, where they love, fight, drink, talk,
and show off.
The narrator then explains how the mistis arrived in Puquio,
rather late, around 300 years before the time of narration. They had
inhabited nearby towns closer to the mines and had come to Puquio
only occasionally to gather Indian workers. When the mines dried
up, they moved to Puquio—built their street right through the cen-
ter of town—and began to take land from the Indians. The narrator
tells how the ayllus worked together to support their own members,
how they did not allow themselves to be intimidated by the mistis,
and how they were able to retain control of the water and oblige the
mistis to solicit them for access to water. The narrator also de-
scribes two kinds of mistis, those who follow the principales—‘‘los
comuneros . . . les llaman ‘k’anras’, y quizá no hay en el hablar
indio palabra más sucia’’ (YF, 14–15) [these halfbreeds . . . are
called k’anras by the comuneros; probably there’s not a dirtier
word in Indian speech (YF, 1985, 8)], and those hardworking, hon-
orable mestizos who are friendly to the ayllus.
After having given ‘‘us,’’ the traveler and the reader, a tour of
the town, the narration returns to the top of the mountain, this time
portraying the scene from a particularly indigenous point of view.
The section begins with a ‘‘pero,’’ marking that what will proceed
is a negation, a difference from what had come before.
Pero cuando los puquinos miran desde lo alto, desde Sillanayok’abra,
desde la cumbre del taita Pedrork’o; cuando miran el Girón Bolı́var,
brillando como lomo de culebra entre el tejado de los ayllus, asqueando,
dicen:
—¡Atatauya Bolı́var, calle!
Cuando los indios miran y hablan de ese modo, en sus ojos arde otra
esperanza, su verdadera alma brilla. Se rı́en fuertes, quizá también ra-
bian. (YF, 15)
[But when the Puquio people look down from above, from the Silla-
nayok’ Pass, from the top of Tayta Pedrork’o, when they see Girón
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Bolı́var gleaming like a snake’s back among the tiled roofs of the ayllus,
they exclaim disgustedly:
‘‘Atatauya Bolı́var, street!’’12
When the Indians look down and speak that way, in their eyes another
hope is glowing, their real soul is shining forth. They laugh loudly; they
may be furious, too.] (YF, 1985, 9)
The voice of the narrator, distinctly identified and identifying with

the indigenous inhabitants of Puquio, plants the seed for what will
be a principal point of the novel—the indigenous capacity for resis-
tance and rebellion, the hope and desired future that exists within
them. He further emphasizes the lack of awareness and understand-
ing on the part of the mistis.
The chapter ends with a rather long indigenous appreciation of
what the traveler first saw, worth quoting in its entirety:
Desde las cumbres bajan cuatro rı́os y pasan cerca del pueblo; en las
cascadas, el agua blanca grita, pero los mistis no oyen. En las lomadas,
en las pampas, en las cumbres, con el viento bajito, flores amarillas bai-
lan, pero los mistis casi no ven. En el amanecer, sobre el cielo frı́o, tras
del filo de las montañas, aparece el sol; entonces las tuyas y las torcazas
cantan, sacudiendo sus alitas; las ovejas y los potros corretean en el
pasto, mientras los mistis duermen, o miran, calculando la carne de los
novellios. Al atardecer, el taita Inti dora el cielo, dora la tierra, pero
ellos estornudan, espuelan a los caballos en los caminos, o toman café,
toman pisco caliente.
Pero en el corazón de los puquios está llorando y riendo la quebrada,
en sus ojos el cielo y el sol están viviendo; en su adentro está cantando
la quebrada, con su voz de la mañana, del mediodı́a, de la tarde, del
oscurecer. (YF, 15)
[From the mountain peaks four streams descend and flow near the
town; in the cascades the white water is calling, but the mistis do not
hear it. On the hillsides, on the plains, on the mountaintops the yellow
flowers dance in the wind, but the mistis hardly see them. At dawn,
against the cold sky, beyond the edge of the mountains, the sun appears;
then the larks and doves sing, fluttering their little wings; the sheep and
the colts run to and fro in the grass, while the mistis sleep or watch,
calculating the weight of their steers. In the evening Tayta Inti gilds the
sky, gilds the earth, but they sneeze, spur their horses on the road, or
drink coffee, drink hot pisco.13
But in the hearts of the Puquios, the valley is weeping and laughing,
in their eyes the sky and the sun are alive; within them the valley sings
with the voice of the morning, of the noontide, of the afternoon, of the
evening.] (YF, 1985, 9).
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This is a new, indigenous mapping, a resisting geography. If the
traveler from the coast most immediately sees the physical makeup
of the town, the indigenous voyeur appreciates the natural elements
to which the mistis are blind and deaf. By showing the reader (and
the traveler) what the mistis refuse to see or hear, we are made ac-
complices with the Indians. By placing this description at the end
of the chapter, the narrator assures that the reader perceives an in-
digenous point of view and that this point of view will enjoy a priv-
ileged place in the narrative. The indigenous geography becomes
the dominant one, resisting and replacing those that have come be-
fore it.14
It is also essential to note the beginnings of a corporeal mapping
as well, as the narration delineates the place and impact of the An-
dean natural world on the indigenous body and spirit. Nature, espe-
cially its sounds, forms an essential part of the Andean indigenous
soul, according to this passage. Again, the semiotic is given a privi-
leged place in the narrative, and contrasted with the symbolic, the
cultural practices and values of the mistis. The semiotic is an ele-
ment to which the mistis are closed, which they refuse to see and
hear, to internalize as the indigenous cultures have. As a result, they
are unable to read accurately, much less appreciate and benefit
from, the physical text that surrounds them. The resisting geogra-
phy is twofold, both an alternative to that set forth by dominant dis-
course (in the form of the traveler’s viewpoint) and a mapping by
more qualified ‘‘geographers,’’ the indigenous peoples who have in-
ternalized, quite literally, the physical space that envelops them.
The contrast in spatial interpretations set up in the first chapter is
mirrored by a contrast of times in the second chapter, ‘‘El despojo’’
(The Dispossession). In this section, there is a constant movement
among times—an ideal, remote past, a more recent past injustice,
the present situation, and a desired future. The chapter begins: ‘‘en
otros tiempos, todos los arros y todas las pampas de la puna fueron
de los comuneros’’ (YF, 16) [In olden times, all of the mountains
and fields on the puna belonged to the comuneros (YF, 1985, 10)].
But at a particular moment, the coast began to demand more live-
stock, so the mistis began to take land from the Indians. Arguedas
portrays this moment as a form of conquest; the similarities with
the original Spanish conquest are notable, as the narration reflects
the importance of the written word and Western law: ‘‘año tras año,
los principales fueron sacando papeles, documentos de toda clase,
diciendo que eran dueños de este manantial, de ese echadero, de las
pampas más buenas de pasto y más próximas al pueblo’’ (YF, 18)
[Year after year, the important people would draw up papers, all
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kinds of documents, swearing that they were the owners of this

spring, of that grazing land, of the fields with the best pastures,
nearest the town (YF, 1985, 12)].15 To authorize appropriation of
land, the newly arrived judge would read from a paper a declaration
of new ownership. In his representation of such a scene, Arguedas
shows all the instruments of domination—the Judge (the Law), the
soldiers (the military), the Priest (religion), Spanish music (a sense
of cultural superiority), written documents (the cult to the written
word), and language (the use of Quechua not to understand but to
conquer).
The narration shows a cultural conquest/clash as well: ‘‘de re-
pente aparecı́an en la puna, por cualquier camino, en gran cabal-
gata. Llegaban con arpa, violı́n y clarinete, entre mujeres y
hombres, tomando vino’’ (YF, 18) [They would appear suddenly on
the puna, by any road, in a great cavalcade. They would come with
harp, violin, and clarinet, men and women, singing, drinking wine
(YF, 1985, 12)]. The conquerors bring new music—so fundamental
to the representation of Quechua culture in Arguedian narrative—
new dance, and a new political structure, which includes a judge,
a governor, and principales. This situation leaves the punarunas,
inhabitants of the upper highlands, both physically and spiritually
homeless: ‘‘parecı́an de repente huérfanos’’ (YF, 20) [suddenly they
seemed like orphans (YF, 1985, 14)]. The image of being orphaned
is one used to describe the direst of states in Quechua culture. In an
interview with Sara Castro Klarén, Arguedas observes that ‘‘or-
phanhood is a condition not only of poverty of material goods, but
it also indicates a sense of solitude, of abandonment, of having no
one to turn to. An orphan, or a huak’cho, is he who has nothing. He
is sentimentally filled with a great solitude and merits great com-
passion from others. He can’t even exchange with those who have
goods. Then he can’t make trades and is at the margin of the people
who can receive protection in exchange for giving protection.16 A
huak’cho in this sense is sub-human, he is not within the category
of men as such.’’17
It is a central image in Arguedian narrative, in part due to the
personal situation of the author himself.
When the punaruna finally have no place to live, they turn to the
ayllus to which they are affiliated. Because the communities con-
sider the place of these people to be in the puna, raising livestock,
the punaruna come even to their own community as outsiders (for-
asteros, another charged image in Arguedian narrative). Some are
forced by mistis to work for months in cotton fields on the coast,
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where many die, but others are able to work in mistis’ homes, save
money, and buy land in the ayllu:
Y ya en Puquio, en el ayllu, seguı́an odiando con más fuerza al principal

que les habı́a quitado sus tierras. En el ayllu habı́a miles y miles de
comuneros, todos juntos, todos iguales; allı́ ni don Santos, ni don
Fermı́n, ni don Pedro, podı́an abusar ası́ no más. El punaruna que habı́a
llorado en las pampas de ischu, el punaruna que habı́a pujado en el cepo,
que habı́a golpeado su cabeza sobre las paredes de la cárcel, ese
‘‘endio’’ que llegó con los ojos asustados, de comunero chaupi, k’ollana
o k’ayau, tenı́a más valor para mirar frente a frente, con rabia, a los
vecinos que entraban a los ayllus a pedir un favor. (YF, 22)
[And now that they lived in Puquio, in the ayllu, their hatred of the nota-
ble who had taken their land was even stronger. In the ayllu there were
thousands and thousands of comuneros, all together, all equal; there no
Don Santos, or Don Fermı́n, or Don Pedro could take advantage of them
so easily. The puna-dweller who had wept in the hayfield, the punaruna
who had strained in the stocks, who had beaten his head against the jail
walls, that ‘‘Endian’’ who had come down with fear in his eyes, once he
became a Chaupi, K’ollana, or K’ayau comunero, was emboldened to
look directly into the eyes of the townsmen who came into the Indian
communities to ask a favor.] (YF, 1985, 16)
This extreme ire—fruit of the injustices suffered by the indigenous

people—will manifest itself in different forms of resistance. As will
be shown, the rest of the narrative, from the town’s anticipation of
the turupukllay through its prohibition and final realization, will be
filled with acts of resistance, sparks of rebellion, and signs of power
and potential on the part of the indigenous people. Says Arguedas
of Yawar Fiesta, ‘‘I described the power of the indigenous peo-
ple.’’18 Cornejo Polar notes, ‘‘in Yawar Fiesta the option of social
rebellion never appears as an immediate possibility, but the strength
of the Quechua people, the true power of the comuneros, is illumi-
nated and emphasized.’’ The critic continues, the novel ‘‘begins to
forge an image of an Indian truly capable of rebelling.’’19 The indig-
enous people’s strengths and capabilities are shown throughout the
novel in many ways: in the use of music and dance as means of
open resistance to dominant culture, by the accomplishment of acts
that mistis and mestizos had failed to realize, through contrasting
indigenous communities and their inhabitants with the rest of Pu-
quio, with the similar contrast of indigenous and white spaces and
indigenous and white cultures, and by the final overtaking of the
bullfight.
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Puquio Society
In preparation for the festival, the Indians play on their wakawak-
’ras (an indigenous instrument made of a bull’s horn) the turupuk-
llay, the Quechua name for the festival as well as for the music
played in anticipation of and during the bullfight. The music is al-
most incessant and fills the air of the town for weeks before the
event. Its sound is very powerful; it has the advantage of a mobility
that allows it to penetrate spaces otherwise off limits to the indige-
nous people, as it enters the space of the principales and deeply
affects them. It is called ‘‘penetrante,’’ penetrating, and mistis com-
plain that the music ‘‘friega el ánimo’’ (YF, 28) [it troubles your
mind (YF, 1985, 29)]; ‘‘me cala hasta el alma’’ (YF, 29) [goes right
down to the depths of my soul (YF, 1985, 22)], one says. The narra-
tor tells us, ‘‘la voz de los wakawak’ras interrumpı́a las charlas de
los mistis bajo los faroles de las esquinas del Girón Bolı́var; inter-
rumpı́a la tranquilidad de la comida en la casa de los principales
(YF, 29) [the sound of the wakawak’ras interrupted the mistis’ con-
versation under the lamps on the corners of the Girón Bolı́var; it
disturbed the peace of the diners in the houses of the leading citi-
zens (YF, 1985, 22)]. The incessant rhythm induces the young mis-
tis to leave their homes and play a game of bullfighting. ‘‘A veces
la corneta de don Maywa se oı́a en el pueblo cuando el Cura estaba
en la iglesia, haciendo el rosario con las señoras y las niñas del
pueblo, y con algunas indias del barrio. El turupukllay vencı́a el
ánimo de las devotas; el Cura también se detenı́a un instante cuando
llegaba la tonada’’ (YF, 29) [sometimes Don Maywa’s trumpet was
heard in the town when the Priest was saying the rosary in church
with the ladies and girls of the town and with some of the women
from the Indian neighborhoods. The bullfight music was dispiriting
to those pious souls; the Priest, too, would pause for a moment
when the melody came in to him (YF, 1985, 22)]. The music comes
at night and interrupts the mistis’ sleep. In the ayllus, the Indians
hear it, too, and celebrate its arrival.
Here again in Arguedan narrative, the semiotic dominates narra-
tive space; Arguedas shows clearly not only its transformative ca-
pacity but also its organizing power, its ability to rearrange culture
and to give new meaning to its symbols. Echoing the trip taken
through the town in the first chapter, Arguedas uses the music to
travel through the town again, to create the space and its inhabi-
tants. The musical journey shows us at once the paradox of the sep-
aration and inseparability of white and indigenous cultures in the
Andes. The mistis cannot shut out, cannot escape their Other, but
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are rather deeply impressed and shaped by it. With these powerful
manifestations of indigenous culture, boundaries become fluid,
penetrable, and can no longer support the divisions they were de-
signed to protect. There is a desire on the part of some (not all)
to contain the music, with the dominant instrument, the Law—‘‘se
debiera pedir a la Guardia Civil que prohı́ba tocar esa tonada en las
noches’’ (YF, 28) [The Civil Guard should be asked to forbid them
to play that tune at night (YF, 1985, 21)]—but that is shown to be
impossible. Like the traveler and the indigenous people in the first
chapter, at the end of chapter 3, the music rises to a higher vantage
point and dominates the town: ‘‘Con el viento, a esa hora, el turu-
pukllay, pasaba las cumbres, daba vueltas a las abras, llegaba a las
estancias y a los pueblitos. En noche clara, o en la oscuridad, el
turupukllay llegaba como desde lo alto’’ (YF, 29) [With the wind,
at that hour, the bullfight music would flow out over the mountain-
tops and swirl through the passes, reaching the little farms and vil-
lages. On a bright night, or in the darkness, the turupukllay would
come down as if from on high (YF, 1985, 22)].
In a novel where female characters are nonexistent other than as
undifferentiated background groups (they appear as the misti niñas
and señoras, or as groups of indigenous women), the feminine is
nevertheless important; music, as a feminine force, takes the fore-
front. Many have commented on the importance of music in Yawar
Fiesta. Gérard Borras notes, ‘‘Music is the sign of community resis-
tance to a feudal order imposed by the large property owners. It
also shows that the culture of the community is not shaken by the
fact of oppression, but rather on the contrary, its relationship with
rituals and the sacred is intact.’’20 Rowe asserts that in the novel
music ‘‘functions as a form of defense against the misti world.’’21
Music asserts a new order, not only parallel with that of the domi-
nant order, but resisting and disrupting the latter. Music is a con-
stant, underlying all cross-cultural communication; with its
semiotic force, it is the deep rhythm from which meaning emerges.
Music, with at times an accompanying partner, dance, will ap-
pear repeatedly throughout the rest of the narration, as we learn of
the preparations for the festival, of the K’ayau community’s capture
of Misitu, a wild bull belonging to don Julián, the most powerful
principal in the area, and of the festival itself. The plot is quite sim-
ple; the narration serves as a pretext for novelizing the Andean ex-
perience, the town of Puquio and its inhabitants. In this sense,
Arguedas introduces many new subjects and spaces into the na-
tional imagining of Peru. He creates a wide spectrum of characters
attached to some basic dichotomies (coast/Sierra; white culture/in-
................. 16448$ $CH2 08-14-07 14:09:48 PS PAGE 85

digenous culture). The most interesting aspects of this creation are

those not easily attached to one end of the spectrum, who rather
vacillate in terms of their identification and affiliations. In this man-
ner, the author shows the underlying slipperiness of the dynamics
of identity in the Peruvian Sierra.
At one end of the spectrum, then, lies the coast, especially Lima.
At first, Lima seems far away and, above all, aggressive: a traveler
from the coast looks down upon the town; Lima’s desire for more
meat causes the mistis to take land from the Indians of the Puna.
Then, we begin to see an exchange of peoples: the Indians go to the
coast to work, few returning alive and healthy; the coast sends up
bureaucrats, a judge, the Subprefect, and army officers. Finally,
Lima begins to impose its culture and laws, which is problematic
even for nonindigenous inhabitants. The principal representative of
the government in the novel is the Subprefect, who, like the other
representatives of the coast, has no name.
Chapter 6, titled ‘‘La autoridad’’ (The Authority), begins with the
Subprefect looking out over Puquio from his office above the main
square. He compares the sight to something that could be found in
the movies; later, the narrator notes that he is observing as if he
were dreaming. The space, along with all of its members, no matter
what their social standing, is so foreign to the Subprefect that it is
unreal, or of another world. He asks his sargeant, ‘‘¿Qué le parece
nuestra patria? ¡Es una gran vaina! Pero también qué otra cosa
puede dar esta tierra. Mire qué cielo para feo, qué pueblo más triste.
A veces se me pone negro el humor entre estos cerros’’ (YF, 58)
[What do you think of our country? It’s a big mess. But anyway,
how could this land produce anything else? Look how ugly the sky
is, what a dismal town. Sometimes it puts me in a black mood,
being up here in the midst of all these mountains (YF, 1985, 50)].
The difference between the point of view of the representative of
the dominant culture, from his official space, (his imaginary total-
ization, in de Certeau’s words) and that of the indigenous culture,
from the mountain, is striking.
At this point, the narrative shows the Indians and the vecinos
leaving a meeting in which the latter have falsely assured the for-
mer that they will have their turupukllay: ‘‘La voz de los indios se
oı́a en la Subprefectura como murmullo grueso que parecı́a sonar
dentro de la tierra’’ (YF, 59) [In the subprefecture, the Indians’
voices sounded like a deep-pitched murmuring that seemed to be
coming from inside the earth (YF, 1985, 51)]. There are other
sounds that reach the official space—water, crickets, the footsteps
of the jail guards. Characteristic of Arguedian narrative, there is an
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intricate play of light, dark, and sounds highlighting this scene.
When the Subprefect finally sits down, in the dark, with only a
flicker of a candlelight to weakly illuminate the water-stained ceil-
ing and the portrait of the President of the Republic, he curses Pu-
quio: ‘‘y cuando estaba maldiciendo, desde los cuatro ayllus, la voz
de los wakawak’ras subió a la plaza, entró a la Subprefectura, y
cada vez más claro, más fuerte, la tonada de yawar fiesta crecı́a en
el pueblo’’ (YF, 60) [and while he was swearing, from the four ay-
llus the voices of the wakawak’ras rose up to the Plaza and came
into the Subprefecture, more and more clearly, more strongly the
yawar fiesta melody welled up in the town (YF, 1985, 52)]. There
is no pure space in the novel; all is potentially ‘‘contaminated’’ by
the semiotic.
Within the serrano society proper, Arguedas presents additional
figures of importance. At the top of the Puquio hierarchy is don
Julián Arangüena, the archetypal gamonal.22 When the Subprefecto
decides to cancel the turupukllay, don Julián defends it, not out of
appreciation for the indigenous culture, but rather to feed his vio-
lent nature. He relates masculinity to physical strength and violence,
calling those who join the Subprefecto maricones—fags—and the
Spanish-style bullfight a mujerada—woman’s invention. Upon ob-
serving the Vicar trying to convince the Indians to build a tradi-
tional bullring and to send only one or two Indians to fight, he
comments, ‘‘estos maricones están echando a perder el valor de la
indiada; están agarrando la sangre del pueblo. ¡Ya dentro de poco
no habrá hombres en Puquio!’’ (YF, 109) [These fairies are ruining
the Indians’ courage; they’re watering down the people’s blood.
Before long there won’t be any men left in Puquio! (YF, 1985, 98)].
Don Julián is feared and admired by the other principales; his
wealth and social standing give him the ability to confront authority
and express what many others may only think. As such, his treat-
ment in the narrative is ambiguous. On the one hand, he is violent
and abusive to the Indians; on the other, he is a staunch defender of
traditional serrano culture.
Below don Julián are other principales; those who play up to the
Subprefect in hopes of receiving political favors from him. Their
social and economic positions are precarious, and they depend on
government support; thus, they show their agreement with the Sub-
prefect to remove themselves from all association with indigenous
culture. As they understand it, their degree of whiteness mediates
their social, political, and economic success. At least outwardly,
they buy into the correlation government/Lima equals civilization.
Don Demetrio Cáceres, one of their strongest leaders, praises the
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efforts to bring a Spanish-style bullfight to town. He places his sup-

port of the proclamation prohibiting the turupukllay in specifically
dichotomous terms, equating the coast to civilization and the indig-
enous culture to barbarism:
Nuestro gobierno, señores, cumpliendo su llamamiento de protección
al indı́gena desvalido y de retrasado cerebro, ha dictado esa inteligente
medida. No podemos estar en desacuerdo con ese circular que extirpa
de raı́z un salvajismo de nuestro pueblo. Yo pido que el Consejo envı́e
un telegrama de agradecimiento al señor Director de Gobierno por ese
mandamiento que protege la vida indı́gena. Y que libra a Puquio de un
salvajismo. (YF, 52)
[Our national government, gentlemen, heeding its call to protect the

helpless native with his backward-oriented brain, has dictated this intel-
ligent measure. We cannot disagree with this edict, by which a barbaric
custom of our town is extirpated to the very root. I request the council
to send a telegram thanking His Honor, the Minister of the Interior, for
this order which protects the natives’ lives. And frees Puquio from a
barbaric custom.] (YF, 1985, 45)
But Arguedas shows that many of the principales are not so willing
to give up their connection to local culture. When the Subprefect
expects a bribe from don Demetrio, don Antenor (the town’s
mayor), and don Jesús, the latter begrudges having to pay his part.
While he does eventually accede, he does so unwillingly and with
resentment. In don Jesús’s language and customs, the narrator
shows the character’s connection with indigenous culture. He asks
himself, ‘‘¿En qué maldita hora me meterı́a con estos k’anras?’’
(YF, 104) [How the hell did I ever get involved with those k’anras?
(YF, 1985, 93)], employing one of the Quechua language’s strong-
est insults. Then, after delivering his portion of the bribe to don
Demetrio, he returns home to eat, ‘‘su chupe, su mote, su tek’te de
habas’’ (YF, 104) [his peppery potato stew, hominy, and boiled
broad beans (YF, 1985, 94)], all traditional Andean food.
There are others who more overtly and willingly confront author-
ity and defend indigenous tradition. Don Pancho is among the
poorer mistis (sometimes called medio-mistis, or half-mistis), a
small business owner who could be described as an ‘‘indigenous’’
mestizo. He defends the tradition of the indigenous bullfight, and
he is shown speaking Quechua, his represented speech very much
like that used by indigenous characters, with repetition of phrases,
suppression of articles and some prepositions and conjunctions, fre-
quent use of the diminutive, and Quechua-flavored vocabulary:
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‘‘¡No hay apuesta con K’ayau! No hay necesidad Misitu, ni toros
de K’oñani. Hay que traer novillo más bien para torerito limeño.
Gobierno dice no quiere que natural capee. Ahora se ha acordado
dice de su natural que sufre en la corrida de 28’’ (YF, 48) [The bet
with K’ayau’s off! There’s no need for Misitu, nor for bulls from
Koñani. Instead steers must be brought for the little bullfighter from
Lima. Government says it doesn’t want natives bullbaiting. Just
now remembered, it says, its native who suffers in the bullfight on
twenty-eighth (YF, 1985, 41)]. In a meeting with the Subprefect,
don Pancho defends Puquio, the turupukllay, and the local indige-
nous communities. Again his speech, this time representative of his
spoken Spanish, shows serrano characteristics: ‘‘¡Puquio es turu-
pukllay! Acaso es Girón Bolı́var. Mi tienda es allı́, soy vecino prin-
cipal. ¡Pero hay que ver, señor!’’ (YF, 61) [Puquio is turupukllay!
You think it’s Girón Bolı́var? My store is there; I’m a prominent
citizen. Just imagine, sir! (YF, 1985, 52–53)].
Don Pancho is presented as a positive character, a possibility, a
hope, a mestizo capable of translating Quechua culture (as he tries
to do for the Subprefect), with a deep love for the indigenous peo-
ples and their customs. As such an important figure to Arguedas’s
national vision, he receives special narrative treatment. His charac-
ter is often highlighted narratively by the writer’s usual techniques
(the use of light and sound), and his thoughts and feelings are com-
municated to the reader more than those of any other single charac-
ter. As an example of this special treatment, one can appreciate two
descriptive passages regarding don Pancho. As he leaves the Sub-
prefect’s office, the narrator recounts, ‘‘haciendo temblar el piso,
don Pancho se dirigió a la puerta; en la sombra del extremo del
salón, su cuerpo apareció crecido; casi rozando el umbral salió por
la puerta. En el corredor crujieron las tablas con sus pisadas de las
gradas, cuando bajaba a la plaza’’ (YF, 64) [Shaking the floor-
boards, Don Pancho walked to the door. In the shadow at the end
of the large room, his body seemed to have grown; almost scraping
the lintel, he went through the door. In the hall, the floor creaked
from his tread, and there was the sound of his footfalls on the stone
stairs, as he descended to the Plaza (YF, 1985, 55)].
Threatened by don Pancho, the Subprefect orders his sargeant to
shoot the serrano once he is in the main square, but the officer re-
fuses. The narration then again highlights don Pancho:
Don Pancho apareció; cerca de la esquina alumbrada por el farolito. Allı́

empezó a silbar un huayno mestizo. Cuando llegó al pie del farol, su
cuerpo se vio entero, aumentó la luz sobre su sombrero de paja; apareció
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también la sombra de todo el cuerpo, en el blanqueo de la pared; y

cuando volteó la esquina, la luz del farol pareció resbalar un poco de lo
alto de la pared. En el silencio del pueblo, el huayno que silbaba don
Pancho se oı́a fuerte, como llenando el aire, de esquina a esquina. (YF,
65)
[Don Pancho appeared, near the corner where the little light shone.
There he began to whistle a mestizo huayno. When he came to the lamp,
his whole body was visible; the light shone more brightly on his straw
hat; the shadow of his whole body also appeared on the limed wall; and
then when he turned the corner, the light from the street lamp seemed
to slide along the top of the wall. In the silence of the town, the huayno
that Don Pancho whistled resounded as if it were filling the air, from
one corner to another.] (YF, 56)
Light falls on the mestizo figure, is intensified and follows the man.
Here again, music takes over and fills the air, this time, music pro-
duced by a cultural, indigenous mestizo. The music he intones is
also of mixed heritage, a mestizo huayno.
In an effort to keep him from inciting unrest among the indige-
nous communities, the Subprefect agrees to jail don Pancho. Dur-
ing his incarceration, he is highly agitated and anxious, desiring to
participate in the pre-festival activities and, above all, to be present
when the K’ayaus bring in Misitu, the wild bull given them by don
Julián. The narration shows him in his cell, listening to the K’ayaus
preparing themselves for the capture. The pain of not being able to
witness the events is so strong that don Pancho asks to be isolated,
where he cannot hear the sound of the wakawak’ras. Later, when
don Julián, also seen as a threat to authority, is locked up with him,
don Pancho reiterates his admiration of the Indians: ‘‘¿No le dije?
¡Los K’ayaus son trejos! Hay que hablar claro; los indios, cuando
acuerdan, creo que hasta el infierno lo taparı́an, como a una olla’’
(YF, 150) [What did I tell you? The K’ayaus are really tough. I
might as well speak plainly; the Indians, if they got together and
agreed to it, could even put a lid on the inferno, like a pot (YF,
1985, 134)]. Thus emerges in Arguedian narrative another possible
alternative national subject, the serrano misti, who is a defender
and admirer of the indigenous peoples and their culture. Several
other like subjects will appear in later narratives; they are central to
understanding Arguedas’s national vision as they act to bridge the
oppositions that mark Peruvian culture. As will be seen, while these
characters belong to ‘‘white’’ Peru in terms of class, race, educa-
tion, and socioeconomic status, their spirit leans toward, or at the
very least is extremely open to, indigenous Peru.
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A group that will enjoy a similar appreciation in Arguedian nar-
rative is that of the indigenous people who have gone to Lima.
Chapter 7, ‘‘Los serranos’’ (The Highlanders), shows the effect the
construction of the roadway has on both Lima and the Sierra. There
is a dynamic commercial exchange, with raw goods, food, and live-
stock descending to Lima and manufactured products coming to the
highlands. In Lima, the narrator tells us, academic institutions, gov-
ernment offices, business establishments, and factories suddenly
filled up with people from the highlands. The narration follows a
marked metaphor of movement and exchange, and a revolutionary
transformation of the capital city. In a form of reverse conquest,
Después de seiscientos años, acaso de mil años otra vez la gente de los
Andes bajaba en multitud a la costa. Mientras los gobiernos abrı́an ave-
nidas de cuatro pistas de asfalto, y hacı́an levantar edificios ‘‘america-
nos’’, mientras los periódicos y las revistas publicaban versos bonitos a
la europea, y los señores asistı́an con tongo y levita a las invitaciones
del Gobierno, de las embajadas y de los clubes, los serranos, indios,
medio mistis y ‘‘chalos’’ bajaban de la altura, con sus charangos, sus
bandurrias, sus kirkinchos y su castellano indio; compraban o se apode-
raban de algunas tierras próximas a la ciudad. En canchones, en rama-
das y en casas de adobe, sin fachada y sin agua, se quedaban a vivir.
(YF, 77)
[Once again, after 600 years, perhaps 1,000 years, Andean people were
going down to the coast in multitudes. While various governments
were building four-lane asphalt avenues and having ‘‘American’’
buildings constructed, while the newspapers and magazines were pub-
lishing pretty European-style poems, and gentlemen in derby hats and
frock-coats were responding to invitations from the national governe-
ment, embassies, and clubs, the highlanders—Indians, half-mistis, and
‘‘chalos’’—were coming down from the uplands with their charangos,
their bandurrias, kirkinchos, and their Indian Spanish.23 They’d buy or
appropriate some land near the city. There they’d remain, living in
roofless enclosures, brush arbors, and mud brick houses, without
façades or enclosures.] (YF, 1985, 67–68)
Of course, this new invasion mirrors that of the arrival of the mistis
in Puquio; this time, it is the serranos who bring their culture, lan-
guage, and music; parties that begin with jazz orchestras playing
rumba and tango conclude with ‘‘arpa, guitarra, bandurria y canto
. . . ya hasta las avenidas, donde cruzaban los autos de lujo, llegaban
el huayno, la voz del charango y de las quenas’’ (YF, 78) [harp,
guitars, bandurrias, and songs . . . Out into the avenues, where lux-
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ury automobiles were passing, would go the huayno, the voices of

the charangos and the quenas (YF, 1985, 68)].24
The narration informs us that the serranos settle in Lima accord-
ing to their social class.25 The poor puquianos (natives of Puquio)
move into the Ascona neighborhood and form, like other serrano
populations, their own social club, the ‘‘Centro Unión Lucanas’’
(the Lucanas Union Center). These groups educate their members,
organize conferences, edit journals, maintain libraries, and ‘‘de-
fienden . . . a las comunidades contra los abusos de los terraten-
ientes, de las autoridades y de los curas’’ (YF, 80) [defend their
communities from abuses by landowners, authorities, and priests
(YF, 1985, 70)]. With the founding of these centers, the problems
of the Sierra, and the nation as a whole, begin to be understood by
the serranos (and presented by Arguedas) as questions not only of
race or ethnicity but also of class. It is significant that the princi-
pales do not join the center, but rather insult it and look down on
it, while domestic servants, carpenters, bus drivers, workers, and
students rush to pay their dues.
It is to the Center that the authorities in Puquio turn to find a
bullfighter from Lima. At first Escobar, a student and the organiza-
tion’s president, is suspicious of the demand, but then he and the
Center vote to defend the change.26 A portrait of the great Peruvian
Marxist thinker José Carlos Mariátegui dominates this scene, ob-
serving the preparations for what the Center perceives as their fight
against the gamonales. At the end of the session, Escobar addresses
this portrait, presumably in Quechua: ‘‘Te gustará werak’ocha lo
que vamos a hacer. No has hablado por gusto, nosotros vamos a
cumplir lo que has dicho. No tengas cuidado, tayta: nosotros no
vamos a morir antes de haber visto la justicia que has pedido’’ (YF,
83) [You’d like what we’re going to do, werak’ocha.27 You haven’t
just spoken to us for the pleasure of it—we’re going to put into
practice what you have preached. Don’t worry, tayta: we’re not
going to die before seeing the justice you have called for (YF, 1985,
73)]. Then the seven committee members sing a huayno in Quechua
to Mariátegui.
Characters like these, the educated Indian or indigenous-mestizo
who has gone to the coast and gained a better understanding of the
situation in the Sierra and the possibilities for change, will reappear
in Arguedas’s narrative, most notably in Todas las sangres. As Ar-
guedas searches for mediators, translators, links between the oppo-
sitions that form Peru, this figure seems to hold particular promise.
Having been raised in indigenous communities of the Sierra, this
subject speaks Quechua as his mother tongue and has an intimate
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knowledge of and love for the indigenous people and their culture.
He would be able to use the relevant aspects of what he learns on
the coast to help fight the injustices his people suffer. However, Ar-
guedas shows a potential problem; the same distancing from the Si-
erra that potentiates this revolutionary figure also runs the risk of
removing him so far that he is unable to return. Immediately fol-
lowing the scene of the meeting, the narrator tells us: ‘‘y mientras
los mestizos de Lima estaban cantando, en el ayllu de K’ayau los
varayok’s animaban a los indios para subir a la puna a traer al
Misitu. . . . —¡K’ayau primero será! ¡Cuánto viuda será quedando
en vintiuchu!’’ (YF, 84) [And while the mestizos were singing in
Lima, in the community of K’ayau the staffbearers were encourag-
ing the Indians to go up onto the puna to get Misitu. . . . ‘‘K’ayau’ll
be first! How many’ll be left widow on twenty-eighth!’’ (YF, 1985,
74)]. The very deaths the Center desires to prevent are being cele-
brated in the highlands.
As Cornejo Polar notes, ‘‘the Puquios who reside in Lima suffer
and/or enjoy a rapid process of acculturation. This process, as
Yawar Fiesta portrays it, does not break their connection with the
mother earth, but rather deepens it, but it has as a result the con-
struction of a new interpretation of reality, especially seen in those
who enter into contact with the University and are incorporated into
the socialist movement.’’28 This disconnect will be seen even more
sharply once the members of the Center arrive in Puquio. While
received joyfully by their respective communities, their attempts to
stop the turupukllay are not met with equal enthusiasm, as will be
discussed later.
After exploring the socioeconomic groups of Puquio, beginning
with the principales and ending with the migrants to the coast, Ar-
guedas turns to the indigenous people themselves. Despite their
place at the lower end of the social hierarchy, they are shown to be
a source of energy and strength in comparison with other groups.
In building the road to Lima, for example, they work at incredible
speed and on their own initiative, with no government support. In
typical Arguedian style, their actions and accomplishments are con-
trasted with those of the mistis and their mestizo accomplices. In
the building of the road, the mestizos quickly resign while the Indi-
ans risk their lives to finish. They are driven by a pride of competi-
tion (they desire to reach Lima before another community that is
building a road from another province). This sense of competion is
highlighted in the capturing of the wild bull Misitu. The narration
points to an earlier moment, when don Julián and his hands had
tried to capture Misitu. When they fail, don Julián becomes furious
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with his workers, ‘‘¡Qué mariconadas! A ustedes se les levanta el

indio diez veces por dı́a. En el fondo son puros indios, y se les agua
la sangre cada vez que hay que meter cuerpo al peligro’’ (YF, 89)
[What a bunch of sissies you are! The Indian in you guys comes
out ten times a day. At the bottom you’re pure Indian, and your
blood turns to water every time you have to put your bodies in dan-
ger (YF, 1985, 79)]. Don Julián equates the mestizos’ fear, their
lack of masculinity, with their Indianness. However, the K’ayaus’
capture of Misitu, especially in contrast with the others’ failure,
gives a different narrative value to the sign of Indian; as will be
shown later, the act becomes one of several manifestations of resis-
tance on the part of the indigenous communities.
Also in contrast to the white and mestizo worlds is the sense of
community in indigenous culture. On the one hand, the ‘‘white’’
world is shown to be fragmented by alliances (those from Lima,
those from other parts of the coast, those from the Sierra with
strong identification with the coast, those serranos suspicious of the
coast, white-mestizos, indigenous-mestizos) and driven by personal
interest (even don Pancho is said to be supportive of indigenous
communities because he, as a small business owner, depends on
their patronage). On the other hand, the indigenous communities,
despite moments of competition, are portrayed as highly cohesive
and working together to accomplish common goals. Undoubtedly,
Arguedas presents this as a model for the nation, a potential out-
come of a national community based on indigenous culture.
This focus on community means that very few indigenous people
will be individualized in the narrative. Even those who appear as
individuals, with names or titles, are primarily fulfilling stock roles;
thus, we have the varayok’alcaldes as the governing figures,29 don
Maywa the musician, ‘‘Honrao’’ Rojas the bullfighter, and Tan-
kayllu the scissor dancer. We never see these characters as individu-
als with respect to their personal lives—family relationships,
friendships, work, spiritual or moral struggles—and only rarely
glimpse the feelings they have with relation to their social situation.
Instead, in response to the injustices the people suffer, we hear the
anger of the community, or anonymous voices, rather than individ-
ual reactions.30 Certainly the nonindigenous characters are more
fully developed in this regard. Nevertheless, the novel’s portrayal
of the indigenous people transcends significantly that of indigenista
narrative.
As part of this effort to portray indigenous subjectivity, Arguedas
continues his quest to find a novelistic Spanish that could best ren-
der the Quechua language in all its richness. As well, he devotes a
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great amount of the narrative to creating a narrative space for in-
digenous culture. He gives the reader very intimate, ‘‘insider,’’
moments, making the reader an observer of and participant in tradi-
tions, ceremonies, and negotiations among communities. These are
moments of least misti intervention, where the indigenous peoples
and culture take over the narrative and make it their own (at least
ostensibly, even Arguedas cannot resolve the contradicition of his
own position as a nonindigenous writer). It is in scenes like these,
repeated throughout Arguedian narrative, that we are able to ap-
preciate the most innovative qualities of Arguedas’s work.
Mobilizing and Occupying Space

In his discussion of the spatialization and geography of power,
radical geographer Steve Pile writes, ‘‘In one sense, power is the
power to have control over space, to occupy it and guarantee that
hegemonic ideas about that space coincide with those which main-
tain power’s authority—and this can best be seen in the coincidence
of the nation and national identity. . . . In another sense, power can
be mobilised through the reterritorialization—the resymboliza-
tion—of space, and this can be as oppressive as it can be subver-
sive.’’31
In Yawar Fiesta, Arguedas portrays many moments of resistance
that are directly related to space, to its occupation and symboliza-
tion. Indeed, the spatialization of resistance is one of the key as-
pects of the novel. This is especially apparent in the novel’s
denouement, in which those elements traditionally denied access to
and power within official spaces take over key places and begin to
make them their own.
Chapter 9, ‘‘La vı́spera’’ (The Day Before), moves through five
key spaces of negotiation of power in nonindigenous Peru: the Sub-
prefect’s office, the homes of two mistis (which mark the two ends
of the Girón Bolı́var), the Centro Unión Lucanas in Lima, the
Church, and the jail. With the following chapter, ‘‘El auki,’’ these
interior, man-made, Spanish spaces are immediately contrasted
with the discussion of the auki, the demigod of the mountain,
K’arwarasu. From this moment on, the indigenous people and cul-
ture will dominate the novel and take control of the narrative space.
Following a now familiar trope in the narrative, we are first intro-
duced to the auki through the eyes of travelers who, upon seeing
the mountain for the first time, exclaim, ‘‘¡Qué grande habı́a sido!
¡Qué imponente!’’ (YF, 110) [‘‘How grand he had been. How im-
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posing!’’ (YF, 1985, 99)]. The K’ayau must ask permission of the
auki to capture Misitu, and in what is truly an original voice enter-
ing the narrative, the reader is given the response of the mountain,
who, the narrator tells us, speaks directly to the heart of the varayo-
k’alcalde of K’ayau: ‘‘Mi lay’ka te va a guiar, pero tú vas a subir a
K’oñani, con los k’ayaus; vas a llevar mi Misitu para que juegue en
la plaza de Pichk’achuri. Yo voy a mirar desde mi cumbre el yawar
fiesta. Por K’ayau soy, tayta Alcalde; K’ayau llevará enjalma, pri-
mero será vintiuchu’’ (YF, 111) [My sorcerer is going to guide you,
but you’re going to go up to K’oñani with the K’ayaus; you’re
going to take Misitu out so he can fight in the Pichk’achuri bullring.
I’m going to watch the yawar fiesta from my summit. I’m for
K’ayau, tayta; K’ayau will take the saddlecloth; first it’ll be on
twenty-eighth (YF, 1985, 100)].32
With the exception of a few brief scenes in the ayllus (where, for
example, the women are instructed to stay indoors with the chil-
dren, because the capture of Misitu is a ‘‘manly’’ endeavor), the rest
of the capture takes place outside, in nature. Here, again, music,
standard-bearer of Indian culture in the novel, takes over the space:
‘‘Los K’ayaus pasaban callados. Pero los wakawak’ras retumbaban
en la quiebra. Arriba, en el estrechamiento de la cañada del ria-
chuelo, crecı́a un bosque de eucaliptos; en ese bosque parecı́a latir
con más fuerza el canto de los wakawak’ras; desde allı́ repercutı́a,
salı́a el turupukllay, como dentro de los cerros’’ (YF, 116) [The
K’ayaus passed by silently. But the wakawak’ras resounded
throughout the canyon. Up above, in the narrow part of the stream
bed, grew a eucalyptus wood; in that wood the wakawak’ras’ song
seemed to throb more loudly; from there the bullfight melody re-
echoed as if it were coming from inside the mountains (YF, 1985,
104)]. The K’ayaus then arrive at the community of K’oñani, which
claims Misitu as their own. The narrative relates the conversation
between the two varayok’s with the communities, in which the
K’ayaus try to convince the K’oñanis they have the auki K’arwara-
su’s permission to capture Misitu.
The conversation has an almost anthropological value, as it nar-
rates the elaborate ceremony of negotiation. The narrator, however,
often loses his scientific, objective stance, as he moves between a
more neutral recounting of gestures and acts, and a closer, more
intimate interpretation of motives. The narrator seems to vacillate
between the respectful distance of an outside observer and a desire
to be part of the action. Even so, it is notable here how the narrator
allows the indigenous voices authority and the right to direct and
influence the narrative. The exchange is a prime example of how
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Arguedas novelizes the Quechua language and culture and of the
relation of the ethnographer-like narrator with his subjects. The nar-
rator negotiates and translates for the reader this ‘‘wild zone,’’ un-
known and unknowable to dominant culture.33 The anonymous
narrator, like the narrator-protagonists of the early short stories, as-
sumes an unhomely position, crossing in and out of cultural zones,
unfixed in either space. With this narrated exchange and others,
fictitious yet grounded in a referent Arguedas knew well, the text
incorporates indigenous culture in a way that reveals its multifac-
eted realities. He shows an indigenous culture that must negotiate
power not only with dominant culture, but inside, among its various
constituents. In this way, he narrates the complexity of the indige-
nous culture, a view heretofore unseen in the monolithic representa-
tions of indianista and indigenista literature.
This scene also surreptitiously inserts other indigenous traditions,
as when some women of the community begin to sing a farewell to
Misitu: ‘‘Oyendo el canto, las mujeres salı́an de las otras estancias;
y bajaban el cerro, llorando ya; bajaban a carrera, como pidiendo
auxilio. Como en las noches de eclipse, cuando se muere la luna, y
corren a las lomadas a incendiar el ischu y llaman al cielo, llorando,
mientras la luna oscurece’’ (YF, 119) [Hearing the singing, the
women left other farms; already crying on their way down the
mountain, they came running, as if they were asking for help, as
they do on the nights of an eclipse, when the moon dies and they
run to the hillsides to set fire to the ischu grass and cry out to the
heavens, weeping as the moon darkens (YF, 1985, 107)]. The role
of women in this novel is secondary, almost like a Greek chorus;
their songs mark a mood, set a tone, highlight an event, or comment
on an occurrence. (The role of women, as well as the presentation
of questions of gender, will change dramatically in later novels.)
The capture of Misitu happens quickly in the narrative; the bull
kills the layk’a but afterwards is rapidly overwhelmed by the K’ay-
aus. At that point, the thicket of k’eñwa trees where Misitu is caught
fills with K’oñani Indians, who express dissappointment upon
seeing the captured bull. A silence overcomes the space and will
mark the narrative for a long time. The moment takes on a spiritual,
religious tone: ‘‘En ese instante alumbró el sol desde lo alto de la
quebrada saliendo por la cima de las montañas que orillan al Negro-
mayo. Salió grande, iluminando las matas de ischu que crecen en el
filo de la quebrada; aclaró el verde-oscuro del k’eñwal; y de frente
cayó sobre los ojos de los comuneros que estaban mirando al Mis-
itu’’ (YF, 123) [At that moment, the sun shone forth from the head
of the valley, shining over the crest of the mountains that lined the
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Negromayo. It came out big, illumining the ischu plants that grew
on the edge of the canyon; it brightened the dark green of the keñwa
trees and shone directly into the eyes of the Indians who were look-
ing at Misitu (YF, 1985, 111)]. It is as if Tayta Inti himself were
giving an approving nod to the event.
The capture of Misitu fills the indigenous people with a sense of
their own power and possibilities. They take over the streets of the
town, forcing the mistis inside their homes. The streets are silent,
the stores closed, and many Indians and prominent citizens crowd
the plaza to await the bull’s arrival. Breaking through the tension of
the wait, ‘‘de entre la indiada apareció Tankayllu. Tocó fuerte sus
tijeras de acero; bailando diestramente avanzó a la esquina, como
para dar alcance a don Julián. Un cuero de gavilán se mecı́a en la
cabeza del danzante, sobre la pana verde de su pantalón brillaban
espejos; en su chamarra relucı́an piñes de color y vidrios grandes
de lámpara’’ (YF, 127) [out of the Indian throng, the Tankayllu ap-
peared. He clicked his steel scissors loudly; dancing skillfully, he
moved toward the corner, as if to catch up with Don Julián. A
hawk’s skin swayed on the dancer’s head; on the green velveteen of
his pants mirrors glittered; on his jacket multicolored streamers and
big pieces of lantern glass glistened (YF, 1985, 114)]. This is not
the first appearance of Tankayllu, whose dancing is admired by mis-
tis and comuneros alike. Like music, dance is a unifying force for
the indigenous communities, and a space of resistance for indige-
nous culture: ‘‘cuando el Tankayllu entraba al Girón Bolı́var, to-
cando sus tijeras, las niñas y los mistis se machucaban en los
balcones para verlo. Entonces no habı́a K’ayau, ni Chaupi, ni K’o-
llana; el pueblo entero, los indios de todos los barrios se alegraban,
llenaban la calle de los mistis; sus ojos brillaban mirando la cara de
los vecinos’’ (YF, 37–38) [when the Tankallyu came out onto Girón
Bolı́var clicking his shears, the girls and the mistis pressed together
on the balconies to get to see him. Then there was no K’ayau, nor
Chaupi, nor K’ollana; the whole populace, the Indians from all the
neighborhoods rejoiced, filling the mistis’ streets; their eyes spar-
kled as they watched the townspeople’s faces (YF, 1985, 30)]. This
is another instance in which the semiotic takes control of narrative
space, reordering and resignifying the represented culture, this time
in the form of the characteristic scissor dance.34
The scissor dancer is an important figure in Andean culture (and
one Arguedas adopts in highly symbolic ways repeatedly through-
out his narrative). The dancer wears a Spanish-inspired colorful
costume adorned with mirrorlike large sequins, and dances to the
accompaniment of a violin and harp (Western instruments), clicking
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large scissors to the rhythm of the music. The dance is a transcultur-
ated element, in which European cultural items are adopted and
transformed into something uniquely Andean-indigenous. In an an-
thropological article, Arguedas comments on the value of the scis-
sor dancer in Andean culture, ‘‘all of the formal elements are,
really, of European origin; but it is exclusely a dance of the Indians
and for an Indian public. The many choreographic moves of the
dance have received Quechua names and are probably creations of
the native dancers; to the footwork, the autochtonous musicians
have added energetic rhythms of ancient origin.’’35 The cultural
usurping of the dance is perhaps what underlies its central presence
in the novel. That is, the dance, which has been ‘‘conquered’’ by
the indigenous culture, is in turn used to ‘‘conquer’’ the physical
space and, indeed, the spirit of the town. With the capture of Misitu,
Tankayllu will appear more frequently in the novel, an ever-present
defiance of misti cultural, and political, authority. Here, he stands
in direct confrontation with don Julián himself, who throws money
at the dancer (an action that will be repeated in later narrative, and
that here shows don Julián’s complete lack of understanding of the
significance of the moment and of what drives the indigenous
people).
The capture of Misitu marks the beginning of an upheaval of
order; serrano society is changing. The narration moves to the Sub-
prefect’s office, which also becomes a space of resistance as Esco-
bar, Guzmán, and Martı́nez confront don Julián. Martı́nez insults
the principal openly and ‘‘hablando, hablando, el chofer Martı́nez
se abrió campo desde atrás, y salió, hasta ponerse junto al Subpref-
ecto’’ (YF, 129) [talking, talking, Martı́nez the chauffer pushed his
way through and came up from behind to stand by the Subprefect
(YF, 1985, 116)]. Here Martı́nez takes over the word through his
uninhibited insult, the space through his movement, and authority
through his self-positioning beside the Subprefect. Don Julián, un-
able to grasp the magnitude of the exchange, responds indignantly
to what he sees as a lack of respect; the other mistis do, however,
fear the development of events and remain quiet. The half-mistis,
on the other hand, feel admiration for the Indians who are able to
stand up to the gamonal. The scene again points to the fragmenta-
tion and chaos of the mistis, in direct opposition to the unity of the
indigenous communities.
The comuneros, too, sense something great in Misitu’s arrival
and wait inside their homes, silent, in fearful expectation. Only
Tankayllu remains dancing, ‘‘sus tijeras de acero sonaban lejos del
barrio oscuro; el arpa y el violı́n que tocaban la danza, también
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lloraban fuerte en el silencio’’ (YF, 133) [the sound of his steel

shears carried a long way in the dark neighborhood; the harp and
the violin that were playing the danza also cried loudly in the still-
ness (YF, 1985, 120)]. Again, the semiotic takes hold of the narra-
tion; it works through the silence, evoking the semiotic’s place as
origin. For a moment, in the text, it is not that which underlies an
articulated meaning but rather is meaning itself; unmediated by the
symbolic, it directly touches those who witness it. The narrator’s
question has a double interpretation: not only has the scissor dancer
never so freely controlled the physical, public space of the town;
narratively speaking, the semiotic has rarely enjoyed such a privi-
leged space.
The voice that breaks the silence is political, the symbolic that
interrupts to give form to the semiotic, though in this case Arguedas
shows that it misses its mark. Escobar speaks with Guzmán about
how to release the Indians from their fear, their ‘‘darkness,’’ their
adhesion to the semiotic, from which Escobar is separating, through
his contact with coastal culture. He calls for a government, lead by
people like himself, that would dispel the Indians’ fears and ‘‘illu-
minate’’ them. Escobar sees their group, indigenous-mestizos edu-
cated in Lima, as the counterpoint to the leaders the highlands have
known to this point, the vecinos. For Escobar, the construction of
the roadway and the capture of Misitu have been great accomplish-
ments for the Indians. The former allowed indigenous people like
him to go to Lima for an education and to return to help the ayllus.
With the latter, the Indians killed an auki, ‘‘y el dı́a que maten a
todos los aukis que atormentan sus consciencias; el dı́a que se con-
viertan en lo que nosotros somos ahora, en ‘chalos renegados’,
como dice don Julián, llevaremos este paı́s hasta una gloria que
nadie calcula’’ (YF, 135) [and the day they kill all the aukis who are
tormenting their minds, the day they become what we are now—
‘‘renegade ‘‘chalos,’’ as Don Julián says—we shall lead this coun-
try to a glory no one can imagine (YF, 1985, 121)].
This scene is sandwiched between two important excerpts featur-
ing the indigenous communities: the first, Tankayllu’s dancing, the
second, the arrival of Misitu to Puquio. In both, Arguedas shows
the strength of the indigenous people, conquering their fears un-
aided by the Lima ‘‘chalos.’’ Again the reader sees a disconnect
between the latter group and the former. If indeed Arguedas finds
the goals of those like Escobar to be noble, he also shows them to
be lacking in an understanding of the indigenous mindset. In the
end, the solution to the ‘‘problema del indio,’’ as Mariátegui classi-
fied it, is not (or not entirely) by the imposition of outside values,
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but rather is found in the strength, energy, and values of the indige-
nous people themselves.
With the arrival of Misitu, the Indians take over the town, trans-
forming Puquio truly into what the traveler calls it at the beginning
of the novel, a ‘‘pueblo indio.’’ Thus, the Girón Bolı́var, the misti
street, becomes the place of the indigenous communities, of cele-
bration of their power in its witnessing of the arrival of Misitu and
through Tankayllu’s dancing. With this act, the Indians are reappro-
priating the amaru, the snake represented by the misti street, which,
as has already been mentioned, is that which devours all in its path.
However, for Andean culture, in its devouring the amaru also pro-
duces something new. Bolin writes that in Andean cosmology, met-
aphorically ‘‘amaru is perceived as a revolutionary force that
dismantles a system which is out of equilibrium and then helps
bring back balance, harmony, and peace within a new system.’’36 In
this sense (to return to Pile), by conquering the Girón Bolı́var, the
indigenous people are mobilizing power through the reterritorializa-
tion and resymbolization of space. Whether their act will bring
‘‘balance, harmony, and peace’’ remains to be seen, but it is clear
that the narrative sees potential in this revolutionary force.
The final chapter, titled ‘‘Yawar Fiesta,’’ begins with an image of
travel, as comuneros and vecinos arrive from all over the province
to witness the turupukllay. Word of the capture of Misitu has
brought a larger crowd than usual; it is at this point that the officers
of the ‘‘Centro Unión Lucanas’’ try to explain the new bullfight to
the communities. When the Indians protest, both groups make their
way toward the Subprefect’s office. Their journey maps out an
image of the carnivalesque atmosphere, where mistis and niñas
walk along with comuneros along the Girón Bolı́var, passing under
the Peruvian flags hung outside each door. As the bells ring the first
call to mass, Tankayllu appears in front of the church: ‘‘el Tankayllu
bailaba figuras del ‘atipanakuy’; y cada vez que terminaba una, se
cuadraba, mirando al altar mayor, y tocaba sus tijeras, apuntando al
fondo de la iglesia’’ (YF, 146) [the Tankallyu was doing atipana-
kuy—competition—figures, as soon as he finished one he’d stand
erect and click his scissors, pointing them toward the rear of the
church (YF, 1985, 131)]. Again the dancer appears as an element of
subversion, as a resistance to imposed Spanish culture. It is Tan-
kayllu who eventually leads the Indian masses to the bullring,
where they are stopped by police, who struggle to contain the Indi-
ans until the principales and the Spanish matador arrive. More Indi-
ans have arrived to see the turupukllay than ever before; it is the
mestizo Sargeant that recognizes and fears the revolutionary poten-
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tial of the indigenous masses. As the Lieutenant strives to impose

order on the crowd, again music enters and disrupts; the comuneros
from all four ayllus begin to play a turupukllay to signal the start of
an indigenous-style bullfight. Once more, the indigenous music is
shown to take over the town; it is irresistible and causes inexplica-
ble, profound changes in the town’s misti inhabitants. Almost
against their will, the music brings them closer to the indigenous
culture they normally find inferior. It is shown as something that
touches the depths of their consciences, as if awakening a powerful
feeling that otherwise lies dormant. In this sense, within the novel-
istic discourse the indigenous culture acts as a conduit for the semi-
otic, bringing it into play as an active, powerfully transformative
cultural element.
Like the music, the Indians have taken over the town, and the
mistis have difficulty entering the bullring. Finally, the procession
of the principales, their wives, and the bullfighter lead the other
mistis and Indians to the ring, though most Indians are made to wait
outside. The disconnect between the indigenous cultures of the Si-
erra and the political and intellectual activity of the rest of the coun-
try is made evident by the confusion of the committee members of
the Centro Unión Lucanas when the indigenous people refuse to
accept the new bullfighter. They try to fool them in order to dis-
suade them, and eventually they encourage the soldiers to threaten
violence against any Indian who tries to step into the ring. From
subversive force they quickly become yet another representative of
the law and oppressive forces in the highlands.
Inside the bullring, the indigenous women begin to sing the tradi-
tional ‘‘Wak’ruykuy,’’ the call to the bull to begin fighting. The
song frightens the bullfighter, ‘‘cantan como si estuvieran viendo
ya mi cadáver’’ (YF, 161) [they sing as if they were already seeing
my corpse (YF, 1985, 144)], and the Centro Unión Lucanas mem-
bers must reassure him. Eventually, though, the music is silenced,
as the Indians are informed they cannot play while the Spaniard is
fighting. Nevertheless, the Spanish style of bullfighting displeases
the Indians, who see his moves and his use of a cape as inappropri-
ate and a sign of weakness. Finally, the Indians take over the fight
and the women resume their song. The novel ends with the start of
the Indian-style fight, which almost immediately results in the bru-
tal death of one comunero, and the narrative’s final words are those
of the mayor of Puquio whispering to the Subprefect, ‘‘¿Ve usted,
señor Subprefecto? Estas son nuestras corridas. ¡El yawar punchau
verdadero!’’ (YF, 164) [You see, Señor Subprefect? This is how our
bullfights are. The real yawar punchau! (YF, 1985, 147)].
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Like the short story that came before it (see chapter 1), the novel
Yawar Fiesta ends ambiguously, with a triumph of indigenous cul-
ture, but also with the misti celebration of bloody indigenous
deaths. But that is the beauty of the complexity of both the novel
and of Arguedas’s vision. If he does put forth a criticism of the
treatment of the indigenous people in this festival, as well as in
other aspects of Andean culture, he also honors the strength of the
indigenous culture and the capacity of its people to resist repression
by the dominant culture. Indeed, one of the principal themes of
Yawar Fiesta is the revolutionary potential of the Indians, shown in
their work ethic, in their sense of community, in their accomplish-
ment of tasks at which mistis and mestizos fail, and in their cultural,
physical, symbolic, and political occupation of the space that sur-
rounds them. This proposal is emphasized not only at the level of
plot, but also at the level of discourse, in the use of the semiotic (as
music, dance, and nature) to reorder, resignify, and resist the domi-
nant culture. If in the early short stories we begin to see the promise
of the feminine—as woman, but also as ‘‘feminine’’ forces—here
we see the intricate ways in which Arguedas brings the semiotic to
the text and how it begins to shape and reflect his national vision.
The semiotic in Arguedas’s literary creation accompanies and po-
tentiates indigenous culture, serving as a base for narrative dis-
course just as Arguedas would have indigenous culture serve as a
base for Peruvian national culture. These workings of the feminine
and of the semiotic in Arguedas’s narrative will be even more pow-
erfully developed in his most critically admired novel, Los rı́os pro-
fundos, which he would publish a full sixteen years later.
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3
The Feminine and the Hybrid Intellectual:
Los rı́os profundos
BETWEEN YAWAR FIESTA AND HIS NEXT, AND MOST INFLUENTIAL,

major narrative, Los rı́os profundos,1 Arguedas published several
short stories, ‘‘Huayanay’’ (1944), ‘‘Orovilca’’ (1954), ‘‘La muerte
de los Arango’’ (The Death of the Arangos, 1955), ‘‘Hijo solo’’
(Only Child, 1957), and Diamantes y pedernales (Diamonds and
Flintstones, 1954), a novella. While not very significant on their
own, and certainly not the best examples of his fiction, each of the
works displays characteristics that are important to Arguedian nar-
rative and that point to the growing centrality of the feminine in
Arguedas’s work. The emphasis on nature, music, and indigenous
culture, as well as the themes of foreignness, orphanhood, and
male/female relationships, connect these works to Arguedas’s over-
riding literary project. Above all, we see the feminine begin to ac-
quire a central thematic and narrative role in these short narrations.
The feminine as mediator, transformer, and redeemer; the semiotic
as concentration of meaning; and the role of music, light, and sound
highlighting the most important aspects and figures of the narra-
tions are characteristics that will continue to be exploited, even
more masterfully, in the 1957 novel we will analyze here.
In Los rı́os profundos (translated by Frances Horning Bar-
raclough in 1978 as Deep Rivers), Arguedas realizes concurrent
projects. First, he paints a picture of Peru as he perceived it in the
1950s, as a fragmented nation unable to reconcile its heterogeneous
elements. Secondly, he suggests alternative means of realizing that
nation, alternatives that could be found in certain already existing
sectors of Peruvian society. Arguedas does this in part by develop-
ing a series of oppositions that stress the fragmented nature of Peru
and certain ironies or inconsistencies in Peruvian life, culture, and
national imaginary. By narrating Peru through the eyes of a young
boy, Arguedas reflects upon several topics that are central to the
development of the national subject. He particularly explores the
104
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3: THE FEMININE AND THE HYBRID INTELLECTUAL 105
role of masculinity and the place of the intellectual in the construc-
tion of the dominant fiction, as well as alternatives that question and
could ultimately transform that fiction. As part of this endeavor, his
narrative delineates figures, spaces, and objects that mediate the op-
positions he perceives in Peruvian society and portrays in his narra-
tive, and contemplates how those elements could potentially
reconfigure Peruvian society.
The novel shows the constant movement of the narrator, a pro-
vincial writer/hybrid intellectual in formation, among the various
spaces that make up the Peruvian Sierra, in his own quest for a
space that he could define as ‘‘home,’’ a space in which he could
realize himself as a subject caught between times (the traditional
and the modern), spaces (the heterogeneous urban space of the
town and the indigenous community, the interior and the exterior),
cultures (the white and the indigenous-mestizo), and gender associ-
ations (the masculine and the feminine). For the narrator-protago-
nist of Los rı́os profundos, this ‘‘home’’ for which he is searching
will and must be an in-between space, between cultures, languages,
and geographical spaces, one of permanent displacement. The un-
homeliness not only of the action of the novel but of the very act of
narrating Los rı́os profundos will become evident as this chapter
progresses.
In terms of plot, Los rı́os profundos presents the story of a moth-
erless boy, Ernesto, who, after years of traveling through central
and southern Peru with his father, an itinerant provincial lawyer, is
left in a boarding school in the provincial town of Abancay, in the
Peruvian Sierra. Ernesto, who had spent part of his early childhood
in an indigenous community, feels a close connection to the indige-
nous culture and the Quechua language, and constantly dreams of
the moment in which he can rejoin both the indigenous community
and his father. Until then, he is to remain at the boarding school,
run by Catholic priests and led by the stern director, Padre Linares.
The school is a place of acculturation, of initiation into the domi-
nant world. A microcosm of the ‘‘white’’-dominated Peruvian Si-
erra, the school provides no sense of community for the students; it
is marked by violence, conflict, and the isolation of its individual
members. Along with the school, Ernesto moves about the town of
Abancay, particularly within Huanupata, its mestizo sector,1 and
the principal hacienda of the area, Patibamba, where Ernesto fre-
quently goes in search of contact with the indigenous population.
Through the juxtaposition of these spaces and others, all of which
will be discussed in more detail later, the first-person narrator, the
grown Ernesto, is able to comment on a great variety of sectors of
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Peruvian society. Midway through the novel is the revolt of the

chicheras, the women makers of chicha, a corn beer, who protest
the hoarding of scarce salt by the landowners of the town. Their
uprising serves as the turning point of the novel, bringing the arrival
of soldiers from the coast and with them the presence of cultural
elements associated with Lima, the metropolis, and the coast, ele-
ments foreign to the Sierra. The work ends with the onset of a ty-
phus plague, which marks the closing of the school and the return
of most of the students, including Ernesto, to their families.
As already stated, throughout the presentation of the plot, the nar-
ration sets up a series of oppositions, reflecting those that mark Pe-
ruvian reality in Arguedas’s eyes. For the Peruvian nation to
function, these oppositions must be reconciled and brought into full
play with each other. Indeed, Arguedas shows that certain sides of
these oppositions—namely, the masculine, white culture, and the
symbolic—carry undue weight in Peruvian society, causing an im-
balance that leads to a dysfunctional society. As outlined in the in-
troduction of this study, Quechua culture is one in which there is
an active interplay of opposites and in which these opposites are
viewed not as antagonistic by nature, but rather, as complementary.
Most importantly, the complementary opposites that serve as the
foundation for Quechua culture are the masculine and the feminine.
However, Arguedas shows an official Peru that follows the Western
belief that these opposing factors are antagonistic, and that, indeed,
the feminine threatens the masculine and all it represents: civiliza-
tion, the rational, order, the Law. His narration offers a view of a
Peru that is grounded in the masculine to the exclusion of the femi-
nine, and indicates that this exclusion, which by extension implies
an exclusion of the indigenous culture, is dangerous for the nation.
Thus, as an alternative point of view, in Los rı́os profundos Ar-
guedas shows the potential of the feminine, as a mediating, energiz-
ing force that could bring balance and union to the fragmented
nation.
That the work is founded to a great extent on the feminine is evi-
dent not only in its thematic function, but also in various narrative
techniques used by the narrator. First, the poles of opposition that
mark the text are often moderated by women or by elements tradi-
tionally associated with the feminine, such as nature or music, or
are fused within spaces dominated by the feminine. Furthermore,
throughout the text Arguedas uses focalizers such as light, color,
and sound, to emphasize important elements or events; as will be
shown, these often highlight women and the feminine.2 As well, the
most oppressive and divisive spaces represented in the novel are
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spaces dominated by men and by masculine law; those spaces dom-
inated by women and nature are shown to be liberating and condu-
cive to uniting the fragmented community. Finally, the novel resists
the traditional Western symbolic system, which would place
women, and those elements associated with the feminine, in opposi-
tion to or conflict with culture. Rather, the feminine is shown to be
a solid base on which to found Peruvian culture, as certain social
and cultural elements—power, representation, language, cultural
values—are ‘‘feminized,’’ or at least filtered through the feminine,
to give them a new meaning in a new (ideal) community.
Heterogeneity and Mestizaje

Throughout the novel, Arguedas emphasizes the heterogeneity of
the Peruvian nation, the diverse elements—white, Indian, male, fe-
male—of which it is comprised. Along with this emphasis on heter-
ogeneity is a projection of the ideal of mestizaje, on both cultural
and linguistic levels. In an anthropological essay, Arguedas de-
scribes what he calls the delayed process of racial melding in Peru,
which he blames on the geographical barriers that divide the coun-
try and isolate its regions. According to Arguedas, in Peru ‘‘the
process of mestizaje is . . . frighteningly slow.’’3 He compares Peru
to Mexico, which he finds (some might say idealistically) to have
fully and positively realized the mixing of its diverse cultures. Los
rı́os profundos, along with the rest of Arguedas’s narrative, is to a
great extent an attempt to project a possible realization of mestizaje
within Peru, a Peru that could incorporate its diverse elements into
a unified image of community, and to find a language with which
to express its heterogeneity.
The action of the novel occurs in three primary spaces, which can
each be divided into subspaces. Each space serves as ground for
the exploration of specific problematics and, to different degrees,
of possible solutions to these problems. First, there is Cuzco, the
ancient Incan capital; the city with its subspaces, the colonial cen-
ter, and the house of the Viejo, Ernesto’s great-uncle, are places that
witness the inequality and injustice of Andean social hierarchy. The
second primary space is that of Abancay; its corresponding sub-
spaces of the boarding school, the Patibamba hacienda, the Huanu-
pata neighborhood, and the Pachachaca river emphasize the
important contrast of interior and exterior worlds, the ways in
which masculinity is constructed in dominant Andean culture, and
the saving or regenerating potential of the feminine. Finally, there
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is the space of memory, primarily Ernesto’s, though in small ways

those of other characters as well. This is the space in which the vi-
brant, energetic world of the indigenous community is constructed.
It is in this space that the comuneros—those Indians that are not
tied to any space owned by ‘‘whites’’—live, and it is in this space
that the feminine is given the most importance and power; it is a
space of longing for the maternal and for an imagined originary or
organic Andean culture. Furthermore, this space, while calling
upon a specific past situation, also articulates a certain desired fu-
ture. It is, then, the space of the unhomely, where, as Bhabha says,
‘‘private and public, past and present, the psyche and the social de-
velop an interstitial intimacy. . . . an intimacy that questions binary
divisions through which such spheres of social experience are often
spatially opposed. These spheres of life are linked through an ‘in-
between’ temporality that takes the measure of dwelling at home,
while producing an image of the world of history.’’4 It is important
to point out here, though this idea will be developed in more detail
later, that certain spaces, particularly Patibamba, Huanupata, the
river, and Ernesto’s memory, can be considered locations of the
feminine, and it is in these spaces that Arguedas’s vision is made
manifest.5
As well, each of the spaces maintains a corresponding time or
times: for Cuzco, the glorious past and degenerated present; for Ab-
ancay, an equally turbulent present and, in the figure of the river, a
mythical ‘‘future,’’ as the river leads to the land of the dead and
washes away many negative elements;6 for the space of memory, a
longed-for past (the narrator’s childhood in an indigenous commu-
nity) and a hoped-for future (the protagonist’s reunion with his
father and this community). Finally, there is the time of narration,
in which the adult narrator is speaking about his past experiences;
this is the time in which the serrano writer—the hybrid intellectual,
the product of the narrated experiences—communicates with the
outside world. In this sense, the act of narrating Los rı́os profundos
is in itself unhomely, as it is always in-between, always oscillating
between times, spaces, languages, and cultures. The process of nar-
rating here is a constant questioning of the binary divisions that
make up the dominant fiction in Peru, and a calling on the past to
articulate a future. In this manner, the aforementioned spaces and
times correspond to an Andean indigenous concept of time, in
which the past, as Rowe and Schelling explain, ‘‘is used as a re-
source for imagining an alternative future.’’7 Their specific impor-
tance in the development of a national discourse will be discussed
in greater detail throughout this analysis.
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That the novel will be founded on oppositions and advanced by
mediators is shown in the narrative development of the novel’s
opening chapter. Here the narrator constructs a series of oppositions
that will continue to be important throughout the novel: the Viejo,
an aged landholder, and the pongo, his servant; the white world and
the indigenous world; tradition and modernity; present time and
memory. Between each of the opposing factors, the child narrator-
protagonist mediates. The chapter begins with a discussion of Er-
nesto’s uncle, a large landowner who lives between his house in
Cuzco and his hacienda. He represents the highest rung of social
hierarchy of the Peruvian Sierra, the connection to the feudal-like
life of the highlands, the tradition that holds back the progress of
the highlands. The very first sentence of the novel refers to this
figure and notes the ambiguity, the degeneration of the Peruvian
landowner class: ‘‘Infundı́a, respeto, a pesar de su anticuada y sucia
apariencia’’ [He inspired respect, in spite of his old-fashioned and
dirt appearance].9
Constantly juxtaposed to the figure of the Viejo is that of the
pongo, the individual who occupies the lowest place in the social
hierarchy of the Sierra. The pongo is a colono, an Indian belonging
to an hacienda, who serves in his master’s house. Because he has
been removed from the indigenous community and placed in the
hostile environment of the misti family, he is without home, with-
out family, without identity. He is rejected both by the world from
which he comes and the world in which he lives. In a brief Quechua
narrative, ‘‘El sueño del pongo,’’ which the author transcribed and
translated in 1965, Arguedas describes the abject position of the
pongo. The pongo’s master asks him, ‘‘¿Eres gente u otra cosa?’’
[Are you a person or something else?], questioning the humanity
of the pongo; he relegates the pongo to the level of nothingness,
describing ‘‘esas manos que parece que no son nada’’ [those hands
that look like nothing (OC1, 251)]. A mestiza cook in the house
points clearly to the social/familial status of the pongo: ‘‘Huérfano
de huérfanos; hijo del viento de la luna debe ser el frı́o de sus ojos,
el corazón pura tristeza’’ [Orphan of orphans; the cold of his eyes
must be son of the wind of the moon, his heart pure sadness (OC1,
251)]. As will become evident throughout this analysis, the pongo
is a central figure in the work of Arguedas; he is the most marginal
of the marginalized in Andean culture. In Arguedian narrative, the
pongos’ lack of social voice and resulting nonverbal, primal status
in the eyes of society gives them a closer relationship with the semi-
otic and, indeed, allows them to represent that element in society,
to be the counterbalance to the representatives of the Law.
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In Los rı́os profundos, the young Ernesto is surprised to see his

first pongo; upon seeing the Indian, he wishes to approach him and
speak with him in Quechua, but the pongo is afraid to speak to the
boy. Ernesto notices the almost animal state of the pongo: ‘‘tenı́a
un poncho raı́do, muy corto. Se inclinó y pidió licencia para irse.
Se inclinó como un gusano que pidiera ser aplastado’’ (RP, 17) [he
wore a very short, ragged poncho. He asked permission to leave,
bowing like a worm asking to be crushed. (DR 14)]. Midway
through the chapter the narrator begins to compare the figures of
the pongo and himself directly, to focus on them as they share the
same physical space and to comment on their situations in terms of
physical appearance, social status, and power. At their first meeting,
the Viejo tries to humiliate the boy, treating him in effect as he
would a pongo servant. The old man looks at Ernesto ‘‘como intent-
ando hundirme en la alfombra’’ (RP, 20) [as if he were trying to
make me sink into the rug (DR 17)]. But Ernesto is able to call upon
the strength of the indigenous culture—because of the monuments
he has seen in Cuzco, such as an Incan wall or the remains of Hua-
yna Capac’s palace—to face the representative of the dominant
power. If the uncle tries to appear larger than life (despite what the
narrator reveals as his diminutive physical stature), the pongo does
just the opposite, and Ernesto notices ‘‘el esfuerzo que hacı́a para
apenas parecer vivo’’ (RP, 21) [the effort he was making just to ap-
pear to be alive (DR 18)]. Here the power of the Viejo is contrasted
with the absolute social insignificance of the pongo. But the Viejo’s
power is perverse and abusive. The narrator attributes specific
metaphors to each personage, which forces the reader to make cer-
tain value judgments regarding each. Ernesto recounts that he ex-
pects a huayronk’o to bite his uncle, ‘‘porque estos insectos
voladores son mensajeros del demonio o de la maldición de los san-
tos’’ (RP, 22) [because these flying insects were harbingers of the
devil or of the damnation of saints (DR, 19)]. On the other hand,
the pongo is compared to the suffering Christ, ‘‘el rostro del Cruci-
ficado era casi negro, desencajado, como el del pongo’’ (RP, 23)
[the face of the crucified Christ was dark and guant, like that of the
pongo (DR 20)].
As will become customary throughout the novel, the narrator of-
fers a middle ground between the two poles, this time in the figures
of Ernesto’s father and of the boy himself. Both are relegated to
the kitchen, to a space closer to that of the pongo, showing their
marginalization from the society to which they racially belong.
While both are white, they are also culturally mestizo, and thus earn
a special place in the narration. In an anthropological essay, Ar-
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guedas notes that for centuries the European and indigenous cul-
tures have lived together in the Andes and have had a mutual effect
on each other, the former always aggressively on the attack but
nonetheless affected by its victim, the latter experiencing transfor-
mations as it has to defend itself. As a result of this constant interac-
tion, Arguedas finds, a central figure has emerged: ‘‘a human
product that is realizing a very powerful activity, ever more impor-
tant: the mestizo. We are speaking in cultural terms; we are not at
all taking into account the concept of race. Anyone can see in Peru
Indians of white race and copper-skinned subjects who are Western
in their behaviour.’’9 Ernesto’s father is one of these cultural mesti-
zos, feeling more comfortable among the Indians and mestizos,
speaking Quechua, and singing Andean music. Ernesto himself me-
diates the entire scene between the Viejo and the pongo, serving
as commentator and judge, and will continue his role as mediator
throughout the novel.
The Viejo reappears in the last chapter of the novel when, as Ab-
ancay is faced with a deadly plague and the school decides to send
its students home, Ernesto is sent to his uncle’s hacienda. Upon re-
membering the old man’s treatment of the pongo, Ernesto turns
away from the road to the hacienda and makes his way to the valley,
and the river, which he sees as more powerful at stopping the
plague than dominant society could ever be, and from there he pro-
ceeds to the mountain in search of his father.10 By ending the narra-
tive with the Viejo, the novel comes almost full circle—almost,
because the protagonist in the end escapes the Viejo, and with him
the ruling classes of the highland and their values, opting for a
world in which the masculine and the feminine enjoy greater inter-
play.
The opposition between the Viejo and the pongo highlights the
most extreme ends of the continuum that constitutes the range of
Peruvian national subjects. Both are masculine figures, but neither
demonstrates the stereotypical attributes of or the strength usually
associated with masculinity. Both, in their own way, are defective
models, shown as ill, de-gendered, as it may, in that they no longer
correspond to their gender definitions, debilitated by the extreme
social positions they are forced to occupy. These are de(-)generate
positions that serve as a point of departure for the articulation of an
alternative that will ultimately decenter the hierarchy of male and
female in the dominant fiction.11
It is significant that the narrator encounters these figures in
Cuzco, rather than in their more natural setting, the hacienda.
Cuzco, in the memory of Ernesto’s father and in the child’s own
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imagination, is the site par excellence for the encounter of the two
cultures whose mixing formed the Peruvian Sierra. However, the
narrator, in Cuzco for the first time, quickly discovers the inade-
quate way in which this encounter has been realized in Cuzco; he
cannot believe that the great Cuzco described to him so often by his
father could be the city he is encountering. Indeed, the boy quickly
finds Cuzco to be a place of suffering.
At first Ernesto is disappointed not to find more indications of
past Incan presence in the city. He is thrilled when he comes upon
the remains of an old Incan wall; the wall has an energy, movement,
and strength that the colonial city lacks. Alluding to the ‘‘modern’’
conveniences found in the city, Ernesto notes their state of decay:
‘‘La estación de ferrocarril y la ancha avenida por la que avanzá-
bamos lentamente, a pie, me sorprendieron. El alumbrado eléctrico
era más débil que el de algunos pueblos pequeños que conocı́a’’
(RP, 7) [the train station and the wide avenue along which we pro-
ceeded slowly, on foot, surprised me. The electric street lights were
dimmer than those of some small towns I had known (DR 4)]. On
the other hand, ‘‘Eran más grandes y extrañas de cuanto habı́a ima-
ginado las piedras del mundo incaico; bullı́an. . . . Era estático el
muro, pero hervı́a por todas sus lı́neas y la superficie era cambiante,
como la de los rı́os en el verano, que tienen una cima ası́, hacia el
centro del caudal, que es la zona temible, la más poderosa’’ (RP,
11) [The stones of the Inca wall were larger and stranger than I had
imagined; they seemed to be bubbling up. . . . The wall was station-
ary, but all its lines were seething and its surface was as changeable
as that of the flooding summer rivers which have similar crests in
the center, where the current flows swiftest and is the most terrify-
ing (DR, 7)]. Neither the Spanish city nor the Incan wall corre-
sponds to the image Ernesto had received from his father; the
difference is that the Spanish city falls short of its image while
the Incan wall surpasses it. Nevertheless, the Spanish element, in
the form of colonial houses, is shown to be physically on top of the
ancient Incan wall, just as the main square and churches of Cuzco
are built over Incan ruins. This spatial setup can and should be read
in two ways. First, the Spanish element is undoubtedly determined
to crush the indigenous culture. However, the narrator shows that
the culture that lies beneath the dominant one is in fact very much
alive, energetic, and powerful. Indeed, of the two, the indigenous
culture is by far the more vibrant.
In the juxtaposition of the two cultures, two different temporal
modes are at work: the time of memory, or mythical time, which
works both in the father’s memory and in Ernesto’s desire for the
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two cultures to mesh to form a strong, vibrant unity; and the present
time, the ‘‘real time,’’ which shows the decadence and fragmenta-
tion of the Andean world and in which the indigenous sector proves
to be that which has the energy and life sufficient to rejuvenate
greater Andean society. The movement between times echoes the
physical movement among the different spaces that conform to the
highland society Arguedas represents. The combination of different
temporal modes will be another fundamental aspect of Arguedas’s
vision in this novel, as memory and an imagined future, both im-
bued with the indigenous and feminine elements, are presented as
powerful alternatives to an undesirable present.
It is in this chapter that we first see Ernesto in a recurring role:
that of intermediary between the opposing forces that make up the
heterogeneity of the Peruvian Andes, as judge, interpreter, and
dreamer. It is here that a central question in Arguedas’s work, that
of the role of the intellectual in the formation of a national culture,
begins to be tentatively explored. It is Ernesto who freely moves
between the Spanish and the indigenous worlds, between the Viejo
and the pongo, between present time and the mythical time of mem-
ory, to explore present ills and project future solutions. The novel,
in this sense, becomes not just the construction of the heteroge-
neous Andean world but the construction of a new national sub-
ject—the hybrid intellectual—whose central objective will be that
of searching for a discourse in which to express Andean reality and
culture, a discourse that is transcultural, which speaks mestizaje.
The Dominant Fiction: Models of Masculinity

To best understand the role of the feminine in this work, it is es-
sential to examine how Arguedas paints the masculine and mascu-
linity in the novel. The masculine values that dominate Peru, as the
novel shows, bring with them violence, fragmentation, and the iso-
lation of the individual. For Arguedas, these values are a danger to
the Peruvian nation, and throughout the novel he depicts alterna-
tives to these values, alternatives that are largely linked with the
feminine. The Peruvian male of the ruling classes is taught to reject
the feminine, to marginalize it and see it as a threat to the nation
and, especially, to his position within it.12 Ernesto, a member of
these classes and yet self-marginalized by his strong identification
with the indigenous world, must suffer this education and come to
terms with it in his journey toward becoming the cultural mestizo
that Arguedas praises.
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After being raised in an indigenous community and then wander-

ing for years from town to town with his father, Ernesto is finally
placed in a boarding school in the provincial town of Abancay. This
is the first real attempt to socialize the young boy, to bring him into
dominant society and make him live by its rules regarding race,
class, and gender. However, Ernesto’s status as a forastero, an out-
sider, is constantly emphasized, as is his difficulty in finding a place
for himself in dominant provincial Andean society. In his portrait
of the boarding school, a miniature representation of the upper
classes of the Andean region, the narrator constructs a picture of a
society that has marginalized its indigenous element (of which he
considers himself a part) and of a process of socialization, strongly
rooted in the dominant conception of masculinity, which aims to
support and sustain this social structure.13
In the first part of the novel, much of the action is concentrated
in the school, the place of preparation of future (male) Peruvians.
The boys who make up the student body are primarily mestizos,
sons of decadent provincial families or wards of the priests who run
the school. They show various levels of connection with or separa-
tion from the indigenous culture, different levels of ‘‘Indianness’’
determined by their geographic origins, cultural grounding, or lin-
guistic attributes, and their value in the eyes of Ernesto rests on
these categories, that is, on their connection with the indigenous el-
ement. Almost all speak Quechua; the exceptions are notable and
significant, as will be shown later. The school itself is, in many
ways, a microcosm of Andean serrano society and is shown to be a
place of great violence and fragmentation. The primary games are
war games, which reenact the historical conflict between Peru and
Chile; disputes are often settled through physical battles, which the
entire student body eagerly awaits. The heroes of the school, and
those held in highest regard by the priests, are sports stars—young
men of superior physical power. The boys, through their relations
with the priests, among themselves, and with a demented woman
who lives in the school, La Opa, learn about and perpetuate a social
system based on racism, classism, and sexism; to leave the school
as well-formed Peruvian men, they must be able to partake fully in
this system.
The narrator describes several boys and their participation in this
system; here, I will concentrate on a few key figures. First, those
who perhaps best express the oppressive dominant classes are the
pair of friends, Añuco and Lleras. Both come from uncertain back-
grounds and perpetuate the violent atmosphere in the school. Añuco
is the only true descendant of landowners, and he is illegitimate; his
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family background attests to the violence and decadence that the
narrator sees as characterizing the white social sectors in the Andes.
His father, after losing his fortune and lands through gambling, dur-
ing his last three years in Abancay lived in a decaying mansion.
Añuco’s father was known for his various, unrealized threats to kill
himself; he was so weak he was unable to die ‘‘honorably.’’ Despite
his illegitimacy and absolute poverty, Añuco is the only student sin-
gled out for recognition by the landowners that visit the school, pre-
sumably because of his ‘‘blueblood’’ background. Lleras is known
as the least intelligent boy in the school, his origin is unknown, and
he, like Añuco, is a ward of the priest. Both students terrorize the
younger schoolboys, and appear to enjoy their abuse of power im-
mensely. Yet they are protected and honored by Padre Linares, the
director of the school, and often by the students themselves, for
their skill on the soccer field.
On the other end of the spectrum is Palacios, the son of a prosper-
ous comunero. Palacios’s father is very wealthy, proffering shiny
gold coins on two of his son’s friends, including the narrator. He is
also very demanding of his son; it is his desire that, through educa-
tion, Palacios integrate into the seignorial misti society of the An-
dean urban areas. Palacios’s father is at first frustrated by his son’s
inability to read, learn, and adjust to the school, but he later rewards
the boy when he makes white friends and finally begins to improve
academically. The comparison of Palacios’s father with Añuco’s is
implicit but fundamental. As with the comparison of the Spanish
and indigenous elements of Cuzco, the narrator is pointing to the
vibrancy of the indigenous community and the decadence of the
white world.
Besides the physical violence and decadent backgrounds of the
white students, two other characteristics of their behavior are shown
to be typical of the social construction of the nonindigenous man in
the Andean provinces. Regarding the boys’ relationship with
women and sexuality, the students of the school are shown in rela-
tion to two types of white women: first, the daughters of the upper
classes of the town, especially Salvinia and her friend Alcira
(whom Ernesto associates with Clorinda, a girl from a provincial
town he once fell in love with and now idealizes), shown as pure,
virginal, and strictly protected by society; secondly, La Opa, a de-
mented white woman brought to the school by one of the priests.
The boys have trouble negotiating both of these relationships, and
they ultimately prove to be ones mediated by abusive views of sex-
uality and power. Angel Rama says: ‘‘For Ernesto, and for the oth-
ers in the school, sex is violence and disdain, an uncontainable
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force inserted within a despotic, chauvinistic conception of life

and resolved by a rigid dichotomy: on one hand, the corporeal act
is symbolized by intercourse with la Opa, and on the other, spiri-
tual idealization is represented by the señoritas Salvinia-Alcira-
Clorinda. Both two veins represent a violent intercourse that as-
sumes ownership, which translates romantic personal relationships
into the system of domination that rules the society. Sex, violence,
and property are one and the same in the cultural values of this so-
cial group.’’14
Lleras makes a perverse attempt to initiate Palacios into the
world of sexuality with La Opa; (the more ‘‘civilized’’ boys from
the coast, who arrive with their military fathers to bring order to
the town after the chichera uprising, bring their perverse attitudes
towards the upper-class girls in town.) For all of these boys, women
are property and sexual objects. Indeed, women lack the ability to
construct themselves as subjects: La Opa literally has no voice, as
she cannot speak; the girls of the town are guarded by iron gates or
are allowed to take to the streets only under the careful watch of
men. It is, indeed, the ability to objectify woman, to see her as flesh
and the object of sexual desire, that marks the entry of a boy into
manhood and into the dominant society in Peru. Ernesto is upset
when Antero, one of his friends who is portrayed at one point as
being close to the spirit of the indigenous world, makes friends with
the son of a military officer and begins to emulate the latter’s treat-
ment of women. Antero remarks, ‘‘Yo tengo una, y otra en ‘pro-
yecto’. Pero a Salvinia la cercamos. Es pasto prohibido, por mı́ y
por Gerardo. ¡Nadie prueba eso!’’ (RP, 206) [I’ve got one girl, and
another in prospect. But we’ve got Salvinia fenced in. She’s be-
come forbidden territory, forbidden by me and Gerardo. No one is
allowed to trespass (DR, 196)]. As Rama notes, woman is ‘‘the
frontier which provides access to manhood.’’15
The space in which sexual relations with La Opa take place, the
interior patio, dominates much of the narrative, and the narrator
highlights it with a play of light and dark and by contrasting it to
spaces in his memory, open nature, and Los Molinos (a isolated
town in which Ernesto had been abandoned as a child, the impor-
tance of which will be discussed later). First, the patio is a place
marked by guilt, shame, violence, and isolation; when La Opa does
not visit the patio, many boys go there to masturbate, a sexual act
marked not only by its isolation but also by its stigma as a sin. Be-
cause it is witness to ‘‘perverse’’ forms of sexuality, the patio is
shown as an accursed space that overwhelms the younger students:
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Su fetidez nos oprimı́a, se filtraba en nuestro sueño. Y nosotros, los pe-
queños, luchábamos con ese pesado mal, temblábamos ante él, pretendı́a-
mos salvarnos, inútilmente, como los peces de los rı́os, cuando caen en
el agua turbia de los aluviones. La mañana nos iluminaba, nos liberaba;
el gran sol alumbraba esplenderosamente, aun sobre las amarillas yer-
bas que crecı́an bajo el denso aire de los excusados. Pero al anochecer,
con el viento, despertaba esa ave atroz que agitaba su ala en el patio
anterior. No entrábamos solos allı́, a pesar de que una ansia oscura por
ir nos sacudı́a. (RP, 64)
[The stench oppressed us, seeping into our dreams, and we smaller boys
struggled with that evil burden, trembling before it. We tried vainly to
save ourselves, as river fish do when they are swept into waters muddied
by an avalanche. The morning illumined us and liberated us; the great
sun shed its radiance even on the yellow weeds that grew in the dense
atmosphere of the latrines. But the evening, with its wind, would
awaken that horrible bird that flapped its wings in the inner courtyard.
We never went there alone, in spite of being wracked by a dark desire
to do so.] (DR 59)
The boys who do go to the patio are described as ‘‘goblins’’

or ‘‘monsters’’ and while there express themselves with ‘‘voz
angustiosa, sofocada y candente’’ (RP, 65) [anguished, smothered,
burning sounds (DR 60)].
This dark, interior space is contrasted with the natural, exterior
world, which Ernesto visits at every opportunity:
Las paredes, el suelo, las puertas, nuestros vestidos, el cielo de esa hora,
tan rara, sin profundidad, como un duro techo de luz dorada; todo pa-
recı́a contaminado, perdido o iracundo. Ningún pensamiento, ningún re-
cuerdo podı́a llegar hasta el aislamiento mortal en que durante ese
tiempo me separaba del mundo. Yo que sentı́a tan mı́o aun lo ajeno.
¡Yo no podı́a pensar, cuando veı́a por primera vez una hilera de sauces
hermosos, vibrando a la orilla de una acequia, que esos árboles eran
ajenos! Los rı́os fueron siempre mı́os; los arbustos que crecen en las
faldas de las montañas, aun las casas de los pequeños pueblos, con su
tejado rojo cruzado de rayas de cal; los campos azules de alfalfa, las
adoradas pampas de maı́z. Pero a la hora en que volvı́a de aquel patio,
al anochecer, se desprendı́a de mis ojos la maternal imagen del mundo.
Y llegada la noche, la soledad, mi aislamiento, seguı́an creciendo. (RP,
65–66)
[The walls, the ground, the doors, our clothes, the sky at that hour—so
strange and shallow, like a hard roof of golden light—all seemed con-
taminated, lost, or full of anger. No thought, no memory could penetrate
the mortal isolation that separated me from the world at such times. I,
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who felt as if even the things owned by others were mine. The first time
I saw a line of weeping willows shimmering on the bank of a stream I
could not believe that those trees might belong to someone else. The
rivers were always mine, the bushes that grew on the mountain slopes,
the village houses with their red roofs streaked with lime, the blue fields
of alfalfa, the beloved valleys filled with maize. But at the time I’d re-
turn from the courtyard, at dusk, this maternal image of the world would
fall from my eyes. And at nightfall my feelings of loneliness and isola-
tion grew more intense.] (DR 60)
In this passage, the narration moves from the isolation the protago-
nist feels in the patio, where he is often surrounded by other hu-
mans, to the sense of plenitude he finds when surrounded by nature,
then back to the isolation he feels in the school. It is a critical move-
ment from present to past to present time, from an interior physical
space to the space of memory (interior in that it lies in the mind of
the protagonist yet also exterior in that it corresponds to a specific
exterior place), back to the interior world of the school. These types
of movement mark Los rı́os profundos and are meant to give brief
glimpses into alternatives to the reality (the present time and space)
in which the narrator moves.
Indeed, Ernesto follows this last passage with the discussion of
another space which, in his memory, evokes feelings of isolation:
the tiny town of Los Molinos. For Ernesto, the dormitory, a place
physically filled with other human beings, is ‘‘más temible y deso-
lado que el valle profundo de Los Molinos’’ (RP, 66) [more fright-
ening and desolate than the deep gorge of Los Molinos (DR, 60)],
a very isolated community founded by Spaniards, in which Ernesto
as a young boy had been abandoned by his father for a few months.
Upon remembering this valley, Ernesto remembers the light, or lack
thereof, for the valley is so deep the sun can barely reach it and
does so but for a short period of time. Nevertheless, under the care
of an elderly Indian and among the river, rocks, trees, and wheat
mills, Ernesto says, he did not lose hope—the elements of nature
and of man’s labor that surrounded him sustained him. He contrasts
the loneliness that he felt in Los Molinos with what he feels in the
school, a deeper and more intense solitude. For that reason, the nar-
rator tells us, he escapes to another space, one of plenitude in its
connection with nature—the river. The importance of the river will
be discussed later, but it is a feminine space in contrast to this mas-
culine one of the school, and, as such, it is a place of warmth and
shelter that the masculine world does not provide.
Another central focus to the construction of masculinity is the
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question of race: according to the rules of Andean ‘‘urban’’ society,
real men are white, or, at least, have claims upon the ‘‘white’’ world.
However, as is shown on various occasions, the white culture is
hardly unaffected by its indigenous counterpart. In an anthropologi-
cal article, Arguedas notes that in the city of the Sierra, many of the
men considered part of the upper classes because of their economic
status and social mannerisms still have strong links to the indige-
nous culture. They sing bilingual songs, dance huaynos, and drink
chicha. He insists, however, that despite this reality it is clear that
those in power in the highlands are those most assimilated to West-
ern culture.16 Much of the function of the school is to initiate the
students into white culture as it has developed in Andean society,
the world of the mistis, and those closest to that culture are favored
by the director of the school, Padre Linares.
Racism and the hatred and violence it causes are directed towards
the Indians and towards the lone black character, a priest from the
coast, Brother Miguel. Again, the narrator resorts to the juxtaposi-
tion and contrasting of key scenes and elements to reveal the under-
lying racism of social relations in Peru. Lleras’s culminating
perverse act, for example, is juxtaposed not only with scenes show-
ing his victim, Brother Miguel, in a positive light, but also with
other acts of racism committed by Padre Linares, who not only runs
the school but is also the spiritual leader of the town.
First, Brother Miguel is shown playing tenderly with Ernesto and
Antero and their winko, a special version of the zumbayllu, a toy
top made in Abancay. Both his tenderness and his appreciation of
the winko point to his Otherness, his being outside the dominant
world. Immediately following this scene, Brother Miguel is af-
fronted by Lleras. The priest then publicly humiliates and punishes
the boy by breaking his nose. Lleras feels it is within his rights to
accost the priest because the latter is black; his position as a clergy-
man is less important than his racial status. In fact, Padre Linares
seems to make the same distinction. When Brother Miguel states
that he punished Lleras ‘‘with the hand of God,’’ the director asks,
‘‘¿Con la mano de quién? ¿Con la mano de quién dice usted?’’ (RP,
128) [With whose hand? With whose hand did you say? (DR, 120)].
As a black man, Brother Miguel does not enjoy such direct access
to God, while Padre Linares allows himself the luxury of putting
himself in God’s place, as will be shown later.
Palacios, the young Indian, sees the almost apocalyptic magni-
tude of such an affront to a man of the cloth. Yet, Padre Linares
seems not to understand the significance of the violent act. Indeed,
he himself is a perpetuator of racism, a decisive force in sustaining
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a social system that oppresses the nonwhite racial elements of the

town. Thus, it is important that this episode is narratively sand-
wiched by the recounting and analysis of Padre Linares’s work with
the Indians of the Patibamba hacienda. Padre Linares is a fairly
enigmatic character throughout the novel. He is called a saint by
townspeople, and while he purports to be a guide and protector for
all of his pupils, he shows favoritism to those who best fill the tradi-
tional conception of masculinity, such as the sports stars, Lleras and
Romero, and to those who are socially well connected, such as the
sons of military officers, Gerardo and his brother. Ernesto sees
through his hypocrisy, yet feels some desire to respect his authority.
In the scene immediately preceding Llera’s encounter with
Brother Miguel, Padre Linares has taken Ernesto to the Patibamba
hacienda to say mass, following the uprising of the chicheras
(which will be discussed in detail later). The mass is said for the
Indians to reprimand them for accepting stolen salt from the chi-
cheras. Padre Linares speaks to them in Quechua, appropriating the
discourse of the Other in order to repress and humiliate the Other.
He works his listeners into a frenzy of crying and praying, effec-
tively putting them in their place.17
This speech is contrasted to one given to the students after the
incident between Lleras and Brother Miguel. This time the expres-
sion on his face calms the students, but the narrator specifically re-
calls the earlier mass in order to unmask the priest’s hypocrisy.
Ernesto points to the double personality of the priest: ‘‘A nosotros
no pretende hacernos llorar a torrentes, no quiere que nuestro cora-
zón se humille, que caiga en el barro del piso, donde los gusanos
del bagazo se arrastran . . . A nosotros nos ilumina, nos levanta
hasta confundirnos con su alma.’’ (RP, 131) [He doesn’t try to make
us weep in torrents; he doesn’t wish to humble our hearts, to make
us fall down into the mire where the cane-trash worms are crawling.
He illumines us and lifts us up until we become one with his soul
(DR, 122)]. Narratively, the effect of juxtaposing and contrasting
these two scenes, and then having them further enclose the scene
between Lleras and Brother Miguel, highlights the racism of the
‘‘Padre-Director.’’ Thus, the person who is to serve as the greatest
example of manhood to these young boys is one who overtly pre-
fers one side of Peruvian culture and rejects another, and yet is able
to understand and manipulate the side he marginalizes.
In this manner, Padre Linares works ‘‘inside and outside,’’ in the
school and the town, within the society of the mistis, and outside,
in the margins, to assure the perpetuation of the dominant fiction.
The values and relationships that are instilled on the inside (in this
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case, in the school) are reflections of and reflected in the outside,
the town, the highlands, and Peru in general. Here, masculinity is
constructed, its definition created and perpetuated by the dominant
fiction, and its construction preserved for the greater citizenry.
However, as Arguedas shows, this citizenry is exclusive of other
potential citizens; the national subject accepted by the misti culture,
which in itself is a marginalized element within the greater Peru-
vian nation, is the one that can make the greatest claim to cultural
‘‘whiteness,’’ and thus the one furthest removed from indigenous
culture. In Los rı́os profundos, Arguedas proposes an alternative to
this national subject, an alternative that incorporates the indigenous
element and brings it into play with the more Western-looking ele-
ments of the highlands.
Alternatives and Mediators: The Feminine and the Artist

Alongside his recreation of dominant society, the narrator offers
a consistent juxtaposition of alternatives: people, spaces, and ob-
jects that are capable of mediating between the opposing poles that
make up the dominant fiction and correspond to the more generic
analogy of center/margin: capital/provinces, state/traditional com-
munity, white/indigenous, male/female, culture/nature. Among the
most powerful alternatives is that of the feminine. Indeed, the space
in which mediation between the governing and the popular cultures
most effectively takes place is dominated by women: the barrio of
Huanupata. The women of Huanupata, the chicheras, makers of
chicha beer, are the ones who most overtly confront the dominant
power structure. But women are not the only figures able to cross
the line to mediate between cultures. In Los rı́os profundos, Ar-
guedas fleshes out his sketch of another figure, the hybrid intellec-
tual, shown as having the potential to play a significant role in the
construction of an alternative to the current nation and national sub-
ject. This figure is one who, in his own consciousness as an Andean
intellectual and in his cultural (literary) production, is able to capi-
talize on the masculine and the feminine, representing and living a
modernized Andean notion of complementarity as the most viable
option for Peru.
In Los rı́os profundos Arguedas proposes a cure for Peru’s ‘‘psy-
chosis’’ or imbalance by emphasizing nature, the maternal, and the
nonrational, while divorcing both women and the indigenous peo-
ple from their designated social sphere—that which is outside the
public, political realm of white Western men. Instead, both become
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active in the construction of an alternative nation (or community, or

national culture) based on intuition, nature, and emotions, on those
elements traditionally considered Other to the nation in Western so-
ciety but not necessarily threatening to culture in the judgment of
Andean indigenous society. The emphasis on the role of the mater-
nal is especially evident in Los rı́os profundos. Julia Kristeva com-
ments on the figure of the mother in Western tradition: ‘‘We live in
a civilization where the consecrated (religious or secular) represen-
tation of femininity is absorbed by motherhood. If, however, one
looks at it more closely, this motherhood is the fantasy that is nur-
tured by the adult, man or woman, of a lost territory; what is more,
it involves less an idealized archaic mother than the idealization of
the relationship that binds us to her, one that cannot be local-
ized—an idealization of primary narcissism.’’18
Without a doubt, the fantasy of the adult narrator of the work re-
volves around this idea of a lost maternal territory and his own or-
phanhood exacerbated by that loss. The isolation that the
protagonist, Ernesto, feels in the official world (his school) is con-
trasted with the ‘‘maternal imagen del mundo’’ (RP, 66) [maternal
image of the world (DR, 60)] that the boy perceives in nature and
the maternal atmosphere of the indigenous community in which he
spent the first years of his life. Unlike the official imaginary system,
which normally associates the feminine with darkness, Ernesto re-
members a past where, ‘‘yo habı́a habitado . . . en pampas maizales
maternales e iluminadas’’ (RP, 67) [I had always lived . . . in level
valleys bright with maternal fields of maize (DR, 61)]. Ernesto, who
has no mother, constantly seeks maternal love; although he never
explicitly speaks of his mother, he is always in search of maternal
relationships. Upon evoking the indigenous world—that world
which in the nostalgic memory of the narrator constitutes a perfect
state of being—Ernesto remembers not one, but many mothers, a
community of maternal people: ‘‘los jefes de familia y las señoras,
mamakunas de la comunidad, me protegieron y me infundieron la
impagable ternura en que vivo’’ (RP, 46) [the family chiefs and the
older women, the mamakunas of the community protected me and
instilled in me that kindness in which I live and which I can never
repay (DR, 42)]. In Abancay, the boy tries to rejoin the maternal,
whether by speaking with the colonas of a nearby hacienda, the
school cook, or a servant woman from Cuzco who finds him after
the uprising of the chicheras and whose cry ‘‘llamaba al sueño, al
verdadero sueño de los niños en el regazo materno’’ (RP, 107)
[summoned me to sleep, the real sleep of a child on his mother’s
lap (DR, 99–100)]. Arguedas emphasizes the purifying, redeeming
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role of the feminine; the feminine serves as a bridge between the
cold, dominant world in which Ernesto lives and the natural world
of origin which he desires. This link accounts for Ernesto’s fascina-
tion with the mestiza doña Felipa, who confronts the system by
leading a group of chicheras in an uprising to protest the lack of
salt in the town. It is only through the feminine, the women of the
town, that the official world can be opposed.
If in the first half of the novel the interior world of the school
and of the narrator predominates, toward the middle of the work
something happens that takes both the narrative and Ernesto into
the public sphere: the uprising of the chicheras. Lead by doña Fe-
lipa, a group of mestizas who work in the local chicha bars takes to
the streets protesting the lack of salt, which they need to make their
product and which the hacienda owners are hoarding for their own
use. The chicheras recover the hidden salt and divide it up among
the townspeople, but eventually the army (representative of the
masculine, official world) comes to recover the salt and punish the
insurgents, and doña Felipa flees. Here the description of the femi-
nine presence is fundamental: ‘‘A las doce, cuando los externos
salı́an a la calle, se oyeron gritos de mujeres afuera . . . Varias mu-
jeres pasaron corriendo; todas eran mestizas, vestidas como las
mizas y las dueñas de las chicherı́as’’ (RP, 96) [at twelve o’clock
when the day-pupils went out into the street, we heard women
shouting outside . . . Several women ran by; they were all mestizas,
dressed like the waitresses and owners of the chicha bars (DR, 89–
90)]. In the main square, ‘‘no se veı́an hombres. Con los pies des-
calzos o con los botines altos de taco, las mujeres aplastaban las
flores endebles del ‘parque’, tronchaban los rosales, los geranios,
las plantas de lirios y las violetas. Gritaban todas en quechua:—
¡Sal, sal! ¡Los ladrones, los pillos de la Recaudadora!’’ (RP, 98)
[there were no men in sight. With their bare feet or high-heeled
boots the women crushed the delicate park flowers, breaking off
rosebushes, geraniums, lilies, and violets. They shouted in Que-
chua, ‘‘Salt, salt! The robbers, the thieving salt-dealers!’’ (DR, 91)].
The women completely take over the public realm and dominate the
situation.19
This episode is significant on various levels. To achieve their
goal, the women must face Padre Linares, the gendarmes, and the
salt vendors; in this manner they defy the (masculine) power struc-
ture of the town. Furthermore, they disturb the traditional distribu-
tion of wealth; for a few moments they have economic as well as
political power. The women have a social and humanitarian out-
look. They complain that the landowners have salt to give to their
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animals, while the people of the town have nothing. Doña Felipa
asks Padre Linares: ‘‘¿Las vacas son antes de la gente, Padrecito
Linares?’’ (RP, 99) [Do cows come before people, Padrecito Li-
nares? (DR, 92)]. Another sociopolitical aspect of the scene is
found in the distribution of the salt, which takes place in a calm and
orderly manner, in contrast with the disorder of Peruvian society as
portrayed by Arguedas. The narrator comments on the self-control
exercised by the women, despite the passion that they undoubtedly
feel: ‘‘ahı́ estaba ella, la cabecilla, regulando desde lo alto del poyo
hasta los latidos del corazón de cada una de las enfurecidas y vic-
toriosas cholas. Al menor intento de romper el silencio, ella miraba
y las propias mujeres se empujaban unas a otras, imponiéndose
orden, buscando equilibrio’’ (RP, 102, emphasis added) [there she
was, the ringleader, controlling everything from atop the stone
bench, even to the heartbeats of each of the angry, triumphant cho-
las. At the slightest attempt to break the silence, she stared, and the
women themselves nudged each other, imposing order, trying to
calm down (DR, 94, emphasis added)]. The idea of order has a cen-
tral importance in Arguedas’s work. As will be discussed later, in
Todas las sangres, the order with which the colonos work is con-
templated and admired by all.
Arguedas must have modeled doña Felipa and her cohorts on the
real mestiza women and their acts of resistance he observed in the
Andes. Writing on the role of the mestiza market women in Cuzco
from the 1950s to the 1970s, Marisol de la Cadena offers the fol-
lowing definition of the mestiza:
mestizas (and their partners) are those individuals who live in the cities
but whose commercial activities imply constant commuting between
city and countryside. They are mostly urban, but they are also rural.
Indians are those individuals whose experience is predominantly rural
and agricultural. Urban Indians are unsuccessful immigrants from the
countryside. Although at first glance this is similar to the taxonomy of
the elites, it is not the same. In the marketplace the women vendors
taught me that being mestiza does not connote a process in which the
nonindigenous aspects of the identity gradually replace the indigenous
ones. Since according to marketplace rules of respect, mestizas are suc-
cessful indigenous women, their being mestizas does not imply the
decay but the buttressing of indigenous culture. The market women also
taught me that being mestiza or Indian is a social condition, and both
fall within the scope of indigenous culture.20
It is certainly this intricate meshing of indigenous and urban

worlds, and the relationship with indigenous culture, that most in-
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terests Arguedas and that gives these women their privileged posi-
tion in his narrative. Furthermore, Arguedas sees the women not
only as voices for or bridges to the indigenous world but as active
resistors of dominant culture.
De la Cadena comments on what she terms the ‘‘political use of
insolence’’ by Cuzco market women in the 1950s. She writes that
‘‘mestizas were not unaware of the rights that they had. . . . They
knew that positioning themselves as women of the people entitled
them to confront and negotiate with city authorities and to shield
themselves from the image of vulgarity and transgression that cuz-
queño society had forced on them. In negotiations, mestizas pre-
sented themselves as morally trustworthy women, mothers, and
workers, who demanded benevolent behavior from the authori-
ties.’’21 De la Cadena observes that mestiza market women aggres-
sively demanded respect, rights, and, perhaps most importantly, a
decent quality of life for their families. She also notes that these
demands in Cuzco often translated into a reproduction of racism in
their treatment of the so-called ‘‘urban Indians,’’ who were used as
workers in the marketplace. Arguedas, however, either choses to ig-
nore this last fact or sees another side to the mestiza women he por-
trays. Emphasizing their feat of demanding respect, rights, and a
decent living for their families (in this case, their understanding of
‘‘family’’ extending to the colonos of the hacienda), Arguedas fo-
cuses on the mestizas’ connection with the indigenous people and
culture and their ‘‘political use of insolence’’ as qualities with revo-
lutionary potential.22
Beyond her expressly political role, doña Felipa serves as a
bridge that unites various sectors of society. First, she insists upon
sending salt to the colonos of the Patibamba hacienda. Although the
other women had forgotten about the Indians, soon the delivery of
salt to the colonos becomes a central goal; thus, the social con-
sciousness of the women extends beyond their own social group.
Secondly, the women work in the public realm and, more impor-
tantly, bring Ernesto into that realm. They serve as a bridge by
which he may return to society. Certainly their influence on the boy
is fundamental. He fills himself with the women’s energy; their vio-
lence excites him and makes him want to fight. It is important to
note that it is the feminine element, along with the indigenous ele-
ment, that takes Ernesto from the isolated world of his school
towards a feeling of social communion. Indeed, from the point that
he joins the group of women in protest, he effectively makes him-
self an organic part of the group by referring to all further actions
as performed by ‘‘us.’’
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One important aspect of this scene is the use of speech of the

mestiza doña Felipa. If speech is a mediator by which participation
in Andean indigenous culture is measured and action in the public
realm that which marks the citizen according to Western society,
then Doña Felipa shows herself a fully political member of society.
Note the following exchange between the chichera and Padre Li-
nares:
—¡No me retes, hija! ¡Obedece a Dios!

—Dios castiga a los ladrones, Padrecito Linares—dijo a voces la chi-
chera, y se inclinó ante el Padre. El Padre dijo algo y la mujer lanzó un
grito:
—¡Maldita no, padrecito! ¡Maldición a los ladrones! (RP, 99)
[‘‘Don’t defy me, my daughter. Obey God!’’

‘‘God punishes thieves, Padrecito Linares,’’ said the chichera in a loud
tone, bowing to the priest. The priest said something and the woman
shouted, ‘‘Do not condemn me, Padrecito! Condemn the thieves!’’] (DR
92)
Here the narration calls upon some interesting recourses to empha-

size the political power of doña Felipa’s voice. First, the priest puts
himself on the same level as God, demanding that the woman not
challenge him but obey God. The very next word in the narration is
also ‘‘Dios,’’ but doña Felipa purposely gives it a different semantic
value, her interpretation of the true God, thereby negating the power
relationship Padre Linares has just set up for himself. This type of
hybrid construction Bakhtin sees as enormously significant within
the genre of the novel and defines as follows: ‘‘an utterance that
belongs, by its grammatical (syntactic) and compositional markers,
to a single speaker, but that actually contains mixed within its two
utterances, two speech manners, two styles, two ‘languages,’ two
semantic and axiological belief systems. . . . There is no formal—
compositional and syntactic—boundary between these utterances,
styles, languages, belief systems; the division of voices and lan-
guages takes place within the limits of a single syntactic whole,
often within the limits of a simple sentence. It frequently happens
that even one and the same word will belong simultaneously to two
languages, two belief systems that intersect in a hybrid construc-
tion—and, consequently, the word has two contradictory meanings,
two accents.’’23
Here, Arguedas not only highlights the two belief systems
through the contradictory meanings given to the word ‘‘God,’’ he
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also privileges one system, that of the indigenous-mestizo Andean
world.
Following doña Felipa’s remonstrance, the priest says something
that the narration silences, but that must have included the word
‘‘maldita.’’ The reader can only guess what the priest has said (and
assumes the cleric called the mestiza accursed or damned), but the
chichera’s next statement again negates the priest’s words, and, as
it is the only speech represented in the narrative, it is this ‘‘political
use of insolence’’ that the reader is obliged to esteem. From that
point on, the woman is the one who directs and controls the move-
ment and action of the scene. The father-figure is effectively si-
lenced and nullified.
This inversion of order is emphasized by the carnivalesque scene
that follows.24 One woman begins to sing a Carnival song, and ‘‘ası́
la tropa se convirtió en una comparsa que cruzaba a carrera las
calles. La voz del coro apagó todos los insultos y dio un ritmo espe-
cial, casi de ataque, a los que marchábamos a Patibamba. Las mulas
tomaron el ritmo de la danza y trotaron con más alegrı́a. Enloqueci-
das de entusiasmo, las mujeres cantaban cada vez más alto y más
vivo’’ (RP, 103) [in this way the troop was transformed into a com-
parsa that went through the streets on a run.25 The voices of the
chorus drowned out all insults, and set a special pace, with a rhythm
almost of attack, for those who were marching to Patibamba. The
mules took up the rhythm of the danza and trotted along more gaily.
Wild with enthusiasm, the women’s singing grew louder and live-
lier (DR, 96)]. The lower classes of the town, both men and women,
are incited to join the group. The women are able to commit an act
that leads to the formation of a community.
Furthermore, the narration relies on focalizers to highlight doña
Felipa. Her earrings are said to sparkle in the sun, and her hair
shines; the band of her hat glows even in the shade. The woman
herself has a face scarred by pockmarks, a sign of specialness in
Quechua culture. In this sense, Arguedas is identifying doña Felipa
as illa, which, he explains in the opening of chapter 7 of Los rı́os
profundos, is used to connote certain types of light and ‘‘monsters’’
born wounded by the moonlight. Illas can be harmful or beneficial,
but always to an extreme degree: ‘‘Tocar un illa, y morir o alcanzar
la resurrección, es posible’’ (RP, 70) [to touch an illa, and to either
die or be resurrected, is possible (DR, 64)]. Besides her physical
aspect, the narration focuses on the sound of the woman’s voice
as she speaks Quechua: ‘‘las ces suavı́simas del dulce quechua de
Abancay sólo parecı́an ahora notas de contraste, especialmente es-
cogidas, para que fuera más duro el golpe de los sonidos guturales
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que alcanzaban a todas las paredes de la plaza’’ (RP, 98) [the soft
c’s of the Quechua of Abancay now seemed to have been chosen
especially as notes of contrast to make the guttural sounds that car-
ried to all the walls of the square harsher (DR, 91)]. The play of
light and sound follow the chichera throughout the narration of this
act.
Finally, doña Felipa serves as a bridge to integrate La Opa into
society. Critics such as Rama have commented on the sexual role
of La Opa, who serves to initiate the schoolboys into the sexual
world of adults. But this function seems abusive to Ernesto, who
narrates the feeling of guilt, sin, and violence that surrounds all re-
lations with La Opa. The figure of La Opa is rather ambiguous; al-
though she seems to desire contact with the young men, she is
practically mute; she lacks a social, political, and personal voice
and is therefore only capable of communicating through her body.
She is, in fact, in a prelinguistic state, which, according to Kristeva,
would place her closer to the semiotic. She can only grunt and
moan, and express her desire physically.
Brought to the school by one of the priests as his concubine, La
Opa is blonde and blue-eyed, racially white, but, as a mute, men-
tally retarded woman, her social status is similar to that of the
pongo. As with the pongo, her nothingness is highlighted: ‘‘nadie
caminaba con mayor sigilio que ella, como si fuera una pequeña
sombra redonda’’ (RP, 197) [no one walked more stealthily than
she; it was as if she were a little round shadow (DR, 187)]. The
school cook says that she is different, ‘‘si quiere también puede irse
de este mundo, tranquila, saltando a un kijllu (rajadura profunda)
de los precipicios o entrando a las sombras de las cuevas‘‘ (RP, 197)
[if she wants to, she can leave this world, easy, by leaping into a
quijllu in the cliffs, or by entertaining the shadows of the caves
(DR, 187)]. Furthermore, she is seen primarily at night, in the dark,
refusing to enter the patio when the moon is out. Completely Other,
La Opa is shadow, belonging to another world. And she quite liter-
ally has no voice, though she is able to communicate in a world that
consistently works to block the speech of the Other.
Yet it is this very Otherness that merits her special treatment nar-
ratively, for La Opa serves as a means of pointing out certain ele-
ments in Arguedas’s narrative that are ‘‘positive’’ and fleeing those
which are ‘‘negative.’’ Although La Opa aggressively tries to avoid
many of the boys in the school, she forms a special relationship
with Palacios, the comunero: ‘‘la demente lo miraba con cierta fa-
miliaridad, cuando pasaba por la puerta del comedor’’ [the feeble-
minded woman would give him a look of recognition when he
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passed the door to the dining hall], and, when the other boys try to
force Palacios to have sex with La Opa, ‘‘la demente querı́a, y
mugı́a, llamando con ambas manos al muchacho’’ (RP, 58) [the
feeble-minded woman wanted him and moaned, beckoning to the
boy with both hands (DR, 53)]. La Opa desires physical union with
the Indian, but he refuses; her quest for identification with Palacios
emphasizes her belief in the redeeming capacity of the indigenous
culture.
Moreover, in a certain way, La Opa is able to understand the im-
portance of doña Felipa, and her actions further focus the narration
on the figure of the rebel. For this reason, she takes the shawl that
the chichera leaves on a bridge crossing and in doing so, ‘‘su rostro
resplandecı́a felicidad’’ (RP, 161) [her face shone with joy (DR,
152)]. Later Ernesto imagines that ‘‘la Opa estarı́a a esa hora con-
templando su rebozo, riéndose. . . . Habı́a subido la cuesta, casi bai-
lando, con la Castilla en la espalda. No fue al terraplén’’ (RP, 166)
[at that instant the idiot must have been laughing as she contem-
plated her shawl. . . . She had practically danced up the hill, with
the shawl over her shoulders. She hadn’t gone to the playground
(DR, 157)]. Doña Felipa’s strength is transferred to La Opa, and the
latter no longer needs to seek the company of the schoolboys. The
shawl also accompanies La Opa to the top of the church bell tower,
where above the people of Abancay who have gathered in the plaza
below, she serves as a judge of Abancay society. The narrator
points to this act as her greatest accomplishment: ‘‘su hazaña esta
noche era mayor. Oı́a a la banda de músicos desde el mirador más
alto y solemne de la ciudad, y contemplaba, examinándolos, a los
ilustres de Abancay. Los señalaba y enjuiciaba. Se festejaba a pleni-
tud, quizá como ninguno’’ (RP, 198) [this evening’s exploit was an
even greater one. She was listening to the band of musicians from
the highest, most solemn lookout point of the city and observing
and inspecting the notables of Abancay. She pointed them out and
passed judgement on them. She was enjoying herself completely,
perhaps more so than anyone else (DR, 188)].
To a certain extent doña Felipa’s shawl, which as a symbol car-
ries the strength and energy of the chichera, serves to give voice to
La Opa; it allows her to integrate herself into the public sphere—
though subversively—at the margins. Furthermore, in taking a
shawl, a woven material, as the means of expression, La Opa is par-
ticipating in an indigenous tradition, which gives significant sym-
bolic value to weavings. La Opa’s acquiring of the shawl has a
significant effect on Ernesto. First, the image of her seizing the ma-
terial serves to give Ernesto strength as he faces the moral decay of
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Abancay (RP, 203; DR, 193). Secondly, doña Felipa’s shawl is

passed on to Ernesto upon the death of La Opa. In this way the
woman serves as a further link between Ernesto and doña Felipa.
Thus, La Opa, like other women, also serves as a bridge.26
By the end of the work, doña Felipa has become a legendary fig-
ure, a type of regional or provincial hero. Cornejo Polar comments,
‘‘neither the Indians nor the mestizos consider the leader’s escape
as a sign of defeat; rather, they all elaborate something like a pre-
monitory saga whose central theme is the return of doña Felipa.’’27
For the marginal classes, hers will be a triumphant return that will
destroy the semifeudal system of holding property and will bring
justice. According to Cornejo Polar, the soldiers crush the rebellion,
but ‘‘not the underlying rebelliousness, its roots in the courage of
the people, in the knowledge of collective power.’’28 Ernesto also
recognizes a somewhat mythical power in doña Felipa. He cries,
‘‘tú eres como el rı́o, señora. . . . No te alcanzarán . . . miraré tu
rostro, que es poderoso como el sol de mediodı́a. ¡Quemaremos,
incendiaremos!’’ (RP, 162) [you’re like the river, señora. . . .
They’ll never catch you . . . I will see your face, powerful as the
noonday sun. We’ll set fires. We’ll burn everything down! (DR,
153)]. Doña Felipa becomes almost a divine figure in the eyes of
the boy. While praying in the school chapel, he converts the ‘‘Ave
Marı́a’’ of his classmates into a personal sort of ‘‘Ave doña Felipa,’’
telling her of La Opa’s transformation and praising doña Felipa’s
powers: ‘‘¡Qué soldado ha de matarte! Con tu ojo, mirando desde
lejos, desde la otra banda del rı́o, tú puedes agarrarle la mano, qui-
zás su corazón también. El Pachachaca, el Apu, está, pues, contigo’’
(RP, 168) [‘‘What little soldier could have killed you! Sighting
along your rifle from a great distance, from the other side of the
river, you could hit him in the hand, maybe in the heart. For the
Pachachaca, the Apu, is with you’’ (DR, 159)]. Here the narration
links the woman to the river, the most powerful symbolic presence
in the novel. Like the river, doña Felipa is a force of motion in a
stagnant society; like pure water, she has the ability to cleanse and,
in accordance with Christian tradition, transform. Doña Felipa be-
comes a vital and magical substance, like the river itself.
Again, the river and the valley in which it lies are considered
feminine spaces in Andean cosmology. And it is in these feminine
spaces that Arguedas’s ultimate goal, that of projecting a new na-
tional subject and, by extension, a new Peru, is best realized. The
two places to which Ernesto goes whenever he is allowed to leave
the boarding school are the Pachachaca River and the Huanupata
barrio. Both stand in contrast to the other spaces that dominate the
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narration of Abancay, the school itself and the Patibamba hacienda.
As opposed to these enclosed, stagnant, suffocating and isolated
spaces, the river and the barrio are shown to be open, energetic,
and full of movement. Furthermore, both show some connection to
the indigenous world and relate in certain ways to the space-time of
Ernesto’s memory. Both of these spaces are feminine spaces: the
river, by its association within Andean cosmology, and Huanupata,
through its domination by female characters and characters imbued
with the feminine.
The river is connected with the Quechua underworld; it is alterna-
tively referred to as apu, or god, and devil. Ernesto goes down to
the river on Sundays, when he feels sad and overwhelmed. He
claims that the river supports the colonos, the chunchos, and doña
Felipa. It has its own soul; acting like a god or spirit, according to
Ernesto, ‘‘el Pachachaca sabe con qué alma se le acercan las cria-
turas; para qué se le acercan’’ (RP, 157) [the Pachachaca knows the
spirit in which little children come to him, and why they come to
him (DR, 148)]. Furthermore, the river acts as a bridge, as a media-
tor; Ernesto believes the river can link him to his father or to doña
Felipa.
Most importantly, the river is the semiotic link to the origin, that
which murmurs below the surface of the symbolic, as is reflected in
the description of the river’s motion. The narrator uses the flight of
a group of swallows to highlight this movement, to focus the read-
er’s attention upon its centrality to the progression of the narrative
and to contrast its motion with the stagnation of Abancay:
Varias golondrinas se divertı́an cruzando por los ojos del puente, vo-
lando sobre las aguas y por encima del relete de cal y canto; alejándose
y volviendo. Pasaban sobre las cruces, siempre en lı́neas caprichosas;
no se detenı́an ni aquietaban el vuelo; festejaban delicadamente al gran
puente, a la corriente que bramaba y se iba en bullente cabaleata, salpi-
cando en el fondo del abismo, donde me sentı́, por un instante, como un
frágil gusano, menos aun que esos grillos alados que los transeuntes
aplastan en las calles de Abancay. (RP, 162)
[Several swallows were amusing themselves by darting through the eyes

of the bridge, skimming over the water and the stone parapet, flying off
and returning. They passed over the crosses, always on an erratic course;
never pausing nor slowing their flight, they paid delicate homage to the
great bridge, to the current that roared along in a hurtling cavalcade,
splashing through the bottom of the gorge where, for an instant, I felt
like a fragile worm, even lowlier than the winged crickets that passers-
by crushed underfoot in the streets of Abancay.] (DR, 153)
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Here the connection with the semiotic, that which constantly rum-
bles under and yet must be present in the symbolic, is made patent.
The river, the feminine space, can take the narrator back to the se-
miotic; it connects the two worlds, the masculine world of the
mountains and the feminine world of the valley, and as such serves
as a model for Ernesto, who, as a hybrid intellectual, must also find
a way to move between worlds.
The second space essential to Ernesto’s development is an
‘‘urban’’ one, the Huanupata section of Abancay, home to chicheras
and prostitutes, a place where many sectors of society intermix
freely, but that is dominated by the mestizo popular classes, and
especially by women. Huanupata prefigures what Bhabha, over
thirty years later, will call the ‘‘hybrid displacing space,’’ a space
in colonial cultures that deprives ‘‘the imposed imperialist culture,
not only of the authority that it has for so long imposed politically,
often through violence, but even of its own claims to authentic-
ity.’’29 Of course, in this, the ‘‘imperialist culture’’ referred to is not
an outside force but rather the internal ruling classes: the coast,
Lima, and even the Andean mistis, who impose their authority on
the marginalized majority. Huanupata serves as a place that breaks
with the imposed hierarchies, a place where a vast range of social
elements enter into dialogic relationships with one another and
where the indigenous-mestizo element exerts its influence. It is the
site of the unhomely, a site of displacement and confusion of the
boundaries between home and the world. Here the mestizo element
is concentrated and highlighted narratively, primarily through the
emphasis on the huaynos, the popular mestizo song form which fills
the spaces of the chicha bars.30
The importance of the huayno to Andean culture (and by exten-
sion to Arguedian narrative) is evident in the following quote from
an anthropological article published by Arguedas in 1940: ‘‘the
huayno is like the clear and minute footprint that the mestizo cul-
ture has been leaving on the path to salvation and creation it has
followed.’’31 Arguedas continues, ‘‘in the history of the huayno,
which is the history of the Andean people, there is a fundamental
element: huayno music has been altered very little, while its lyrics
have evolved rapidly and have taken on infinitely diverse forms, al-
most one for each man. Today’s Indian and mestizo, like that of 100
years ago, still find in this music the whole expression of their spirit
and all of their emotions.’’32 It is in the rhythm, the basic melody—
that is, the semiotic—that the huayno holds its power as a principal
expressor of Andean culture. This underlying music is then appro-
priated by the singer, who adds words (the symbolic element). It is,
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in this sense, the semiotic that gives form to the symbolic; or, one
sees in this process how the symbolic emerges from its origin in the
semiotic. In either case, the huayno is a central instrument for the
production of meaning in Arguedian narrative, as it is in Andean
culture.
Rama notes that music is the underlying element of the entire
narrative of Los rı́os profundos, appearing not only as song or in-
strumental music, but also as sounds of nature and daily life; for
Rama the complex combination of these elements suggests ‘‘the
presence of an orchestra which is playing throughout the novel, ac-
companying the public and private life of the characters, melodi-
cally duplicating common visual references.’’33 If sound is what
moves and sustains the narrative, it is owing to its semiotic quali-
ties. Vicky Unruh comments on the importance of voice in the nar-
rative: ‘‘every element of the Andean world . . . has a voice; but,
also, each voice has special traits and the particular characteristics
of each voice are decisive in communication. . . . These individual
traits of the Andean voices emphasize the emotive character of the
process of communication.’’34 The music, voices, and other sounds
recreated in the narrative are important above all for their emotional
resonance. This quality reverberates in the musicality of the literary
language itself (through which these semiotic—unrepresentable—
elements are evoked); the rhythm and poetry emulates the world
they reconstruct, bringing the semiotic to the text, in full play with
the symbolic.
Through its various sources, sound in the novel becomes an im-
portant mediator, both between Western and indigenous culture and
the symbolic and the semiotic. After the uprising, the problem be-
tween Lleras and Brother Miguel, and a fight between two students,
Romero begins to play huaynos in the patio. The narrator notes:
‘‘Romero nunca habı́a tocado de dı́a. Empezó desganado, y fue
animándose. Quizá presintió que la inocencia de la música era nec-
esaria en ese patio’’ (RP, 134) [Romero had never played in the day-
time before. He began rather listlessly, becoming livelier as he
played. Perhaps he realized that the innocence of the music was
needed in the courtyard (DR, 125)]. The music serves as a means
of uniting the students with the outer world: ‘‘El ritmo se hacı́a más
vivo al final. Romero alzaba la cara, como para que la música al-
canzara las cumbres heladas donde serı́a removida por los vientos;
mientras nosotros sentı́amos que a través de la música el mundo se
nos acercaba de nuevo, otra vez feliz’’ (RP, 134) [The rhythm grew
more rapid at the end. Romero threw back his head, as if to send
the music up to the frosty mountain peaks, where it would be car-
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ried off by the wind; we felt that through the music the world was
coming back to us once more, its happiness restored (DR, 125)].
Even the instruments of the military band, commonly associated
with popular mestizo culture, have the power to enchant.35 Unlike
Andean instruments, they are shown to have a direct relationship to
the sun:
En esa plaza caldeada, el saxofón tan intensamente plateado, cantaba

como si fuera el heraldo del sol; sı́, porque ningún instrumento que vi
en los pueblos de los Andes, ningún instrumento que mestizos e indios
fabrican tiene relación con el sol. Son como la nieve, como la luz noc-
turna, como la voz del agua, del viento o de los seres humanos. Sólo ese
canto de los saxofones y de las trompetas metálicas que los soldados
elevaban jubilosamente, me parecı́a que iba al sol y venı́a de él (RP,
169).
[In that scorching plaza, the brightly silver-plated saxophone sang as if

it were the herald of the sun; truly, because none of the instruments I
have ever seen in the Andean towns, no instrument manufactured by
mestizos or Indians, has any relation to the sun. They are like snow, like
nocturnal light, like the voice of water, of the wind, or of human beings.
But the song of the saxophones and of the metal trumpets that the sol-
diers raised jubilantly seemed to go up to the sun and come back from
it.] (DR, 160)
The mestizo instruments are associated with the masculine side of

the upper realm, whereas indigenous instruments belong to the
night, the feminine side of that region. The music produced by both
serves as a mediator between the upper realm and this world.
The most politically potent forms of music are the huaynos sung
in the chicherı́as of Huanupata. Sung in the mother tongue, Que-
chua, within Arguedian narrative they are examples of Bakhtin’s
intentional hybridization, as they point to and unmask the speech of
authority.36 The insertion of the Quechua language in the novel, its
juxtaposition with Western literary language in a Western literary
form, and the specific questioning of authority in the lyrics of the
song, subvert dominant discourse and offer an alternative to the
same. Furthermore, as a mestizo art form, these huaynos are a point
of connection between the white and indigenous worlds (an all-
important bridge), and their effect on the people of Abancay is
highlighted throughout the novel. A prime example is that of a
huayno sung by a mestiza woman in a chicherı́a, shortly after the
uprising. In the song, the woman narrates the failure of the soldiers
to capture doña Felipa. Performed in front of a group of soldiers,
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the music provokes a reaction, but not what one would expect:
‘‘Uno de los soldados pretendió levantarse. No era la indignación lo
que se reflejaba en sus ojos, sino el destello que el golpe súbito del
ritmo enciende en los bailarines’’ (RP, 185) [One of the soldiers
attempted to stand up. Although his eyes did not reflect indignation,
they flashed like those of a dancer who hears an unexpected quick-
ening of tempo (DR, 176)]. It is the rhythm, not the words, the se-
miotic element, not the symbolic, that incites the soldier. Ernesto
notes the resemblance of the music to a song played in his child-
hood village to celebrate the arrival of water and refers to the
huayno as ‘‘esa especie de himno que parecı́a llegado de las aguas
del Pachachaca’’ (RP, 186) [that hymnlike song which seemed to
have come all the way from the waters of the Pachachaca (DR,
176)]. The similarity of the song to water highlights its rootedness
in the semiotic.
The song provokes the soldier into a carnivalesque dance, which
is highlighted and given form by don Jesús, a demented blond,
blue-eyed Quechua speaker (a ‘‘white’’ mestizo), companion of a
kimichu who is passing through town.37 Don Jesús’s eyes ‘‘tenı́an,
otra vez, esa luz clara y profunda, insondable. Comprendı́ que yo
no existı́a ya para él en ese momento. Miraba al soldado como si
fuera no el soldado quien danzaba, sino su propia alma despren-
dida, la del cantor de la Virgen de Cocharcas’’ (RP, 186) [once
more . . . held that transparent, deep, unfathomable light. I realized
that at that moment I no longer existed for him. He gazed at the
soldier as if it were not the soldier who danced, but instead his own
disembodied soul, that of the singer of Our Lady of Cocharcas (DR,
177)]. It is interesting how the music and the demented man bring
the soldier, an individual who has been drawn from the popular
classes to become a representative of the dominant, or symbolic,
world, back into the semiotic. A strong, spontaneous triangle forms
among the soldier-dancer, the female singer, and the musician play-
ing the tune. An irresistible, intangible force moves them all into
the creation of the music; indeed, the huayno finds its source in the
body of the dancer:
El maestro Oblitas agitaba, al parecer, el ritmo de la danza; no miraba

al baiları́n; pero yo sabı́a que ası́, con la cabeza agachada, no solo lo
seguı́a sino que se prendı́a de él, que sus manos eran guiadas por los
saltos del soldado, por el movimiento de su cuerpo; que ambos estaban
impulsados por la misma fuerza. La muchacha improvisaba ya la letra
de la danza; ella, como el baiları́n y el músico, estaba igualmente lan-
zada a lo desconocido. (RP, 186)
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[Maestro Oblitas was speeding up the tempo of the danza, it seemed.

He did not look at the man dancing; but I knew that even with his head
bent forward not only did he follow the dancer, but it was even as if he
were somehow attached to him, as if his hands were guided by the sol-
dier’s leaps and by movements of his body, that both were propelled by
the same force. By now the girl was improvising new words to the song;
like the dancer and the musician, she was equally launched forth into
the unknown.] (DR, 177)
The women stops singing and

luego quedaron solos el arpista y el soldado. El maestro Oblitas empezó
a variar la melodı́a y los ritmos. No podı́amos saber de quién nacı́a, en
quién comenzaba el cambio de los ritmos, si del soldado o del arpista.
Pero no era de Abancay, ¡seguro! De ese valle angosto que empezaba
en el fuego e iba hasta la nieve, y que en su región más densa, era calu-
roso, con olor a bagazo; lleno de avispas, y de colonos mudos y llorique-
antes. (RP, 187)
[now only the harpist and the soldier were left. Maestro Oblitas began
to vary the tune and the rhythm. We could not tell where the change
originated, whether it was the soldier or the harpist who first changed
the rhythm. But surely whoever had done it was not from Abancay! Not
from that narrow valley which began in fire and went on up into the
snow, and which, in its lower depths, was hot, reeked of fermented cane
trash, and was full of wasps and mute, constantly weeping colonos.]
(DR, 177)
The symbolic, in the figures of two civil guards, enters to stop the
dance. They let the soldier go but take Oblitas prisoner. Yet even in
this scene of apparent oppression by the symbolic Law of the
Father, the semiotic breaks through, in the figure of don Jesús, who
begins to sing a religious hymn at the top of his lungs, ‘‘como si
estuviera en el interior de una iglesia o entre los escombros de una
aldea que fuera arrasada por alguna creciente’’ (RP, 188) [as if he
were in a church or in the midst of the debris of some village that
had been washed away by a flood (DR, 179)]. Furthermore, it is the
women who try to stop the soldiers and who cast judgment on the
male participants and observers, looking at them as if they were
pigs.
After the harpist is taken away, don Jesús grabs the harp, much
like La Opa went after doña Felipa’s shawl. He plays the same tune,
awkwardly, missing chords, ‘‘pero la melodı́a brotaba de las cuer-
das de alambre como un surtidor de fuego. El rostro del peregrino,
la frente, estaban rojos; sus barbas parecı́an tener luz; sus ojos eran
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como los de un gavilán, por la hondura. Pero ninguna bestia ino-
cente es capaz de dar a su mirada ese arrebato contagioso, más intri-
cado y penetrante que todas las luces y sombras del mundo’’ (RP,
189) [but the melody flowed from the steel strings like a fountain
of fire. The pilgrim’s face and forehead were red; his beard seemed
to be alight; his eyes were as deep as a hawk’s. But no innocent
creature is capable of putting such contagious rapture into his look,
more intricate and penetrating than all the lights and shadows of the
world (DR, 179)]. Ernesto is incited to dance to this music, to imi-
tate the scissor dancers he had seen in his travels with his father,
‘‘ante un público espantado que necesitaba algo sorprendente, que
lo sacudiera, que le devolviera su alma’’ (RP, 189) [before a fright-
ened audience who needed something startling to shake them up,
restore their souls (DR, 190)]. So the semiotic retakes the scene and
gives the people their soul. In this scene, the chicherı́a becomes
Bhabha’s ‘‘third space.’’ Within the space of the chicherı́a and to
the rhythm of the huayno music, cultural borders are blurred; peo-
ple cross over, transgress their imposed boundaries. We truly see a
‘‘people’’ as Arguedas envisioned them, in dynamic interaction
with each other, an intricate cultural dance, which is played out in
daily life in the Peruvian Andes.
It is at this moment that Ernesto openly expresses his desire to
touch the people, to reach an audience and participate in its trans-
formation, to return to the people their soul. He would do so by
means of a traditional dance, a popular mestizo art form, performed
to mestizo music. Perhaps the greatest achievement of Los rı́os pro-
fundos is this projection of a new national subject, the mestizo artist
or intellectual, who is able to unite the heterogeneous elements of
the nation without annihilating them (that is, without homogenizing
the nation), who is able to move between and bring together the
Western and indigenous elements, culture and nature, the masculine
and the feminine. In accordance with the Andean concept of com-
plementarity, only through the acceptance and interplay of oppo-
sites can a subject, or a nation, function properly. In many ways
it is the role of the artist/intellectual to assist and encourage this
process.
Ernesto as a narrator is constantly juxtaposing opposites and try-
ing to find the way to bring them onto a level playing ground. It
has already been shown how he contrasts two opposing ends of the
Andean social scale, the landowner, in the figure of the Viejo, and
the pongo. In many ways it can be said that the balance the narrator
offers is in the form of the narrator’s father and the narrator himself,
who hold characteristics of both the empowered landholding class
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and the most disenfranchised of the Indians. As cultural mestizos,

they mediate between and incorporate elements of the two opposing
poles, creating a viable alternative to existing national subjects. To a
certain extent, they embody the continuum that makes up Peruvian
society. Ernesto’s father is an ambivalent, ambiguous character, at
once the ‘‘imaginary father,’’ from whom (along with the mother)
love must come, according to Kristeva, and yet he is also the Law
of the Father. He, along with Ernesto, shows a constant movement
between the state and the community, between the Andean-Spanish
and indigenous worlds, between the symbolic and the semiotic.
This ambivalence is further shown in Ernesto’s appreciation of
both nature and culture, which, in accordance with Andean tradi-
tion, he sees not as conflicting but rather as complementary forces.
When contemplating the bridge over the Pachachaca River, built by
the Spaniards, Ernesto notes:
Tiene dos ojos altos, sostenidos por bases de cal y canto, tan poderosos
como el rı́o. Los contrafuertes que canalizan las aguas están prendidos
en las rocas, y obligan al rı́o a marchar bullendo, doblándose en corrien-
tes forzadas. Sobre las columnas de los arcos, el rı́o choca y se parte; se
eleva el agua lamiendo el muro, pretendiendo escalarlo, y se lanza luego
en los ojos del puente. Al atardecer, el agua que salta de las columnas,
forma arco iris fugaces que giran con el viento. (RP, 68)
[Its two high arches are supported by pillars of stone and lime, as pow-
erful as the river. The abutments that canalize the waters are built upon
the rocks and oblige the river to go rushing and tumbling along through
the imposed channels. On the pillars of the arches, the river breaks and
divides; the water rises to lap at the wall, tries to climb it, and then
rushes headlong through the spans of the bridge. At dusk, the spray that
splashes from the columns forms fleeting rainbows that swirl in the
wind.] (DR, 62).
Here, the symbolic—the construction which is, ultimately, the

word: for Kristeva it is the intersection of meanings, not the site
of a fixed, single meaning—shapes, gives form to, and directs the
semiotic. Both elements are essential to the formation of a con-
sciousness; the bridge without the river has no meaning, whereas
the river without the bridge is almost impossible to negotiate.
The narrator continues: ‘‘Yo no sabı́a si amaba más al puente o al
rı́o. Pero ambos despejaban mi alma, la inundaban de fortaleza y
de heroicos sueños. Se borraban de mi mente todas las imágenes
plañideras, las dudas y los malos recuerdos’’ (RP, 68) [I didn’t
know if I loved the river or the bridge more. But both of them
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cleansed my soul, flooding it with courage and heroic dreams. All
of the mournful images, doubts, and evil memories were erased
from my mind (DR, 62–63)]. Here, through the symbolism of the
bridge and the river, the ideal of mestizaje takes form in the narra-
tion. Even so, it is a mestizaje that recognizes the superior energy
of the native element. Ernesto desires to be like the river, ‘‘como
sus aguas vencedoras’’ (RP, 69) [like its conquering waters (DR,
63)].
It is also Ernesto who recognizes the importance of the feminine
and the role women could play in uniting the country. Several such
incidents and their effect on Ernesto have already been discussed.
But one specific incident highlights the role of the intellectual as a
means of crossing cultures. When thinking of the young girls of
Abancay society, Ernesto notes the distance between himself and
them. Contemplating the daughter of the owner of an hacienda, he
asks, ‘‘¿Qué distancia habı́a entre su mundo y el mı́o? ¿Acaso la
misma que mediaba entre el mirador de cristales en que la vi y el
polvo de alfalfa y excremento donde pasé la noche atenaceado por
la danza de los insectos carnı́voros?’’ (RP, 80) [What distance lay
between her world and mine? Perhaps the same that there was be-
tween the glassed-in observatory in which I had seen her and the
dusty dung and alfalfa in which I had spent the night being flayed
alive by the dance of carnivorous insects? (DR, 71–72)]. But he rec-
ognizes that as an intellectual he enjoys privileged access to their
world, that through his words he could break through the real and
imaginary walls that divide them. Against his nature, the letter he
writes to Salvinia is written in a Westernized, modernista style. He
stops to think what he would write for an Indian girl, if she could
read. He begins in Quechua, and the narrative continues providing
a translation of the Quechua:
Escucha al picaflor esmeralda que te sigue; te ha de hablar de mı́; no
seas cruel, escúchale. Lleva fatigadas las pequeñas alas, no podrá volar
más; detente ya. Está cerca la piedra blanca donde descansan los viaje-
ros, espera allı́ y escúchale; oye su llanto; es sólo el mensajero de mi
joven corazón, te ha de hablar de mı́. Oye, hermosa, tus ojos como es-
trellas grandes, bella flor, no huyas más, detente! Una orden de los cie-
los te traigo: ¡te mandan ser mi tierna amante! (RP, 81–82)
[Listen to the emerald hummingbird who follows you; he shall speak to

you of me; do not be cruel, hear him. His little wings are tired, he can
fly no farther; pause a moment. The white stone where the travelers rest
is nearby; wait there and listen to him; hear his sobs; he is only the
messenger of my young heart; he shall speak to you of me. Listen, my
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lovely one, your eyes are like large stars; beautiful flower, do not flee
any more, halt! An order from the heavens I bring you; they command
you to be my tender lover!] (DR, 75)
Margot Beyersdorff notes that ‘‘if one rearranges the . . . short

phrases in the paragraph that constitute Ernesto’s short missive,
their origins in the Waynu genre become evident. . . . The brevity
of the majority of these phrases, their irregular length, and the lan-
guage itself indicate that Arguedas may have transposed the lyrics
of a popular song.’’38 Beyersdorff goes on to show the specific sym-
bolic elements of the song associated with the indigenous culture,
such as the use of the hummingbird as a mediator between the
(imagined) lovers, and the similarity of the love letter to a huayno
transcribed elsewhere in Los rı́os profundos. With the help of Bey-
ersdorff’s observations, the manner in which Arguedas founds his
narrative on the popular (which, in the case of this novel, is also the
projection of what he considers to be the ideal narrative for express-
ing Peruvian reality) becomes evident. With this brief look at the
process of narration for the budding hybrid intellectual, Ernesto
echoes within the narration what Arguedas realizes throughout the
text—the projection of an alternative literary discourse, which may
better express the indigenous element of Peruvian culture, a mes-
tizo literary discourse.
As usual, in order to explain himself better, to better construct
himself as a viable alternative, the narrator models an already exist-
ing figure, the dominant Peruvian intellectual, in the characters of
Valle and his friends. Valle is the only student in the school who
does not speak Quechua; his knowledge is based on readings of the
modernistas Rubén Darı́o and José Santos Chocano, and Western
philosophy, his prized possession being a book by Schopenhauer.
He is described as an atheist, a materialist, and a person of ‘‘ency-
clopedic’’ culture. He is very conscious of the racial conflicts in
Peru, referring to an anticipated fight between Ernesto and another
student, Rondinel, as ‘‘un nuevo duelo de las razas’’ (RP, 86) [a new
duel between the races (DR, 79)]. Like other Peruvian intellectuals,
his incorporation of indigenous culture is decorative; he names the
special knot he invents for his tie with a Quechua word, ‘‘K’ompo.’’
With the arrival of students from the coast, Valle is able to create
an entire group of like intellectuals who, like him, are meticulous
in their dress and mannerisms. Says Ernesto of the group, ‘‘las dis-
cusiones y peroratas que armaban en ese alto escenario me daban
la impresión de ficticias, de exageradas’’ (RP, 210) [the debates and
orations they produced on that lofty stage seemed false and stilted
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to me (DR, 200)], and he notes the superior attitude they take with
respect to the other students. These young men represent an incipi-
ent version of the educated class of Peruvian society Arguedas re-
fers to when he states in an essay, ‘‘A deeply-rooted Europeanizing
prejudice, inculcated from childhood, fruit of a very old and unin-
terrupted tradition, is diluted in the marrow of the man born in Pe-
ruvian cities, especially in Lima. For this reason he does not know
the country, and when he visits it, especially he who is formed in
the capital, he passes through the awesome landscapes of Peru’s
multiple geographies more as an observer than as a countryman.’’39
He compares this type of national subject with its counterpart in
Mexico, again, a country that Arguedas sees as having better com-
pleted the process of mestizaje. For Arguedas, ‘‘the Mexican artist
has a clear conscience for searching for, contemplating, and listen-
ing to the multiple voices of the men of his land. An immense pride
in its indigenous past aids him profoundly in this search and no
cause impedes him from drinking deeply and legitimately from the
nurturing fountain of the beauty of its geography.’’40 Ernesto is the
projection of this type of artist in Peru, one who is nurtured by and
grounded in the indigenous element of the country, one who is cul-
turally mestizo in his ability to move among and within the differ-
ent societies and spaces that make up the country.41
Thus, Los rı́os profundos is first and foremost a desire to insert
into the national imaginary previously silenced sectors of Peru and
the projection of the type of intellectual who might do so. In that
sense, it is the portrait of a new national subject, with roots in indig-
enous culture, who, to a great extent through the feminine (and
male-female complementarity), is able to mediate the many sectors
which make up Peru and bring them to a territory traditionally dom-
inated by one sector: the cosmopolitan, Europeanizing, literary
world of the ‘‘white,’’ intellectual classes. The end of the novel
shows Ernesto taking off towards the mountains, in a blind search
for his errant father. This wandering, this search, this oscillation be-
tween worlds and systems, marks the task of the mestizo-intellec-
tual; an ‘‘unhomely’’ work in that this intellectual will never (and,
perhaps, should never) find a fixed home, but must rather be con-
stantly underlining the impossibility of a fixed space of narration
within his society. Arguedas’s next novel, Todas las sangres, is,
however, to some extent an attempt to find a sort of home, to project
a new mestizo community to accommodate the new national sub-
ject(s) set forth in Arguedas’s narrative.
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4
The Feminine in the Totalizing Vision
of Todas las sangres
BETWEEN LOS RÍOS PROFUNDOS AND ARGUEDAS’S NEXT MAJOR

novel, Todas las sangres, the author publishes one other novel, El
Sexto (to be discussed in chapter 5) and two short stories, ‘‘La
agonı́a de Rasu-Ñiti’’ (The Agony of Rasu-Ñiti, 1962) and ‘‘El For-
astero’’ (The foreigner, 1964). These three works all deal with
themes that are by this time well established in Arguedian narrative.
El Sexto is a semiautobiographical work that explores diverse politi-
cal responses to the national situation and that continues Argue-
das’s concern for the narrative development of space and subject
(see chapter 5). ‘‘La agonı́a de Rasu-Ñiti’’ portrays the last dance
of a dying scissor dancer and gives the reader and intimate view
into Quechua culture. ‘‘El forastero,’’ set in Guatemala, narrates an
encounter between a recently arrived Peruvian and a local prostitute
and reiterates both the themes of solitude and foreigness and the
importance of the male-female relationship in their amelioration. In
all three, the question of the feminine, in all its manifestations in
Arguedian literature, is of central importance. Before moving on to
a discussion of Todas las sangres, I wish to briefly discuss the first
short story, ‘‘La agonı́a de Rasu-Ñiti,’’ a product of the hybrid intel-
lectual that in many ways directly opposes the conclusions of Ar-
guedas’s most ambitious novel.
‘‘La agonı́a de Rasu-Ñiti’’ recounts the performance of Rasu-Ñiti
(he who crushes snow), a scissor dancer who, in his home and sur-
rounded by friends and family, performs his last dance before dying
and transferring his spirit to his apprentice, Atok’sakuy (he who
tires the fox). The compact story contains many of the traits already
identified in Arguedas’s narrative. First, there is the ethnographer-
like narrator, who through his first-hand experience explains for the
Spanish-speaking reader different aspects of the scene: Rasu-Ñiti’s
clothing, the setup of an indigenous home, the actions of the scissor
dancer, and the beliefs of Andean culture. While apparently omni-
142
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4: THE FEMININE IN THE TOTALIZING VISION 143
scient and objective, the narrator often intervenes in the scene, cast-
ing judgments, asking questions, and explaining events. In this way,
the narrator is like the one of Yawar Fiesta, an insider in Andean
culture, or even the first-person narrator of Los rı́os profundos, a
mediator between cultures, and prefigures that of Todas las sangres,
removed and yet present.
The importance of the feminine is expressed in several ways in
the story, beginning with the emphasis on the intimate connection
of nature, music, and the human spirit. The music being played by
the musicians is repeatedly said to spring from the dancer’s body.
As Rasu-Ñiti is dancing, a guinea pig, a typical food source in the
Andes, leaves his hole in the corner of the room, observes the scene,
and enters another hole, whistling (in this way proffering his own
evaluation of events) before disappearing. The narrator relates that
the dancer notices the guinea pig and changes the rhythm of his
dance, which in turn provokes a change in the music. This melody
eventually signals the death of the dancer, completing a chain of
mutual influence that began with the guinea pig’s judgment and
whistle.
The narrator further notes the intimate connection between the
spirit of the dancer and the spirits that live in nature. The death
dance and its conclusion become a symbol of not the death, but the
strength and life of the Quechua culture, the survival of which is to
a great extent a result of this connection. The narrator tells us, ‘‘el
genio del dansak’ depende de quién vive en él: ¿el ‘espı́ritu’ de una
montaña (Wamani); de un precipicio cuyo silencio es transparente;
de una cueva de la que salen toros de oro y ‘condenados’ en andas
de fuego?’’ [the genius of the dancer depends on who lives in him:
The ‘spirit’ of the Wamani mountain? A precipice whose silence is
transparent? A cave from which golden bulls and ‘‘condemned peo-
ple’’ come out through flames of fire?] (OC1, 206). Rasu-Ñiti’s
sprit is the Wamani, who signals the man’s impending death by
alighting on his body in the form of a condor, visible only to those
strong enough to see it. His wife explains to their oldest daughter,
‘‘está tranquilo, oyendo todos los cielos; sentado sobre la cabeza de
tu padre. La muerte le hace oı́r todo. Lo que tú has padecido; lo que
has bailado; lo que más vas a sufrir’’ [He is calm, listening to all
of the heavens, sitting on your father’s head. Death lets him hear
everything. What you have suffered, what you have danced, what
else you will suffer] (OC1, 205). The daughter asks if the Wamani
has heard the gallop of the local hacienda owner’s horse, a refer-
ence to her having been raped by the man. Her father answers, ‘‘¡Sı́
oye! también lo que las patas de ese caballo han matado. La por-
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querı́a que ha salpicado sobre ti. Oye también el crecimiento de

nuestro dios que va a tragar los ojos de ese caballo. Del patrón no.
¡Sin el caballo él es excremento de borrego!’’ [Yes, he’s heard! He’s
also heard what the hooves of that horse have killed. The trash that
has been thrown on you. He hears too the growth of our god that
will swallow the eyes of that horse. Not of the boss. Without the
horse he is sheep’s excrement!] (OC1, 205). In his death, the old
man presages a Pachakutic, the moment when, according to An-
dean mythology, the Inkarrı́ (the dead Inca) will rise again and re-
store Incan rule, turning the world, which has been ‘‘upside down’’
since the conquest, ‘‘right side up.’’
In this sense, the story represents the triumph of the Quechua
people and their culture. As Rasu-Ñiti approaches his last moments,
he cries out, ‘‘El dios está creciendo. ¡Matará al caballo!’’ [The god
is growing. He will kill the horse!] (OC1, 207). When the old man
dies, Atok’sayku takes over, as his elder is reborn within him, and
the Wamani spirit transfers to the apprentice. The story ends not
with sadness at the loss of the great dancer but with joy over his
rebirth: ‘‘Por dansak’ el ojo no llora. Wamani es Wamani’’ [The eye
does not cry for the dancer. Wamani is Wamani] (OC1, 209). The
story displays great faith in the ability of the Quechua culture to
survive and continue despite adverse circumstances.
In her analysis of this short story, Sara Castro-Klarén observes
the similarity of Rasu-Ñiti’s dance to the colonial Taqui-Oncoy, or
‘‘dancing sickness,’’ a ritual of resistance through which prac-
titioners urged fellow indigenous people to reject Spanish religion
and culture. Castro-Klarén identifies four elements in the ritual:
dance, preaching, music, and ecstasy.1 Yet, Rita de Grandis com-
ments that in Rasu-Ñiti’s dance the second element, preaching, is
missing: she asserts, ‘‘seemingly, the power of the word has yielded
to the power of dance, music, and ecstasy.’’2 This observation takes
us back to the question of the semiotic versus the symbolic in Ar-
guedas’s work. The triumph of Quechua culture in this short narra-
tion is to a great extent realized through the semiotic: through Rasu-
Ñiti’s dance, by the music that originates in his body, and with his
ecstasy and the final transferal of his spirit to Atok’sakuy. The suc-
cess ultimately lies in the music that continues to play and in move-
ments of the younger man’s body: ‘‘Lurucha inventó los ritmos más
intricados, los más solemnes y vivos. ‘Atok’sayku’ los seguı́a, se
elevaban sus piernas, sus brazos, su pañuelo, sus espejos, su mon-
tera, todo en su sitio. Y nadie volaba como ese dansak’; dansak’
nacido’’ [Lurucha invented the most intricate, solemn, and lively
rhythms. ‘Atol’sayku’ followed them, raising his legs, his arms, his
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handkerchief, his mirrors, his cap, everything in its place. And no
one flew like that dancer, a born dancer] (OC1, 209).
Through this short narration, Arguedas gives the reader an inti-
mate view into Quechua culture unlike others presented in his nar-
rative. Except for the references to the gamonal, who is symbolically
defeated in the narrative, the dominant culture has no place in this
text. It is, again, the ethnographer-narrator who serves as the trans-
lator and bridge between cultures, but his role here is very limited if
compared to previous narrative. In this sense, the text is indigenous-
driven, filled with the voices of the indigenous characters, who are
the witnesses and principal interpreters of the narrated events. The
feminine, as indigenous culture, as music and dance, and as the se-
miotic, has a significant presence. Thus, the narration stands in con-
trast to Todas las sangres, whose discourse, principally character
dialogue, often seems unable to sustain its connection with the fem-
inine in the face of the force of dominant discourse. As opposed to
the triumphant affirmation of Quechua culture in the short story,
the novel ends with an ambiguous appraisal of the future of Andean
culture in the face of a modernizing Peru. This chapter will examine
Todas las sanges, the work through which Arguedas endeavored to
create his most complete portrait of Peru, through the construction
of masculinity and the workings of the feminine in the novel. It is
clear that while Arguedas is putting forth the feminine as a means
through which to create an alternative, Andean, modernity for Peru,
he is also realizing the impossibility of his vision because it is con-
fronted by a Peru that is modernizing under transnational forces. In
this sense, the work stands as a link between the novels of the Sierra
and the narrative set on the coast, which will be discussed in the
following section of this study.
Todas las sangres
Todas las sangres is an attempt to modernize a highland region,

to show both the effects of that endeavor on local inhabitants and
an alternative to that effort, which is lead by entities that do not
have the best interests of the Sierra in mind. As Néstor Garcı́a Can-
clini argues in his fundamental work, Hybrid Cultures: Strategies
for Entering and Leaving Modernity, twentieth-century Latin
America is characterized by ‘‘an exuberant modernism with a de-
ficient modernity.’’3 He writes: ‘‘Modernization with restricted
expansion of the market, democratization of minorities, renewal of
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ideas but with low effectiveness in social processes—the disparit-

ies between modernism and modernization are useful to the domi-
nant classes in preserving their hegemony, and at times in not
having to worry about justifying it, in order simply to be dominant
classes.’’4 While Garcı́a Canclini examines the cultural results and
manifestations (patrimony) of what he terms the ‘‘multitemporal
heterogeneity’’ of Latin American countries, in this novel Ar-
guedas examines the community, or social, implications of the
contradictions between the traditional and the modern and the
rather painful quest to reconcile the two. Arguedas resists a mod-
ernization that favors the dominant classes and, indeed, portrays
such ‘‘progress’’ as damaging for all, but especially for the high-
lands. Alongside his portrayal of a dangerous modernizing project
that ultimately ‘‘sells out’’ Peru as a whole, in Todas las sangres
Arguedas presents alternatives, sources of renovation and, yes,
modernization, that stem from the Andean world. Again, in this
portrayal Arguedas criticizes white and masculine elements for
their self-interest and for their cowardice, creates strong female
characters who are instrumental in opposing the dominant modern-
izing project and in generating alternatives, and portrays another
new national subject, the cultural mestizo, who is able to bridge
the ‘‘multitemporal’’ and multicultural heterogeneities that charac-
terize Peru.
Again, in this endeavor, Arguedas sets up a series of oppositions,
those that comprise the Peruvian highlands at the time he is writing:
ruling ‘‘whites’’/indigenous leaders, Indian workers/mestizos,
‘‘whites’’/mestizos, the colonial town of San Pedro/the indigenous
community of Lahuaymarca, prosperous comuneros/impoverished
comuneros, capitalism/communism, the Sierra/the coast, tradition/
modernity, etc. Due to the ambitious goal of the novel, to represent
‘‘all the bloods,’’ all the social components of the Peruvian nation,
and especially of the highlands, each of the factors comes into con-
tact and struggles with the others, giving a dialogic interplay of
voices and characters more varied than in any of his previous narra-
tive, at least on a thematic level.5 As before, in this novel Arguedas
endeavors to project a means of confronting the dominant fiction
within the region, of reconciling its opposing forces, and, as before,
this effort can be appreciated through the narrative treatment of
feminine.
Once more, women in this novel are given the role of opposing
the dominant fiction. As will be shown, the serrano men portrayed
in the work are largely weak, ineffectual, stagnant beings. They
have submitted to a dominant fiction that is antiquated or that pre-
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vents the development of the region. As well, they are shown to be
more concerned with their pride as a class than with the material
welfare of their community. Women, on the other hand, take an ac-
tive role in addressing the problems of the region. They are vibrant,
active, and committed to the betterment of their community. These
characteristics link them to the members of the modernizing indige-
nous community in the region, Lahuaymarca, put forth in the novel
as a model to be contrasted with San Pedro, the decaying town of
the local aristocracy. However, despite these strong feminine (in-
digenous and women) characters, the novel is unable to appropriate
the feminine as fully as it did in Los rı́os profundos. Owing to a
preference for the realist mode of narration in the novel, and, per-
haps, the challenges of presenting ‘‘all the bloods’’ of Peru, the nar-
rative investment in the feminine is, while attempted, often
frustrated, and much of the importance of the feminine remains on
the level of action and character. Women, as a result of what Ar-
guedas seems to find their more pure nature, join the Indians as the
spokespeople of his national vision.
The novel looks primarily at the decline of the hacendera society
and in particular the decay of the last family of ‘‘grandes señores’’
in a town in the Sierra, San Pedro de Lahuaymarca. The Aragón de
Peralta family consists of two brothers, the eldest, Fermı́n, who de-
sires to modernize the area, and Bruno, who represents that which
remains of the feudal-like world of the hacienda. Through his proj-
ect of building a mine, Fermı́n seeks to bring renewed prosperity to
the town, as well as to his family. This project attracts all sectors of
Peruvian society: the indigenous peoples—colonos, belonging to
the hacienda, comuneros, from self-sufficient communities, and in-
dependent Indians—Andean mestizos, whites from the highlands
and the coast, and foreigners, who do not enter the narrative directly
but who are ever-present in the form of the Consorcio Wisther-
Bozart, the company that finances and eventually takes over the
mine. The novel ends with an indigenous rebellion and (unsuccess-
ful) attempt to form a new community based on the indigenous cul-
ture and realized through a woman’s leadership. The disintegration
and fragmentation of Peruvian society is highlighted throughout the
work. The vision that remains of Peru in Todas las sangres is one
of a weak, dismembered country; in fact, the novel questions
whether the Peruvian territory and its people actually constitute a
‘‘nation,’’ as a sociopolitical unit with shared values and goals.6
As Cornejo Polar notes, ‘‘Todas las sangres is created, once
again, with faith in the construction of a new society. . . . The com-
position of the novel files the sharpest edges of Arguedas’s personal
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contradiction and rises up as a testimony to the painful and heroic

gestation of a new world.’’7 The novel becomes both a narrative re-
construction of Peruvian reality at the time Arguedas is writing and
the projection of an alternative to that reality. Specifically, it looks
at the Sierra and its response to Peru’s movement towards moder-
nity; that is, the novel explores both the threat and the promise that
the Sierra’s integration into the modern world brings.
The arrival of the Spaniards in the Andean region meant the in-
troduction of a feudal-like system of exploiting the lands. In the
beginning, the silver mines were the primary source of economic
activity in the Sierra, but once they were exhausted, the economy of
the region came to be centered on the agricultural activity of large
haciendas, headed by Spanish werak’ochas, fundamentally feudal
lords, and worked by indigenous colonos. This system did not col-
lapse, but was rather strengthened by the region’s independence
from Spain. As the narrator of Todas las sangres explains, ‘‘Desde
la república, cada hacendado era un rey español. Ellos dictaban las
leyes y la ley se cumplı́a únicamente en lo que al señor le convenı́a’’
[Since the founding of the Republic, every hacienda owner was a
Spanish king. They dictated laws and the law followed only what
benefitted the landowner.]8 As Arguedas noted in an article, the
geographical isolation of the regions during colonial times had al-
lowed the Quechua (Serrano) community to strengthen, as it
formed its own (hybrid) traditions, institutions, dances, songs, liter-
ature, and religious practices.9 While Spanish may have been the
official language, Quechua served as the cohesive bond, the lan-
guage with which the masters spoke to the indigenous servants and
which infiltrated the Spanish language on many levels.
Meanwhile, on the coast, Peruvians entered the industrial era,
traded and communicated with the rest of the world, and, in the
twentieth century, prepared to take part in the modern era. The geo-
graphic isolation of the Sierra allowed for an increasingly wide gap
to develop between the two Perus in terms of economic develop-
ment and in terms of culture: the coast became increasingly more
developed industrially and westward-looking culturally; the Sierra
remained agriculturally bound and maintained a hybrid colonial
Spanish-indigenous culture. But the arrival of modernization meant
improved communication, and thus greater conflict, between the
two regions. The expanded activity of capitalism worldwide as well
as on the Peruvian coast sent costeños and foreigners to the Peru-
vian Sierra in search of new regions to exploit. The entry of the
modern world into the Sierra, which Arguedas describes as a ‘‘sec-
ond invasion,’’ brought new conflict, upheaval, and diverse reac-
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tions to that change: ‘‘la nueva invasión empieza a corroer las bases
de esa especie de unidad . . . antigua’’ [the new invasion began to
eat away at the foundations of this sort of ancient unity].10 It is this
invasion of new values that Arguedas paints in Todas las sangres.
As Silvia Spitta puts it, ‘‘Arguedas’s characters and narrators are all
in one way or another engaged in radical change in a radically
changing world.’’11
Arguedas cites two reactions to this process among the governing
class of the Sierra: first, the traditionalist, which held tightly to the
preceding system; second, the modernizing, in which the Quechua
culture and the colonial Andean culture are fused in the minds of
the modernizers, in such a way that both come to represent a shame-
ful past.12 He also notes two separate reactions to the process of
entering modernity on the part of the indigenous communities.
Those that had lands and money took advantage of economic op-
portunities and began to find opportunities for growth and develop-
ment. The poor communities disintegrated as their members were
forced to immigrate to Lima in search of work, and ‘‘the coopera-
tive ways of working, family organization, the entire colonial struc-
ture disappears, converting the human group into chaos: without
activity, without festivals, without land.’’13 These reactions are rep-
resented in Todas las sangres: the traditionalist in the form of don
Bruno and other vecinos; the modernizing in don Fermı́n, the Con-
sorcio; the wealthy indigenous community in Lahuaymarca; and
the poor, in the disintegrating indigenous community in Paray-
bamba.
The conflict between the Sierra and the coast is highlighted in
several ways throughout the novel. The Concorcio’s representative
at the mine, Hernán Cabrejos, a costeño and emblem of Western
capitalism, is a ruthless, self-serving man. As he clearly states, ‘‘no
amo al Perú’’ [I don’t love Peru] (TS, 157), and his actions are de-
signed to give a multinational (i.e., nation-less) company dominion
over Peru and its resources (natural and human). Lima is shown to
be a singularly unfriendly place, especially to those displaced ser-
ranos who must live there. In the novel, a recently returned
serrano-mestizo describes Lima in the following words:
Hey visto los chicos chiquitos comer la basura junto con los chanchos
en esa barriada que le dicen El Montón. Todavı́a huele en mi pulmón la
pestilencia. ¿Es gente, señor, esos que viven más triste que el gusano?
El gallinazo les pegaba a los chicos. ¡Carajo, yo soy cristiano! Me corrı́
de allı́. El rı́o, que dicen, apestaba; con el sol era pior y más pior con
ese aguacerito de la costa. No hay cielo en la capital que dicen. Me hey
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venido rápido. Los paisanos me atajaban. ‘¡Espera, espera . . . de aquı́

vamos a entrar adonde vive la gente!’, decı́an. ¡Carajo, mentira! Ahı́
están, escarbando lo que bota la gente.
[I have seen small children eat trash next to pigs in the neighborhood
they call El Montón. I can still smell the pestilence in my lungs. Are
these people, sir, who live sadder than worms? The buzzards pecked at
the children. Damn, I’m a Christian!14 I left running. The river, they say,
stunk; with the sun it was worse and even worse with that rain on the
coast. There is no sky in the capital, they say. I came back fast. My
fellow country people stopped me, ‘‘Wait, wait . . . now we are going to
where there are people!’’ they said. A lie, dammit! There they were,
rummaging through the trash that the people threw out.] (TS, 95–96)
The dehumanized conditions in which the Serrano immigrants live

is a reflection of the view costeños have for the inhabitants of the
highlands and of the division that marks the country. In the end,
Lima and the coast consistently ignore the best interests of the
greater nation, understanding, again, that for Arguedas the ideal
Peru is one that embraces and incorporates its indigenous elements.
But the narrative of Todas las sangres repeatedly shows the diffi-
culty of such a project. In a society that refuses to recognize its mar-
ginalized elements, or which at least denies them political voice and
participation, the free interplay of oppositions so valued by the An-
dean indigenous world is almost impossible. The way the novel is
narratively developed reflects, on the one hand, the manner in
which marginalized people or cultures must struggle to speak in
Peru and, on the other, that it is impossible for them to be entirely
silenced.
The narrative techniques used to elaborate Todas las sangres are
in many ways different from those that mark Los rı́os profundos. In
Los rı́os profundos, as was seen, the narrator is the adult protago-
nist, a man who feels a profound connection with Quechua culture
and who becomes a projection of the cultural mestizo. Here, the
narrator is third-person omniscient, and, as Cornejo Polar notes, the
novel is dominated by dialogue among a wide variety of characters,
as if ‘‘all the bloods’’ were presenting their point of view. Accord-
ing to Cornejo Polar, there is no ‘‘unique narrative course that obeys
the dynamics of the narrator’s voice, but rather a plural discourse
that in every one of its branches, at times strictly parallel, postulates
a system of equally plural truths.’’15 The critic finds that this system
is the result of a desire for objectivity on the part of Arguedas, who
attempts to balance each scene or action by presenting it from mul-
tiple perspectives. And yet, as Cornejo Polar himself observes, from
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time to time the narrator does enter the narration, making a com-
ment or pronouncing a judgment upon a particular situation. It is at
these points that the reader perceives that underlying this seemingly
multicultural world is a decidedly indigenous Andean expression:
‘‘The Indian and Andean worlds define the perspective on the narra-
tor.’’16 I would add, again, the feminine to the list of affiliations.
The very dialogic structure of the novel mirrors the relationships
that mark the Peru Arguedas narrates. For this reason, often the
feminine element seems drowned or muffled, difficult to perceive.
If Los rı́os profundos presents the problem of the Andean mestizo
artist searching for a voice with which to express the Andean world,
Todas las sangres at times dramatizes this difficulty. By relying
heavily on dialogue, often only those allowed to ‘‘speak’’ in An-
dean/Peruvian society may speak in the novel. Indeed, masculine
members of the ruling class at times appear to take over the novel,
speaking and permitting or denying the right to speak. Yet, in keep-
ing with his greater project, Arguedas also creates a narrative space
for the marginalized elements, Indians and women. It is through
these subjects that he presents his vision, criticizing the state of
Peru and offering alternatives. These are the forces of mediation,
action, and progress, set in opposition to the masculine voices of
fragmentation, impotence, and stagnation. As Cornejo Polar says,
the narrator’s voice is rarely heard and his perspective given judi-
ciously. But when he does enter the narration, this must be exam-
ined in conjunction with the role of the narrator of Los rı́os
profundos; that is, here, as well, the narrator is a variation of the
Andean intellectual, seeking to narrate Andean reality for a cosmo-
politan, Spanish-speaking, primarily non-Andean public. Cornejo
Polar finds that narrator’s perspective is an Andean, indigenous
one. More importantly, for this study, it will be shown that through-
out the text the narrator enters the narration to identify with the
feminine, joining it, if not equating it, with the indigenous culture
in the utopian projections of the novel.
The Opening Scene: Setting the Stage

The beginning of the work, echoing that of Los rı́os profundos,
opens in another sort of hybrid displacing space, the churchyard of
the highland town of San Pedro de Lahuaymarca, with another
‘‘viejo,’’ don Andrés Aragón de Peralta, the elder member of the
prestigious landholding family. Fermı́n and Bruno’s father, don An-
drés, is the last representative of the old guard, the patriarch of the
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family that built the town, the church, and a large fortune. In this
opening scene, he is shown in complete decline: an alcoholic,
robbed of his lands by his sons and estranged from his also alco-
holic wife, and on the way to committing suicide. His death will
symbolize the end of the semifeudal system the Sierra has known
to that point.
The spatial setup of the opening scene, as well as the action por-
trayed, is revealing. The viejo climbs the bell tower of the town
church (that he at one point reminds the town is his), built by his
family, like most of the rest of the town. It is a holy day of celebra-
tion, and the church and its plaza are full of townspeople and local
villagers. Once at the top of the tower, the viejo looks toward the
‘‘mountain-protector’’ of the area, the location of the indigenous
god, and from the top of the house of the Western divinity, first
addresses the indigenous deity: ‘‘¡Yo te prefiero, Apukintu! Te han
robado flores’’ [I prefer you, Apukintu! They have stolen flowers
from you] (TS, 13), referring to the vast amounts of k’antu flowers
that had been brought to decorate the town.
From there, the congregation of the church begins to empty out
into the plaza. The narrator shows that all the different social
groups that make up the region are there, and that in their move-
ment they maintain a social and gender hierarchy. The old man re-
mains hidden until the appearance of his elder son, at which point
he makes his presence known by cursing first Fermı́n and then the
entire town. Due to his spatial positioning, his words take on a holy,
prophetic significance. The narrator notes, ‘‘se habı́a dicho que sus
discursos diarios de borracho ya no tenı́an efecto; que la gente
de los pueblos se habı́a cansado de escuchar las acusaciones y
maldiciones que lanzaba contra sus hijos, contra los jueces y los
curas. Sólo los niños le oı́an, al ‘Diablo Predicador’. Pero ahora
habı́a encontrado un nuevo púlpito’’ [it had been said that his daily
drunken speeches no longer had any effect, that the people of the
towns were tired of hearing his accusations and damnations against
his sons, the judges, and the priests. Only the children listened to
the ‘‘Devil Preacher.’’ But now he had found a new pulpit] (TS, 15).
Set in what is probably the highest point in the town, except for the
mountains he evokes, the viejo stands above his sons, who are cir-
cled by the curious vecinos and Indians and are therefore unable to
escape the words of their father.17 His speech reveals the betrayal
of his sons, the misdeeds of Western culture, and the depth to which
the indigenous culture has marked him. From his pulpit, the old
man preaches the past, the glory of his family, a metonymy of the
feudal-colonial system’s contribution to the Sierra: the introduction
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of Christianity and of the feudal system of working the land. Yet,
he also reveals the indigenous contribution to the world of the Si-
erra, the transculturation that has resulted not only in Christian In-
dian peasants, but also Quechua-speaking landlords of Spanish
descent who share certain indigenous customs and religious beliefs.
He ends his rampage with the claim that his sons have made him
‘‘Indian,’’ referring to their robbing him of his lands and of those
things he and his ancestors created, as the Spanish did to the indige-
nous peoples upon their arrival to the Americas.
In this way, the opening monologue raises several questions that
will be central to the remainder of the novel. First, there is the ques-
tion of land. The members of the ruling classes are judged by their
possession of land; many take pride in their refusal to sell lands to
don Fermı́n, despite the extreme poverty in which they live. Fur-
thermore, land serves as a means of granting social position; a mes-
tizo, or even a pongo, as will be shown, may become a werak’ocha
by gaining possession of land, just as a ‘‘white’’ man might lose his
social (and racial) status by losing his land.
Second, there is the question of religion. Throughout the novel
there is a constant juxtaposition of the ‘‘Dios de la iglesia’’ and the
indigenous deities. From the beginning, the Christian Church is
shown as something less than divine and often subordinate to the
interests of the local landlords. Don Andrés speaks to the parish
priest: ‘‘¿Por qué no exprimes flores de k’antu hasta llenar un lava-
torio de sangre, y bañas con ella todas las noches la piedra de la
casa cural? . . . Obedece la receta de los layk’as’’ [Why don’t you
squeeze the k’antu flowers until you fill a sink with blood and with
it wash the stone of the curate every night? . . . Obey the orders of
the layk’as] (TS, 15–16). Through his admonishments, don Andrés
questions Christianity’s success in the Andean world. He stresses
that the church and its elements were made from human hands,
under obviously exploitative working conditions and in the interest
of the ruling classes. Looming behind him throughout the speech
(and, again, the first deity evoked in his discourse) is the Apukintu,
the indigenous mountain god that was neither made by, nor is vul-
nerable to, human hands.18 In proposing that the priest use the juice
of the k’antu flowers to cleanse his house, the old man is suggesting
that it is Andean culture and religion that may cleanse the Church
(or the world). In an ironic twist he applies the epithet anti-Christ
to the priest, the representative of the Church, and demands that the
man kneel and cry, a command often given by priests to the Indi-
ans, as was seen in Los rı́os profundos.
Furthermore, there is the question of the brothers themselves.
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The old man ‘‘preaches’’ to Bruno: ‘‘el anticristo es el cura; aclare-

mos, . . . tú, Bruno, sólo eres Caı́n y parricida; tu hermano es peor
que tú. ¡ . . . Tú Fermı́n, el peor, el primogénito, aquı́ en los infiernos
y en la porquerı́a!’’ [the anti-Christ in the priest; let’s be clear, . . .
you, Bruno, are only Cain and parricide; your brother is worse than
you. . . . You, Fermı́n, the worst, the first-born, here in the inferno
and the the trash!] (TS, 16). This speech, which is now taking on
the rhythm of a prayer, reveals the betrayal and deceit of the two
brothers between themselves and with their past. Again, they can
be seen as a metonymy of the social elements in the Peruvian Sierra
that foster the division that characterizes the area and prevent it
from forming a productive means of moving into modernity. Here,
both brothers are damned; neither tradition nor the modernizing
stance is working properly.
After this initial cursing of the most influential people of the
town, the narrator informs the reader, in a single and significant
sentence, that the viejo stopped speaking Spanish. He fully em-
braces the indigenous side of his culture to continue his discourse.19
He then proclaims his last will and testament, that all of his belong-
ings be given to the Indians and the ‘‘poor gentlemen.’’ After this
announcement he rings the bells, the sound highlighting the end of
his speech, and descends the tower.20 Toward the bottom of the
stairs he is helped by doña Adelaida, a female town leader, whose
importance will be discussed later. For the moment, her interven-
tion, as a female character, serves to highlight the moral superiority
Arguedas accords to women on many occasions throughout his nar-
rative.
The crowd breaks up at this point, and the stagnation that had
surrounded the old man’s speech turns to motion, but it is a divided
movement that again marks the social hierarchy of the town. As the
narrator follows the group through the town, he is able to comment
further on aspects of the town life that lay the groundwork for the
rest of the novel. He notes first the manner in which the other seño-
res, the great majority of them impoverished in part through the
actions of the Aragón de Peralta family, can hardly contain their
malicious delight as they take leave of the brothers. Afterward, the
brothers are alone in the atrium of the church, stained blood-red by
the flowers the children had crushed there. As they walk off to-
gether, the eyes of the townspeople follow, collectively damning
the two.
The narration then returns to the father as he makes his way
home. He passes the orchard of the churchyard, followed by, again
in hierarchical order, mestizos, Indian leaders, comuneros, then
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children. The viejo stops outside the door to his house and contin-
ues preaching. The comparisons to Christ are obvious, as his fol-
lowers surround him, and the old man speaks to those less
privileged, to mestizos, Indians, and children. He is shown to be
imposing yet tender. What he preaches, however, is not forgiveness
but rather revenge. This call for vengeance foreshadows the final
scenes of the novel, when the marginal elements do take arms and
fight against their oppressors.
From the point the old man enters his bedroom to the end of this
narrative section, the narration highlights his character and his im-
pending suicide using points of focus strongly linked to the indige-
nous world:
se escuchó con gran claridad el canto de un gorrión. Por las roturas del
cielo raso, se filtró el canto a la penumbra. Volvió a cantar el pájaro,
con gran alegrı́a; su voz hizo revivir las alas amarillas del papagayo, y
llevó al dormitorio del anciano el halito feliz del campo, la imagen de
las pequeñas casas del pueblo y de los bosques ralos donde las flores de
k’antu ardı́an a esa hora.
[The song of a sparrow was clearly heard. Through the cracks of the
clear sky, the song filtered through to the penumbra. The bird sang
again, with great happiness; its voice woke the yellow wings of the par-
rot and carried to the bedroom of the old man the happy breath of the
fields, the image of the small houses of the town, and the sparse forests
where the k’antu flowers were burning.] (TS, 20)
Finally, as he had with the priest, don Andrés commands his sons
to act like Indians, to appropriate the custom of crying to wash
away their sins.
There is a series of final instructions to Anto, don Andres’s
pongo, then the section ends with a return to Andean nature and an
accumulation of Andean symbolism, in the present tense. The
change of tense indicates a break with the narration and the entry
of the narrator, who makes the Andean world a present reality for
the reader: ‘‘Las piedras lustrosas de los rı́os brillan, despiden a dis-
tancia el fuego del sol. En el mundo ası́ quemado, las manchas de
flor del k’antu aparecen como el pozo o lago de sangre del que
hablan los himnos de las corridas de toros, pozo de sangre al que
lanzan para ahogarse los cóndores desengañados’’ [The gleaming
rocks of the rivers shine, taking leave of the fire of the sun from a
distance. In the burnt world, the stains of the k’antu seem like the
well or lake of blood of which the bullfighting hymns speak, a well
of blood in which disillusioned condors drown themselves] (TS,
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22). Through his explanation of the Andean phenomenon, the nar-

rator makes explicit his audience: a Spanish-speaking reading pub-
lic. The narration to that point also has emphasized the presentation
of a highland town and society to this audience.
Again, in Todas las sangres, as in previous narrative, Arguedas
is seeking a way to construct or project a more complete vision of
the Andean world. In this endeavor, he finds many elements in dis-
cord: the ‘‘whites,’’ mestizos, and Indians; the Catholic church and
the indigenous spiritual world; modern and traditional societies. As
well, he finds a highland society unable to reconcile these disputing
elements during its painful entry into modernity. Todas las sangres
proposes an alternative means of entering modernity, and this pro-
posal stems from the feminine.
San Pedro de Lahuaymarca: The Role of the Masculine

The presentation of the masculine in Todas las sangres is closely
related to its portrayal in Los rı́os profundos. Indeed, the masculine
community and masculine interrelations seem to be the ‘‘real
world’’ extension of those depicted in the schoolyard of Abancay.
The relationships are highly hierarchized according to race and so-
cial status; they are very conflictive and often violent. Furthermore,
the male leaders of the town are disunited and ineffective, as op-
posed to the male leaders of the indigenous community, Lahuay-
marca. San Pedro is portrayed as a social entity bound in the
masculine, but in a highly decadent form of masculinity, one that
blocks and distorts effectual human relationships, one that impedes
the efficient functioning of the community, one that is based on the
antiquated, degenerate values that underlie the Andean feudal-colo-
nial system.
Two key masculine figures, Cabrejos and don Fermı́n, will be dis-
cussed later, but for the moment it is interesting to examine the ac-
tions and expressed beliefs of the town’s two principal social
groups: the (predominantly impoverished) vecinos and the mesti-
zos. In general, the members of the first group are shown to be inef-
fectual, impotent, and embracing a tradition that has long ceased to
be advantageous to them. The mestizos are portrayed as in a forma-
tive period, not yet able to form a cohesive community and still un-
certain of the values they wish to embrace.
At the first mention of the ruling class outside the presence of the
Aragón brothers, the narrator shows them in a cabildo, a town
meeting that includes the indigenous leaders (varayok’) of the
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town. The narration highlights the poverty of the vecinos: the
mayor, Don Ricardo, appears in his tattered wool suit and laments,
‘‘somos más pobres que los indios’’ [we are poorer than the Indians]
(TS, 55). Furthermore, unlike the Indians, these men are unable to
work together as a group. Fermı́n Aragón had been able to pull his
own family out of its impoverished situation by taking advantage
of his peers. In this meeting, the vecinos cannot agree upon a course
of action with regard to don Fermı́n’s mining project. When asked
by don Ricardo to refrain from selling more land to Fermı́n, the vec-
inos do not look at each other, but squirm nervously. In contrast,
the Indian leaders attending the meeting present a united front, pro-
claiming they will not sell, but rather buy land. Don Ricardo holds
them up as an example to his fellow vecinos: ‘‘Nosotros no hemos
de ser menos que los indios’’ [we should be less than the Indians]
(TS, 56).
Another vecino, El Gálico, retorts that they should not act like
the Indians, either. The narrator at this point focuses on the man’s
appearance; the black veins that run erratically across his face and
his disproportionate nose give him a grotesque, devilish look. He
continues: ‘‘tenemos la carretera y dos rivales: los Aragón de Pe-
ralta y los indios. . . . A ninguno de esos bandos les importa el
honor; los indios no lo han tenido, pues, desde que existen; los dos
hermanos maldecidos lo perdieron hace tiempo, el uno por fornica-
rio, el otro por ambicioso sin alma’’ [we have the highway and two
rivals: the Aragón de Peralta brothers and the Indians. . . . Neither
group cares about honor: the Indians because they haven’t had it,
well, ever; the two damned brothers lost it long ago, one for being
a fornicator, the other for being ambitious without a soul.] (TS, 56).
Here he is shown clearly to misinterpret their situation. The ene-
mies he identifies, for better or worse, are actually the most dy-
namic elements of the community: the highway brings modernity
and a new lifeline for the area; the Aragón de Peralta family is pro-
posing a means of reviving the local economy; and the Indians pro-
vide the workforce and energy necessary for the modernization of
the area. The value he most prizes—honor—a value that is tradi-
tionally based on the concept of purity of blood and social status, is
an antiquated one, which does nothing to better the vecinos’ situa-
tion. It is a woman, doña Adelaida, who disagrees with his assess-
ment of the situation, and there begins a discussion that is
interrupted by the departure of the Indian varayok’.
Again, in contrast to the vecinos, the Indians are portrayed as uni-
fied and dignified. They walk out quietly, making the requisite rev-
erences to their ‘‘superiors’’ and maintaining a hierarchical order
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among themselves. The obvious snub by the indigenous leaders

causes further discord among the vecinos, and, as a result, one at-
tacks El Gálico. Don Ricardo, at this point convinced that they are
suffering abandonment by God, quits his position, and the meeting
adjourns.
Such discord and violence is not unusual and in fact marks other
male relationships, both within and between socioracial classes.
When don Fermı́n approaches the son of the mestizo silversmith to
offer him a job as an accountant in the mine, the young man refuses
to show Fermı́n the respect traditionally accorded him; having re-
cently returned from studying in Lima, ‘‘El Perico’’ Bellido has wit-
nessed alternative social relations and no longer acknowledges
Fermı́n as a superior. Fermı́n responds by having the indigenous
foreman of his mine, Demetrio Rendón Willka (whose importance
will be discussed later) beat up the young man; this action is doubly
humiliating for El Perico, who has not abandoned his own feeling
of superiority with respect to the Indians.
The patterns of masculinity just described show the traditional
workings of the town. Within the narration, two men emerge as
more contemporary manifestations of the male subject. As the rep-
resentative of the Consorcio and a native of the coast, Cabrejos rep-
resents the ‘‘official’’ world of Peru, sympathetic to Western ideals,
and the growing Peruvian capitalism under transnational domina-
tion. He fears and mistrusts that which is most intimately associated
with the Andean world in the works of Arguedas: nature, intuition,
the Indian, and women; he is the embodiment of those factions that
would destroy the autochtonous side of Peru and marginalize a ma-
jority of the country’s inhabitants. The engineer is ruthless and self-
serving, playing to the ambition of other serrano men by bribing
them to betray Fermı́n and by sacrificing his own mestizo accom-
plice, Gregorio, a man who, because of his social status, is consid-
ered expendable and who loses his life while following orders to
frighten the Indians working in the mine.
Fermı́n, as has been said, represents the modernizing forces of
the ruling classes of the Sierra. He is shown in a more positive light
than Cabrejos in that he is truly interested in the advancement of
Peru and the Sierra and rejects the interference of foreign economic
powers. Yet, he is also cruel to his ‘‘inferiors,’’ Indians and mesti-
zos, and it is implied that he tried to kill his own father to proceed
with his plans for modernizing San Pedro. Fermı́n is an enemy of
the semifeudal system of working the lands that predominates in
the Sierra of the time. He finds the Indian peons to be not useful or
productive, but rather dead weight, and is determined to exploit
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them until the mine is in working order and then set them free. He
says, ‘‘tengo mi plan. Bruno debe morir’’ [I have my plan. Bruno
must die.] (TS, 80), a phrase in which Bruno becomes a metonym
for the feudal system as a whole.
Fermı́n’s plans for the town, and the country, are set out clearly
in a conversation he has with indigenous leaders, one which, the
narrator informs us, proves he can express himself better in Que-
chua than in Spanish: ‘‘Prosperidad para todos. Que vengan máqui-
nas, que el oro y la plata que están enterrados debajo del Apark’ora
salga a la luz, que corran por las ciudades y los campos, dando más
fuerza al hombre, más alimentos, más negocios . . . que no se lo
lleven los gringos’’ [Prosperity for all. May the machines come,
may the gold and silver that are buried under Apark’ora come to
light, may they run through the cities and the fields, giving more
strength, food, and business to the men . . . may the gringos not take
it away.] (TS, 99). His plan is one that converts colonos into indus-
trial workers, mestizos and poor vecinos into middle administrators
and technical workers, and landowners into business owners. It is
one that keeps the traditional hierarchy but transplants it onto a cap-
italist system. Fermı́n is an ambiguous character; at many times he
shows the potential to go the way of his brother, whom I will later
analyze as a model for the cultural mestizo. He speaks Quechua and
appreciates many aspects of the indigenous culture, for example,
the expressiveness of the language and the relationship of indige-
nous peoples with work. Yet, he sees this same culture as a barrier
to progress; without a sense of individualism and personal ambi-
tion, a project like Fermı́n’s cannot succeed. Thus, he ultimately
opts for the ‘‘other’’ side, as shown when, defeated by the Consor-
cio, he moves to the coast to work in the fish-meal industry.
A prolonged conversation between the two men sets up their
competing visions, those visions that most mark Peru’s path
towards modernization. For Cabrejos, as has been said, the future
lies with the progress of the multinationals, a vision that puts the
interests of individual companies over those of the nation. Cabrejos
insists that the characteristic that marks modernity and the powerful
nations that rule modern times is individualism (the opposite of the
community spirit that marks Quechua culture). Fermı́n ultimately
accedes to his personal ambition; though he claims to desire the
best for Peru, in his eyes the country can only grow through trans-
forming its ‘‘savage’’ elements into tamed working machines: ‘‘¡Yo
sı́, amo a mi patria, señor Cabrejos! . . . He cometido algunos
crı́menes, no como los suyos sino de otra ı́ndole, contra los que es
necesario exterminar, pulverizar para que este paı́s recupere su
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grandeza, el tiempo perdido. . . . ¡Un dı́namo que transforme lo sal-

vaje de estas montañas y de estas gentes en un hormiguero de tra-
bajo industrial!’’ [I do love my country, Mr. Cabrejos! . . . I have
committed crimes, not like yours but different, against those who
must be exterminated, pulverized so that the country can recover
its grandeur, the lost times. . . . A dynamo who can transform the
savageness of these mountains and these people into an anthill of
industrial work!] (TS, 163).21 Much like the intellectuals of the
indianismo of the nineteenth century, Fermı́n evokes and yearns for
the past glory of the Incan empire, yet ironically proposes to re-
cover it through the destruction of the indigenous element. Never-
theless, even this idealistic and misguided connection with Peru
eventually saves him from total condemnation. In these two men,
Arguedas recreates the conflictive interplay between the coast and
the Sierra, and the directions the two regions desire for the country.
Yet, he also shows how these two visions, the ones of the dominant
classes, practically exclude the indigenous element and are, thus,
not viable alternatives for Peru.
It is interesting that during this long conversation the narrator vir-
tually disappears from the narration, and this disappearance again
highlights the narrator’s identification with the feminine. Except for
an occasional presentation of a speaker, the narrator only enters to
highlight the appearance of two characters: Rendón Wilka and Ma-
tilde, Fermı́n’s wife, both of whom will be discussed later. For the
moment it is important to point out that during this conversation,
marked by a rationalist, Western-looking discourse, which makes
every effort to exclude the indigenous element, the narrator does
not participate. It is as if such discourse were too powerful, able to
silence the narrator himself. He needs the support of the indigenous
and feminine characters to speak for any sustained period of time.
After Rendón enters to accuse Cabrejos of Gregorio’s death and to
voice his own understanding of Marxist thought, he kneels down,
touches his head to the floor, and rises immediately. The narrator
then tells that Rendón, ‘‘Habı́a llorado para dentro’’ [had cried in-
side] (TS, 161); explaining an action that is not available to the
naked eye, the narrator enters Rendón’s consciousness. When Mati-
lde enters, the narrator again recounts an interior sentiment: ‘‘Bajó
Matilde. No pudo contenerse’’ [Matilde came down. She couldn’t
stop herself] (TS, 161). After she is told she may not participate in
the discussion, and is silenced and made to leave, the narrator, as
well as the eyes of the two men, follow the departing woman,
whose figure is highlighted by the sun. This passage dramatically
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illustrates the investment of the narration in the feminine and indig-
enous elements.
The Feminine and Female Characters

Of course, the males of the ruling and mestizo classes are not the
only members of the township. Rather, throughout the novel, two
groups emerge as alternatives to the former: women (primarily
those of the ruling classes, but also some mestizas and a ponga) and
Indians (primarily male). It is the integration of these two elements
that lead to the development of an alternative mestizo community
at the end of the novel, a community that embodies the values Ar-
guedas sees as key to the future of Peru.
In Todas las sangres, Arguedas continues the linking of woman
with nature. In general, the narrator focuses natural elements, such
as light and shadow, flowers and trees, and the songs of birds, on
and around both women and Indians in an effort to highlight their
moral superiority or emphasize some truth they may be revealing.
In regard to the maternal, with the exception of Vicenta (Bruno’s
mestiza mistress whom he later recognizes as his wife), whose role
as a mother is fundamental, there is almost no mother figure in the
work. Matilde, Fermı́n’s wife, and Rosario, mother of the Aragón
brothers, are the only other mothers mentioned, and they are
scarcely seen in their maternal role. In fact, in Todas las sangres,
woman emerges from the domestic sphere to take on a more public
role; she is seen in her capacity to redeem and construct and is op-
posed to inert and impotent man. The new world suggested by Ar-
guedas in the novel is one based on indigenous culture, and, to a
great extent, formed by women.
Arguedas insists upon the connection of woman with the non- or
antirational, and this link gives woman a privileged place in the
nation-building process. There are many women in various capaci-
ties throughout the novel. Here I will study five specific characters
and also discuss collective feminine actions. First, there are two
white women from the Sierra, members of old, established families
in San Pedro. Doña Adelaida is a gran señora among grandes seño-
res. But, unlike the men, she has both political and economic
power. Hers is practically the only great house that is not described
as in a state of decay. The other woman is doña Asunta, a single
woman from a prestigious but poor family.
In a political meeting of the town, both women are foregrounded.
In a situation that again highlights the link between women and In-
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dians, doña Asunta has received a note that judging by its language
must have been written by an Indian (one assumes by Rendón
Wilka, as he is probably the only literate Indian). The note accuses
several townspeople of taking bribes from Cabrejos, and Cabrejos
of killing Gregorio; it ends, ‘‘defiende pueblo vecinos valiente vir-
gencita niña Asunta’’ [defend town vecinos, valiant virgin girl,
Asunta] (152). A member of the indigenous community has turned
to a woman to ask for justice.
When at a cabildo Asunta accuses various townsmen of receiving
bribes from Cabrejos, the men are surprised by the attitude of the
young woman, who dares to speak in the public sphere, and begin
to question Asunta’s honor. Doña Adelaida finally expels everyone
but the mayor from the meeting; the mayor, Asunta’s father, is the
only one who does not obey the elder woman. Says Adelaida, ‘‘aquı́
no hay un solo varón que sea hombre. . . . ¡Váyanse a sus casas
señores, aquı́ hay sólo dos varones: Asunta y yo!’’ [here, there is no
male that is a man. . . . Go home, sirs; here there are only tow men:
Asunta and I!] (TS, 153). As doña Adelaida removes the men from
the political meeting and sends them to the domestic sphere, she
inverts traditional roles. Nevertheless, at the same time Adelaida is
shown as being too drawn to tradition. She scolds the men for not
being hombres, for their lack of ‘‘masculine’’ qualities, showing
that she still accedes to the dominant system. She does not call for
the modernization of the haciendas nor does she promote the rights
of the indigenous people, whom she fears. Rather, she feels a nos-
talgia for the past splendor of the town, of which in her opinion
only Asunta is deserving. Indeed, doña Adelaida, because of her
social position, in many ways embodies the Law and upholds the
dominant fiction. Her femininity at times seems to save her; she is
certainly more honorable, compassionate, and active than the other
vecinos. Yet, she is unable to break fully with her alignment with
power and the official world. When Anto, Don Andrés’s former
pongo, takes his place as a vecino and speaks in a cabildo, ‘‘Doña
Adelaida, a pesar suyo, se sintió algo ofendida; dirigió al nuevo
vecino una mirada algo despectiva, como si apestara; en cambió la
señorita Asunta sonrió’’ [Doña Adelaida, despite herself, felt some-
what offended; she looked at the new vecino with a bit of disdain,
as if he smelled; Miss Asunta, on the other hand, smiled] (TS, 360).
It is the younger Asunta who is able to unmask and reveal the
deficiencies of the system and its members, as well as embrace the
marginalized elements of her community. As she is verbally at-
tacked by El Gálico, she is supported from the outside of the build-
ing by the Indians, who call out to her in Quechua. That the Indians
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choose to approach her is no surprise to the reader. When Cabrejos
arrives at her store-home with the intent to seduce her, he finds her
pure and morally superior: ‘‘Es lo único verdaderamente respetable
y bello que he encontrado entre toda esta brujerı́a de cerros, de in-
dios, de blancos bellacos y de mestizos sin alma’’ [She is the only
truly respectable and beautiful thing I have found among all this
witchcraft of hills, Indians, horny whites, and soul-less mestizos]
(TS, 90). But, beyond her acclaimed moral superiority, Asunta is
not afraid of the Indians and their potential. Responding to fears
expressed by Adelaida, she responds that the Indians are respectful
in a Christian way. Furthermore, she is one of the few members of
the remaining ruling class capable of selfless action in defense of
her town.
Upon learning that Cabrejos helped the Consorcio take over the
mine, she murders him and proclaims: ‘‘Vendió a mi pueblo sin que
fuera suyo; señores, llévenme presa. Y vean a un traidor a Dios y a
los humildes; ası́ los matamos. No los hombres, amigos, que ya no
sirven porque la miseria los ha malogrado en San Pedro. ¡Las muj-
eres!’’ [He sold my town as if it were his. Sirs, take me to jail, and
look at this traitor of God and humble people. This is how we kill
them. Not the men, friends, who are now worth nothing because the
misery of San Pedro has ruined them. The women!] (TS, 367). Here
a woman is able to recognize the enemy of the people and risks her
life in acting against it. Of special interest is the tranquility with
which Asunta realizes her goal. Her action, although it comes from
her feelings for her people, is not performed irrationally. Asunta’s
emotions are associated with order and progress and are highlighted
narratively by the attention given to the trajectory of her tears. Once
again, Arguedas is giving a new value to the feminine, projecting it
as a means of redeeming and renovating the nation.
This is also true of the portrayal of nature and woman’s connec-
tion to it. Asunta receives her strength and drive from nature and
has a relationship with it similar to that of the indigenous people,
as portrayed in Arguedian narrative. As she is taken by authorities
to her trial, while San Pedro is in flames, the narrator notes: ‘‘el
canto de los insectos, la voz del rı́o, la luz de las estrellas y el oscuro
y profundo cuerpo de las montañas fortalecı́an a la joven. El fuego
que vio en el pueblo le pareció necesario en esa noche. Su corazón
recibı́a el mundo y la candela del pueblo con un nuevo regocijo. No
creı́a marchar a la carcel, sino a la iglesia: su sangre hervı́a’’ [the
song of the insects, the voice of the river, the light of the stars, and
the dark and deep body of the mountains gave strength to the
woman. The fire she saw in the town seemed necessary that night.
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Her heart received the world and the fire of the people with new
joy. It didn’t feel like she was going to jail, but to the church: her
blood was boiling] (TS, 381). Nature highlights and gives an ap-
proving nod to Asunta’s actions; her intimate connection to the
world around her is a cause not only for her own joy but for that
of the people and their surroundings. The woman’s behavior has a
profound effect on the young lawyer from the coast who is to de-
fend her: ‘‘su hazaña ha curado mi ceguera. ¡Amo al Perú por
usted!’’ [your accomplishment has cured my blindness. I love Peru
because of you!] (TS, 381). He asks her, what is the underlying,
background sound they hear; she responds, ‘‘el canto del rı́o va pri-
mero a las estrellas y de allı́ a nuestro corazón. . . . Procure oı́r
mucho al rı́o. De noche infunde sueño y de dı́a, pensamientos’’ [the
song of the river precedes the stars and from there our heart. . . .
Try to listen to the river a lot. At night it inspires sleep and during
the day, thoughts] (TS, 382). The running water of the river draws
the listener nearer the semiotic. It touches the lawyer, not gratu-
itously the representative of the Law and the official word of the
coast, and through the intervention of the woman, he comes to be-
lieve its truth. Thus, in the figure of Asunta, woman continues her
role as a transforming force and an active political voice.
Another woman who takes on a political role is Fermı́n’s wife,
Matilde, possessed with a sense of moral consciousness that allows
her ultimately to reject the predominant ideology and call for a new
sociocultural attitude based on the indigenous culture.22 In this
manner she serves as a potential connecting bridge for the frag-
mented community. First, as a woman from the coast, she brings
ideas of modernity and progress. Secondly, she constitutes a bridge
between the brothers. Matilde and Bruno have a mutual respect for
each other; Bruno recognizes in his sister-in-law the redemptive
quality Arguedas so often associates with women and asks her to
use it on his brother. Indeed, Matilde often mitigates disputes be-
tween the two; during discussions or arguments, Bruno directs him-
self almost exclusively to Matilde, and she is often found sitting
between the two, symbolically serving as mediator. But the most
important integrating role that Matilde will play is that of a bridge
between cultures.
This is not a role she takes from the start of the novel; rather,
Matilde is slowly transformed from an ambitious bourgeois wife to
a woman who finally opens herself up to an Arguedian national
view. From the beginning, the narrator insists on her Other, or femi-
nine capacities, which will save her and help her save others. Ca-
brejos sees Matilde as the only obstacle to the Consorcio’s takeover
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of the mine and blames primarily her feminine intuition.23 Matilde
herself recognizes her own power in this respect. She observes that
her husband is ‘‘desconfiado, astuto . . . pero no acierta siempre y
es entonces que mis pálpitos le auxilian’’ [distrustful, astute . . . but
he does not always hit the mark and that’s when my intuition saves
him] (TS, 76). For Cabrejos, the intuitive and the subjective are
forces that threaten the state, modernization, and progress (in the
form of the Consorcio’s project), but these same qualities could
save the town and foster Fermı́n’s project, which, although not co-
inciding entirely with Arguedas’s view, is at least ‘‘Peruvian.’’ Fi-
nally, her faith in the subjective is what will allow Matilde to draw
closer to the indigenous world.
At the beginning of the work Matilde does not trust Rendón
Wilka, and in her conversations with Bruno shows herself to be a
defender of modernization and her husband’s vision. But both the
Indian and Bruno, who grows increasingly part of the indigenous
culture, see in Matilde a redemptive capacity that will allow her to
reject the corrupt world of the ruling classes and enter another, ful-
ler world. Bruno compares Matilde’s eyes with a stone found in a
nearby river, a stone over whose surfaces ‘‘la luz de las cumbres se
queda, reposa. . . . Lo áspero de la piedra retiene, pues al sol agoni-
zante. En sus granos vive, dulce, y tranquilizando el corazón’’ [the
light of the mountain tops rests. . . . The rough parts of the stone
retain, well, the agonizing sun. It its grains it lives, soft, claiming
the heart] (TS, 117). He says that Matilde’s eyes are almost exactly
like those stones except that in her eyes there is a bit of ambition.
That ambition is what remains of her contact with the individualism
of the Western world, but the other qualities, those of attracting the
sun, living softly, and having a calming power, will take over and
guide Matilde to another plane.
Owing to her intuitive capacities and her sensitivity, Matilde is
able to serve as mediator between the two brothers. It is because of
Matilde that Bruno finally agrees to allow his colonos to work for
his brother; not only does Matilde have a profound effect on her
brother-in-law, but she is also affected by him. During a meeting
with Bruno at her own home, upon listening to the passionate way
in which the landowner speaks of his colonos, the narrator explains
that Matilde is confused and somewhat persuaded by Burno’s argu-
ments (TS, 115). The subsequent conversation, in which Bruno
agrees to loan Fermı́n his Indians, is mediated through Matilde, as
the younger brother looks only at her, notices her reactions to the
conversation, and responds either directly or indirectly to them.
Bruno’s profound effect on the woman is portrayed immediately
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following this scene, as Matilde dreams ‘‘algo agitada, que don

Bruno la arrastraba hacia el rı́o; le gritaba que sus ojos eran del
color de las piedras que una tempestad de rayos habı́a despedazado
en la quebrada. ‘Debes morir antes que la ambición pudra tus ojos;
no son tuyos sino de mi rı́o; de mis piedras’’’ [somewhat agitated,
that don Bruno was pulling her towards the river; he cried to her
that her eyes were the color of the stones that a lightening storm
had torn to pieces in the gorge. ‘‘You should die before your ambi-
tion rots your eyes; they are not yours but belong to my river, my
stones’’] (TS, 123). She is upset by the dream, and somewhat con-
fused by her brother-in-law’s effect on her, and immediately tells
Fermı́n that she agrees with his plan for the mine. Yet, it is Bruno
who implores Matilde to use her capabilities to transform Fermı́n:
‘‘Esa luz de tus ojos proyéctala sobre mi hermano. El es más duro
por haber escogido las minas. Y el alma no tiene lı́mites, hermanita;
cuanto más la alumbras, más crece. . . . La mujer sabe detener la
tiniebla en el corazón del hombre que empieza a descarriarse; le da
frescura hasta mitigar el furor. Tú eres mujer’’ [Project that light in
your eyes on my brother. He is harder for having chosen the mines.
And the soul has no limits; the more you shine light on it, the more
it grows. . . . Woman knows how to stop the darkness in the heart
of the man that begins to go astray; she cools him until she miti-
gates his fury. You are a woman] (TS, 222).
As further evidence of woman’s power, at Gregorio’s burial, the
Indians recognize Matilde’s interior, subjective qualities and are
calmed by her presence. Such scenes highlight Matilde’s potential
for integrating herself into the indigenous world—while the official
world in which she is accustomed to participating, through her hus-
band’s business dealings, excludes her—demonstrating that al-
though woman can at times enter she can never fully partake in this
world. When Matilde tries to prove to her husband that Cabrejos
killed his mestizo aide, Gregorio, Fermı́n silences her (TS, 161).
While the men continue plotting their corrupt plans, a transforming
encounter between the woman and the indigenous world takes
place. The narrator comments that immediately after being rejected
by her husband, Matilde goes ‘‘en persecución inconsciente de Ren-
dón’’ [in unconscious pursuit of Rendón] (TS, 168, emphasis
added). The new community, the new encounter of two worlds, will
incorporate instincts and the nonrational, that other half that the rul-
ing class marginalizes. Accompanied by Rendón and two other in-
digenous leaders, Matilde descends to the indigenous community:
Contempló, entonces, el paisaje como si la compañı́a tan reverente de
los comuneros le infundiera un sentimiento nuevo, un modo diferente
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de apreciar el aspecto tumultuoso y silente de ese mundo; la faz desnuda
del oscuro Pukasira en cuya cima nevada y especialmente en sus pa-
redes de roca, parecı́a que latı́a el eco de sus palpitaciones, del ritmo
con que corrı́a su sangre. ‘‘Mi corazón se repite en esa montaña, Fermı́n,
porque estoy acompañada ası́’’, se dijo.
[She then contemplated the landscape as if the reverent company of the

comuneros instilled in her a new feeling, a different way of appreciating
the tumultuousness and silence of that world. In the naked façade of the
dark Pukasira mountain, in its snowy summit and particularly in its rock
walls, seemed to beat the echo of her palpitations, of the rhythm with
which her blood flowed. ‘‘My heart is echoed in that mountain, Fermı́n,
because I am accompanied like this,’’ she thought.] (TS, 169–170)
Matilde is escorted, ‘‘like a princess,’’ and thus sees herself re-

flected in the mountain. Her intuitions are located there and, like
the mountain, are admired by the Indians. Yet this journey also in-
fuses her with a new sentiment, that is perhaps not so new. It is
through this journey that Matilde loosens her ties to the individual-
ism and ambition of the dominant culture, and strengthens her rela-
tionship with the Other.
Whereas in the community she is witness to and honored by sev-
eral indigenous rituals; here, the feminine representative of the
white, coastal world of Peru and representatives of the indigenous
culture enter into a dynamic, mutually affirming, dialogic relation-
ship. The male members of the community greet her with a tradi-
tional shout of celebration, ‘‘¡Wifáááá!,’’ and one member throws
flowers at her feet. As at other times throughout the narration, the
strewing of flowers and the emphasis on colors serve to draw the
reader’s attention to the significance of the event. Indeed, flowers
both open and close the encounter, as upon leaving Matilde is pre-
sented with a bouquet of three kantuta flowers by the youngest
comunero, who tells her, in Quechua, that those flowers are his
blood. The comuneros also honor Matilde by singing and fighting
for her, acts that move her emotionally. Through this encounter,
Matilde is transformed and asks the Indians for forgiveness.
She begins to oppose her husband’s projects; in doing so, she
criticizes the rational world and highlights the nonrational. She
comments to don Fermı́n: ‘‘comprendo tus ideas. Pero como mujer
que ha sufrido no puedo compartir tus métodos; no los puedo apro-
bar. Concilias, no sé de que modo muy racional, lo que yo no puedo
conciliar . . . tus razonamientos son demasiado altos y, por eso, lo
que yo veo como cruel a ti te parece un simple procedimiento. Yo
siento a Dios de otro modo’’ [I understand your ideas. But as a
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woman who has suffered I cannot share your methods; I cannot ap-
prove of them. You reconcile, in some very rational way I don’t
know, what I cannot reconcile . . . your reasonings are too high and,
for this reason, what I see as cruel you call a simple prodecure. I
feel God in a different way] (TS, 236). She rejects Fermı́n’s ratio-
nalist stance and begs him, ‘‘déjame abajo, en el amor bárbaro y
simple’’ [leave me down here, within this simple and barbarous
love] (TS, 236). The opposition between reason and emotion will
mark the relationship between Fermı́n and Matilde to the end of the
novel. Matilde determines that the magical and intuitive character
of the world of the Sierra is more valuable than any expressed na-
tional project. In Lima, she is bored by the frivolity of the people
who ‘‘hablan del Perú con menos conocimiento que del Congo’’
[speak of Peru with less knowledge than they have of the Congo]
(TS, 348). In a rare reference to her children, and in an undeniably
exoticizing statement, Matilde expresses her desire to remove them
from the corrupt world of the coast and take them to the highlands:
‘‘todas las vacaciones haré que mis hijos se contagien de esa ‘bru-
jerı́a’; porque he advertido sı́ntomas peligrosos en ellos. ¡Ni la
madre será la madre si siguen por ese camino! Prefiero que sean
‘brujos’ analfabetos’’ [every vacation I will have my children im-
merse themselves in that ‘‘witchcraft,’’ because I have noticed dan-
gerous symptoms in them. They won’t even respect their mother if
they continue in this manner! I prefer they be illiterate ‘‘witchdoc-
tors’’] (TS, 349).24 Through what Arguedas apparently considers
her inherent qualities as a woman, Matilde embraces indigenous
culture and envisions a Peru that respects, and even incorporates,
strangeness. In this sense, though a member of the dominant classes,
she is ‘‘saved.’’
At the other end of the social spectrum is La Kurku, the female
ponga servant of Bruno and Fermı́n’s mother. La Kurku is a hunch-
back and by indigenous tradition an illa, a creature of God, marked
as special. The terms used to describe La Kurku are similar to those
used to describe the pongo in Los rı́os profundos: ‘‘Parecı́a una hor-
miga, no podı́a agacharse más’’ [She looked like an ant, she couldn’t
crouch down any further] (TS, 36). La Kurku was raped by don
Bruno when she was younger, and by all accounts his actions
against ‘‘God’s creature’’ are the source of his damnation. Man’s
violence against the feminine—here, an indigenous woman—causes
his downfall.25
In the novel, La Kurku is the character that is closest to the semi-
otic, as she shows constant connection with that which is earthy,
bodily, and flowing below the symbolic. Indeed, the reader’s know-
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ledge and understanding of her are filtered through Anto, don An-
drés’s pongo, as if the servant were the means through which La
Kurku were able to express herself within the symbolic; his words
give form to her being. Furthermore, the importance of La Kurku
is highlighted as the narrator participates in his own interpretation
of her, which as Cornejo Polar noted, is a rare function for the nar-
rator of this work. In one passage we find both the narrator and
Anto working together to give narrative presence to La Kurku:
La mente de la kurku no era de idiota. Sus ojos miraban a veces como
si no tuvieran fondo, quizá porque para dar cara a alguien tenı́a que
hacer un esfuerzo algo lento.
—Ella mira la tierra por la fuerza, desde que amanece—pensó el
criado—. Será eso que apaga su ojo, que le hace nacer la pena, que su
cuerpo sea como de gusano. Quizá en su sangre quiere lo que el gusano
más quiere. No es como los que miramos el cielo.
[La Kurku’s mind was not that of an idiot. Her eyes looked at times as if
they were bottomless, perhaps because to face anyone she had to make a
somewhat slow effort.
‘‘She looks at the ground because she has to, from the moment she
gets up in the morning,’’ thought the servant. ‘‘This must be what shuts
down her eye, what inspires pity in her, what makes her body like a
worm. Perhaps in her blood she desires what the worm most desires.
She is not like those of us who look at the sky.’’] (TS, 54)
Here we have both the narrator and the pongo speculating about the
motives of La Kurku. It is noted that most of the time she must look
at the earth, like a worm, like a ponga, but that when she does make
the human connection of looking someone in the eye, her look is
penetrating.26 The dialogic relationship set up among the three enti-
ties allows La Kurku, doubly marginalized as a woman and a
ponga, a power of expression denied her in the dominant fiction.
La Kurku’s importance as a figure of redemption is evident in
several key scenes and is attributed to her status as kurku. Upon the
death of Bruno and Fermı́n’s mother (who, when dying, curiously
pronounces the names of Matilde and Bruno—those most associ-
ated with the feminine—and not Fermı́n’s), La Kurku is approached
as a source of salvation for Bruno (who, as will be discussed in
the following section, experiences a transformation that brings him
closer to the Arguedian ideal national subject). Bruno asks the
ponga to pray for his salvation and provides her with the words with
which to do so; La Kurku obediently repeats the man’s supplica-
tions until the last one, in which he states, ‘‘Que se condene,’’ and
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she rejoins, ‘‘¡No es su culpa!’’ [‘‘Condemn him’’; ‘‘It’s not his

fault!’’] (TS, 211). La Kurku rarely speaks in the novel; when she
does, her words have a profound effect on those around her and are
generally commented upon and fleshed out by another character.
Here, Bruno looks at her and the narrator reads his thoughts: ‘‘Sı́;
era criatura de Dios, verdadera criatura, con sus ojos, sus manos, su
nariz y su cabello, su vientre, sus pechos. ¿Qué hay? ¡Sólo su jo-
roba, su ser kurku! En lo demás es mejor que yo’’ [Yes, she was a
creature of God, a true creature, with her eyes, her hands, her nose
and her hair, her womb, her breast. What’s that? Just her hunch-
back, her being kurku. In all other ways, she is better than me] (TS,
211). The interaction marks the beginning of a significant change
in don Bruno and contributes to Matilde’s transformation as well.
It also provokes further conflict between Bruno and Fermı́n, who
ridicules the scene and does not respect the words of La Kurku.
Again the symbolic, in the form of Fermı́n, attempts to silence or
discredit the semiotic, and the event ends with the unresolved dis-
agreement between the brothers and with the narrator revealing a
plan by Cabrejos that will bring about the downfall of Fermı́n. The
narrative begins with the hopeful interaction between the masculine
and the feminine, is interrupted by a conflict that is provoked by a
corrupt and ambitious form of masculinity (one removed from its
feminine counterpart), and ends with the statement that the Aragón
no longer have any power and that Fermı́n’s project is destined to
fail (TS, 212). It is as if his inability to reconcile with the feminine,
or to incorporate it advantageously, were the root of his downfall.
After her mistress’s death, La Kurku moves to the Lahuaymarca
indigenous community. There, she works caring for the community
chapel and is revered by the community members. After the vecinos
revolt against the Consorcio and the working of the mine and set
fire to San Pedro, many, especially the women, take temporary ref-
uge in Lahuaymarca. There, it is the sound of La Kurku’s voice that
gives them comfort. Upon entering the community, the first sound
they hear is that of La Kurku, inside the chapel, singing a hymn that
sounds like a harawi, a pre-Hispanic song of supplication. It is the
ancient Quechua melody, sung by La Kurku in Quechua, that while
coming from a Christian site within the community gives the ve-
cinos strength. San Pedro’s priest, the one cursed and criticized by
Andrés Aragón de Peralta at the beginning of the novel, is moved
by the song and answers it with one of his own, also sung in Que-
chua, praising La Kurku and calling her, among other things, ‘‘san-
gre de Dios’’ [God’s blood] (TS, 410). It will be remembered that
don Andrés admonished the priest to use the blood of the k’antu
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flower to cleanse his soul. Here, it is as if the priest were taking
the old man’s advice, purifying himself through his encounter with
indigenous culture in the form of La Kurku and her song.
The interaction between the priest and La Kurku transforms the
vecino observers, who find themselves clean, decisive, and ready
to take on any future struggle. The priest himself remains with the
community, learns the hymns La Kurku composes, and teaches her
songs as well: ‘‘Ambos cantaban en dúo, como una calandria y un
gallo envejecido’’ [both sang in duets, like a lark and an old rooster]
(TS, 411). Through his interaction with La Kurku and the commu-
nity, the priest finally determines, ‘‘Dios es esperanza. Dios alegrı́a
. . . Dios hay aquı́, en Lahuaymarca. De San Pedro se ha ido, creo
para siempre’’ [God is hope. God happiness . . . God is here, in
Lahuaymarca. From San Pedro He has gone, I think forever] (TS,
413); he has a new understanding of who and what God is and
where He is to be found. The priest’s vocabulary and speech pat-
terns and, later his own admission, reveal him as an indigenous-
mestizo. He had been estranged from the indigenous culture; here,
La Kurku, in a common role accorded to women in Arguedas’s
work, serves as a point of entry to bring him back to his indigenous
side.
Between the women of the ruling class and the ponga servant
stands Vicenta, Bruno’s mistress, who becomes his wife and is in-
strumental in his transformation. Vicenta is an indigenous mestiza
who is more comfortable speaking Quechua than Spanish. She, like
other women, is able to recognize evil and impart goodness. After
Bruno has had a meeting with another vecino, ‘‘el cholo’’ Cisneros,
a mestizo landowner who has gained riches, Vicenta calls the man
false, envious, and not serrano, not working in the interests of the
area but for his own benefit. Vicenta is expecting don Bruno’s
child, who Bruno says will be master of his hacienda, La Providen-
cia. Yet Vicenta has a clear view of what being a master means:
hating others and being hated. She asks don Bruno not to take any
more lands from others, and Bruno asks her to ‘‘cure’’ him. After
singing him a song she has composed, in Quechua and Spanish, for
Bruno and their son, Vicenta is attacked by Bruno’s other mistress,
one of the ‘‘bad mestizas’’ Bruno had frequented before Vicenta.
Bruno shoots and kills the woman, marking a break with his past
and the beginning of his transformation. Vicenta claims it was the
devil that caused the other woman’s death, not by causing him to
shoot her, but by bringing her to the room to kill Vicenta. Thus,
Bruno, at least in the eyes of his lover, is no longer the devil, an
epithet given to him repeatedly in the novel. The novel here exhibits
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an ambivalence towards the role of women: the first mistress be-

comes a sacrifice for a man’s salvation, while Vicenta is the source
of a new direction both for don Bruno and for the community. Vi-
centa is given a position of power, made the new ‘‘señora’’ of the
house, at which point a bird’s song is heard; Vicenta notes, ‘‘ahı́
está el canto alegre. El mundo da su perdón’’ [there is the happy
song. The world gives its forgiveness] (TS, 192). Bruno, indeed,
sees the mestiza’s death as his redemption, as if she were the em-
bodiment of his lust, of the sins he had committed uncontrollably
since raping la Kurku. The emotional charge of his transformation
is aided and tempered by Vicenta: ‘‘sintió que las manos de Vicenta
lo calmaban, conducı́an suavemente el canto del hukucha-pesk’o a
sus ojos, el regocijo puro, desconocido, a su conciencia. . . . Los
ojos de Vicenta no se alteraron; seguı́an retratándolo tiernamente,
como él sabı́a que no era, que no lo merecı́a’’ [he felt that Vicenta’s
hands calmed him, softly lead the song of the hukucha-pesk’o bird
to his eyes, and pure joy, previously unknown, to his conscience.
. . . Vicenta’s eyes did not change; they kept portraying him ten-
derly, in a way that he knew he wasn’t, that he didn’t deserve] (TS,
195). Thus, Vicenta serves a function typical of women in Argued-
as’s work: that of redeemer. To recall Irigaray, Vicenta initiates a
course toward cohesion, away from chaos.27 However, her role is
not limited to this one. As will be shown in the last section of this
chapter, Vicenta is given an active role in the formation of the new
indigenous community at the end of the novel; that is, she is instru-
mental in the formation of the alternative to the nation.
There are other examples of women’s active participation in the
community, and their commitment and drive are contrasted with the
inaction of men. When it is discovered that the government is send-
ing troops from the coast to take over the mine and appropriate
lands, it is the women that call the town to action. Two women,
the widow of the vecino El Gálico and a mestiza, Filiberta, discuss
resistance. The widow challenges the men: ‘‘¿quién ha de ser ga-
llina para no defender su casa y su alimento? ¡Que nos maten a
balazos!’’ [Who will be so chicken as to not defend his home and
food? May they shoot us dead!] (TS, 362). The church bells and the
lay drums are played in triumph, and once the town is gathered, ‘‘el
silencio del gran mundo cayó sobre los cuerpos, con el sol tan mudo
y ardiente. Pero Filiberta se cubrió medio rostro con su manta y
cantó’’ [the silence of the great world fell over the bodies, with the
mute and burning sun. But Filiberta covered half her face with her
shawl and sang] (TS, 363). The song that breaks the silence is,
again, in Quechua, and challenges the ‘‘black enemies’’ who are
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coming to town. It is the song of a mestiza ‘‘aindiada,’’ performed
in the marginalized tongue, that challenges the symbolic order.
After the song, the mestizo blacksmith, Asunta, and El Gálico’s
widow, Guadalupe, remain. Their brief conversation is very re-
vealing:
—Yo tengo el revólver de mi marido. Lo recogı́ del suelo; aquı́
mismo—dijo Guadalupe—. Yo . . . yo soy el destino. . . . ¡Vámonos!
En sus ojos podı́a verse el Pukasira sin adornos, con sus faldas pe-
dregosas, las yerbas y arbustos secos.
—En tus ojos, señora, hay retrato—dijo Bellido.
—Ası́ ha sido siempre. Pero ningún retrato querido.
—El mundo, señora.
—Que ahora está para morir.
—No, Guadalupe; alguien, otro. ¡No sé que será! Quizá yo no más lo
veo—dijo Asunta, pensando.
[‘‘I have my husband’s revolver. I picked it up from the ground, right

here,’’ said Guadalupe. ‘‘I . . . I am the future. . . . Let’s go!’’
In her eyes one could see Pukasira unadorned, with its rocky foot, its
grasses and dry bushes.
‘‘In your eyes, ma’am, there is a portrait,’’ said Bellido.
‘‘It’s always been that way. But it’s not a beloved portrait.’’
‘‘The world, ma’am.’’
‘‘That’s about to die.’’
‘‘No, Guadalupe; someone, someone else. I don’t know what it could
be! Perhaps I’m the only one who sees it,’’ said Asunta inwardly.] (TS,
363–64)
This conversation emphasizes an element that runs throughout the

text, that the feminine is the destiny of the area. This affirmation is
found not only in the words and actions of the women and indige-
nous (or indigenous-mestizo) characters, but in the narrative treat-
ment of the same. If the intervention of the narrator in the novel is
limited, those distinct moments when the narrator does choose to
reveal himself underline his investment in the feminine.
That the text strives to found itself on the feminine is evident in
the narrator’s focus on this element. Throughout the work the narra-
tor highlights women’s roles by focusing light (in its various forms,
sunlight, shadow, colors) and sound (songs of birds and of people)
on them as they speak or act. A prime example of this technique
can be found in one of the final scenes. During the rebellion of the
Indians, Demetrio Rendón Wilka, the indigenous leader, is taken
captive and finds himself waiting with others to be executed. He
sees an unidentified Indian woman defending the proposals of the
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rebellious community as she is waiting to be killed. It is through

her discourse that Demetrio sees the effects of his efforts. After the
woman is shot by a firing squad, the narrator focuses on her bleed-
ing body, lying atop that of her son: ‘‘su sangre brillaba con el sol
todavı́a fuerte; salı́a viva de un boquete que tenı́a en el cuello. Las
flores del pisonay fueron arrastradas por el viento. Y todos vieron
que eran opacas y sedosas junto al color de la sangre de esa mujer
con hijos. El árbol cabeceó con el viento; y él, sı́, agitándose, solo,
en el patio inmenso, lloró largo rato. Todos lo vieron hacer caer sus
flores calientes sobre el empedrado y despacharlas, rodando, hacia
los dos muertos’’ [her blood shone with the still-strong sun; it ran
lively out of a hole in her neck. The flowers of the pisonay tree were
strewn about by the wind. And everyone saw that they were opaque
and silky next to the color of the blood of this woman with children.
The tree nodded with the wind and it, yes, shaking, alone in the
immense patio, cried for a long time. Everyone saw it throw down
its hot flowers over the cobblestone and send them, rolling, towards
the two dead people] (TS, 455). The narrator calls on the strong ties
between the feminine and nature to stress the significance of the
woman’s death, and the narrator’s own ‘‘sı́’’ highlights his invest-
ment in the feminine. The lamenting of the woman’s death, then,
takes place on more than just the level of plot; it permeates all lev-
els of the narration, as ‘‘everyone’’ sees the reaction of nature to the
death, and the narrator himself feels compelled to comment on it.
This example shows the depth with which the feminine speaks in
the text. The mourning of this woman’s death is the mourning of a
frustrated social vision.
Again, the importance of women in Arguedas’s work stems in
part from the historical symbolic link between women and indige-
nous people commented upon in the introduction to this study. But
besides this participation in tradition, Arguedas gives his own rea-
sons for the correlation in the novel itself. Near the end of the work,
Fermı́n asks his wife, ‘‘no sé qué has hecho para que los indios te
quieran’’ [I don’t know what you have done to make the Indians
love you]; Matilde responds, ‘‘he sufrido. Ellos lo intuyen’’ [I have
suffered. They sense it.] (TS, 349). Throughout the work there is an
insistence on the suffering of women; indeed, the narrative sets up
this last observation near the beginning of the novel, when Matilde,
reflecting on her own somewhat impoverished youth, notes, ‘‘los
apuros por los que pasó mi familia me enseñaron a tener presentim-
ientos, a ver debajo del agua’’ [the problems my family had taught
me to have presentiments, to see under water] (TS, 76). For Ar-
guedas, suffering is a factor that unites marginalized elements. Dur-
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ing the gathering that establishes the new community, an elder of
Paraybamba says to Vicenta: ‘‘Tú has devuelto, con tu voluntad, sus
conciencias a los Pukasiras. Tú, porque has sufrido. Tú has devuelto
sus conciencias al señor don Bruno, porque has sufrido, y el padeci-
miento te ha santificado. ¡Gracias señora! ¡Gracias! Ahora somos
comunidad grande’’ [You have returned, by your will, our con-
science to the Pukasiras. You, because you have suffered. You have
returned his conscience to don Bruno, because you have suffered,
and suffering has sanctified you. Thank you, ma’am! Thank you!
Now we are a great community.] (TS, 451). Here Vicenta is implic-
itly linked with Christ, as through her suffering she redeems the
sins of humankind and begins a new community. Thus, for the basis
of his national vision, Arguedas unites those who suffer, the mar-
ginalized sectors of society, women and Indians. While he grounds
this national vision in the indigenous culture, he uses the woman as
cement, to seal the integrity of the nation, and, as a vital force, to
renew it. Upon joining the two, Arguedas proposes a nation Other
to the official Peru, a new nation that incorporates intuition, the ma-
ternal, and the subjective to purge the corruption, fragmentation,
and disintegration that characterize the official world.
Towards Mestizaje Through the Cultural Mestizo

The Indians are shown to be the most vibrant forces in the com-
munity, be it the colonos who work the mines in the form of faena,
a traditional communal work effort, or the comuneros of Lahuaym-
arca who have found their place in a modernizing Peru, buying and
working lands and doing business with the outside world. It is un-
doubtedly these values upon which Arguedas founds his national
vision. Nevertheless, the alternative national community will be
mestizo, harnessing the energy and incorporating the values of the
indigenous communities while working with the outside, modern
world. The alternative national subject is the one who can best bring
into harmony the factors, modernizing and traditional, Spanish and
indigenous, that make up Peru. In Todas las sangres, the models
Arguedas sets up for the new national subject, the cultural mestizo,
are men, but they are judged to a great extent by their relationship
to the feminine.28
First, it is necessary to examine the indigenous community Ar-
guedas creates in opposition to the ‘‘white’’ town of San Pedro, for
it will serve as the model for the new community formed at the end
of the novel. The comuneros of Lahuaymarca show a pride, unity,
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and strength lacking among the other groups that inhabit the region.
They resolve not to work the lands of the vecinos for less than two
soles a day and remain firm in their conviction despite the cruel
punishment to which two of their leaders are subjected. The
strength of the community is constantly highlighted through diverse
narrative techiniques. A young child from a prestigious family finds
himself drawn to the punished leaders. The narration focuses on his
attraction and contact with the Indians, as he approaches the area
where the remaining three varayok’ are watching over the staffs of
the punished leaders: ‘‘Ellos miraban tranquilos, casi afectuosa-
mente, al niño, pero él sintió que le oprimı́a la luz indefiniblemente
despectiva e imponente que no sabı́a cómo despendı́an los ojos in-
diferentes de los indios. Nunca los habı́a visto ası́. Eran sus amigos’’
[They watched the boy calmly, almost affectionately, but he felt
that an undefinablely disdainful and imposing light, that the indif-
ferent eyes of the Indians somehow dispersed on him, oppressed
him. He had never seem them like this. They were his friends] (TS,
70–71). The Indians are angry with their oppressors, but they stifle
their anger and resign themselves to accepting the demands of the
hierarchy, a strategy developed over centuries. The child, although
afraid, feels an irresistible attraction to the indigenous leaders, most
especially, to the material symbols of their positions. This scene is
one of prolonged active participation by the narrator, and can be
contrasted with the meeting of Fermı́n and Cabrejos, commented on
earlier. If before the narrator seemed powerless to intervene in the
conversation of two representatives and upholders of the dominant
fiction, here the narrator comments thoroughly on the indigenous
leaders and their symbols of power. Light shines on them and from
within them; the light of ‘‘all things’’ favors them. Yet it is a light
that, in a rare instance, is exclusive, one in which, owing to the ex-
cessive cruelty of the members of his caste, the child is unable to
participate.29
With Don Fermı́n’s help, the Indians prevail, and many señores
leave town or send their sons away. While they continue the defer-
ential treatment of prominent members of the town, they never
again work for free and continue constructing new bridges in the
Lahuaymarca gorge, while the town of Sand Pedor crumbles. The
Indians find a way to work within the system and yet retain their
cultural values. Indeed, it is through work and the respect gained
from work that the Sierra is to be saved. It is this appreciation of
labor that Cabrejos finds dangerous in the Indian. He notes the
speed with which the Indians learn to perform certain technical jobs
and the community aspect of their work. He states: ‘‘Son peligrosos
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porque forman parte de una banda por siglos segregada. Forman
otro mundo. Hay que destruir primero esa banda. Esa . . . ¿cómo
dirı́a? Esa nación metida dentro de otra. El Rendón lo sabe. Debe-
mos desintegrar esa baja masa que hemos mantenido por siglos
unida’’ [They are dangerous because they form part of a group that
has been segregated for centuries. They make up another world.
First we have to destroy that group. That . . . how should I put it?
That nation within a nation. Rendón knows it. We must disintegrate
that low mass that we have kept united for centuries] (TS, 158).30
He insists that the Indians must be ingrained with the sentiments of
ambition and individualism, as has happened to the majority of the
mestizos portrayed in the novel. Many, such as Gregorio or the
blacksmith’s son mentioned earlier, readily sell themselves as trai-
tors to their fellow serranos and are unable to work together to form
a viable class. As an alternative to these mestizos, Arguedas offers
models for what could be the new national subject, the cultural
mestizo.
Three figures emerge from the narration as potential models for
the cultural mestizo. First, there is Anto, don Andrés’s pongo. At
the beginning of the novel, Anto is portrayed as a typical pongo,
one who, as a member of the lowest social class, all but disappears.
When, after don Andrés’s death don Fermı́n orders Anto to stand
with the family and receive condolences from the vecinos, ‘‘se
apagó toda luz en el rostro del criado; permaneció como si él no
fuera, sino otra hechura’’ [all light was snuffed out in the face of
the servant; he remained as if he were not himself, but rather some-
thing else] (TS, 33). He comments at one point to La Kurku that he
himself is damaged. Yet, upon inheriting lands from don Andrés,
and with them the dignity of ownership and the pride of work, Anto
is transformed.
When Fermı́n insists that Anto trade the land he has been work-
ing for other lands and some farm animals, the former servant re-
fuses. After don Fermı́n angrily pulls a gun on Anto, the latter
reaffirms his resolve in such a way that he is physically trans-
formed. No longer kurku, no longer inferior, the Indian dares the
vecino to shoot. The narrator then focuses on the figure of the ex-
pongo: ‘‘Y Anto dio un paso adelante, con el rostro iluminado, casi
feliz; sonriendo no como enajenado, sino como hombre que va al
encuentro de una solución’’ [And Anto took one step forward, al-
most happy, smiling not estranged but like a man actively searching
for a solution] (TS, 221). His actions inspire respect on the part of
Fermı́n, who ends up not only leaving him with his original lands,
but giving him farm animals to help him work and telling him that
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he is now a vecino, to which Anto replies, ‘‘Yo, indio, siempre’’ [I,

Indian, always] (TS, 222).
Yet, Anto’s new position gives him social value and power he had
not had before. Later in the novel, the reader is told he has married
Filiberta, mentioned earlier, ‘‘una mestiza aindiada . . . famosa por
honrada, por fea, y trabajadora’’ [an Indian-ized mestiza . . . famous
for being honorable, ugly, and hardworking] (TS, 360). He partici-
pates in the cabildo that marks the beginning of the town’s rebel-
lion against authorities, a meeting marked by the absence of many
of the area’s vecinos, who had abandoned the town and left for
Lima. In this meeting, his prosperity and sense of his new social
position are apparent. At this time, Anto warns the town of the com-
ing of authorities and their desire to expropriate lands. From being
nothing and belonging to no one, through hard work, land, and an
official position in society, he has become a political subject within
a community, speaking, acting, and serving that community.
Bruno is another figure who shows potential as emerging as a
model of the cultural mestizo. Of the two brothers, he is undoubt-
edly the one most intimately linked to the indigenous culture,
though, as a traditional large landowner, he has unleashed a series
of abuses against his colonos, as well as upon many mestiza women
in the area. Nevertheless, his speech, his mannerisms, and his belief
systems are so deeply infused with those of the Quechua culture,
that he emerges as one of the best ‘‘candidates’’ for conversion, that
is, one of the masculine representatives of the dominant world of
the Andes who is best situated to participate in the new mestizaje
envisioned by Arguedas. Indeed, he is singled out by his father in
the opening scenes as the brother with the most hope for salvation,
and in the end it is he, more than Fermı́n, who breaks with his past
and embraces a future marked by the indigenous element, and by
the feminine.
His initial agreement to allow his Indians to work in Fermı́n’s
mine reveals an act of faith and of union. His (somewhat precari-
ous) reconciliation with his brother is highlighted by a spontaneous
ceremony initiated by Bruno’s mestiza lover, who throws carnation
and rose petals at the pair. As the brothers awkwardly embrace, the
church bells toll the death of their father. Here, the death of the old
guard coincides with the reconciliation/union of the two sides that
make up the ruling class of the Andes. It is marked and blessed by
a mestiza who acts as a narrative focalizer in drawing the reader’s
attention to the magnitude of the moment, and as a judge, by ex-
pressing divine approval of the event. At the sound of the church
bells, the two men kneel and swear allegiance, and the mestiza
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sings a Catholic hymn in Quechua. It is a song of redemption and
rebirth, and the reconciliation of the two brothers is presented in the
narrative as a sign of hope for the future, a melding of past and
present that would facilitate an entrance into modernity that re-
spects Andean culture and tradition, even though immediately doña
Adelaida predicts that the union will not last, because ‘‘Fermı́n tiene
el demonio’’ [Fermı́n is possessed] (TS, 27). As the men leave the
house and cross the town square, the mestiza follows them; she,
along with other narrative focalizers, such as the sun and the spar-
rows, highlights the importance of their journey together.
The treatment of don Bruno is often ambiguous and contradic-
tory. He is called a ‘‘devil’’ and is both feared and loved by his
colonos. He is condemned for his lust for mestiza and Indian
women, especially for his rape of la Kurku, a ‘‘creature of God,’’
yet he respects and is able to see the hidden virtue of women such
as Matilde. He himself is overcome with guilt over his uncontrolla-
ble lust and yet is at times unable to accept responsibility for his
actions, as if they came from a part of himself over which he has
no control. Of his rape of la Kurku, he thinks, ‘‘Sı́, como el rı́o,
como el rı́o de sangre que no puede asentar su lodo. ¡Mata a los
pececillos, los mata atorándolos! ¡Kurku Gertrudis, tú eras el
demonio, no yo! Yo entonces era muchacho, un muchacho todavı́a’’
[Yes, like a river, like a river of blood that cannot settle its mud. It
kills the fish, it kills them by choking them! Kurku Gertrudis, you
were the devil, not I! I was just a boy then, still a boy] (TS, 35). For
Fermı́n, his brother is a ‘‘gran señor de poncho, azote y revólver;
pero está más cerca de los indios que de la civilización. Dios y civ-
ilización son irreconciliables en su conciencia ardiente y taimada’’
[a notable señor with a poncho, a whip and a revolver, but closer to
the Indians than to civilization. God and civilization are irreconcil-
able in his burning and stubborn conscience] (TS, 46).
This fear of ‘‘civilization,’’ or modernity, is evident. He obvi-
ously believes his own sinfulness comes from his link to the West-
ern world. In a meeting with his colonos, he says, ‘‘No quiero que
los hombres de mis tierras vayan a los pueblos. ¡Yo soy corrom-
pido! No quiero que los hombres de mis pertenencias sean corrom-
pidos’’ [I don’t want the men of my lands to go to the towns. I am
corrupt! I don’t want my men to be corrupt], and continues, ‘‘¡Yo
hago sufrir! Eso es pecado. Eso mancha, ensucia. Ustedes sufren.
Son puros’’ [I cause suffering! That is a sin. That stains, dirties. You
all suffer. You are pure] (TS, 41). Yet, despite his evident concern
for his own Indians, he becomes uncontrollably angry when they
ask him for permission to help the comuneros of Paraybamba. In
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his fury, he orders a mestizo servant to beat the mestizo in charge

of the Indians, yet a moment later, at the indigenous leader’s re-
quest, he reconsiders and expels the first mestizo from his hacienda.
The Indians have considerable influence over their master. In this
sense, Bruno is someone who is removing himself from the stan-
dard model of masculinity, willing to abandon his position as mas-
ter and accept the influence of the Other.
It is this very influence and, again, the extent to which Bruno is
imbued with indigenous culture, that prepare him for his final trans-
formation. Just as Bruno served as a narrative focalizer that pre-
pared the reader for Matilde’s transformation, Matilde in turn
makes several observations that render Bruno’s final change logi-
cal. She notes that he lives in (an indigenous) paradise, surrounded
by ‘‘el perfume de la retama y el canto de las torcazas en esa que-
brada estrecha en que el rı́o suena sin poder acallar a los pájaros’’
[the perfume of the brush and the song of the pidgeons in this nar-
row gorge in which the river sounds without silencing the birds]
(TS, 75). Speaking to Cabrejos of her brother-in-law, she notes that
Bruno, despite his dress and mannerisms, inspires respect, and ‘‘sus
palabras me llegaron al alma. Vive en un sitio en que una persona
de corazón puede volverse fanática’’ [his words touched my soul.
He lives in a place where a person with heart can become fanatical]
(TS, 75). Matilde speaks to Cabrejos of a ‘‘nosotros,’’ herself and
Bruno, who are different from ‘‘ustedes,’’ Cabrejos and Fermı́n,
‘‘loyal’’ versus ambitious, placing herself on the same plane and in
the same category as her brother-in-law, opposing the symbolic
order of the capitalist world.
As was said before, it is the mestiza Vicenta who serves as the
catalyst in the transformation of Bruno (again, it is not clear from
the narration why Vicenta was chosen, except that she is a good
mestiza as opposed to a bad one). With Bruno’s transformation, he
becomes a true advocate for the Indians, uniting with Rendón Wil-
lka and granting the Indian guardianship of his son. The ceremony
of Bruno blessing Rendón, which seals their partnership, is in a
sense approved by the narrative, as it is witnessed by Vicenta and
two pongos and highlighted by the now-familiar narrative focal-
izers: ‘‘Rendón Willka se arrodilló. El gran pisonay del patio habı́a
desprendido casi todas sus flores sobre el piso de guijarros del rı́o.
Un manto rojo, redondo, en que el sol parecı́a derretido, iluminaba
el gran árbol, seña de la hacienda, ojo vigilante del Pukasira, según
los colonos’’ [Rendón Willka kneeled. The great pisonay tree in the
patio had shed almost all its flowers over the stone floor. A round
red blanket, in which the sun seemed to have melted, illuminated
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the tree, symbol of the hacianda, vigilant eye of the Pukasira, ac-
cording to the colonos] (TS, 305).
Furthermore, Bruno becomes an active defender of the Indians.
He is an advocate on behalf of the community of Paraybamba,
which was suffering great abuses at the hands of the cruel mestizo
landowner, Cisneros. Upon hearing of the injustices suffered by the
colonos of a local hacienda, Bruno confronts the hacienda owner,
who sees in Bruno’s eyes, ‘‘un rı́o de sangre; el yawar mayu del que
hablaban los indios. El rı́o iba a desbordarse sobre él con más poder
que una creciente repentina del furibundo rı́o que pasaba por un
abismo, quinientos metros abajo de los cañaverales de su hacienda’’
[a river of blood, the yawar mayu of which the Indians spoke. The
river was going to flow over him with more power than a suddenly
rising tide of the furious river that passed through an abyss five hun-
dred meters below the cane fileds of his hacienda] (TS, 437). Then,
in defense of the Indians, Bruno shoots and kills the landowner,
‘‘por orden del cielo’’ [by order of the heavens] (TS, 438), he says.
From there he proceeds to Fermı́n’s home, where Bruno also
shoots his brother, injuring, but not killing, him. In this sense he
almost fulfills his role as Cain and symbolically further breaks his
ties with the dominant fiction. At this point, the narration tells us
that the long-contained river of blood spilled out in Bruno’s chest,
and the man begins to cry inconsolably. From there, don Bruno
turns himself in for the murder of the hacienda owner and thus re-
linquishes his position as gran señor. With this last action, his ha-
cienda, La Providencia, is turned over to the Indians, to be managed
by Rendón until his mestizo son is of age. Through the character of
Bruno, the dominant fiction is once again challenged, and through
Bruno’s connection to the feminine, he is able to realize that chal-
lenge.
Demetrio Rendón Willka, an indigenous comunero educated in-
formally through seven years of contact with labor unions on the
Peruvian coast, is an example of the vibrant potential of mestizaje;
an Indian, he combines the most vital elements of both white and
indigenous cultures, the political astuteness and social awareness of
European socialism, and the spirituality and communal vision of
Quechua culture. When he first appears on the scene, it is at don
Andrés’s funeral. Having just returned from Lima, he is dressed in
Western-style clothing, wool pants and a jacket, that are not entirely
clean. Due to his attire, he is perceived as an ‘‘ex-indio,’’ but, he
insists, ‘‘yo comunero leı́do; siempre, pues, comunero’’ [I, literate
comunero; always, though, comunero] (TS, 36). In one of the nov-
el’s rare flashbacks, the reader is told how Rendón was sent to the
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local school when he was younger, as the only Indian ever allowed
to study in the upper class’s institution. There, in scenes reminis-
cent of those in Los rı́os profundos, he gives a gold coin to a child
who defends him, showing once again the prosperity of the Lahuay-
marca community as well as an acute awareness of the importance
of monetary exchange in the ‘‘white’’ world of the Sierra. As in Los
rı́os profundos, it is the younger children, not yet fully socialized to
hate the Indians, who befriend Demetrio. Nevertheless, the other
children are instructed by their parents to ostracize and provoke De-
metrio, which eventually leads to his expulsion from school. Thus,
the majority of Demetrio’s education takes place on the coast, in
the meetings of the communist unions. It is that education that he
brings back with him to Lahuaymarca.
Rendón, of course, is well aware that he must operate within the
system to achieve his goals. He goes to work for Fermı́n as a fore-
man in the mine. Matilde mistrusts Demetrio, but Fermı́n is blindly
secure that he understands the Indian. He believes Rendón is
obliged to be loyal, for, ‘‘he sido amo de él por siglos’’ [I have been
his master for centuries] (TS, 79), though he is aware that loyalty
could end. Indeed, Fermı́n is shown to misinterpret Rendón com-
pletely; he is certain that once Demetrio is filled with ambition, he
will be the mine owner’s best ally. Early in the narration, Matilde
speaks frankly with Rendón of her fears that he will betray her hus-
band. He responds with the traditional respect the indigenous peo-
ple accord to the wives of vecinos. Thus, ‘‘Matilde se sintió algo
sobrecogida. La expresión del ‘indio’ seguı́a siendo para ella aún
más inquietante y extraña, a pesar de que la voz de Demetrio de-
mostraba una especie de jamás y no experimentada ternura que, sin
embargo, no la halagaba’’ [Matilde felt somewhat taken aback. The
expression of the ‘‘Indian’’ was for her even more disquieting and
strange, despite the fact that Demetrio’s voice displayed a sort of
unaccustomed tenderness that, nonetheless, did not flatter her.] (TS,
82). Demetrio’s discourse, verbal and gestural, is marked by a dou-
ble meaning, which the male characters have difficulty interpreting.
Here, Demetrio insists he is betraying no one, and though Matilde
is moved in a strange way by his presence, she is fearful of him and
angrily sends him away.
Cabrejos attempts to win Rendón’s allegiance by painting himself
as a costeño who has never owned Indians nor caused indigenous
blood to be shed. He tries to bribe Rendón into working for the Con-
sorcio, but Rendón handles him skillfully, acting as if there is but
one natural order, or hierarchy, that cannot be broken. That is, he
acts as if it would be unnatural for him, or for Cabrejos for that mat-
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ter, to betray Fermı́n. Up to that point, the reader has been experi-
encing the same treatment given to Fermı́n, Cabrejos, and Matilde;
there has been almost no indication of what Rendón is thinking or
feeling, of what Rendón is as a conscious subject. Then, he briefly
opens up to a very drunk Cabrejos: ‘‘en mi adentro habla claro la
cascada, pues; el rı́o también, el manantial también’’ [inside me
clearly speaks the cascade, the river too, the spring too]. But that
glimpse inside Rendón, which shows a very indigenous understand-
ing of the world, is immediately closed: ‘‘yo, ¿por qué cojudices voy
decir contigo?’’ [I, why in the hell am I talking to you?] (TS, 83).
The deeper understanding of Rendón’s motivations will come
later. To this point in the narration, Rendón stands as a prime exam-
ple of how members of marginalized groups may enter, understand,
and participate in the dominant world, but not vice versa. Rendón
can very astutely read Fermı́n, Cabrejos, and Matilde, but he is
opaque to them. While Matilde and Cabrejos are able to intuit Ren-
dón’s threat, Fermı́n is quite mistaken in his analysis of his em-
ployee. Convinced that Demetrio is more superstitious than
politically astute, Fermı́n trusts the power of rational thought over
indigenous understanding. However, Rendón believes that the two
are not mutually exclusive. He is able to combine the communist
teachings he received on the coast with an indigenous vision of
community, in order to work for his people. This fact is not only
evident in his work with Bruno’s colonos in the mine, but also in
his efforts to found an alternative community at the end of the
novel.
If Peru, in its fragmented heterogeneity, is presented as a sort of
‘‘no-nation,’’ the alternative to this ‘‘no-nation’’ emerges at the end
of the novel, in the community formed during the indigenous revolt.
The foundation of the community is lead by two mestizos, Rendón
Willka and Vicenta, in La Providencia, Bruno’s hacienda. Bruno
has been jailed, the town of San Pedro itself burnt to the ground,
and the area afflicted with a series of confrontations among Indians,
serranos, and soldiers. Rendón Willka and Vicenta are left to form
a new community from the ashes of the old; this community is ded-
icated to the mestizo son of Vicenta and Bruno, the heir of the ser-
rano past and hope for Peru’s future. While Vicenta gives birth to
the child who will serve as the foundation for the new community,
her role is not limited to the symbolic one of giving birth to a ‘‘na-
tion.’’ Rather, Vicenta controls the meeting that directs the forma-
tion of this community; during the meeting it is she who sits in the
chair of honor and who orders, speaks, and allows others to speak.
In this sense, Arguedas gives new meaning to woman’s role in na-
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tion building, as here a woman (significantly, an indigenous-mestiza)

leads its ideological, symbolic, and cultural construction.31
The new community is one where all of its members are free and
where, in accordance to the socioeconomic structures of the indige-
nous culture and the ideals of socialism, all of the members work
together for the welfare of the community. They do so in the name
of the mestizo child, the symbolic future Peruvian. The Indians
themselves recognize the importance of this political act of subver-
sion, not just in social but also in subjective terms. Aware of the
soldiers, Vicenta and her son are taken into hiding, and the rest of
the Indians are left to defend their newly founded community, un-
successfully. But Rendón Willka, upon seeing the strength and
courage with which his followers defend their community, is con-
fident of the future. Before being killed by a firing squad, Rendón
Willka exclaims: ‘‘Hemos conocido la patria al fin. Y usted no va a
matar la patria, señor. Ahı́ está; parece muerta. ¡No! El pisonay
llora; derramará sus flores por la eternidad de la eternidad, cre-
ciendo. Ahora de pena, mañana de alegrı́a’’ [We have known the
fatherland finally. And you will not kill the fatherland, sir. There it
is, it looks dead. No! The pisonay tree cries; it will shed its flowers
forever and ever, growing. Now out of sorrow, tomorrow with joy]
(TS, 455). Nature, the land, native Andean elements, such as the
pisonay tree, favor the new community; indeed, upon the death of
the leader, the soldiers are said to hear ‘‘un sonido de grandes tor-
rentes que sacudı́an el subsuelo, como que si las montañas empe-
zaran a caminar’’ [a great torrent of sound shaking the subsoil, as
if the mountains were beginning to walk] (TS, 455). The biblical
overtones are significant, resonant of the utopian vision that charac-
terizes indigenista texts; it seems meant to mark the sound of the
new mestizo awareness. Rendón Willka, bearer of this conscious-
ness, emerges in the novel as a model of the cultural mestizo.32
Awakened by the teachings of Western socialism and anchored in
indigenous values, he is projected as the ideal leader for the new
Peruvian nation, a leader capable of uniting Western and indigenous
elements and imbuing his followers with a new mestizo conscious-
ness. In his character, Arguedas asserts that the Indian is not only
capable of understanding nation, but may be more capable of such
understanding than those of the official, Europeanizing world.
However, this utopian, hopeful ending seems to negate much of
what has happened in the rest of the text. It will be recalled that
immediately before dying, Demetrio witnesses an indigenous woman
defending the tenets of the newly founded community before being
executed. Her death was mourned in an intimate way by the nature
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surrounding her. Demetrio’s death brings a sound that resonates
throughout Peru and is heard by all: La Kurku, Bruno, Matilde,
Fermı́n. The monumental effect seems odd, given that all of the ele-
ments put forth as possible alternatives to the dominant fiction have
been effectively eliminated: Asunta and Bruno are in jail, Anto and
Demetrio have been killed by the dominant forces, Matilde and
Fermı́n have rejoined the world of the coast (though one Consorcio
leader confesses to fear Fermı́n might return and destroy the bal-
ance of power set up in the region), the new community has dis-
solved. Despite this apparent last note of triumph, the narrative of
Todas las sangres repeatedly shows the difficulty of the realization
of Arguedas’s national vision.
This difficulty is related to the treatment of the feminine in the
novel. Despite the strong and active female characters, the narrative
is unable to reach the level of feminization seen in Los rı́os profun-
dos. When the narrator does enter the text, it is often to identify and
invest in the feminine, but these occasions are few; the text is
marked by a prevalence of the masculine discourse of the dominant
fiction. This is not to say the feminine is unable to find expression
in the text; it does so, and at highly significant moments. However,
overall the feminine is frustrated, unable to penetrate the text as it
had in Los rı́os profundos, or even in Yawar Fiesta, and this frustra-
tion mirrors that of Arguedas’s own national vision. In this sense,
it is not of casual importance that the novel was written between the
composition of El Sexto and El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo,
the two novels set on the coast. These works show a frustration and
deception with the state of the nation that is reflected in the narra-
tive treatment of the feminine. Todas las sangres, in its ambitious
attempt to create a comprehensive portrait of Peru with the Sierra
as its main point of reference, stands as a narrative link between the
novels situated in the highlands and the writings set on the coast;
the ambivalent, or perhaps insecure, treatment of the feminine
speaks to this position. Although there is a desire to invest narra-
tively in the feminine, both in the creation of strong female charac-
ters and in the narrator’s frequent highlighting of the feminine,
there is also a sense of a waging of a battle that is already lost. The
overall absence of a strong narrative voice is logical, if that voice is
one that desires to connect itself to the feminine—in all its manifes-
tations—and yet senses an immanent threat to the same. The novel
ends with an impression that Peru is entering a modernity that can-
not sustain indigenous culture, that endeavors to crush the feminine.
The novels set on the coast, subjects of the next part of the study,
reiterate this conclusion, as they recreate the world that has been
developing parallel to that portrayed in the narrative analyzed so far.
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II
The Narrative Set On The Coast
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5
Mapping Space and Subject:
The Crisis of the Feminine in El Sexto
BETWEEN 1937 AND 1938, ARGUEDAS SPENT EIGHT MONTHS IN THE

famed El Sexto prison in Lima, for his participation in a political
riot at San Marcos University.1 Twenty-three years later, he would
publish El Sexto (1961), a novel based on that experience. El Sexto
is the most critically ignored of Arguedas’s novels, despite its ini-
tial popularity among readers, in part because it lacks the long de-
scriptions of nature referred to in the earlier novels, does not
elaborate a strictly Andean-indigenous topic, and seems to lack the
experimentation with language that so marks the rest of his narra-
tive, in other words, because it doesn’t seem very ‘‘Arguedian.’’2
There are, however, several characteristics that link the novel to the
rest of Arguedas’s writing and that point to the fact that the novel
deserves more critical attention than it has received thus far.3
Namely, like the rest of Arguedian narrative, El Sexto as novel
serves as a means of mapping Peru and its subjects and of providing
a (narrative) space for resistance against dominant culture and the
dominant imaginings of Peru at the time of its writing. Within this
re-mapping and recreating of Peru, there is a new community-
building project—one ultimately frustrated but nonetheless signifi-
cant within the overall national vision in Arguedian narrative.
Finally, as with the narrative set in the highlands, the vision set
forth in this novel can be best understood in conjunction with the
functioning of the feminine in the narrative. In El Sexto, the femi-
nine, whether as the semiotic, as music or dance, as nature, or as
‘‘feminine’’ characters, lacks the narrative strength and presence
given it in the immediately preceding novel, Los rı́os profundos, or
even in the subsequent Todas las sangres, and this struggle of the
feminine corresponds with a general despair over the state of the
nation and over the prospects of the creation of a national imagi-
nary based in Andean culture. El Sexto paints a dominant Peru ei-
ther devoid of the feminine or characterized by a perverted
189
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feminine, yet at the same time there is a desire on the part of the
text to present alternatives, and these alternatives come in the form
of characters with close ties to the feminine. What the reader is left
with, then, is an overall negative vision dotted with moments of
hope.
As in Yawar Fiesta and Los rı́os profundos, the plot of El Sexto
is rather simple. Gabriel, the first-person narrator-protagonist and a
literary projection of Arguedas himself, arrives at the prison as a
political prisoner. He is a student who has no specific political af-
filiation and is placed with other political prisoners, most of whom
identify themselves as either communists or apristas.4 Gabriel is as-
signed to share a cell with Alejandro Cámac, an indigenous mine
worker from the central highlands and a member of the Communist
Party. As will be discussed later, the young man feels an instant
connection with Cámac, who becomes for him a parental figure and
who guides and teaches him in the ways of the prison. In this man-
ner, Cámac is reminiscent of other figures in Arguedian narrative,
indigenous or indigenous-mestizo characters that bring an Andean
understanding of the world to the text and whose worldviews pro-
foundly affect the Arguedas-like protagonist.
Gabriel, like his counterparts in other works (Ernesto in ‘‘Warma
Kuyay’’ and Los rı́os profundos, Santiago in ‘‘Amor Mundo,’’—
discussed in the next chapter), serves as a catalyst, a meeting point
for the heterogeneous elements that make up Peruvian culture. He
is at once observer and dreamer, synthesizing for the reader the
world he sees and experiences and imagining alternative possibili-
ties. With the other political prisoners, he has detailed discussions
regarding the social, economic, and political condition of Peru, ulti-
mately finding their theories-without-action dissatisfying and inef-
fective. He thus turns observer of the rest of the prison, describing
and interacting with the nonpolitical prisoners, searching for other
answers to the problems he sees.
Indeed, the other subjects that make up the prison have a pro-
found effect on Gabriel. The activity of the prison is controlled by
two principal criminal bands, lead by two hardened criminals, ‘‘Pu-
ñalada’’ and Maravı́. Other key figures include: ‘‘Rosita,’’ an open,
effeminate homosexual who rejects ‘‘Puñalada’’’s advances and
eventually finds another ‘‘spouse’’; ‘‘Clavel,’’ a young man who is
held captive and raped repeatedly by Maravı́, then sold to Puñalada,
who prostitutes him; the ‘‘vagos,’’ homeless and cell-less men who
live in the most abject of conditions, and various other characters
who represent within the prison the heterogeneous society that ex-
ists outside—serranos, blacks, Asians, people of various socioeco-
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5: MAPPING SPACE AND SUBJECT 191
nomic backgrounds, criminals and the falsely accused, students and
political organizers.5 El Sexto details the abuses and corruption wit-
nessed by Gabriel, and the effect these have on him as he struggles
to make sense of what he sees and experiences from the time of his
arrival to his eventual release.
Space and Subject

Like the rest of Arguedas’s narrative, El Sexto can be best under-
stood in terms of mapping of spaces and subjects, as Arguedas
works to set up, define, and spatialize the ‘‘text’’ of Peru, and to plot
its subjects, their position, positioning, and movement, their con-
structed and imposed borders, their interactions and their splits,
their fragmentation and their communities-in-fragments. This en-
deavor, obviously, implies the introduction, or literary creation, of
new national subjects into the domain of the novel. Clearly, for Ar-
guedas, this portrayal exposes questions of power, specifically, how
power is constructed, maintained, and played out in Peru. Pile and
Thrift write about power’s effect on the subject: ‘‘power—whether
organized through knowledge, class, ‘race’, gender, sexuality and
so on—is (at least partly) about mapping the subject; where partic-
ular sites—for example the body, the self and so on—become
‘points of capture’ for power.’’6 Pile and Thrift discuss six ways to
map a subject—through position, movement, practices, encounters,
visuality, and aesthetics/ethics. It is readily apparent that all six of
these mappings are present in El Sexto—to give a few examples:
Gabriel’s position as an intellectual in formation; his movement
among the different spaces of El Sexto; the practices of Maravı́,
‘‘Puñalada,’’ ‘‘Rosita,’’ or the vagos; Gabriel’s encounters with
people he perhaps would never have met outside the prison; Gabri-
el’s visual assessments of the prison and of other subjects; the aes-
thetic and ethical presentation of the inhabitants of the prison. I will
here focus on a few of these points to show that the mappings of
space and subject in El Sexto are as revealing of Arguedas’s na-
tional vision as those in his more critically acclaimed novels. At the
same time they begin to shed doubt upon the actual possibilities of
that vision (in this sense anticipating the despair expressed in his
final novel, El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo).
Like all other Peruvian institutions portrayed in Arguedas’s
work, El Sexto, as prison, is defective. In his seminal work, Disci-
pline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault de-
scribes the geneology of the modern prison. If, as Foucault argues,
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the modern prison is designed to discipline both the body and soul,
isolating individuals from society and, often, from other inmates,
and controlling their activity (granted, Foucault shows a general
failure of these institutions to accomplish their goals), El Sexto is
shown to have no clearly discernible objectives as an institution.
There is no philosophy, no vision behind it. Rather, as Forgues
aptly observes, ‘‘The prison serves to isolate and exterminate unde-
sireables, loudmouths, and marginal figures. If one does not die
there, he goes crazy, loses his soul. Thus the violence, murder,
knife fights, homosexual prostitution, rapes, perversity, deprava-
tion, and vice that rule there as owners and lords are not only toler-
ated but actually encouraged by authorities.’’7
Hardened criminals are mixed with vagabonds and petty thieves,
and thrown in with them are political prisoners (who have commit-
ted no crime at all) and innocent men, either wrongly accused of
crimes or victims of some official’s desire for vengeance. El Sexto
is not designed to discipline, and even its punishment is relative;
some inmates suffer more than others, and the sentences seem to
have no relation to the crimes. There is almost no legal authority
represented in El Sexto—guards turn a blind eye to, or worse, sup-
port the activities of the criminal leaders. Complaints and requests
for justice are ignored or punished.8
From the first scene of the novel the importance of El Sexto as
space is evident. Gabriel and the other new prisoners are introduced
to El Sexto at night; from the patio, the narrator observes, ‘‘desde
lejos pudimos ver, a la luz de los focos eléctricos de la ciudad, la
mole de la prisión cuyo fondo apenas iluminado mostraba puentes
y muros negros. El patio era inmenso y no tenı́a luz. A medida que
nos aproximábamos, el edificio del Sexto crecı́a. Ibamos en silen-
cio. Ya a unos veinte pasos empezamos a sentir su fetidez’’ [from
far away we could see, in the light of the electric streetlamps, the
huge mass of the prison whose scarcely lit background revealed
black bridges and walls. The patio was immense and had no light.
As we approached, the building of El Sexto grew. We went in si-
lence. About twenty feet away we began to feel its fetidness.]9 From
the beginning we see the central motifs that will be repeated
throughout the narration—the patio, witness to the many horrors of
the prison, the walls and bridges that connect and divide the various
spaces of El Sexto, the (imagined) enormity of the building and
what it signifies, the stench that pervades the air. The prison, here
and throughout the narrative, is alternatively compared to a monster
and a cementary. During this introduction the narrator notes, ‘‘ya
podı́amos ver las bocas de las celdas y la figura de los puentes. El
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Sexto, con su tétrico cuerpo estremeciéndose, cantaba, parecı́a
moverse’’ [we could already see the mouths of the cells and the
figure of the bridges. El Sexto, with its gloomy body shuddering,
sang, it seemed to move] (ES, 7). These initial descriptions carry
obvious resonances of other Arguedian narratives. Like the Incan
walls in Cuzco, from Los rı́os profundos, El Sexto has life; it moves
and sings. The patio, with its darkness, fetid smell, and witnessing
of illicit activities, recalls the patio of the school in Abancay. The
difference, however, is the narrative value of these objects and
spaces in El Sexto: the song and movement of the prison alienates,
rather than comforts, the narrator. The patio has not one redeeming
value or moment of hope; in El Sexto there are no trees or blades of
grass that struggle to grow and with which Gabriel might identify.
The prison itself is divided into three floors: the first houses hard-
ened criminals, murderers, and the vagos; the second floor is occu-
pied by less dangerous criminals, and the third, political prisoners.
The floors are connected by stairways as well as by lines of sight;
from the third floor it is possible to view what is happening in the
other two. However, there is an implicit understanding that the
floors should not mix, that such intermingling would be very dan-
gerous. The first floor is ruled by two bands, lead by ‘‘Puñalada’’
and Maravı́, who inside the prison have a great amount of liberty,
free to continue their illicit activities, now without fear of reprisal.
‘‘Puñalada’’ and Maravı́ trade illegal merchandise, impose a sort of
tax on other inmates, and choose prisoners, usually young boys, to
be their lovers and slaves. They abuse the vagos for their own
amusement and have absolute control over all activities on the first
floor.
Oddly enough, the prison seems to be a place of greater freedom
than the outside. Apart from the activities of the criminals, the po-
litical prisoners as well appear free to say what they wish, to plan,
and to act. The newly arrived Gabriel is surprised to hear Cámac’s
criticisms of the presence of U.S. businesses in Peru and reflects,
‘‘Me asombré de que tuviera tanta libertad para hablar en voz alta
de asunto tan peligroso. . . . Tenı́a 23 meses de secuestro en el
penal; habı́a recuperado allı́ el hábito de la libertad’’ [I was shocked
that he so freely spoke aloud about such a dangerous subject. . . .
He had been imprisoned for 23 months; he had recovered the habit
of liberty] (ES, 25). If the prison ironically has become a place for
unrestricted criminality and autonomy of expression, it also allows
for relative freedom for political activity.
The novel represents two main political groups, the communists
and the Apristas. Despite sharing expressed concerns for indige-
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nous and proletarian rights and for social and agrarian reform, the
two groups differed on several fundamental issues, especially the
role of imperialism in Peru’s development. APRA’s founder, Victor
Raúl Haya de la Torre, came to defend imperialism as necessary for
providing the capital needed to create industry, which would lead
to strong working and middle classes. Mariátegui, who at first was
a member of the APRA, found this stance problematic and estab-
lished the Peruvian Communist Party in response to the ‘‘inconsist-
encies’’ of aprista thought. This is the only literary work in which
Arguedas writes openly about politics in Peru. If he shows a certain
inclination towards the tenets of Marxism and a clear antiimperial-
istic stance, Arguedas criticizes the Communist Party as accutely
as he does the APRA.
In the novel, the communists are said to lack heart, to misunder-
stand the very people they pretend to defend. Says Cámac to Pedro,
the leader of the prison’s communists, ‘‘¡Tantos años de lucha y no
conoces, a veces, a la gente!’’ [So many years of struggle and you
don’t know, at times, the people!] (ES, 34). At another moment,
Gabriel specifically expresses his doubt that the communists can
save the country; there are few of them and they are too fanatical,
he says. When Cámac replies that that fanaticism is the very
strength of the communists, Gabriel responds that it is also their
greatest defect (ES, 101). The criticism of the apristas is even more
pointed. Pedro, the communist leader, attacks their opportunism
and lack of a clear political vision, ‘‘El ‘jefe’ se proclama antifeu-
dal, pero se rodea de señores que son grandes del norte . . . constitu-
yen la reserva del imperialismo yanqui y de la reacción nacional’’
[The ‘‘boss’’ says he’s antifeudal, but he surrounds himself with big
men from up north . . . they are the reserve of Yankee imperialism
and national reaction] (ES, 37).10 Both parties are declared respon-
sible for the situation in the country. Unable to cooperate, they pit
worker against worker, ultimately harming those they purport to de-
fend. The situation is highlighted in the novel, which narrates vari-
ous confrontations between the groups, who discourage cooperation
and promote hatred among their members. At one point they do
work together, signing a letter demanding the removal of ‘‘Puña-
lada’’ and Maravı́, but the cooperation is short-lived and only
slightly alleviates tensions between the groups.
Critics have noted that the prison serves as a microcosm of the
country. It is, as Arguedas himself claimed, a concentration of ‘‘the
best and the worst of Peru.’’11 Certainly, this assessment can be ap-
preciated in the prison’s fragmentation (among groups, or floors,
but even within groups that should show some sense of solidarity—
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the politicals, for instance, or the vagos). Arguedas’s presentation
of the prison as institution echoes and amplifies other Arguedian
presentations of the Peruvian nation in its corruption and violence.
In this sense, it is what Foucault terms a ‘‘heterotopia,’’ ‘‘something
like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the
real sites, all other real sites that can be found within the culture,
are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted.’’12 For
Foucault, ‘‘the heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real
place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompati-
ble.’’13 El Sexto juxtaposes the incompatible coast and Sierra, as
well as a diversity of other spaces—the university, the street, the
highland mines, the countryside, urban middle-class neighbor-
hoods, and the criminal world. It simultaneously represents, con-
tests, and inverts Peru, suggesting its impossibility as a nation and
as a national community. El Sexto is a place where nothing is rec-
oncilable and where everything is at the point of disintegration.
For Cornejo Polar, El Sexto is a ‘‘hyperbolic’’ microcosm of the
nation, its institutional as well as its political and social processes.14
However, Arguedas does more in this evocation of the prison/nation
than simply reconstruct it narratively. Rather, he points to how this
space, and others like it, can be sites of resistance as much as they
are spaces of domination; he does this through remapping. Super-
imposed upon the geography of domination (the fragmented design
and use of space within the prison; the corrupt practices of those in
power within the space) is a geography of resistance, constructed,
to return to Pile (as cited in chapter 2), through practices not readily
identified as power—through moments of desire, anger, capability,
happiness, fear, remembering, and forgetting—and written on the
bodies of those denied power, both inside and outside the prison.
Thus, the text begins to ‘‘map,’’ to delineate subjects capable of re-
sisting, if not transforming, the geographies of power that would
seek to confine them.
As stated before, El Sexto houses a variety of people, all in their
own ways representative of different subjects that constitute the Pe-
ruvian nation; the heterogeneity of the prison echoes that of the
country at large. While the spatial divisions of the prison would cat-
egorize its inhabitants in one manner (vagos, petty criminals, hard-
ened criminals, political prisoners), Gabriel seems to come up with
two principal types of characters: on the one hand, those who are
totally corrupt or degenerate (instigators or victims of the violence
of the system)—Maravı́, ‘‘Puñalada,’’ ‘‘Rosita’’, ‘‘Clavel’’, the
vagos—on the other, the resisters—those who would fight to
change their circumstances. Of course, the politicals would seem to
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fall into this latter category automatically. However, as Edgardo J.

Pantigoso well states, unable to act, the politicals become mere the-
orists: ‘‘the prison is their ivory tower, they lose contact with the
people and ability to appreciate them.’’15 Therefore, Gabriel must
look to other figures for possibilities of resistance, potentiators of
change. He finds them, again, in and through the feminine.
Crisis of the Feminine

With relation to the feminine, El Sexto, as text, and El Sexto, as
place, are marked by either its absence or its corruption and degra-
dation in the forms in which it appears. The narrative aspects, so
closely associated with the feminine in earlier works—namely, the
evocations of nature and the role of music—have a markedly differ-
ent presence in this novel. Those characters most closely linked to
the feminine continue to enjoy the greatest narrative treatment and
are presented as possibilities for hope amidst despair, but they—
like nature and music—are unsustainable in the prison environ-
ment. Indeed, we see in El Sexto a feminine that struggles to speak
but which ultimately succumbs to a crisis of expression.
The novel begins with music, with the singing of aprista and
communist hymns by the political prisoners as a greeting to the new
arrivals. This is one of the few moments when music seems to re-
tain its revolutionary potential; for the most part, music and sound
in El Sexto are perverted and corrupted. After the opening scene,
the first sounds represented are those of ‘‘Rosita,’’ the effeminate
homosexual, whose voice is described by Gabriel as surprisingly
being ‘‘authentically’’ feminine. However, ‘‘Rosita’’’s voice is con-
nected to a ‘‘defective’’ aspect of nature, the omnipresent garúa, a
fine, gray mist that often enshrouds Lima. Nature, in El Sexto and
in Lima, is negative, unfulfilling, and insufficient solace as com-
pared to the natural elements of the highlands. The incessant drizzle
fills the atmosphere with a sense of anguish and, unlike nature in
the highlands, does not serve as an affirming companion of sound.
Indeed, the relationship of nature and sound on the coast is con-
trasted with that of the Sierra, evoked in the memories of the pro-
tagonist. Gabriel remembers the town where he was raised, which,
like Lima, was frequently covered in fog. According to his narrated
memory, in the highlands, nature and sound connect humanity to
the physical world and to the heavens. They serve as unifying
forces; they awaken the hidden (the semiotic) in the world and con-
nect the indigenous inhabitants to the unseen. The connection of
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nature and song on the coast is shown to be different—corrupting
the feminine—and surprising, to the serrano.
Cámac comments on the corrupt nature of ‘‘Rosita’’’s music, as
something that must be a product of the environment: ‘‘el natural
del hombre se pudre en Lima. . . . El marica está cantando y parece
reina su voz en el Sexto. Quizá ese hombre no es nacido de mujer;
lo habrá parido una de esas celdas de abajo’’ [the natural state of
man rots in Lima. . . . The fag is singing and it seems his voice
reigns in El Sexto. Perhaps this man was not born of woman, but
rather of one of the cells down below] (ES, 57). As has been stated
before, Arguedas had a very conflictive understanding of sexuality,
stemming from his experiences as a child, and heterosexual rela-
tions are most often represented in his narrative as violent, abusive,
and corrupted by questions of power. Homosexuality is unfortu-
nately considered degenerate and dangerous in Arguedian narrative,
produced either by a defective form of femininity (as is the case of
‘‘Rosita’’) or by violent and corrupt relations of power (as is the
case with ‘‘Clavel’’). This portrayal seems to be in keeping with the
Andean conception of homosexuality as an aberration against na-
ture, a concept discussed in the novel itself. Just as I do not make a
value judgment regarding the representation of women in Argued-
ian narrative, it is not my intent to critique the intense and uncom-
fortable homophobia that marks this text, but rather to examine the
narrative treatment of homosexuality as a function of the role of the
feminine, and its relation to Quechua culture and Arguedas’s na-
tional vision, in Arguedian narrative. Just as the music of the waka-
wak’ras invades the town of Puquio in Yawar Fiesta, ‘‘Rosita’’’s
voice pierces all spaces in El Sexto, and Lima creates something
that (for the Andean world) is unnatural, inverted. From this ‘‘de-
generate’’ (perverted, but also removed from his ‘‘appropriate’’
gender identification) comes the sound that penetrates the essence
of the prison. The feminine (as person, as nature, as sound) is cor-
rupted by Lima and by the prison and, as such, is unable to fulfill
its role as transformer and redeemer.
Other types of sound that mark the prison include the singing of
the vagos and the criminals, whose voices are again reflected in the
surroundings: ‘‘Se excitaban e iban apurando la voz, mientras la
llovizna caı́a o el sol terrible del verano pudrı́a los escupitajos, los
excrementos, los trapos’’ [They became excited and rushed their
voices, while the drizzle fell or the terrible sun of summer rotted
their spit, their excrement, and their rags] (ES, 12–13). The song
that comes from the miserable figures of the vagabonds and the
thieves is highlighted by decay and misery. Such song cannot have
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the redeeming qualities given music in the narratives of the high-

lands. A sound that dominates the space in a manner similar to that
of ‘‘Rosita’’’s song is the voice of ‘‘Puñalada,’’ who calls to prison-
ers wanted in the main office with a cry characterized by an inexpli-
cable sadness. It is ‘‘Puñalada’’’s voice that moves El Sexto; like
music in the highlands, this sound does not provoke indifference;
rather, it controls the space and deeply disturbs all that hear it.
There are many examples of these sounds, born of El Sexto, that
provoke sadness, anguish, and misery in those who hear them, es-
pecially in Gabriel.
There are, however, select moments when music briefly assumes
the revolutionary role given it in the narrative of the highlands. Po-
litical songs are sung at key moments in the narrative, such as when
Cámac dies. The prison is surprised by the song of ‘‘Clavel,’’ who
sings huaynos mixed with tangos and rumbas. When a guard tries
to silence him, Maravı́ defends ‘‘Clavel’’’s right to sing, and im-
plores the young man to continue ‘‘como canario en jaula’’ [like a
caged canary] (ES, 119). At that moment, ‘‘Clavel’’ turns silent and
refuses to sing. Both song and silence (that is, control over his own
voice) become signs of resistance. At different times, other huaynos
are sung to comfort the singer or a fellow suffering inmate, but
often the singer lacks the strength to finish his song or the song is
interrupted by one of the dominant forces.
Perhaps the most realized moment of resistance related to song is
one that recalls the dance in the chicherı́a in Los rı́os profundos. It
takes place at a time of great unease in the prison, when tensions
seem about to explode, and, in the narrative, immediately after a
conversation between Gabriel and coastal peasant, don Policarpo
Herrera, who is determined to kill ‘‘Puñalada’’ to defend Gabriel
(and prevent Gabriel from killing the criminal leader himself).16
This dance, performed by Sosa, a black political prisoner from the
coast, has a seemingly positive effect on El Sexto: ‘‘la danza con-
movı́a los rı́gidos muros, los rincones oscuros del Sexto; repercutı́a
en el ánimo de los presos, como un mensaje de los ingentes valles
de la costa, donde los algodones, la vid, el maı́z y las flores refulgen
a pesar del polvo’’ [the dance moved the rigid walls, the dark cor-
ners of El Sexto; it rebounded in the spirit of the prisoners, like a
message from the prodigious valleys of the coast, where the cotton,
grapevines, corn, and flowers shine despite the dust] (ES, 179). The
dance evokes a scene of coastal nature beyond the city, where na-
ture thrives in spite of the environment. The dance captivates all of
the inmates, for, the narrator determines, ‘‘el negro viejo danzó en
la mejor oportunidad, cuando el Sexto estaba bajo amenazas, de-
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primido y exaltado al mismo tiempo, por luchas y malos presenti-
mientos’’ [the old black man danced at the best opportunity, when
El Sexto was under threat, depressed and exalted at the same time
by the struggles and bad feelings] (ES, 180). Though the dance is
interrupted by ‘‘Puñalada,’’ who beats the dancer, its profound effect
is evident, emphasized narratively by sound and nature. ‘‘Clavel’’
cries out from his cell, highlighting the man’s dance. The sun
changes, retreating from the patio and turning bright red, and an un-
usual silence covers the prison: ‘‘Sosa, el ‘‘polı́tico’’, ‘‘enemigo’’ del
General, nos habı́a traı́do la visión de los campos de la costa, por
unos minutos’’ [Sosa, the ‘‘politician,’’ ‘‘enemy’’ of the General had
brought us a vision of the fields of the coast for a few minutes] (ES,
181).17 The effect does not last, but it is no less significant.
The feminine, then, must struggle in the atmosphere of the
prison, though it is able at key moments to break through and to
momentarily enjoy the status given it in the narrative set in the
highlands. In the narration of El Sexto, there is an oscillation be-
tween a perverted or silenced feminine and brief instances when the
feminine regains its power; these are occasions when meaning is
concentrated and Arguedas’s vision breaks through. The ambiva-
lence of the treatment of the feminine is also apparent in the devel-
opment of key characters in the text. First, it is noteworthy that
there is a lack of feminine characters, or characters strongly associ-
ated with the feminine. Women per se are absent from the action of
the text, existing only in the memories of a few characters. Cámac
and Gabriel, along with a few other serrano characters, have the
closest connection with the feminine, but these connections are un-
sustainable in the prison environment, existing primarily in memo-
ries of past experiences or imaginings of future freedom. The other
characters, the political leaders, ‘‘Puñalada,’’ and Maravı́, are re-
moved from the feminine, their interactions with others character-
ized by violence and self-interest.
Even those characters who would seem to have a closer connec-
tion with the feminine, either through their own actions (‘‘Rosita,’’
as an effeminate homosexual) or their collective value within Ar-
guedian narrative (the vagos, as the most marginalized members of
the institution), are insufficient to maintain that strong, purifying
connection with the feminine so important in the novels set in the
highlands. ‘‘Rosita’’ is shown to have a defective femininity, due to
the corruption of his/her activities both in and out of the prison. It
is interesting to observe Cámac’s initial description of ‘‘Rosita’’:
‘‘es un marica ladrón que vive sola en su celda, frente de nosotros.
¡Es un valiente! Ya la verás. Vive sola. Los asesinos que hay aquı́
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la respetan. Ha cortado fuerte, a muchos. A uno casi lo destripa. Es

decidido. Acepta en su cama a los que ella no más escoge. Nunca
se mete con asesinos. ‘Puñalada’ la ha enamorado, ha padecido’’
[he is a fag robber who lives alone in his cell, in front of us. He is
brave! You’ll see her soon. She lives alone. The murderers here re-
spect her. He has cut hard. He almost disemboweled someone. He
is decided. She accepts in her bed only men of her choosing. She
never gets together with murderers. ‘‘Puñalada’’ has courted her,
and has suffered] (ES, 10). In this description, Cámac vacillates in
the gender designation he uses to refer to ‘‘Rosita’’—when speak-
ing of ‘‘Rosita’’ ‘s physical strength and capacty for violence, he
refers to the inmate in the masculine; when commenting on ‘‘Ros-
ita’’ as a person, where s/he lives, or as a sexual being, Cámac uses
the feminine. Cámac describes the serrano attitude towards people
like ‘‘Rosita’’: ‘‘Ella es, pues, mujer. El mundo lo ha hecho ası́. Si
hubiera nacido en uno de nuestros pueblos de la sierra, su madre le
hubiera acogotado. ¡Eso es maldición allá! Ni uno de ellos crece.
En Lima se pavonean’’ [She is, well, a woman. The world has made
him this way. If he had been born in one of our towns in the Sierra,
his mother would have killed him. That is damnation there! Not one
of them grows up. In Lima they flaunt themselves] (ES, 11). ‘‘Rosi-
ta’’’s sexuality is perceived to be very dangerous and disturbing.
Her choice of a ‘‘husband’’ among the prisoners on the second floor
provokes the wrath of ‘‘Puñalada,’’ who is in turn appeased by
being given ‘‘Clavel,’’ whose torture is so deeply felt Gabriel. For
Arguedas, El Sexto is a place that thoroughly corrupts and degrades
the feminine, transforming it to feed its own violence and aggres-
sion.
This corruption is felt most intensely on a corporeal level. In a
sense, in addition to being a treatise on space, the novel becomes
an exploration of the body, of individual bodies—incarcerated,
abused, degenerated on the one hand, but also liberated, rebellious,
and full of potential, on the other. The narrator-protagonist’s disil-
lusionment with the political proposals of the opposition corre-
sponds with a growing fascination with the subject, not so much as
a social or political construct but as a corporeal entity. Elizabeth
Grosz argues that ‘‘seeing that the subject’s consciousness or interi-
ority, its essential humanity or unique individuality, can no longer
provide a foundation or basis for accounts of identity, it is appro-
priate to ask whether subjectivity, the subject’s relations with others
(the domain of ethics), and its place in a socio-natural world (the
domain of politics), may be better understood in corporeal rather
than conscious terms.’’18 The narrative reconstruction of the body
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becomes as central to this work as is the narrative reconstruction of
space. In the end, it is the way bodies inhabit and are transformed
by El Sexto that most affects Gabriel.
The absolute degradation of the subject can be most appreciated
in the figure of ‘‘Clavel,’’ most especially in what happens to his
body. ‘‘Clavel’’ is a young man who had been brought from the
street for Maravı́ and is eventually given to ‘‘Puñalada’’ to appease
the latter’s frustrations over not being able to have ‘‘Rosita.’’ ‘‘Puña-
lada’’ locks the young man in a cell from which he prostitutes him.
As a male prison prostitute, ‘‘Clavel’’ is a multiply corrupted femi-
nine; his face is made up as a woman’s, but defectively: ‘‘tenı́a las
ojeras pintadas, excesivamente grandes; los labios rojos, grasosos.
En su rostro hundido y amarillo resaltaban las cejas negras. Su me-
lena, que parecı́a recién peinada, también tenı́a grasa’’ [he had his
eyes painted, excessively big, and red, greasy lips. On his sallow,
yellow face, his black eyebrows stood out. His hair, which seemed
recently dyed, was also greasy] (ES, 121). ‘‘Clavel’’’s body be-
comes the intersection of capitalist values (in the money exchanged
for use of his body) and the violence that marks dominant society.
He is, in the narrative, a violated body devoid of soul.
In ‘‘Clavel’’’s body (and it is significant that ‘‘Clavel’’’s father
was a serrano), we see the dominant society that determines to
crush (incarcerate and enslave) the feminine, to degrade it, abuse it,
and exchange it for its own growth and satisfaction. ‘‘Clavel’’’s cell
is a repeated motif for the corruption that marks the prison, and his
prostitution is shown to have a turbulent effect on the delicate bal-
ance of power in the institution. The young man’s status is indica-
tive of that of the feminine on the coast and in the dominant
national imagination—as there is an effort to suppress the feminine
accompanied by a perverse fascination and desire for it, which con-
tribute to a disruption of the symbolic order. In the end, ‘‘Clavel’’
is released from his cell, only to be taken to an insane asylum or,
the narration tells us, to be released into the poor neighborhoods of
Lima if the asylum has no room for him.
Most indicative of the status of the feminine in this work are the
most marginal characters, the vagos. Unlike marginal figures from
the novels of the Sierra (the pongos, la Opa, la Kurku) these charac-
ters are totally abject; living like animals in every aspect, they have
no redeeming values apart, perhaps, from their severe suffering.
The narrator describes in lurid detail the base existence of the
vagos. They live on the first floor, spending most of their time in
the patio fleeing from the abuses of the criminal leaders. Having no
one to bring them food or clothing, and no access to the internal
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power system that would allow them to procure goods, the vagos
survive on scraps the political prisoners throw them and fruit rinds
and crumbs dropped by other prisoners; one particularly disturbing
scene shows some vagos licking up the blood shed by ‘‘Clavel,’’
after he is severely beaten by Maravı́. The vagos are completely
alone, living purely on an instinctual level in their struggle to sur-
vive. The narrator writes, ‘‘Vago que enfermaba, vago que morı́a;
nadie le llevaba alimentos a su celda. Iba consumiéndose por ham-
bre; morı́a entre la fetidez de sus últimos excrementos y orines. Sus
compañeros de celda lo arrojaban afuera al anochecer, si lo veı́an
agonizante’’ [A sick vago was a dead vago; nobody took food to
his cell. He would be consumed by hunger; he died among the fetid-
ness of his last excrement and urine. His cellmates would throw
him out at night, if they saw him agonizing] (ES, 106).
The vagos are the abject, which accounts for Gabriel’s fascina-
tion with them as well as the deeply disturbing effect they have on
him. Kristeva links the abject with the feminine and the semiotic
and describes it as follows: ‘‘The abject has only one quality of the
object—that of being opposed to I. If the abject, however, through
its opposition, settles me within the fragile texture of desire for
meaning, which, as a matter of fact, makes me ceaselessly and in-
finitely homologous to it, what is abject, on the contrary, the jetti-
soned object, is radically excluded and draws me toward the place
where meaning collapses.’’19 This is, indeed, for Gabriel, a place
where meaning collapses. In his desire to decipher what he is seeing
and living, to create a text of the experience of prison that would
somehow have meaning, the vagos are an impediment. Gabriel is at
once drawn to and repulsed by them; he cannot make sense of (find
meaning in) them. In comparison to Arguedian representations of
the Sierra, where all life is sacred, there is nothing sacred about the
vagos and, as such, they seem almost beyond representation—
beyond the evocative powers of the narrator. They are ‘‘huér-
fanos’’—deprived of family and possessions—the basest category
in Andean social classification as well as here, within the context
of El Sexto.
For Kristeva, ‘‘it is . . . not lack of cleanliness or health that
causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What
does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the am-
biguous, the composite.’’20 The abject brings the subject back to the
semiotic, more specifically, back to the pre-oedipal mother’s body,
to before the constitution of the ego, a place of confusion of instinc-
tual drives and signifiers; it is ‘‘a composite of judgment and affect,
of condemnation and yearning, of signs and drives.’’21 Abjection
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unmasks the symbolic’s unsteady and uncertain control over the se-
miotic, a control constantly threatened by the latter’s endeavors to
rupture identity and the symbolic order. It is what must be con-
trolled in order for the child to take place in the symbolic order.
The vagos are powerful in their ability to disturb order and in
their omnipresent juxtaposition to the symbolic within the context
of El Sexto. In this manner they echo the role of the semiotic in the
narrative of the Sierra. Nevertheless, the disturbing aspect of the
vagos, within the context of Arguedian narrative, is their quality of
being excess and impurity. In El Sexto, on the coast, the feminine
is (in) a precarious and dangerous position. As Grosz observes, the
abject is ‘‘the unspoken of a stable speaking position, an abyss at
the very borders of the subject’s identity, a hole into which the sub-
ject may fall.’’22 The vagos represent a danger, a chaos to which
subjects like Gabriel could be thrown back if unable to withstand
their precarious position within the dominant symbolic system.
Says Grosz, ‘‘the abject is the symptom of the object’s failure to fill
the subject or to define and anchor the subject.’’23
In this sense, if the narrative shows a collapse of the redeeming
powers of the semiotic in its representation of the abject, it also
shows a failure of the symbolic as signifying system in the same.
Grosz explains, ‘‘like the broader category of the semiotic itself, the
abject is both a necessary condition of the subject, and what must
be expelled or repressed by the subject in order to attain identity
and a place in the symbolic. Even at times of its strongest cohesion
and integration, the subject teeters on the brink of this gaping abyss,
which attracts (and also repulses) it. The abyss is the locus of the
subject’s generation and the place of its potential obliteration.’’24
The abject is what questions or even disintegrates the borders and
divisions that constitute identity and maintain social order. The in-
ability of the social in El Sexto (and, by extension, in Lima, if not
the whole of Peru) to control and exclude the abject points to the
chaos ever threatening the symbolic order; society is at the edge of
the abyss, on the brink of collapse.
Yet the presence of the abject is not merely a commentary on the
contemporary social situation. The vagos are also a constant re-
minder to Gabriel of who he is, where he comes from, and what his
possibilities are. As the hybrid intellectual, Gabriel is, like Ernesto
before him, always in between, lacking a fixed identity and yet in
search of some measure of the security of identity. Anna Smith
points out, ‘‘the abject person is the supreme example of the voy-
ager, always straying, torn by these ‘somewhat Manichean’ aspects
and lacking a strong third term (the paternal function) that will at-
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tach him securely to language and the symbolic (Other).’’25 The

vagos, in this sense, are not only more perverted versions of the
marginal figures of the Sierra (the pongos), they are reflections of
an essential aspect of the hybrid intellectual, that of being a traveler,
a wanderer, of having no fixed site within the symbolic order, and
of being somehow Other to language. This status further accounts
for Gabriel’s simultaneous attraction to and repulsion of the vagos.
Just two vagos even remotely exhibit the redeeming potential of
the marginalized characters of the Sierra. El japonés and el ‘‘pia-
nista’’ are the only vagos given names in the narrative; the rest form
an undifferentiated mass. Like the other vagos, el japonés and el
‘‘pianista’’ have very basic (base) desires, are unable to communi-
cate with others (they have no voice), and exist at the level of mere
survival, but Gabriel sees something special, attractive in them,
something reminiscent of the attributes seen in the marginal charac-
ters of the Sierra, a kind of underlying resistance in their mere exis-
tence. Rather than exploring resistance from the point of view of
the dominant culture, and thus trying to legitimate it through the
dominant culture, Arguedas’s narrative aligns itself with the mar-
ginal, the other side of the binary, and shows how the marginal con-
ceives itself not solely, or even primarily, as a reaction or resistance
to the dominant culture, but rather as a vibrant, creative source in
and of itself. Thus Arguedas’s work offers an alternative to the
dominant fiction (though it is not entirely separate of it either), a
‘‘third space’’ in fiction that potentiates a revolution in Peruvian na-
tional imagination. This narrative portrayal of resistance that Ar-
guedas offers, however, is not entirely optimistic or utopian; it also
shows the ways in which the dominant fiction seeks to control and
contain any resistance to that fiction. The real point of resistance,
then, comes in that which the dominant fiction cannot or will not
see.
In this sense, el japonés and el ‘‘pianista’’ are prime examples of
resisters. Their actions are not ones readily identifiable as resis-
tance; that is, they do not specifically protest their situation or at-
tack those that create it. Rather, it is in specific moments of action
(practices) that they react against their situation as vagos and gain
control over their circumstances. El japonés has but one desire—to
be able to defecate in peace; normally ‘‘Puñalada’’ tortures him by
not allowing him to use the latrines. ‘‘Puñalada’’’s actions reflect
the symbolic’s desire to control the abject, represented by such
‘‘polluting objects’’ (Kristeva’s words) as excrement. Says Kris-
teva, ‘‘excrement and its equivalents (decay, infection, disease,
corpse, etc.) stand for the danger to identify that comes from with-
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out: the ego threatened by the non-ego, society threatened by its
outside, life by death.’’26 ‘‘Puñalada’’’s violence against el japonés
is shown to be a perverse abuse of power, the symbolic’s unending
quest to crush the semiotic. It is, in essence, an affront on maternal
authority, or on the feminine.
Says Kristeva, ‘‘it will be remembered that the anal penis is also
the phallus with which infantile imagination provides the feminine
sex and that, on the other hand, maternal authority is experienced
first and above all, after the first essentially oral frustrations, as
sphincteral training.’’27 It is, then, maternal authority that sets the
regulations for cleanliness. Therefore, Kristeva argues:
Through frustrations and prohibitions, this authority shapes the body
into a territory having areas, orifices, points and lines, surfaces and hol-
lows, where the archaic power of mastery and neglect, of the differentia-
tion of proper-clean and improper-dirty, possible and impossible, is
impressed and exerted. It is a ‘‘binary logic,’’ a primal mapping of the
body that I call semiotic to say that, while being a precondition of lan-
guage, it is dependent on meaning, but in a way that is not that of lin-
guistic signs nor of the symbolic order they found. Maternal authority is
the trustee of that mapping of the self’s clean and proper body; it is
distinguished from paternal laws within which, with the phallic phase
and acquisition of language, the destiny of man will take shape.28
By refusing to allow el japonés to properly attend to his bodily
functions, ‘‘Puñalada’’ is denying maternal authority and reclaim-
ing it to remap el japones’s body as uncleanliness and defilement.
‘‘Puñalada’’ perversely enforces el japones’s status as the abject,
denying the latter’s constitution as a subject to reinforce his own.
The reader first encounters el japonés entering the latrines when
‘‘Puñalada’’ is away, quickly defecating (so rapidly that he misses
the hole), and then running to a corner to pick lice from his body (a
common pastime of the vagos), happy with himself for having re-
sisted ‘‘Puñalada.’’ The narrator sees in el japonés a similarity be-
tween the vago’s face and the setting sun of Lima:
Era un sol cuya triste sangre dominaba a la luz, y despertaba sospechas
irracionales; yo lo encontraba semejante al rostro del japonés que se
arrastraba sonriendo por los rincones de la prisión.
El rostro del japonés del Sexto, con su sonrisa inapagable, trascendı́a
una tristeza que parecı́a venir de los confines del mundo, cuando ‘‘Puña-
lada’’, a puntapies, no le permitı́a defecar.
[It was a sun whose sad blood dominated the light and awoke irrational
suspicions; I found it similar to the face of el japonés, who dragged
himself smiling throughout the entire prison.
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The face of el japonés, with its unsuppressible smile, transcended a

sadness that seemed to come from the confines of the world, when ‘‘Pu-
ñalada,’’ kicking him, did not allow him to defecate.] (ES, 23)29
In a typical Arguedian narrative move, the narrator uses light and

nature to focus the reader’s attention on this abject figure. His sad-
ness is readily apparent, reflecting the sadness of the space that sur-
rounds the prison; equally visible is his joy when he is able to
defeat ‘‘Puñalada’’: ‘‘Lo vi casi feliz. Sonrió en la sombra, entre el
vaho que empezaba a brotar de la humedad y la porquerı́a acumu-
lada en las esquinas de los antiguos tabiques. Quienes observaron
las celdas, a la expectativa, con la esperanza de que ‘Puñalada’
apareciera, aplaudieron’’ [He looked almost happy to me. He
smiled in the shadows, among the vapor that began to sprout up
from the humidity and the filth accumulated in the corners of the
old partitions. Those who observed the cells, with expectation, with
the hope that ‘‘Puñalada’’ would appear, applauded] (ES, 22–23).
In recounting this brief moment of control over ‘‘impurity,’’ the
narration offers an alternative mapping of el japonés, one that fo-
cuses on the corporeal manifestations of his triumph. His transfor-
mation, however, is short lived; almost immediately, the light in his
face goes out and he begins to walk, as if he were pretending, the
narrator recounts, with great awkwardness (ES, 23). This tactic of
resistance does indeed have two faces (as de Certeau and Pile re-
mind us)—that which directly confronts power (el japonés’s suc-
cessful defecation), and that which faces inward, which belongs to
a place untouched and untouchable by power. The narrator notes
that el japonés’s humble stance appears false, affected; it is a way
to negotiate his circumstances while reserving something for him-
self, out of power’s reach. His resistance, apparently futile and in-
consequential (he immediately returns to his status as vago) is
nonetheless very significant—the other prisoners recognize its im-
portance in their applause. It is, in this sense, political, at once pub-
licly unmasking and confronting power.
Similar acts of resistance are seen in the actions of el ‘‘pianista,’’
who was apparently a piano student, before being picked up with-
out legal documentation and brought by the police to El Sexto.
After being raped by three of Maravı́’s men, the young man went
crazy and joined the vagos, his conversion so thorough that after
being released he returned to the prison, unable to survive outside.
The narrator recounts one instance in which el ‘‘pianista’’ sits out-
side ‘‘Clavel’’’s cell and silently ‘‘plays,’’ moving his fingers as if
playing a piano, and sings, ‘‘su voz delgada, temblorosa, como la
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que sale de un vientre vacı́o, intentaba seguir alguna melodı́a’’ [his
thin voice, trembling, like that that comes from an empty womb,
tried to follow some melody] (ES, 42). The narrator, observing el
‘‘pianista’’, asks himself, ‘‘¿Cómo puede funcionar aún el cuerpo
de un hombre ası́ aniquilado, convertido en esqueleto que la piel
apenas cubre?’’ [How can a man’s body still function if it is so an-
nihilated, converted into a skeleton that the skin hardly covers?]
(ES, 42). A traditional focalizer, song—particularly song produced
by a marginalized figure, that Arguedas uses to highlight or draw
attention to a specific event, in this case the tragedy of ‘‘Clavel’’’s
situation, is again present, but it is greatly debilitated, at the point
of death, empty (from an empty womb—a sterile feminine), annihi-
lated, reduced to its weakest and most insufficient materialness. The
semiotic, on the coast, in El Sexto, is crushed, smothered, unable to
realize itself, to sustain its narrative function. One of ‘‘Puñalada’’’s
men, assigned to guard ‘‘Clavel’’’s cell, returns, kicks el ‘‘pian-
ista,’’ and then drags him into the rain. The representatives of the
(corrupt, malicious) ‘‘law’’ of the prison interrupt, crush el ‘‘Pian-
ista’’’s rebellion and, indeed, kill him. But, here again, more impor-
tant than the results of the act is the act itself; the music that seems
to come from emptiness, from nothingness, from the absolute ab-
ject, in fact has the power to touch and transform, not only the other
victims of oppression (Gabriel, ‘‘Clavel’’), but power itself, which
represses but cannot confine el ‘‘Pianista’’’s resistance.
For Kristeva, the dead body is the most horrific example of the
abject: ‘‘The most sickening of wastes, . . . a border that has en-
croached upon everything. It is no longer ‘‘I’’ who expels, ‘‘I’’ is
expelled. The border has become object. . . . The corpse seen with-
out God, and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is
death infecting life. Abject. It is something rejected from which one
does not part, from which one does not protect oneself as from an
object.’’30 It is significant, then, that Gabriel, along with Juan (Mo-
k’ontullo), a serrano aprista, attends to the dying man’s body, giv-
ing him clothes and food (an action that provokes the anger of the
other apristas, who fear the implications of Mok’ontullo’s involve-
ment with members of the first floor, and especially with ‘‘Rosita,’’
who helps the two men). By dressing him in clean pants, Gabriel
endeavors to somehow cleanse and make proper the impure.
Both el ‘‘Pianista’’ and el japonés hold something special for Ga-
briel, perhaps because they were often the most marginalized of the
vagos (the other vagos would often steal food from them), and be-
cause of the different ways they ‘‘fought’’ their situation: el ‘‘Pian-
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ista’’ with his music, el japonés with his discipline and fierceness.
After el japonés dies, Gabriel tells Cámac:
En el japonés y el ‘‘Pianista’’ habı́a algo de la santidad del cielo y de la
madre tierra. . . . En el cuerpo del japonés se arrastraba el mundo, allá
abajo; conservaba su forma, aun su energı́a. . . . El ‘‘Pianista’’ oı́a la
música de afuera, de la inventada por el hombre, de la arrancada del
espacio y de la superficie de la tierra. El hombre oye, hermano, a lo
profundo. Ya no están. Quedamos solos.
[In el japonés and el ‘‘Pianista’’ there was something of the holiness of

the heavens and the mother earth. . . . The body of el japonés dragged
around the earth, the lower realms; it conserved their form, their
energy. . . . El ‘‘Pianista’’ heard music from outside, invented by man,
torn from space and from the surface of the earth. The man hears,
brother, the depths. Now they are no longer here. We are alone.] (ES,
106)
Through these observations Gabriel indirectly recognizes the two

men’s ties to the semiotic, thus, again, their importance to the nar-
rative and to the growth of Gabriel. Cámac sees Gabriel’s com-
ments as a sign that the younger man, too, is being driven crazy by
El Sexto and determines to complete a guitar that the two are work-
ing on, with the hoped it would save Gabriel from madness.
In this concern, Cámac recognizes the effect of the abject on its
observer; Gabriel is, too, at the edge of the abyss. For Kristeva, he
who is held in fascination by the abject is the ‘‘deject,’’
who places (himself), separates (himself), situates (himself), and there-
fore strays instead of getting his bearings, desiring, belonging, or
refusing . . .
Instead of sounding himself as to his ‘‘being,’’ he does so concerning
his place: ‘‘Where am I?’’ instead of ‘‘Who am I?’’ For the space that
engrosses the deject, the excluded, is never one, nor homogeneous, nor
totalizable, but essentially divisible, foldable, and catastrophic. A de-
viser of territories, languages, works, the deject never stops demarcating
his universe whose fluid confines—for they are constituted of a non-
object, the abject—constantly question his solidity and impel him to
start afresh. A tireless builder, the deject is in short a stray.31
This image of the hybrid intellectual as a stray should by now ring

true. The quest of the Arguedian narrator-protagonist (in this and
other works) is always that of finding his place—much less ‘‘Who
am I?’’ than ‘‘Where am I?’’ And this place is inevitably impossi-
ble; the hybrid intellectual will always be ‘‘in-between,’’ traveling
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(or simply wandering) through, or among, territories, languages,
and cultures—the unhomely. The Arguedian narrative voice indeed
never stops mapping a universe that ultimately reveals itself as un-
mappable or, at least, resistant to one (solid and identifiable) map.
The preoccupation with the body-subject brings us back to the
question of space, which, as has by now been suggested by this
analysis, is less a concern with fixing space that it is a fascination
with the (fluid) subject—(living) in—(fluid) space.
El Sexto, in this manner, corresponds to previous narrative in its
attempts to map Peru and its subjects. Whereas the fiction set in the
highlands begins to delineate alternative national-cultural spaces
(inhabited by alternative national-cultural subjects), El Sexto is un-
able to produce any alternatives to the horrifying space of the prison
(the only possibilities existing in the inconcrete—and impossible—
regions of memory). Furthermore, the possibilities for alternative
subjects are few, severely weakened by the atmosphere of the
prison, and eventually die.32 This failure of the text to present alter-
natives must be seen in conjunction with the collapse of the re-
deeming value of the feminine in the work. The one exception in
this overall state of crisis is Cámac and, perhaps, Gabriel himself.
The Apprenticeship of the Hybrid Intellectual

As in other Arguedian narrative, where Arguedas shows corrup-
tion, fragmentation, and despair, he also shows possibilities, this
time in the form of Cámac. The indigenous-miner-communist
seems the ideal combination.33 Cámac is for Gabriel a wise man, a
guide; he is Marxist, but with a close connection with the indige-
nous people. Indeed, Cámac serves for Gabriel the function indi-
cated by the Quechua meaning of his name: a vitalizing and
continually creating force, and, significantly, ‘‘a being abounding
in energy as physical as electricity or body warmth.’’34 As such, the
old miner is given special narrative treatment, with the narrator
often focusing on his eyes, one healthy and clear that sparkles or
trembles as the Indian speaks, the other covered with pus and tears,
an infection symptomatic of his advanced tuberculosis. It is through
Cámac that we hear many of the novel’s criticisms. He relates to
Gabriel the atrocities against the Indians working in the U.S.-owned
mines; his criticism of U.S. businessmen is harsh and pointed, ar-
guing that their only interest is monetary. He highlights the impor-
tance of the maternal in the serrano culture, pronouncing that U.S.
imperialism is a consequence of a lack of mothering.
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A very interesting aspect of Cámac, with relation to the totality

of Arguedian narrative, is the indigenous man’s relationship with
language: ‘‘sus palabras nombraban directamente hechos, e ideas
nacı́an de los hechos, como la flor del berro, por ejemplo, que crece
de las aguadas. Sólo que la hierba no seca el fango, y las palabras
parecı́an fatigar mortalmente a Cámac’’ [his words named things
directly, and ideas born of the things, like the flower of the water-
cress, for example, that grows out of the watering holes. Only the
plant does not dry out the mud, and words seemed to mortally fa-
tigue Cámac] (ES, 20). Cámac’s relationship with language is am-
bivalent. On the one hand, words appear to be immediate for him,
an unmediated, semiotic relationship of idea and act. Yet, on the
other hand, the very words produced by this direct relationship also
have a harmful effect on Cámac, as if the weight of the symbolic
might kill him.
Rowe notes that in the novel Cámac serves as an ideological and
affective counterpoint to the exhausted political discourse of the
APRA and the Communist Party and, in this sense, cleanses the
corruption in Lima.35 The figure that, along with Gabriel, comes
closest to articulating Arguedas’s vision in the novel, Cámac is
reminiscent in many ways of doña Felipa in Los rı́os profundos.
First, his politicism comes less from a philosophical standpoint than
from one of experience. He speaks of his mistreatment upon being
imprisoned, which he was able to survive because ‘‘Aquı́, en mi
pecho, está brillando el amor a los obreros y a los pobrecitos opri-
midos’’ [Here, in my breast, love for the workers and the oppressed
is shining] (ES, 33). This love is shown to be a central aspect of
Cámac’s character; he states that he cannot hate a fellow inmate, an
aprista, because the latter is a worker and has suffered under the
capitalist system, too. It is shown to be his Indianness that fuels
this quality in Cámac, and this characteristic, and character, merit a
narrative treatment shared by no one else in the novel.
The narrator writes, ‘‘De su ojo sano, de veras, brotaba la vida.
Su cuerpo apenas podı́a moverse, pero la luz de ese único ojo volvió
a hacerme sentir el mundo, puro, como el canto de los pájaros y el
comenzar del dı́a que en los altı́simos valles fundan en el ser hu-
mano la dicha eterna que es la de la propia tierra’’ [From his healthy
eye, truly, sprang life. His body could hardly move, but the light of
that single eye made me feel the world again, pure, like the song of
the birds and the start of the day that in the high valleys fuse into
human beings the eternal blessing that is that of the earth itself]
(ES, 33). Through Cámac, Gabriel reaches the semiotic, returns to
the origin and finds a link to the eternal. Like doña Felipa, as well
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as others (the pongo in Cuzco, la Opa, la Kurku), Cámac provides
for Gabriel a connection and a sense of belonging in and to the
world, which becomes a strength; because of Cámac, Gabriel says
he knows he can withstand his imprisonment. Furthermore, similar
to doña Felipa’s disappearance, Cámac’s death is heroic and com-
munity-affirming. While the authorities remove his body, the com-
munists begin to intone La Internacional, and their leader Pedro
gives a speech praising the dead man. When the police try to stop
the demonstration, the apristas move in to block their path and
begin to sing the aprista hymn. As with doña Felipa, Cámac
touches even the most marginalized of the prison society. The
vagos come out, ‘‘algunos avanzaron hacia la sombra de los
puentes, siempre pegados al muro, los otros se quedaron junto a la
puerta de sus celdas. Se movı́an’’ [some advanced toward the
shadow of the bridges, always glued to the walls, others stayed by
the doors of their cells. They moved] (ES, 134–35). Even the heav-
ens are affected: ‘‘El cielo ceniciento pareció elevarse de nuevo, al-
zado por los himnos’’ [the ash-gray sky seemed to rise again, lifted
by the hymns] (ES, 135). At the height of tension, ‘‘Clavel’’ appears
and mourns the dead man, whom he calls even worse off than him-
self. That final reaction to Cámac’s death provokes in Gabriel a re-
sponse similar to that of Ernesto to doña Felipa, and, filled with
hatred, he joins in the singing. Cámac’s death makes Gabriel, if
only temporarily, part of the community.
It also, again, if only for a moment, allows for the formation of a
true community within the prison, one that unites its diverse and
fragmented elements. Jean Luc Nancy comments on the role of the
dead body in the formation of community: ‘‘Community is revealed
in the death of others; hence it is always revealed to others. Com-
munity is what takes place always through others and for others. It
is not the space of the egos—subjects and substances that are at
bottom immortal—but of the I’s, who are always others (or else are
nothing).’’36 However, Nancy points to this very fact as being the
reason for the impossibility of community: ‘‘If community is re-
vealed in the death of others it is because death itself is the true
community of I’s that are not egos. It is not a communion that fuses
egos into an Ego or a higher We. . . . Community therefore occupies
a singular place: it assumes the impossibility of its own immanence,
the impossibility of a communitarian being in the form of the sub-
ject. In a certain sense community acknowledges and inscribes . . .
the impossibility of community.’’37
Indeed, this impossibility is immediately recognized by the mem-
bers of the prison. Pedro, the communist leader, reports the assess-
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ment of the homage by Luis, the aprista leader: ‘‘Ahora el Teniente

informará que hemos hecho frente común. Eso no es cierto. Deseá-
bamos únicamente estar presentes, como un acto de protesta no de
frente común’’ [Now the Lieutenant will inform that we have
formed a common front. That is not true. We only desired to be
present, as an act of protest not as a common front] (ES, 139). But
perhaps this presence, this single act of solidarity, is what is most
desirable and significant within the structure of resistance to power.
Given the separation and fragmentation that marks the prison (and,
by extension, the Peruvian nation) the act of resistance, the very
initiation of (failed) community, is powerful. It is the delineation of
an alternative form of relationships, the projection of an alternative
community, however illusory the communication among factions
brought about by this moment. It forms, in this sense, one more step
in Arguedas’s narrative quest for a new construction of Peruvian
society—one initiated in, emanating from, and honoring the indige-
nous body, the serrano past and present in Peru.
Indeed, it is the marginal body-subject that Gabriel sees as cen-
tral to any form of resistance to the dominant power structure.
Shortly after Cámac’s death, el japonés also dies. In a prayer to
Cámac, the protagonist links the old man and the two vagos, and
asks that Cámac deliver messages to the two dead men. Upon hear-
ing these words, Luis, the Aprista leader remarks, ‘‘Eres un soña-
dor, Gabriel. No aprenderás nunca a ser polı́tico. Estimas a las
personas, no los principios’’ [You are a dreamer, Gabriel. You will
never learn to be a politician. You esteem people, not principles].
Gabriel agrees and reaffirms his position as an outsider. To this,
Pedro retorts, ‘‘Gabriel . . . tú desde ‘afuera’ que dices, ves algunas
cosas que nosotros no vemos’’ [Gabriel . . . you from ‘‘outside,’’ as
you say, see things that we don’t see] (ES, 140). These words point
to the principal role of Gabriel in the greater narrative endeavor of
remapping space and subject—to use his specific vantage point to
see what others do not.
Indeed, it is through the figure of Gabriel that the mappings of
space and subject are realized. The protagonist assumes various po-
sitions in the novel, at times distant observer, commenting upon
events, at times a participant who directly intervenes and affects
established order. The hybrid intellectual’s role as mediator, how-
ever, is less felicitous than in earlier novels; indeed, it is disturbing
to the other inmates. When Gabriel attends to el ‘‘pianista,’’ involv-
ing the aprista Mok’ontullo and ‘‘Rosita,’’ he is accused of causing
el ‘‘pianista’’’s death, breaking the established order, and pro-
voking turmoil in the prison. Pedro, the communist leader, blames
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Gabriel for destroying the division among the three floors. When
the protagonist responds that the floors are not separate, Pedro re-
torts, ‘‘Ahora no. Los vagos, asesinos y ladrones consideraban el
tercer piso como algo inalcanzable, ahora se ha establecido cierto
contacto’’ [Not now. The vagos, murderers, and robbers considered
the third floor unattainable, now a sort of contact has been estab-
lished] (ES, 71). But Gabriel recognizes that the contact already ex-
isted; in a place like El Sexto there are no pure spaces.
In this novel, the only uncontaminated space is the Sierra as it
exists in Gabriel’s memory and to which he escapes to evade the
violence and harshness of the prison. In a scene reminiscent of Er-
nesto’s prayer to doña Felipa, Gabriel prays to Cámac, ‘‘¡Llévame
tú, que ya eres todopoderoso, llévame a la orilla de alguno de los
rı́os grandes de nuestra patria! . . . ¡Yo veré el rı́o, la luz que juega
sobre el remanso, las piedras que resisten el golpe de la corriente y
me purificaré de todo lo que he visto en esta cueva de Lima!’’ [You,
now that you are all powerful, take me away, take me to the banks
of one of the rivers of our homeland! . . . I will see the river, the
light that plays on the still water, the stones that resist the crash of
the current, and I will purify myself of all I have seen in the cave in
Lima!] (ES, 155). The Sierra and its inhabitants form the most via-
ble alternatives to the space and subjects that surround the young
man, and yet the fact that they exist now only in memory points to
their impossibility. Gabriel finds himself trapped, ever fluctuating
between an impossible vision and an unbearable present—his is the
site of the unhomely.
Yet again, it is in this unhomeliness that the novel’s most hopeful
expressions are to be found. His contact with the highlands and his
separation from established political discourses, while giving him
the status of ‘‘huérfano’’ within the prison, also offers Gabriel a
privileged position with regard to understanding the nation. In the
most optimistic moments in the novel, Gabriel reveals to Cámac his
vision of Peru. He finds the nation’s strength in the autoctonous cul-
tures of the highlands
he visto a ese pueblo bailar sus antiguas danzas; hablar en quechua que
es todavı́a es algunas provincias tan rico como en el tiempo de los
incas. . . . ¿Qué sol es tan grande como el que hace lucir en los Andes
los trajes que el indio ha creado desde la conquista? . . . En esos cuerpos
humanos que danzan y que tocan el arpa y el clarinete o el pinkullo y el
siku hay un universo; el hombre peruano antiguo triunfante que se ha
servido de los elementos españoles para seguir su propio camino.
[I have seen these people dance their ancient dances, speak in a Quechua
that is in some provinces still as rich as it was in the time of the
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Incas. . . . What sun is as great as the one that in the Andes lights up the
costumes that the Indian has created since the conquest? . . . in those
human bodies that dance and play the harp and the clarinet and the pin-
kullo and the siku there is a universe,38 the triumphant ancient Peruvian
who has made use of Spanish elements to continue on his own path.]
(ES, 94)
After stating that the strength of Peru is in its indigenous present,
Gabriel goes on to criticize the imperialistic presence of foreign in-
dustries in Peru. His focus returns to the body: ‘‘queremos la téc-
nica, el desarrollo de la ciencia, pero al servicio del ser humano, no
para enfrentar mortalmente a unos contra otros ni para uniformar
sus cuerpos y sus almas, para que nazcan peor que los perros y los
gusanos’’ [we want technology, the development of science, but at
the service of humans, not to mortally set one against another, nor
to make uniform their bodies and spirits, so that they are born worse
than dogs or worms] (ES, 96). Again, El Sexto is the only work of
fiction in which Arguedas’s political views are stated so directly,
set against the background of the competing views of the apristas
and communists and of the violence and degradation of the prison
society. Here, the hybrid intellectual, in his experience in El Sexto,
is moving one step forward in his intellectual apprenticeship. Young
Gabriel’s incarceration in El Sexto allows him to refine his assess-
ment of Peru, and Arguedas (thirty years of lived experiences later)
to map and remap Peru and its subjects.
The role of Gabriel as the hybrid intellectual is emphasized by
the final scene of the novel. Don Policarpo Herrera, a peasant from
the coastal town of Piura, fed up with the abuses he has witnessed
in the prison, kills one of its most offensive officers. Gabriel’s reac-
tion is to call all inmates to honor this act; to find the most appro-
priate homage, he returns, through memory, to the Sierra, calling a
funeral song performed by the women of his town. However, before
he is able to start the song, the apristas begin to honor Policarpo
with shouts of ‘‘Long live el Apra,’’ ‘‘Long live el Perú.’’ A guard
comes and locks Gabriel in his cell. When Gabriel realizes that his
words have had no effect on his fellow prisoners, he then turns to
see the guitar Cámac had begun to make for him, now near comple-
tion. He speaks to the dead serrano, ‘‘Es quizá necesario que ası́
sea. Me oyeron, solamente. Yo seguiré haciendo la guitarra, her-
mano Cámac’’ [Perhaps it is necessary that things be this way. They
just heard me. I will keep making this guitar, brother Cámac] (ES,
205). His words have only been heard; they have not had the effect
he desired. Nonetheless, he will finish the instrument, refine his art,
and once again turn to music for solace.39
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In this sense, we can return to the words of Homi Bhabha, cited
at the beginning of this study, and understand the novel El Sexto as
(Gabriel’s, Arguedas’s) enunciative practice, tracking the ‘‘dis-
placements and realignments that are the effects of cultural antago-
nisms and articulations—subverting the rationale of the hegemonic
moment and relocating alternative, hybrid sites of cultural negotia-
tion.’’40 The prison, which on the surface appears to be a place of
discipline, of imposition of law and power, becomes, in Arguedas’s
portrayal, a hybrid site of cultural negotiation, as do the bodies that
reside within it. Both (space and subject, geography and body) are
remapped, given renegotiated meaning, incarcerated and released
transformed to the reading public. The end of the novel, which ends
almost as it began, with ‘‘Rosita’’ singing and the role call of the
prisoners given by a new ‘‘Puñalada,’’ would seem to come back
full circle, to close the narrative and suggest that nothing has
changed. What remains is an unfinished guitar, an unrealized but
promising music (connection to the feminine), which would have
competed with sounds of the prison. The ending is ambiguous, a
combination of Gabriel’s despair at not being heard, success at
blocking out ‘‘Rosita’’’s song (he refuses to listen), and determina-
tion to finish his instrument. It leaves the reader with a sense of loss
and success, of despair and hope (mirrored in the role of the femi-
nine), which will be intensified in the last narrative set on the coast,
El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo.
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6
Losing Ground:
El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo
and the Struggle of the Semiotic
BETWEEN EL SEXTO AND THE WRITING OF EL ZORRO DE ARRIBA Y EL

zorro de abajo (published posthumously in 1971), Arguedas pub-
lished Todas las sangres (1964), the long narration ‘‘Amor mundo’’
(Worldly Love, published with previous short stories in Amor
mundo y todos los cuentos, 1967), and two other short stories, ‘‘Mar
de harina’’ (Sea of Fishmeal, 1966) and ‘‘El pelón’’ (The Bald Man,
1969), which were originally intended to form part of El zorro de
arriba y el zorro de abajo, but were taken out of the novel. It is
interesting to take a moment here to discuss ‘‘Amor mundo,’’ as it
explores sexuality in the ‘‘white’’ and indigenous worlds, a theme
that will be again taken up in the last novel. ‘‘Amor mundo’’ com-
prises four sections; the first two, subtitled ‘‘El horno viejo’’ (The
Old Kiln) and ‘‘La huerta’’ (The Orchard), recount aggressive and
violent sexual encounters, between a gamonal and his cronies and
indigenous-mestiza women, which the protagonist, Santiago, is
forced to witness. Of course, Santiago is once again a literary pro-
jection of the author himself—another account of the hybrid intel-
lectual in formation. The third section, ‘‘El ayla’’ (The Ayla), shows
Santiago witnessing an indigenous ritual of sexual encounters of
young couples. ‘‘Don Antonio,’’ the fourth part of the text, in which
Santiago travels with a mestizo truck driver to the coastal town of
Ica, includes a long conversation on sex and women’s sexuality and
ends in a house of prostitution.
‘‘Amor mundo’’ presents a contrast in white and indigenous atti-
tudes toward sexuality that corresponds to contrasting views of the
cultures to which they pertain and the roles of these cultures in the
nation in general. Santiago, a young adolescent, is caught between
the two worlds and thus confused in his understanding of sexuality.
In ‘‘El horno viejo’’ and ‘‘La huerta,’’ the boy is obliged by Faus-
216
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6: LOSING GROUND 217
tino, his gamonal step-brother, to witness the latter’s sexual con-
quests. These encounters are perverse and violent, exempt of love.
In these narrations, nature is again presented as a place of escape
and of purification, and after observing the first encounter, the boy
feels removed from nature: ‘‘no oyó la voz del eucalipto tan grande
del cementerio, en el camino de regreso’’ [he didn’t hear the voice
of the great eucalyptus of the cementery on the way back].1 ‘‘La
huerta’’ begins with Santiago’s affirmation that ‘‘la mujer sufre.
Con lo que le hace el hombre, pues sufre’’ [woman suffers. With
what man does to her, she suffers] (‘‘AM,’’ 125), but after learning
that a señorita whom he had admired as innocent has had sexual
relations, the boy becomes very confused and loses his virginity to
a retarded woman, Marcelina. When he desires to purify himself of
the woman’s bad odor (which comes from her ‘‘shameful part’’), he
turns to the Arayá mountain, an auki, which reassures the boy that
what he knows is true, that a subjugated woman suffers from the
power relations played out through sexuality in the dominant soci-
ety of the Andes. Caught in the trap of this perverted view of sexu-
ality, the boy will repeatedly have relations with Marcelina, but
each time will turn to the auki to confess and seek redemption. In
‘‘Amor mundo,’’ nature—as part of the feminine—retains its re-
deeming role in contrast with a destructive and depraved masculine
dominant culture.
The indigenous culture is also presented against this dominant
culture, in a scene that presents a perfect, harmonious intertwining
of nature, man, woman, and sexuality. ‘‘El ayla’’ represents a cere-
mony that takes place after the annual cleaning of the aqueducts;
the ayla of the title is a ritual planting accompanied by a dance of
married and unmarried couples, ending in open-air sexual activity,
in a celebration of their labors. The narration is interesting on two
levels. First, there is a narrative highlighting of the indigenous cul-
ture and participants similar to that seen in previous works. For ex-
ample, as a spiritual leader (also called an Auki) leads the group in
an indigenous adoration, the narrator tells, ‘‘Mientras el Auki can-
taba, la luz se extendı́a, bajaba de las cumbres sin quemar los ojos.
Se podı́a hablar con resplandor, o mejor, ese resplandor vibraba en
cada cuerpo de la piedra, del grillo que empezaba ya a inquietarse
para cantar y en el ánimo de la gente’’ [As the Auki sang, the light
extended, it came down from the tops of the mountain without
burning the eyes. One could speak with resplendence, or rather, that
resplendence vibrated in every substance of the stone, the cricket
that began to prepare itself to sing, and the spirit of the people]
(‘‘AM,’’ 134). The union of light, sound, nature, and humanity is
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exemplary, especially when contrasted with the disintegration of

the same in the previous sections of the narrative.
In this respect, a further juxtaposition of importance is the atti-
tude toward sexuality represented in these competing cultures. As
the ayla makes its way into the woods, the mestizos and whites ob-
serve the Indians and comment on the ‘‘bacchanal of the year’’
(‘‘AM,’’ 135), and ask what the Indians could know of love. The
irony of the comments, which come directly after the scenes of sex-
uality in the dominant culture, is not lost on the reader and is further
highlighted in a subsequent conversation between Santiago and a
young indigenous man. Santiago asks the man why he is not joining
the ayla, and the man answers that his partner is away, working on
the coast, a response that emphasizes the importance of fidelity in
indigenous culture (the first sexual encounter related in the first sec-
tion of the narrative shows an unfaithful wife who has relations
with Faustino). When Santiago relates that the vecinos complain of
the shameful things the indigenous people do during the ayla, the
man laughs and replies, ‘‘Dicen. ¿Quién? Los señores vecinos,
pues. Ellos no entran al ayla. No han visto. Por mando del corazón
y por mando del gran padre Arayá jugamos; sembramos de noche.
Bonito’’ [They say. Who? The señores vecinos, sure. They don’t
enter the ayla. They haven’t seen. By command of the heart and by
command of the great father Arayá we play; we plant at night.
Nice.] (‘‘AM,’’ 136). Indeed, the activities recounted in the narra-
tive are certainly more positive and affirming than those of the
dominant culture. The indigenous people are shown dancing, sing-
ing, laughing, and communing with nature. Men and women have
equal roles; sexuality is an instrument of union, not violence.
The dominant culture is shown to be not only perverse, violent,
and discordant, but also having no understanding of indigenous cul-
ture. The activities take place away from the otherwise incessant,
vigilant gaze of dominant society, in a ‘‘wild zone,’’ a space of re-
sistance. Santiago, despite the Indian’s recognition of his difference
from other mistis, is told he cannot go to the ayla, but he follows the
group and hides to observe their activities. From resistant, wounded
voyeur to one desirous to be part of the culture he is observing,
Santiago is touched by the activities of the indigenous culture, but
in a positive way; ‘‘nunca sintió ası́ la luz de la luna, la iluminación
del mundo, como un rı́o en que los patos aletearon echando candela
por las alas y el pico. Saltó de su escondite, gritando.—¡Soy Santia-
go, Santiaguito!’’ [he had never felt the moonlight that way, the illu-
mination of the world, like in a river in which the ducks flew
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throwing sparks from their wings and beak. He jumped out of his
hiding place, yelling, ‘‘I am Santiago, little Santiago!’’] (‘‘AM,’’
138). It is as if his observation of indigenous culture returns to him
his identity. Neverthless, while the Indians recognize the boy—
‘‘¡Animal raro, desconocido, alegre!’’ [Strange animal, unknown,
happy!] (‘‘AM,’’ 138)—they abandon him; he cannot participate in
this insulated custom. The boy briefly feels emancipated—‘‘se me
ha ido el mal olor, creo, peso menos, creo’’ [the bad odor is gone
from me, I think, I weigh less, I think] (‘‘AM,’’ 139)—but upon his
return to the town, the images of violent sexuality he has witnessed
soon return to him, and he resolves to go to the coast.
Don Antonio, the man of the title of the last section, is the truck
driver with whom Santiago travels to Ica. The boy’s conversation
with the mestizo reveals, then, man’s understanding of sexuality as
something dirty, unholy, animalesque. For don Antonio, prostitutes
are the best solution, because visiting them is a ‘‘clean business
transaction’’ (‘‘AM,’’ 144), in which both parties obtain something.
On the coast, male-female relations take on the added aspect of
monetary exchange (it is significant, too, that don Antonio is trans-
porting bulls—aspects of Andean nature—to be slaughtered and
sold on the coast and that he compares paying a prostitute to paying
for a good meal). Upon arriving to Ica, don Antonio takes the boy
to a bordello, but Santiago flees upon seeing a naked woman in bed.
For comfort, he returns in his memory to the Andean world and to
a young señorita he knew there: ‘‘pudo recordar la alfalfa florida de
la hacienda, de esa finca escondida entre montañas de roca lı́mpida
donde gotea el agua, donde repercute la voz del rı́o. Y el rostro de
Hercilia, como espejo de oro que está brillando la nieve del Arayá
que purifica, que crı́a arañas transparentes’’ [I could recall the
flowering alfalfa of the hacienda, of that farm within the mountains
of limpid rock where the water drips, where the voice of the river
reverberates. Hercilia’s face, like a golden mirror that reflects the
purifying snow of the Arayá, that raises transparent spiders]
(‘‘AM,’’ 147). Santiago, the hybrid intellectual in formation, con-
stantly returns to the feminine; his aversion to sexuality comes from
its aggression against and violation of what he sees as the purity of
the feminine. Santiago witnesses a dominant masculine culture that
desires to control and crush the feminine, in its many forms. It is
this culture that will seemingly take over in El zorro de arriba y el
zorro de abajo, as the grown hybrid intellectual struggles to speak
(and to give voice to the feminine) in Chimbote.
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El Zorro de Arriba y el Zorro de Abajo

As in El Sexto, in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, both the
prospects of Arguedas’s vision and the role of the feminine come
under question. In this work Arguedas once again moves down
from the Sierra to the coast, this time to the capitalist world of the
fishing and fish meal industries. The narration, the most experimen-
tal found in the three novels, is interlaced with Arguedas’s own dia-
ries, which recount his desperation with both writing and the state
of his community, and trace his decision to commit suicide, which
he finally does, leaving the novel unfinished. Linking the texts are
the zorros of the Huarochirı́ myth; the two foxes from the highlands
and the coast meet to comment on the events of the narration and
diaries.2 Cornejo Polar argues that in this work the sense of hope
that runs through the earlier novels is lost in the chaotic atmosphere
of both the narration and the diaries. However, he suggests, ‘‘a third
level of the text . . . can be read in the same register of hopeful faith
in the future: it is the mythic level that recovers and uses the ancient
myth of the Huarochirı́.’’3 For Cornejo Polar, the text represents a
constant vacillation between the two emotions of hope and despair.
In the end, the utopian mestizaje that Arguedas had envisioned in
his earlier novels remains unrealized; both the narrative chapters
and the diaries ‘‘time and again repeat images of degradation and
death, the flip side of the message of the ‘‘foxes’’: communication
between above and below is produced, indeed, but in conditions
that deny and even mock the human ideal represented by those
mythological characters.’’4 Roland Forgues concurs with Cornejo
Polar’s assessment: ‘‘the ideal, dynamic, and fecund mixing, mag-
nificently portrayed in Todas las sangres, is now substituted by an
irreversible process of acculturation. A process which, instead of
bringing the different social stratums closer, separates and divides
them evermore, and, for this reason, definitively impedes the possi-
bility of forging the true Peruvian nationality conceived by Ar-
guedas.’’5
In a particularly intriguing argument, Alberto Moreiras puts forth
that Los zorros, as the text is popularly known, is the ‘‘end of trans-
culturation,’’ or, alternatively, the ‘‘end of magical realism.’’6 More-
iras explores what he terms ‘‘Arguedas’s dramatic staging of the
implosion of meaning in transculturation,’’ stating that ‘‘critical
transculturation, once it goes to the end of itself and explores, as it
is wont to do through its own logic, its own excess with respect to
itself, can no longer go on and so suffers collapse. Arguedas has
given us perhaps the paradigmatic example in the Latin American
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tradition of this final transculturation of transculturation—its over-
turning, which comes to be, in the final analysis, its own theoretical
impossibility.’’7
For Morieras, the book’s ‘‘failures’’—its ‘‘therapeutic failure,’’ in
its inability to prevent the author’s suicide, its narrative failure in
the impossibility of transculturation evoked in the text—are also in
many ways its successes: ‘‘the most extreme moment of transcultur-
ation, the transculturation of transculturation, results and resolves
itself in aporetic, unreconstructable loss. Through it Arguedas’s
suicide marks the beginning of an alternative system of writing: a
‘defiance of disappropriation,’ a writing of dis-affect, an antimod-
ern writing whereby his text comes to present itself as a passionate
signifier of the end of signification.’’8
Moreiras’s study deals more with the material existence of the
work and the conditions of its production (i.e., Arguedas’s writing
to avoid death and the novel’s ending in the author’s suicide) than
in the text itself.9 But the diaries and the fiction have much to say
about this turning point in Arguedian, Peruvian, and even Latin
American literature. Again, the feminine takes a central role in the
work’s generation of meaning, or antimeaning. The triumphs and
failures of the works can (must) be read in and through the feminine
in both the diaries and the fiction itself.
The narrative deals with an entirely new space—the urban, capi-
talist, Westernizing world of the Peruvian coast—and with new sub-
jects—owners of multinationals, industrial workers, prostitutes,
serrano immigrants engaging in small businesses and new forms of
economic activity. This is a world in which the dominant fiction is
revered, as it endeavors to marginalize and suppress the indigenous
element of the country. It is also where the other two important ra-
cial categories of Peru exist, the black and the Asian, presenting
entirely new possibilities and problems for the questions of hybrid-
ity and transculturation.
During the 1960s, the Chimbote that so intrigued Arguedas was
in the midst of amazing transformations, a veritable boomtown. Just
a decade before, it had been a sleepy fishing village of some 12,000
inhabitants. Yet the ’60s saw the explosive expansion of the fish-
meal industry, which brought with it an unsustainable population
growth as some 100,000 serranos poured into the port city in
search of work. The uncontrolled demographic expansion, along
with its accompanying shantytowns, mafia-like crime, sudden inter-
national investment and involvement, factory pollution, proliferat-
ing brothels, and brutal living conditions, all make for fruitful
material for Arguedas’s novel. The work highlights, above all, the
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violence of the clash of cultures brought about by rampant, unre-

strained modernization and internal immigration. As Julio Ortega
aptly summarizes, the novel is ‘‘an allegory of nationality reformu-
lated at the center of modernization, where life and death are not in
opposition but yield the word and plot an unknown world, ancient
and future, apocalyptic and renascent.’’10 In many senses, it reveals
the collapse of the Arguedian vision as put forth in the highland
novels, while providing a glimpse of what Arguedas sees as hopeful
possibilities for the future. With the combination of the diaries, the
fiction, and the truncation of the novel by the author’s suicide, the
text as a whole, more than any other Arguedian work, gives us the
hybrid intellectual in all his failure and potential.
Because the narrative is unfinished, it is difficult to outline a plot.
The beginning focuses on the fishermen and fishing industry, the
sociogeographic layout of Chimbote, the port where the narrative
takes place, and the local brothels. The first chapter outlines various
individuals who will become important in the novel: Chaucato,
owner of a small fishing boat; Maxwell, a North American ex-
member of the Peace Corps; Moncada, the local crazy man who
goes about town spouting truths. Later in the narration, the reader
is given a full history of the port and the fishing industry. Further-
more, the narrative looks at the different ways the serrano immi-
grants adjust to their surroundings as well as specific moments of
resistance to the dominant fiction, in the form of certain acts by the
serrano community or individuals. The fictional is highly critical of
the involvement of U.S. organizations in the area, from the Peace
Corps to the U.S. Catholic Church to groups that facilitate the spon-
soring of impoverished Peruvian children by North American indi-
viduals. The narrative portion of the novel is interrupted from time
to time by Arguedas’s diaries, in which the author reflects upon the
act of narration as well as on his own personal crisis.
The port of Chimbote is shown as a place in which all the ele-
ments (peoples, cultures, languages) that make up Peru come into
play; it is a hybrid-displacing space formed of many hybrid-displac-
ing spaces, a point in which culture is unmasked and made evident.
Those who rule Chimbote, the industry leaders, adhere to the domi-
nant fiction, trying to keep the indigenous element of Peru out of
the coast, to subordinate it racially, culturally, and linguistically,
while exploiting the serranos as a source of labor.11 However, as
shown in the narrative sections of El zorro de arriba y el zorro de
abajo, this endeavor is impossible to realize. The Peruvian coast is
also indigenous, both historically and at the time of writing; it, too,
is mestizo, necessarily influenced by indigenous culture on many
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levels. Once again, in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, Ar-
guedas is questioning the dominant fiction that polarizes Peru into
white and Indian, Western and indigenous, coastal and serrano, and
denies any possibility of reconciliation between the poles.
As many critics have noted, Arguedas’s challenge above all takes
place at the level of discourse. Martı́n Lienhard finds within the
novelistic space of El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo the con-
frontation of multiple discourses and languages: oral versus written
culture, Quechua versus Spanish, ‘‘barbaric’’ thought versus civili-
zation, autobiography versus history, tragedy versus comedy, etc.12
He further notes that this ‘‘infinity of discourses’’ is set against the
voice of the diaries, the literary voice of Arguedas, which ‘‘brings
with it all of the weight of the Andean past-present and with that
the ‘‘foxes’’ of mythological origin who will subvert the novel even
more freely.’’13 For Lienhard, the violence of the encounter of so
many different voices and discourses within the novel reflects the
violence of the confrontation of cultures in Chimbote and, by exten-
sion, Peru. One of these voices is, of course, that of the hybrid intel-
lectual as he reflects in his diaries upon his past and present work,
his successes and failures, the destiny of his vision, and his personal
and professional despair.
The Diaries: Setting the Scene

According to Lienhard, the ‘‘place’’ of the narrator, his ‘‘voice
and world,’’ are continually being defined throughout the diaries.14
The narrator of the diaries at an early point fixes his position within
the variety of discourses offered by the novel (diaries and narra-
tive), saying that he belongs to those who know how to ‘‘cantar en
quechua’’ [sing in Quechua].15 Thus, the narrator is a serrano with
close contact with the Quechua culture who, like so many others,
has been displaced to the coast. Lienhard finds that this overt posi-
tioning by the narrator of the diaries highlights a fundamental con-
tradiction that runs through the novel. The narrator must use a
foreign language (Spanish) to express himself and, because the
Quechua and Spanish do not pertain to the same linguistic system,
translation becomes not only linguistic but cultural; it is a transla-
tion between two radically different worldviews that implies a
break with orality and the adoption of writing within one of the
most privileged genres of Western culture.16 It is in the diaries, per-
haps more than in any other narrative space in all of Arguedas’s
works, that one clearly sees the hybrid intellectual in all of his man-
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ifestations—theorizing himself as marginal, foreigner, orphaned,

mute (or at least muted), awkward, despairing, and, certainly,
strongly connected to the feminine.
In 1988, Kristeva writes of the problem of being a foreigner and
writing in a foreign language in terms that are reminiscent of Ar-
guedas’s own struggle. She speaks of the exile as being alienated
from the mother (like Arguedas) and, regarding the identity of the
foreigner asks, ‘‘shall we be, intimately and subjectively, able to
live with the others, to live as others, without ostracism but also
without leveling?’’17 This question is in many ways similar to that
which Arguedas proposes and confronts throughout his writing,
though it must be remembered that Arguedas is never truly foreign
in a political sense, as he writes in his native Peru, and there is some
doubt as to whether he is truly writing in a foreign language.18
Rather, the ‘‘exile’’ of the hybrid intellectual is imposed from
within, from a nation whose dominant fiction is reluctant to give a
prominent place to that part of it with which Arguedas himself most
identifies.
This struggle to express himself in a ‘‘foreign’’ language and cul-
ture to a ‘‘foreign’’ public—the educated, reading population of
Peru (and Latin America)—that is, his struggle to speak in a cosmo-
politan literary world, is replayed throughout the diaries. The narra-
tor of the diaries, whom we might call the ‘‘implied Arguedas,’’
clearly positions himself with reference to other Latin American
writers of his time. On the one hand, Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier
he says, ‘‘su inteligencia penetra las cosas de afuera adentro, como
un rayo; es un cerebro que recibe y regocijado, la materia de las
cosas y él las domina’’ (ZZ, 11–12) [His intelligence penetrates
things from outside inward, like a ray of light; his is a brain that
takes in, lucidly and gladly, the stuff of which things are made, and
he dominates them (FF, 14)]. Carpentier’s understanding of and ap-
proach to his subject is very masculine, based on the symbolic,
which separates the signified and signifier. On the other hand, of
Mexican author Juan Rulfo, a writer with whom Arguedas identi-
fies, he writes, ‘‘Tú también, Juan, pero tú de adentro, muy adentro,
desde el germen mismo; la inteligencia esta; trabajó antes y des-
pués’’ (ZZ, 12) [You do, too, Juan (dominate things), but you do it
from the inside, from the germ itself; the intelligence is there; it
worked before and afterward (FF, 14)]. That is, Rulfo—clearly an-
other hybrid intellectual—enjoys a direct and unmediated (semi-
otic) relationship with his subject. Arguedas complains that
Carpentier is very enlightened, but the kind of Latin American in-
tellectual who sees the indigenous culture as raw material for liter-
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ary exploitation, who objectifies and makes exotic the indigenous
element (ZZ, 12; FF, 14).
His words for Argentine writer Julio Cortázar are even harsher.19
He writes, ‘‘me asustaron las instrucciones que pone para leer Ray-
uela. Quedé, pues, merecidamente eliminado, por el momento, de
entrar en ese palacio’’ (ZZ, 12) [the instructions he put in Rayuela
on how to read the book frightened me. I was deservedly excluded
from entering that palace (FF, 14)]; his exclusion as a reader re-
flects the exclusion he feels as a writer. He continues,
este Cortázar que aguijonea con su ‘‘genialidad’’, con sus solemnes con-
vicciones de que mejor se entiende la esencia de lo nacional desde las
altas esferas de lo supranacional. Como si yo, criado entre la gente de
don Felipe Maywa, metido en el oqllo mismo de los indios durante algu-
nos años de la infancia para luego volver a la esfera ‘‘supraindia’’ de
donde habı́a ‘‘descendido’’ entre los quechuas, dijera que mejor, mucho
más esencialmente interpreto el espı́ritu, el apetito de don Felipe, que el
propio don Felipe. (ZZ, 13–14)
[this Cortázar who goads people with his ‘‘strokes of genius,’’ with his
solemn convictions that the national essence is better understood from
the high spheres of the supranational. As if I, who was brought up
among Felipe Maywa’s people, placed in the very oqllo20 of the Indians
for several years during my childhood to then return to the ‘‘supra-In-
dian’’ sphere from which I had ‘‘descended’’ into the midst of the Que-
chuas—as if I were to say that I interpret the essential nature of Don
Felipe’s spirit and appetite much better than Don Felipe himself does!]
(FF, 16)
This is a clear articulation of the position and prospects of the hy-

brid intellectual; Arguedas emphasizes his unhomely status, knows
his limitations, yet clearly marks the vantage point from which the
intellectual must understand the world and intepret the nation.
Arguedas further criticizes those who see writing as a profession
(Cortázar, the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes) and who, in his
eyes, speak about Latin America rather than from Latin America,
that is, who make Latin America into a commercial product. If this
is what it means to be a cosmopolitan writer, Arguedas affirms,
then he is a provincial writer, like other writers he admires and with
whom he identifies: Rulfo, Colombian Gabriel Garcı́a Márquez,
and Brazilian João Guimarães Rosa.21 Indeed, he purports that for a
Latin American writer it is almost impossible not to be provincial,
not to be marginalized: ‘‘hasta podemos hablar, poéticamente, de
ser provincianos en este mundo’’ (ZZ, 21–22) [we can even speak,
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poetically, of being provincials of this world (FF, 25)]. This speak-

ing poetically of being provincial, more concretely, this translation
of the Peruvian Sierra into the poetic art form of the novel, is Ar-
guedas’s struggle.
Immediately after accusing Carpentier of using the indigenous el-
ement as ‘‘material,’’ Arguedas speaks of another form of prostitu-
tion of indigenous culture, a folkloric show he attended in Chile
that did not represent the true music, dance, or spirit of the people
of the countryside.22 To explicate his own connection with the in-
digenous culture, the narrator refers to several events or people
from his youth. Of Felipe Maywa, an indigenous worker and com-
munity leader living in the hacienda of Arguedas’s stepmother,
where the author was raised, the narrator of the diaries writes that
his livelihood—and that of his stepmother, don Felipe’s boss—
seemed to depend on the Indian, and ‘‘cuando este hombre me aca-
riciaba la cabeza, en la cocina o en el corral de los becerros, no sólo
se calmaban todas mis intranquilidades sino que me sentı́a con
ánimo para vencer cualquier clase de enemigos, ya fueran demo-
nios o condenados’’ (ZZ, 16) [when this man patted me on the head,
in the kitchen or in the corral with the calves, not only was all of
my uneasiness relieved, but I felt I had the courage to overcome
any kind of enemies—even demons or lost souls (FF, 19)]. The
emotions narrated here are reminiscent of those felt by the young
protagonist of Los rı́os profundos, Ernesto, and the transforming
powers of don Felipe are like those of the female characters of the
earlier novels. The effect of Andean nature is not entirely soothing,
having at its essence solitude and silence. Yet, those same forces
give the hybrid intellectual comfort and strength, as evidenced by
the extensive treatment he gives to Andean natural elements
throughout this opening diary.
Arguedas ends this diary by narrating another intimate relation-
ship he had in the Andes: his forced loss of virginity to a poor,
pregnant mestiza passing through the hacienda on her way to higher
lands. As the act occurs, he recalls, ‘‘el veneno de los cristianos
católicos que nacieron a la sombra de esas barbas de árboles que
asustan a los animales, de las oraciones en quechua sobre el juicio
final; el rezo de las señoras aprostitutadas mientras el hombre
las fuerza delante de un niño para que la fornicación sea más
demoniada y eche una salpicada de muerte a los ojos del mucha-
cho’’ (ZZ, 22) [the poison of the Catholic Christians who were born
in the shade of those tree beards that frighten animals, of Quechua
prayers about the Last Judgement; the praying of ladies who are
prostituted while a man rapes them in front of a child so that the
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fornication will be even more diabolical and will spatter death into
the boy’s eyes (FF, 25)]. This description reflects Arguedas’s prob-
lematic view of sexuality and speaks to its origins, his trauma as a
child being forced to watch his stepbrother rape an indigenous
woman, and serves as a point of entry for the two foxes and as a
bridge to the first narrative chapter of the novel, a work marked by
the violence of sexuality.
Immediately after the account, the foxes appear for the first time
in the novel. These are the characters of the Huarochirı́ myth, the
fox from above and the fox from below, who meet to tell each other
of the events of their worlds. In the Huarochirı́ manuscript, which
Arguedas translated into Spanish, the description of their encounter
is brief. In the tale, the fox from above tells of a lord in his region
who is ill due to the infidelity of his wife; as a result of her act, a
snake has taken up residence on their rooftop and a toad in their
grinding stone, and the two animals are devouring the house and its
residents. The fox then asks his ‘‘brother’’ for news from below; the
latter begins, ‘‘there’s a woman, the offspring of a great lord and a
villca,23 who almost died because of a penis.’’24 The story thus be-
gins to tell the tale of some disgrace motivated by sex, but abruptly
breaks off: ‘‘(But the story leading up to the woman’s recovery is
long. Later on we’ll write about it. For now, we’ll return to the first
story).’’25 In El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, Arguedas takes
up from the point where the manuscript leaves off, to tell what is
happening on the coast.
The foxes, as Lienhard observes, serve as the link between the
text and the diaries. Here, in their first appearance, they briefly
comment upon the young Arguedas’s sexual experience, his move
to the coast, and the situation of the area. The conversation ends by
the fox from above saying, ‘‘Ası́ es. Sigamos viendo y conociendo’’
(ZZ, 23) [That’s the way it is. We go on seeing and learning (FF,
26)], which leads to the opening of the narrative portion of the
novel. However, before turning to the narration, I will comment
upon the second diary, not because I desire to separate the diaries
from the narration, for they must be read as they are presented—in
dynamic interaction with each other—but rather because the dia-
ries, along with the first narrative section I will analyze, chapter 3,
together present background important to understanding the text as
a whole.
The second diary begins with the assertion of the narrator’s frus-
tration at being unable to begin the third chapter of the narration. In
contrast, he then presents a self-analysis of Todas las sangres, in
which he analyzes the struggle between two worlds presented in the
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novel and determines, ‘‘esa pelea aparece en la novela como ganada

por el yawar mayu, el rı́o sangriento, que ası́ llamamos en quechua
al primer repunte de los rı́os que cargan los jugos formados en las
cumbres y abismos por los insectos, el sol, la luna y la música. Allı́,
en esa novela, vence el yawar mayu y vence bien. Es mi propia vic-
toria’’ (ZZ, 79) [that struggle appears to be one by the yawar mayu,
the bloody river, for in Quechua that is what we call the first flash
flood of the rivers that carry the juices developed on the mountain-
tops and in the abysses by insects, sun, moon, and music. There,
in that novel, the Andean yawar mayu conquers, and it conquers
completely. It is my own victory. (FF, 83)]. This struggle he de-
fines is very closely related to the struggle of the symbolic and the
semiotic in the formation of consciousness. Here, the semiotic tri-
umphs, in the form of the natural elements that flow from the Sierra
and mark Arguedas’s earlier texts. However, he continues, ‘‘ahora
no puedo empalmar el capı́tulo III de la nueva novela, porque me
enardece pero no entiendo a fondo lo que está pasando en Chimbote
y en el mundo’’ (ZZ, 79,) [Now I cannot fit in chapter III of the new
novel because although I’m eager to do it, I do not have a profound
understanding of what’s happening in Chimbote and in the world.
(FF 83)].
This statement leads to a series of reflections in which the narra-
tor contrasts his experiences in the city (Chimbote and New York
City) with those of the Sierra. As with the first diary, his memory
of the city evokes that of a sexual experience: while wandering,
feeling foreign and yet happy, through the streets of New York, he
comes across a black prostitute:
La ‘conquisté’ hablándole en quechua que, en un caso como ése, me
nacı́a y servı́a mejor que el castellano. La negrita me comprendió por-
que ella era una ‘mariposa nocturna’. Me llevó hasta un departamento
hermoso metido en un sombrı́o edificio de fierro. Puro miedo y triunfo.
Pero fue lo único ı́ntimo que me traje de los Estados Unidos. (ZZ, 81)
[I ‘‘made a conquest of her,’’ talking to her in Quechua, which, in a case

like that, flowed out of me because she was a ‘‘nocturnal butterfly.’’ She
took me to a handsome apartment stuck in a gloomy iron building. Pure
fear and triumph. But that was the only intimate thing I brought back
from the United States.] (FF 85)26
It is significant that this woman is doubly marginalized, as an Afri-

can American and a prostitute, and that the manner in which the
hybrid intellectual connects with her is through the Quechua lan-
guage, which she undoubtedly does not understand. It is as if Que-
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chua were given a semiotic connotation; although it is language, it
allows for an unmediated connection between the two. The encoun-
ter with the woman ultimately reflects Arguedas’s encounter with
the city; it evokes the two emotions of fear and triumph. However,
it is the only intimate thing that Arguedas receives from his experi-
ence in the United States. While the writer professes not to know
and to fear the woman of the city, she is important to his under-
standing of that space and will play a central role in certain narra-
tive sections of the novel.
This diary ends with an extended reflection on the task at hand,
the Andean writer endeavoring to grapple with and narratively por-
tray the complexities of the coastal world and the multiple ethnic
and racial interactions in the port of Chimbote. Here, Arguedas re-
flects on his authority to write about the situation in coastal Peru. If
he may write about the Sierra, it is because he is from that area, has
lived among Indians, mestizos, and large landholders, and speaks
Quechua.27 If the hybrid intellectual may write about the coast, it is
because he finally determines that the Sierra, and the indigenous
element it represents, also underlies the coastal culture, and that the
situation of the Indian in Peru is intimately related to that of Afro-
Peruvians—almost exclusively coastal inhabitants—within the na-
tional imagination. It is with this realization that the hybrid intellec-
tual—now overtly and identifiably creator of the literary text—is
able to begin the third chapter, one that will focus on this truth he
wishes to convey, without ignoring the inherent conflict implied in
the subversion of his attempt to write about the coast.
Chapter 3: A Visit from Above and Below

Chapter 3 recounts a conversation between don Angel Rincón
Jaramillo, the head of the ‘‘Nautilus Fishing’’ fish-meal plant, and a
‘‘visitor,’’ eventually revealed to the reader as don Diego. Through
don Diego’s physical description, words, and actions, and finally
through don Angel’s comment that ‘‘en los cuentos de indios,
cholos y zambos que aquı́ en la ‘patria’ se cuentan, se llama Diego
al zorro’’ (ZZ, 121) [in the stories the Indians, cholos, and zambos
tell here in the ‘‘native land,’’ the fox is called Diego (FF 128)], it
becomes evident that don Diego is the fox from below, who has
received information on the situation of the Sierra from the fox
from above, and has come to gather information from Don Angel
on the situation below. Don Diego is a source of entry of the semi-
otic into the text and once again shows the importance of the semi-
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otic in Arguedas’s search for a literary voice with which to express

his understanding of Peru in a cosmopolitan literary world. His ef-
fect on don Angel is instantaneous and profound; he recalls in the
administrator the latter’s own indigenous roots, but on an uncon-
scious level, in a memory that he does not fully understand.
Don Diego is described as ‘‘pernicorto, pero armoniosamente
pernicorto . . . tenı́a en la mano una gorra gris jaspeada que don
Angel habı́a visto usar a los mineros indios de Cerros de Pasco,
como primera prenda asimilada de ‘civilización’’’ (ZZ, 85) [short-
legged, but quite harmoniously short-legged . . . in his hand the
character held a marbled gray woolen cap, the kind Don Angel had
seen Indian miners at Cerro de Pasco use as the first piece of ‘‘civi-
lized’’ clothing they adopted (FF 89)]. His moustache is referred to
in terms that suggest the whiskers of a fox, and his ears are said to
twitch. He is never referred to as a man, but rather as ‘‘el sujeto’’
(the character), ‘‘el joven’’ (the young one), ‘‘el visitante’’ (the visi-
tor), ‘‘el forastero’’ (the foreigner), adding to his otherworldliness.
Don Diego positions himself in terms of his narrative function of
elucidating the situation in Peru: ‘‘Yo soy de la costa, arenales, rı́os,
pueblos, Lima. Ahora soy de arriba y abajo, entiendo de montañas
y costa, porque hablo con un hermano que tengo desde antiguo en
la sierra. De la selva no entiendo nada’’ (ZZ, 119) [I’m from up
above and from down below; I understand the mountains and the
coast, because I talk with a brother I’ve had since the olden times
in the high Andes. Of the jungle I understand nothing (FF 126)].
He begins the conversation recounting what he knows of the cir-
cumstances of the serranos who have immigrated to the coast. Both
he and don Angel refer to them as lloqlla, which don Diego defines
as ‘‘la avalancha de agua, de tierra, raı́ces de árboles, perros muer-
tos, de piedras que bajan bataneando debajo de la corriente cuando
los rı́os se cargan con las primeras lluvias en estas bestias mon-
tañas’’ (ZZ, 87) [an avalanche of water, earth, tree roots, dead dogs,
and stones that comes rumbling down on the bottom of the current
when the rivers are loaded with the first rains in these beastly An-
dean foothills (FF, 91)]. It will be remembered from the explana-
tion of the masculine and the feminine in Quechua cosmology,
presented in the Introduction to this analysis, that, according to An-
dean tradition, the waters that flow from the melting snow on the
mountaintops are considered a feminine element. That this element
belongs to the semiotic, that which has no form and cannot be de-
fined, is emphasized by don Angel’s reaction to the flood of immi-
grants: ‘‘¿Quién, carajo, mete en un molde a una lloqlla?’’ (ZZ, 87)
[Who the hell can put a lloqlla into a mold? (FF, 91)]; who can give
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form to the mass that has arrived in Chimbote? He continues, ‘‘ası́
es ahora Chimbote, oiga usted; y nadie nos conocemos’’ (ZZ, 87)
[That’s how Chimbote is now, you hear? And none of us know each
other (FF, 91)]. This last comment further alludes to the alienation
felt by the inhabitants of Chimbote, an alienation that Arguedas
shows is in many ways, wrought by the mere nature of capitalism
and the modern city (which fosters individualism and personal am-
bition) and sustained by Peru’s dominant fiction.28
In this light, don Angel explains what happens to the serranos
upon arriving to the coast. The industry leaders who need them for
cheap labor have invested in many organizations (open, such as
brothels and bars, and covert, such as the ‘‘mafia’’) designed to
keep the serranos subordinated on the coast. Don Angel tells of
their plan, which could be called ‘‘the making of the consumer,’’ in
which workers will be encouraged to spend their small salaries on
liquor, prostitutes, and small houses. The success of their plan he
later narrates:
Todo salió a lo calculado y aún mas. Tanto más burdelero, putañero,
timbero, tramposo, cuanto más comprador de refrigeradoras para guar-
dar trapos, calzones de mujer, retratos—¡si no habı́a, pues, electricidad,
ni hay tampoco ahora, en las veintisiete barriadas de Chimbote, ciento
cincuenta mil habitantes!—, carajo, más trampas y chavetazos, más bi-
lletes de quinientos o de cien quemados para prender cigarros, más
macho el pescador, más gallo, más famoso, saludado, contento. (ZZ,
94–95)
[It all turned out just the way we figured it would, even better. So many
more cat-house patrons, whore chasers, gamblers and cheaters; how
many more buyers of refrigerators to store rags and women’s panties
and photos in! Why, they didn’t even have electricity . . . nor do any
of Chimbote’s twenty-seven shantytowns, with their hundred thousand
inhabitants, have electricity to this very day! Goddamnit, more swin-
dlin’ and stabbin’, more 500 or 100 sol bills burnt up into lit cigars, with
the fishermen becomin’ more macho, more like fightin’ cocks, more
hail-fellow-well-met, contented. (FF, 99)
He further recounts the layoffs in the factories, the move to hire
contractual laborers instead of full-time employees who would
merit benefits, the vast number of unemployed who nonetheless do
not serve as a deterrent for potential serrano immigrants, and the
division among the laborers—a division caused by the greed calcu-
latedly instilled by the ‘‘mafia,’’ an organization supported by in-
dustry owners and leaders that controls most aspects of business in
Chimbote.
................. 16448$ $CH6 08-14-07 14:10:23 PS PAGE 231

After giving a history of the two mafias in Chimbote, one autoc-

tonous and a later one fed by foreign interests, don Angel gives his
panoramic view of Peru in a drawing of a face above which are ten
eggs with lines drawn down, crisscrossing the face. He explains:
Siete huevos blancos contra tres rojos. Nosotros, la industria, U.S.A., el
gobierno peruano, la ignorancia del pueblo peruano y la ignorancia de
los cardozos sobre el pueblo peruano, somos las fuerzas blancas; Juan
XXIII, el comunismo y la rabia lúcida o tuerta de una partecita del pue-
blo peruano contra U.S.A., la industria y el gobierno, son las fuerzas
rojas. . . . Y uno de los rojos, el comunismo, está ahora como gusanera
de muerto. Sé lo que digo. Y este mapa no va a variar en jamás de los
jamases en contra del capital sino a favor. (ZZ, 108)
[Seven white eggs against three red ones. We—Peruvian industry, the
U.S.A., the Peruvian government, the ignorance of the Peruvian people,
and the ignorance of the Cardozos about the Peruvian people—are the
white forces; Pope John XXIII, communism, and the blind or under-
standable rage of a small part of the Peruvian people against the U.S.A.,
against industry and the government, are the red forces. . . . And one of
the reds, communism, is as wormy as a dead man by now. I know what
I’m talkin’ about. And this diagram is never, ever gonna change—it’ll
never go against capital; it’ll only favor it even more.] (FF, 115)
Don Angel ends his summation by giving his guest a tour of the
factory and later taking him to a local brothel. In a commentary on
this dialogue, Ortega argues that Arguedas is less interested in the
mechanisms of exploitation than in their subjective and moral im-
plications: ‘‘the novel, ultimately, does not limit itself to socioeco-
nomic reductionism . . . ; rather, it explores those margins where
unleashing occurs, the texture of a language that attempts to reorga-
nize meaning in the face of huge negotiations and very few prom-
ises.’’29 This reorganization of meaning(s) finds its most powerful
expression in the presence of the semiotic in the text, whose entry
is facilitated through the figure of don Diego.
Throughout this history of the fish-meal industry in Chimbote,
don Diego interrupts to question, add information, and direct the
conversation. His interruptions can be seen as moments in which
the semiotic makes its presence known in the text, key moments
when it can be devised and when it has a marked effect on its pub-
lic, don Angel. Don Diego tells, for example, of the serrano pres-
ence on the coast and of the effect it has on the area. Specifically,
he speaks of three blind musicians he had seen in a market, one
male from the coastal town of Paita and a male and female couple
from Cajamarca, in the highlands:
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El paiteño tocaba un triste, un tristı́simo triste, ciego de los dos ojos; el
de Cajamarca eran dos, oiga usted, marido y mujer, ciegos también; la
india tocaba tamborcillo, el indio violı́n; y cantaban feo, a dúo; feo, gar-
raspiando cantaban. Y yo me puse a bailar; el garraspeo habı́a tenido
alma; me puse a bailar bonito, con mi chaqueta levita de botones dora-
dos; en delante de los ciegos bailé, dando vueltas como sombra de
trompo. Y los dos ciegos mucha plata agarraron. No sabiendo quién
habı́a bailado, lloraban agradeciendo al aire pestı́fero. (ZZ, 88)
[The fellow from Paita played a mournful, extremely sad triste; he was
blind in both eyes; from Cajamarca there were two of them, you hear,
man and wife, and they were blind too. The Indian woman was playing
a little drum, the Indian man a violin; and they were singing so ugly—
with ugly hoarse voices they were singing. I got started dancing—the
hoarse singing had soul; I started to do a nice dance, in my gold-but-
toned coat; before the blind couple I danced, going round and round like
the shadow of a top. And the blind couple grabbed a lot of cash. Not
knowing who was there dancing, they wept, giving thanks to the pestif-
erous air.] (FF, 92–93)
This scene has several elements that recall the function of the semi-
otic in Los rı́os profundos. The music of the Sierra, with a soul of
its own, has a profound effect on don Diego, making him dance,
just as the music played in the chicherı́a in Huanupata moved the
soldier from the coast (and later the young Ernesto) to the point that
he, too, danced. Furthermore, don Diego dances like the shadow of
a toy top, a phrase that evokes the image of the zumbayllu in the
earlier novel. The effect, here as in Los rı́os profundos, among the
female musician, the male musician, and the male dancer is recipro-
cal, though here what the dancer ‘‘gives’’ to the musicians is
money, for they are now in a territory where monetary exchange is
of central importance. Don Diego’s comment on Chimbote in the
process of modernization, immediately following, reveals the strug-
gle between the symbolic and the semiotic: ‘‘Chimbote es obra de
las armazones cibernéticas, de su patronazo de usted, que es tam-
bién mi relacionado, por otra cuerda contra contraria, como allı́
dicen; porque su patronazo está en la vigilancia y coordinación de
las fuerzas grandes, ¿no? Lloqlla que quiere llevarse todo, porque
está recién degalgándose’’ (ZZ, 88) [Chimbote is the work of the
cybernetic mainframes and of your own big boss, who is also re-
lated to me by another really contrary line, as they say around there,
I believe; because your big boss is into surveillance and coordina-
tion of huge forces, isn’t he? A lloqlla that wants to carry off every-
thing, because it’s only recently started to hurtle down (FF, 93)].
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The underlying force, of great movement and power, must be

guarded and controlled by the bosses, the symbolic. Both forces
form an integral part of the city, and, by extension, Peru, as don
Diego reminds don Angel, yet don Diego indirectly questions the
success the latter will have in controlling the former.
The constant intrusion of the semiotic into the symbolic is high-
lighted by the figure of a fly that invades the dialogue almost from
the beginning and that reenters it repeatedly during pauses after the
(usually quite long) contributions by either of the speakers. In the
beginning, it is shown hovering around a lightbulb: ‘‘el cuerpo del
bicho parecı́a acorazado y azulino, se golpeaba a muerte contra el
vidrio; era rechazado como un rayo y volvı́a’’ (ZZ, 85–86) [the
bug’s body looked bluish and armor-plated; it was beating itself to
death against the glass; it kept being rejected in a flash and coming
back (FF, 89)]. While don Angel is complaining of the flood of ar-
rivals from the Sierra, don Diego rises, captures the fly, bites it, and
lays it on don Angel’s desk to die. The suffering insect ‘‘dio una
vuelta ciega en la mesa, produjo un sonido penetrante’’ (ZZ, 89)
[turned blindly on the table, making a penetrating sound (FF, 93)].
Don Diego explains to don Angel,
¡ese zumbido es la queja de una laguna que está en lo más dentro del
médano San Pedro, donde los serranos han hecho una barriada de calles
bien rectas, a imitación del casco urbano de Chimbote. . . . Este bichito
se llama ’onquray onquray’ que quiere decir en lengua antigua ‘En-
fermedad de enfermedad’ y ha brotado de esa laguna cristalina que hay
en la entraña del cerro de arena. De allı́ viene a curiosear, a conocer;
con la luz se emborracha. Ya va a morir, dando otra vueltita más en
cı́rculo, llorando como espina (ZZ, 89)
[that keening is the lamentation of the pool deep down inside the San
Pedro dune, on which the highlanders have built a shantytown with real
straight streets, imitating the city center of Chimbote. . . . This little bug
is called Onquray onquray (which in ancient language means ‘‘Sickness
of sickness’’), and it has arisen from the crystal-clear pool which is deep
inside the sand mountain. From there the bug comes out to snoop
around, to get to know his surroundings; the light gets him intoxicated.
Now he’s going to die, circling one more time, crying as if he were
pierced with a thorn] (FF, 93).
This moan that the fly produces is reminiscent of the grunts emitted
by la Opa in Los rı́os profundos, the song of ‘‘el pianista’’ in El
Sexto, or the ‘‘queja’’ pronounced by La Kurku in Todas las san-
gres, a complaint that her fellow pongo Anto tells us comes from
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the center of the earth. It is a manifestation of the semiotic chora,
understood in feminist thought as a preverbal, semiotic, ‘‘feminine’’
site or state that precedes the symbolic—subjectivity and lan-
guage—which has an immediate impact on Don Angel, who feels
that the moan ‘‘le entraba por la oreja y se le alojaba en lo más
ı́ntimo de sus intimidades’’ (ZZ, 89) [enter(ed) his ear and settl(ed)
down into the most private part of his private parts (FF, 93–94)].
This sensation causes a reaction of distrust by don Angel, who is
not sure how to react to the different feelings surfacing in him dur-
ing don Diego’s visit. The dead fly, whose body smells of chicha,
the Andean corn beer, will continue to reappear throughout the con-
versation, an incessant reminder of the force of nature that can be
crushed but never completely destroyed.
In that way, the insect mirrors the role of the semiotic, a force
that in Chimbote is buried but not fully contained. This fact is
shown in the impact don Diego’s presence has on don Angel. After
the initial description of don Diego, the reader is told that some-
thing in the visitor’s appearance is disquieting to the factory boss,
though he is also intrigued by the younger man’s intelligence. After
don Angel’s explanation of the working of the mafia, the narrator
says that
El visitante asintió con la cabeza, dirigió a Rincón una mirada lúcida;

sus dos ojos adquirieron la transparencia más profunda, que no es la del
aire o el cielo, sino la circunscrita y viva, sin topes de color, de los lagos
de altura o de un remanso, la verdadera transparencia profunda que
transmiten al entendimiento y la esperanza los gusanillos que allı́ bu-
llen, se retuercen, que hacen carreras a lo hondo y a través y los peces
de brillo suave que se precipitan a velocidades diferentes según la
voluntad o el ansia de los animales. Don Angel creyó encontrar en esa
mirada transparente, algún secreto. (ZZ, 104)
[The visitor nodded his head in agreement and gave Rincón a luminous
look; both eyes took on the deepest transparency, not that of air or sky,
but the enclosed, living kind, with unbounded color, of the highland
lakes or a pool, the really deep transparency transmitted to understand-
ing and hope by the little worms that are seething there, twisting and
racing downward and sideways and by the glistening fish that dart about
at varying speeds, according to the whims and eagerness of animals.
Don Angel thought he had found some secret in that transparent look.]
(FF, 110).
Light and transparency are repeatedly associated with don Diego,

in sharp contrast to the darkness and opacity of Chimbote and its
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inner workings. Here the narrator intervenes to highlight the semi-

otic, showing that don Diego’s gaze has, again, the direct, transpar-
ent, unmediated effect associated with the semiotic and the direct
transmittal of understanding. It evokes the underlying rumblings
through which the semiotic is manifested. Most importantly, it re-
veals a ‘‘secret,’’ the meaning of which will become clearer later in
the episode.
In another instance, the animal-like maneuvers and the natural-
smelling odors of the visitor remind don Angel of Andean nature.
This is a nature that, as shown in other parts of the narration, has
long been missing in the city, but once thrived. At other times, the
narrator points out the city’s transformed, but nonetheless existing,
nature: a lone tree that stands in a patio, the polluted bay, or the
degradation of the pelican, which, deprived of its natural food, is
forced to scavenge among the trash in the markets. This memory of
the past, of another reality, is that secret which the visitor slowly
brings to don Angel throughout their encounter.
Don Diego’s covert presentation culminates in the most dramatic
display of the semiotic found in the narration, in the scene that im-
mediately follows don Angel’s recounting of Chimbote’s contem-
porary history and presentation of his own ‘‘panoramic’’ view of
Peru. Don Angel ends his assessment by laughing at the serrano
middlemen who have been enlisted to work for the industry leaders
and the local mafia. Don Diego encourages don Angel to laugh
hard, to let out all he has pent up inside. The visitor then begins an
energetic scissor dance. This dance has a most profound impact on
the businessman from the coast:
Don Angel no pudo seguir riéndose, por más que lo intentó varias veces.
Sus ojos, agrandados por los lentes, se detuvieron en el cuerpo del vi-
sitante que giraba en doble sombra. Sintió al poco rato, mientras seguı́a
la danza, sintió en lo que llamaba ‘‘su oı́do de oı́r, no de silbar ni can-
tar’’, en ese oı́do, escuchó un sonido melancólico de alas de zancudo,
acompañado de campanillas de aurora y fuego; un ritmo muy marcado
que pugnaba por aparecer en el pleno, en el lúcido recuerdo. (ZZ, 109)
[Don Angel could not go on laughing, even though he tried several

times. His eyes, enlarged by his glasses, lingered on the visitor’s body,
which was turning round in a double shadow. In a little while, following
the dance, he perceived in what he called ‘‘his hearin’, not his singin’
or whistlin’ ear,’’ in that ear he heard the melancholy sound of mosquito
wings, accompanied by fiery little dawn bells, an accentuated rhythm
that struggled to appear fully and crystal clear in his memory.] (FF,
115).
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The narration then focuses on the eyes of the visitor, which turn
around and change ‘‘de afuera hacia adentro’’ [from outside inward]
becoming ‘‘vidrios de colores densos y en movimiento’’ (ZZ, 109)
[solid colored pieces of glass in motion (FF, 115)]. The eyes also
effect a change in Don Angel, who once again feels ‘‘en lo que él
llamaba su ‘oı́do de recordar y no de cantar ni silbar’ . . . un canto
que nacı́a vacilando, muy parecido, de veras, al zumbido de las alas
de los zancudos cuando rondan muchos, al unı́sono, en la noche
serrana’’ ZZ, 109) [with what he called his ‘‘remembering rather
than whistling or singing ear’’ . . . a song that hesitantly came to
life; indeed it bore quite a resemblance to the droning mosquito
wings make when many of them are hovering around in unison on
a pitch-dark night (FF, 115–16)]. Finally, the narrator recounts,
‘‘ritmo y baile le encendieron toda la memoria y el cuerpo, la carne
humana viva que tanto apetece estas melodı́as de compases dulces
e imperiosos’’ (ZZ, 109) [rhythm and dance kindled his whole body
and memory, the live human flesh that has such a yearning for those
tunes with a sweet and tender tempo (FF, 116)]. The dance for a
moment transforms don Angel; most importantly, it recalls the
memory of elements lost in the symbolically laden culture in which
don Angel lives: nature, rhythm, dance, song, the body. These are
elements which move vibrantly and passionately. They are the ele-
ments that underlie the dominant structure, suppressed but nonethe-
less there. These elements have a distinct connection with the
semiotic and serve as form of voice for Arguedas, in that they bring
lost or hidden memories to the text.
Don Angel begins to encourage don Diego and calls for him to
continue dancing. The representative of the coast then, inspired and
guided by the rhythm of the dancing visitor’s body, intones a song
that surmises, and effectively condemns, the contemporary situa-
tion of his country. The song mentions and casts judgment on sev-
eral of the men don Angel’s earlier account had named as key
players in Chimbote business. Near the end of the rather long,
chantlike creation, he summarizes:
El Perú costa, cómo me jode, cómo me jode

el Perú sierra, cómo me aburre, cómo me aprieta
el Perú selva, chas, chas, chas
cómo me pudre, mucho me aprieta . . .
desde la costa al Amazonas se cagan en mı́. (ZZ, 111)
[The Peru coast, how it gets on my nerves, how it gets on my nerves.

The Peru sierra, how it bores me, how it oppresses me.
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The Peru jungle, how it rots me; so much it oppresses me . . .

From the coast the the Amazon jungle, that’s how they shit on me.]
(FF, 118)
The narrator comments, ‘‘Don Angel recitaba y canturreaba algo

desigualmente todo, ritmo, melodı́a y movimiento’’ (ZZ, 111) [Don
Angel was reciting and droning all of this rather unevenly as to
rhythm, tune, and movement (FF, 118)]. In her interesting analysis
of competing discourses within both the diaries and the fiction of
the novel, Naomi Lindstrom notes that it is nonverbal strategies,
such as dance and song, that eventually overcome discursive im-
pediments. Regarding this scene in particular, she observes that
don Diego uses the music and dance of the Sierra to overcome two
distinct systems for perceiving and structuring an experience. For
Lindstrom, ‘‘With this episode, there is very little hope for remedy-
ing the conflict at the discursive level; the only resolution seems to
be to substitute the word for another, less conflictive communica-
tive mode.’’30 If the novel denotes the failure of the communicative
powers of the word, there still seems to be some faith (at least mo-
mentarily) in possibility of expression and signification through
other means.
Don Diego has in effect brought don Angel back to the semiotic,
through song, and this relationship sharpens the latter’s analysis of
his country. The narrator continues:
Recordó y recordando, muy claramente ya, miró al visitante: su gorro
se habı́a convertido en lana de oro cuyos hilos se revolvı́an en el aire; los
zapatos, en sandalias transparentes color azul; la leva llena de espejos
pequeños en forma de estrella; los bigotes, en espinos cristalinos en las
puntas. . . . El, don Angel, cajabambino de nacimiento e infancia, li-
meño habituado, recordó en ese instante que los picaflores verde torna-
sol danzaban sobre esas corolas, largo rato; danzaban felices mientras
él, hijo espurio, miraba el temblar del pajarito, con lágrimas en los ojos.
(ZZ, 112)
[He remembered . . . and remembering very clearly now, he gazed at

the visitor; his cap had been changed into golden wool whose strands
were swirling in the air, his shoes into transparent sandals of a bluish
hue; his frock coat was full of little star-shaped mirrors; his whiskers
became thorns clear as crystal at the tips. . . . Just then Don Angel, a
Cajabambino by birth and early childhood, an habitué of Lima, remem-
bered how the iridescent green hummingbirds would dance merrily over
those corollas while he—the bastard son of a father who refused to ac-
knowledge him—would watch the little bird’s trembling with tears in
his eyes.] (FF, 118–119)
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Again, through the semiotic relationship don Angel finally develops
with the visitor—his looks and his movement—the Other side of
Peru is able to enter the text. That which is marginalized is privi-
leged textually and culturally, and directly returns the representa-
tive of the oppressing classes to his place of origin—the reader
learns that Don Angel himself is a displaced serrano.
The scene ends with don Angel giving don Diego a tour of the
factory, explaining in detail how fish meal is processed. Through-
out his tour of the factory, don Diego is greeted joyfully by the
(mostly serrano) workers, as if they intuit his true identity. After-
wards don Angel takes him to another Chimbote institution, the ‘‘El
Gato’’ brothel, where he witnesses El Tarta, a stuttering fisherman,
perform oral sex on one of the female dancers. After finishing, El
Tarta is thrown out of the club. Don Angel advances into the dark-
ness of the brothel, while don Diego leaves to join El Tarta. The
latter, also a marginalized figure, recognizes the fox and speaks to
him, this time without stuttering, proud of his own accomplishment
with the prostitute. At this point the fisherman enters a taxi, and don
Diego runs off toward the railway station. To do this he must leap
across, he counts, twenty thousand sacks of fish meal.
This dialogue between don Angel and don Diego concentrates
many central points in the narrative portions of the text. It takes
place in two spaces that dominate this literary representation of
Chimbote, the fish meal factory and the brothel. It gives history to
the two preceding narrative chapters and highlights the corruption
of the capitalist world. Most importantly, it brings two opposing el-
ements into play. If don Angel, in his narration, embraces the sym-
bolic and that associated with it—the coast, capitalism, foreign
interests—don Diego shows that the semiotic—in nature, music,
the Andes, and the past of the coast itself—still forms an integral
part of Peruvian culture and, indeed, underlies and in many ways
sustains the world don Angel represents. He brings to the text the
memory of the suppressed element. In the end, the two part, each
returning to their respective corners. The interplay they represent
has a much more felicitous ending than similar interactions in other
narrative portions of the text. This dialogue is a mythic scene,
where a mythic creature comes to speak to a man. When represent-
ing the more ‘‘real’’ world of Chimbote, Arguedas shows the con-
stant struggle on the part of the dominant world to silence the
marginal and demonstrates the difficulty with which the latter
speaks in that world.
The foxes continue to appear at specific points in the narration,
to highlight a character or scene or to force the revelation of a truth.
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The fourth chapter of the fiction gives a long account of the inner
thoughts of don Esteban de la Cruz, a serrano shoemaker who, after
years of working in the mine in the Sierra, is suffering from severe
lung damage. The narration, imitating serrano Spanish and high-
lighting the orality of the culture, tells of Esteban’s material diffi-
culties, his strong friendship with Moncada, the crazy man, his
relationship with his wife, and his fight against death. At the end of
the chapter, when Esteban is particularly weak, and, it seems, close
to death, he goes to the market to listen to the music of Crispı́n, a
blind serrano musician (presumably the one whom don Diego had
mentioned earlier). While listening he encounters a small man, with
stubby legs and whiskers, who listened to Crispı́n ‘‘de un modo ex-
traño, como si él le estuviera transmitiendo la melodı́a al músico‘‘
(ZZ, 168) [in a strange way, as if he were transmitting the melody
to the musician (FF, 177)]. Both Esteban and the man uncon-
sciously begin to repeat the Quechua words that Crispı́n sings. Fi-
nally, Esteban complains of his own illness and blurts out that he
knows the small man will never die. With that, the man nods his
head in affirmation and runs away, zigzagging up a sandhill and
dancing at the top. The fox enters the narration to answer a question
by now prominent in the reader’s mind—What will be the fate of
serrano culture in Peru?—and to highlight the strength of this indig-
enous-mestizo individual and his fight against death.
On another occasion, the fox appears to force the revelation of a
truth. The final narrative chapter of the novel presents a long con-
versation among Cardozo, a North American priest with leftist
leanings; Maxwell, an ex-member of the Peace Corps who, assimi-
lated to the indigenous-mestizo culture because of his travels in the
Sierra, has settled in a serrano community in Chimbote and works
as an assistant construction worker; and Cecilio Ramı́rez, Max-
well’s serrano boss. The conversation takes place in Cardozo’s of-
fice, under the gaze of a large portrait of Che Guevara, painted by
the priest himself (because it was painted from his imagination, the
narrative tells us, the likeness is poor), and a small Andean repre-
sentation of Christ, which the priest had bought in the streets of
Cuzco. Through Maxwell and Cecilio, the ‘‘revolutionary’’ goals of
the priest and other international organizations are questioned and
the many ways in which the serrano immigrants have been able to
confront the injustices of the coast, work for survival, and form a
community are revealed. Cecilio is shown to have saved many lives
by giving work, food, and shelter to individuals in need; Maxwell,
inspired by his encounters with indigenous culture in the Sierra, and
especially by serrano music, helps Cecilio in his endeavors. Even-
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tually, the practical purpose of the meeting is revealed; Maxwell
and Cecilio have come to ask Cardozo to marry Maxwell and a
local serrana. To this request, Cardozo responds with a hearty
laugh and a condescending assurance that he will perform the cere-
mony.
At that moment a ‘‘messenger’’ appears at the door of the priest’s
residence and another priest, Hutchinson, who had been eavesdrop-
ping outside the office, reluctantly leaves to answer the door. As the
visitor and the priest enter the inner patio of the building, the
shadow of the man intermingles with that of a small palm tree, an
image that recalls the approving connection of nature with Andean
characters, seen in previous novels. When they arrive at the office
door, they overhear the last part of the conversation, ‘‘como si el
tiempo que duró entre el sonar del timbre y la llegada a la oficina
de Cardozo no hubiera transcurrido. Hutchinson prestaba tanta
atención a las palabras de don Cecilio como a esa irreprimible sen-
sación de irrealidad’’ (ZZ, 234) [as if the time between the ringing
of the doorbell and the arrival at Cardozo’s office had not elapsed.
Hutchinson paid as much attention to Don Cecilio’s words as he
did to that irrepressible sensation of unreality (FF, 247–48)]. This
observation marks the entrance of the narration into an unreal,
mythic time; it will be a time of unmasking of international organi-
zations with ‘‘revolutionary’’ ideals.
When Hutchinson and the guest enter the office, in an almost
magical way, Maxwell recognizes the messenger immediately, as a
man whom he had met during his travels in the Sierra: ‘‘un joven
de rostro alargado, de rarı́simos bigotes ralos, me animó. Me habló
en su lengua, sonriendo, abriendo la boca tan exageradamente, que
ese gesto le daba a su cara una expresión como de totalidad; le es-
cuché, en la sangre y en la claridad de mi entendimiento’’ (ZZ, 218)
[a young fellow with an elongated face and the strangest sparse
whiskers encouraged me. He spoke to me in his language, smiling,
opening his mouth in such an exaggerated way that the gesture gave
sort of an expression of totality to his face; I heard him out, in the
blood and clarity of my understanding (FF, 231)]. That man was
presumably the fox from above, who aided in Maxwell’s immersion
in Quechua culture. The messenger, however, is the fox from
below, and corrects Maxwell, telling him, ‘‘yo tiempo vivo en
Chimbote’’ (ZZ, 234) [For ages I’ve been livin’ in Chimbote (FF,
248)].
In this case, the fox has come to make Cardozo reveal himself
and the North American culture from which he comes, to prevent
Cecilio and Maxwell from forming potentially dangerous ties with
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the man. His laughter at Maxwell and Cecilio belies the priest’s pa-
ternalistic attitude toward the working classes. After the fox criti-
cizes him, the priest falls into a long, frenetic condemnation of U.S.
capitalism and its hold on charity organizations, and concludes by
praising the small acts of salvation seen in the poor neighborhoods
of Chimbote. He ends up recognizing his false ‘‘revolutionariness’’
and the true revolution being undertaken by people like Cecilio.
The narrator describes the ‘‘lenguaje aluviónico, inesperadamente
intrincado, yanki-cecilio-bazalártico en que hablaba o en que ese
mensajero lo inducı́a a expresarse’’ (ZZ, 237) [muddy torrent of un-
expectedly intricate Yankee-Cecilio-Bazalartic language in which
the priest spoke, or else in which the messenger was inducing him
to express himself (FF, 251)].31 Thus, the fox’s impact on the priest
is clear, as the messenger seems to channel through him a new
sense of identification with the oppressed, whom he was supposed
to defend but in reality had, to that point, mistrusted and belittled.
The priest calls for a true Marxist revolution and asks Maxwell
to play, on the instrument the messenger had brought him, music
from the Sierra. Then, the messenger’s name is revealed for the first
time:
El mensajero empezó a emplumarse de la cabeza, como pavorreal o pi-

caflor de gran sombra. Retrocedieron todos hacia las paredes. Diego co-
menzó a hacer vibrar sus piernas abiertas y dobladas en desigual
ángulo; las hizo vibrar a más velocidad que toda cuerda que el hombre
ha ensangrentado y ardido, luego dio una voltereta en el aire e hizo ba-
lancearse a la lámpara, le dio sonido de agua, voz de patos de altura, de
los penachos de totora que resisten gimiendo la fuerza del viento. (ZZ,
239)
[The messenger’s head began to be adorned with plumes, like some

peacock or long-shadowed hummingbird. They all stepped back to the
walls. Diego began to make his legs quiver—they were apart, and bent
from different angles; he made them vibrate more rapidly than all the
[charango] strings man has bloodied and sent ablaze, then he did a so-
mersault in the air and made the lamp swing, making a sound like water,
like the voices of the highland ducks, of the totora reed plumes, which
make a wailing resistance to the strength of the wind.] (FF, 253)
Here the fox recalls the semiotic to the text as the room fills with
symbols of Quechua culture. His intervention and Maxwell’s music
seem to give hope to Cecilio, who claims, ‘‘nunca jamás hey tenido
esperanza’’ (ZZ, 239) [I’ve never, ever had hope! (FF, 253)], and
Cecilio also begins to dance. The music stops, and the room returns
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to its original state: ‘‘únicamente don Cecilio, ya bajo la luz de la
modernı́sima lámpara, seguı́a bailando lento, derramando chorros
de lágrimas sobre el pecho, con la cabeza agachada’’ (ZZ, 239)
[only Don Cecilio, by then in the light of a very modern lamp, con-
tinued dancing slowly, with head bowed, the tears streaming down
onto his chest (FF, 253)]. The messenger then incites Cecilio to go
to Crispı́n, the blind musician, and both Cecilio and Maxwell leave,
abandoning their ties with Cardozo. Diego ‘‘disminuyó de tamaño
bajo el dintel. Volvió la cabeza hacia el despacho. Hizo una
reverencia sonriendo a toda cara, su largo hocicazo, con una lengua
muy alegre que le colgaba a un costado de la boca’’ (ZZ, 240) [di-
minished in size under the lintel. He turned his head to face the
study. He bowed, smiling the length of his long muzzle, with quite
a merry tongue hanging out of one side of his mouth (FF, 254)].
The chapter, and, indeed, the narrative portion of the novel, ends
with Cardozo beside a portrait of Che Guevara and a crucifix, re-
flecting on a passage from the Bible, which talks of love as the
greatest of virtues (actually, this is a somewhat altered version of 1
Corinthians 13). He seems to finally understand the hatred that Ce-
cilio, and other serranos, feel toward him.32
In both of these last appearances of the fox from below, the fox’s
presence is important in that it highlights truth and evokes change.
Again, the fox’s appearances serve as points of entry for the semi-
otic into the text, but these moments do not reach the depths of pen-
etration shown in chapter 3. In his ‘‘¿Ultimo Diario?’’ [Last
Diary?], which comes immediately after the scene with Cardozo,
Arguedas laments, ‘‘los zorros no podrán narrar la lucha entre los
lı́deres izquierdistas, y de los otros, en el sindicato de pescadores;
no podrán intervenir’’ (ZZ, 243) [the foxes won’t be able to tell the
story of the struggle between the leftist leaders and others in the
fisherman’s union; they won’t be able to intervene (FF, 256)]. It is
as if the semiotic no longer has a place in the text—it must give
way to the symbolic—hence, Arguedas’s sense that he has lost his
own struggle to speak. This final admission is the culmination of a
series of narrative events that show the struggle of the semiotic to
speak in the ‘‘real’’ world of Chimbote that the narrative seeks to
portray. These encounters do not end as felicitously as those in
which the fox intervenes to participate directly.
Chimbote: A Problematic Hybrid Displacing Place

Arguedas’s disillusion with the sociopolitical state of Peru and
with the country’s inability to integrate its diverse elements, and to
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realize his ideal of cultural mestizaje, is evident in the manner in

which the narrative techniques he uses in the earlier novels are
transformed, and twisted by their change of environment. The port
itself is shown as a place where the great variety of Peru’s inhabi-
tants live and come into contact daily, but there is no melding of
the various groups into a community. Rather, the diverse peoples
and cultures coexist uneasily, violently, and to the exclusion of one
another. This is a world where relations are ruled by capitalistic ex-
change and where race strongly determines where one is positioned
in the process of such exchange. One character says of the port,
‘‘Esa es la gran ’zorra’ ahora, mar de Chimbote. . . . Era un espejo,
ahora es la puta más generosa ’zorra’ que huele a podrido.’’ His
stuttering companion replies, ‘‘de-de-de’sa zo-zo-zorra vives, mari-
cón . . . vi-vi-vive la patria’’ (ZZ, 40) [That’s the big ‘pussy’ nowa-
days, the sea of Chimbote. It used to be a mirror; now it’s the most
generous, foul-smelling whore ‘pussy’ there is (FF, 45)]. Before,
the port was a crystalline mirror of the area, presumably reflecting
the great Andean mountains to the east. Now, it is a rotten place—a
prostituted female sexual organ—exploited by foreign interests.
This is a hybrid space that is losing its power to displace authority.
Lienhard notes the use of masculine and feminine symbolism in
the work; with the center of activity displaced from Cuzco to Chim-
bote—no longer the ‘‘navel’’ of the world—the port becomes a
great female sex organ that attracts the Andean immigrants. As
Lienhard states, the space in which the novel develops is divided
between the masculine, which hails from above, and the feminine,
which springs from below: The main plot is articulated around the
encounter of above and below. The men (above) fecundate or, more
precisely, prostitute the bay (below) through the extraction of fish;
in the brothel, Andean men and coastal prostitutes imitate a degrad-
ing and sterile version of human reproduction. The alternation be-
tween day (above) and night (below) imposes a rhythm on the
changes in activity, scenery, and dominant sign (masculine/femi-
nine): fishing, sea, and men dominate the first time; prostitution, the
prostibule, and women, the second.’’33
Indeed, in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, woman appears
to lose the redeeming potential that characterizes her in the earlier
novels. The maternal figure of the highlands becomes a member of
the capitalist system, using her body to participate in monetary ex-
change. The port is identified with a fallen woman: ‘‘la mar es la
más grande concha chupadora del mundo. La concha exige pincho,
¿no es cierto?’’ (ZZ, 26) [the ocean is the greatest suckin’ cunt in
the world. The cunt demands a cock, right? (FF, 29)]. In the capital-
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ist world, the woman, like Chimbote, and, by extension, Peru, is
prostituted to the economic interests of the dominant society.
Thus, it is logical that another key narrative space—one which
along with the port itself opens the fiction—is the bordello that
overlooks the bay. This space is filled with a wide variety of people,
like Huanupata of Los rı́os profundos and like that mestizo sector
of Abancay, it is a place of carnival, a place of potential subversion;
the narration from time to time focuses on the carnivalesque rhythm
of bodies dancing, but this time they dance to modern Caribbean or
rock music, not native Andean-mestizo music. The bordello itself
is hierarchized, divided into three sectors based on the quality and
price of the prostitute and social status of the client. The Indian and
serrano-mestizo prostitutes and clients, referred to as ‘‘cholos’’ by
the inhabitants of the coast, are relegated to the ‘‘corral,’’ the cheap-
est sector. The brothel, like the chicherı́a in Huanupata, is a space
filled with working women, but it does not have the hopeful conno-
tations of the chicherı́a. Here, women and Indians are controlled
and dominated, and relationships between men and women are me-
diated by monetary exchange. The women of the brothels still have
a certain impact on their clients, but it is not the same renovating,
incorporating relationship seen in the earlier novels. This space,
like the hybrid displacing spaces of the other novels, has an altering
effect on the subjects that move within it, but the change is not
toward a more whole, communal, integrating position.
The brothel, then, is the inverse of the chicherı́a: a place where
many elements of Peruvian society come into contact, but in which
their movement is restricted, mediated to a great extent by the dom-
inant fiction. To highlight this sense of inversion, other elements
central to the earlier Arguedian texts are also shown to be distorted,
transformed by their hostile environment. For example, the light
that served to highlight important events or people in the earlier
novels remains, but it is a false, electric lighting. The smells that
impregnate the air are those of urine, trash, blood, and the polluted
sea. The ‘‘corral’’ patio has but one tree; of the space belonging to
the higher-paid prostitutes, the narrator notes that there is neither
patio nor tree (ZZ, 37; FF 40). There is much competition among
the male clients, even among the serranos themselves, most of
whom try to deny their origin. The place is filled with the aggres-
sive, inhumane type of sexuality the young narrator of Los rı́os
profundos had feared and rejected. Indeed, the male-female rela-
tionships in the novel are another example of the inversion of the
ideal relationships projected in the earlier novels.
Owing to the workings of coastal society, the relationship be-
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tween woman and Indian is no longer positive but one of monetary

exchange and, thus, corrupted. As a prostitute, the woman still me-
diates between cultures, but in a negative way. The narrator tells of
an Indian fisherman, Asto, who insists on having intercourse with
La Argentina, a white, foreign prostitute from the pabellón blanco,
for, as he says, ‘‘pescador, yo, lancha Mendieta; Jefe Planta,
cabillero respeto Rincón, Jefe Bahı́a, cabillero respeto Corosbi;
Compañı́a Braschi, jefe. A ’corral’ va pión hambriento, chino des-
graciado, negro desgraciado.’’ (ZZ, 35) [Me fisherman, Mendieta
trawler; me Factory Boss, respictid gintlemin from Rincón, Boss o’
the Bay, Corsbi respicted gintlemin; Braschi Company, boss. Cor-
ral’s where hungry peon, outaluck Chinaman, outaluck Blackman
go. (FF, 38)]. Once he is accepted by the prostitute (after showing
her two one-hundred sol bills), he tells her, ‘‘poco plata. Tú, puta,
blancona, huivona. Ahistá carajo. Toma carajo. Doscientos soles
nada para mı́. Puta, putaza’’ (ZZ, 38) [Not much money. You,
whore, paleskin, idiot. Here it is, goddamnit. Two hundred soles
nothin’ to me. Whore, big ol’ whore (FF 41)] and then, tempted to
throw the bills in the woman’s face, instead throws them on her
bed.37 La Argentina senses another side to the Indian and tenderly
reproaches him, reminding him that he is not like the others. Asto
insists, ‘‘pescador juerte, machazo . . . ochinta toneladas anchovita,
yo’’ (ZZ, 38) [Strong fisherman, great big he-man . . . eighty tonsa
anchovy, me (FF, 41)], while he backs away from the woman, who
continues to belittle his posturing. The relationship between Asto
and La Argentina is, thus, one of conflict and power, mirroring
other human relationships depicted in the novel.
As Asto leaves La Argentina’s room, the narrator focuses light
(again, electric) on him: ‘‘En esa luz los rostros se veı́an como inde-
finidos, los trajes oscuros se intensificaban’’ (ZZ, 38) [In that light,
features were ill defined; dark clothing grew darker (FF 42)]. Un-
like the illumination in the earlier novels, this light obscures under-
standing, or, like the use of light in the earlier novels, it points to a
truth, which is the very lack of definition it highlights. A costeño,
Zavala, seeing Asto leave La Argentina’s room, observes, ‘‘Pisa
firme ahora. . . . Camina firme, silba firme ese indio. Desnudo,
amarrado al muelle, dı́as de dı́as, aprendió a nadar para obtener
matrı́cula de pescador. No hablaba castellano. ¿Cuál generosa puta
lo habrá bautizado? Desde mañana fregará a sus paisanos, será un
caı́n, un judás’’ (ZZ, 39) [He’s steppin’ firm. . . . He’s walkin’ firm
and whistlin’ firm, that Indian is. Naked, tied to the wharf day after
day, he learned to swim so’s he could get a fisherman’s registration.
He didn’t use to talk Spanish before. I wonder what generous whore
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baptized him. From tomorrow on, he’ll make things hard for his
fellow country men; he’ll be a Cain, a Judas (FF, 42)]. Asto himself
thinks, ‘‘Yu . . . criollo, carajo; argentino, carajo. ¿Quién serrano,
ahura?’’ (ZZ, 39) [Me criollo . . . from the coast, goddamnit; me
from Argentina, goddamnit. Who highlander now? (FF, 42)].
In fact, the encounter not only acculturates Asto by initiating him
into the capitalist world through the economy of sex, making him a
traitor to himself and his fellow serranos, it also fills him with a
sense of empowerment. However, like power in capitalist society, it
is manifested through violence, for after leaving the bordello, Asto,
with minimal provocation, threatens a taxi driver with a knife. He
recognizes the power of money; by throwing some bills in a taxi
driver’s face, he feels empowered to proclaim, ‘‘patrón de ti, ahura.
¿Ricoge, caray, rápido?’’ (ZZ, 39) [boss of you, now. Pick up, by
golly, quickly! (FF, 43)] and when expelled from the taxi, he is por-
trayed walking back toward the bordello as he clutches a roll of
banknotes. This form of transculturation, a ‘‘white’’ mestizaje, one
in which the deculturation is of the indigenous element, makes the
Indian violent, aggressive. It is not the accepting, incorporating ef-
fect of the mestizaje found in the earlier novels; it does not recog-
nize two cultures but rather allows one to suffocate the other. This
is the excess to which Moreiras refers; the subject that emerges
from the space of the Chimbote bordello seems but a resignation to
the impossibility of realizing mestizaje within the dominant world
of Peru.
Yet, as will become evident throughout the narration, Arguedas
seeks to show that the very instances of repression by the dominant
culture are also moments in which one may glimpse the strength
and reach of the marginalized culture. The transculturated Indian,
after being with the white prostitute, goes to the ‘‘corral’’ to rescue
his sister from prostitution. He works, is admired (if somewhat
grudgingly) for his efforts, and has come to dominate the sea, the
space of his Other. Furthermore, there are unconscious manifesta-
tions of his serrano background, characteristics that he cannot sup-
press. For example, as he leaves the prostitute, he is whistling a
huayno, the song form that serves subversive purposes in Argued-
ian narrative. These appearances of the indigenous element, mo-
ments of hope, are spread throughout the novel, affirming the
vitality and persistence of a culture that, like the Incan wall under
the colonial houses in Cuzco, cannot be extinguished by the official
world that lies above it. The new cultural phenomena observed in
El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo are a variation, a coastal form
of mestizaje, produced in a society that, while perhaps desiring to
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extinguish the indigenous element in the country, will never be able

truly to do so.
As shown in this brief scene, the role of woman remains some-
what the same, as she transforms and unites men; however, the
function has been inverted. The focus on the sexual aspect of
woman is a difficult one for Arguedas. In his diary he relates the
feeling of guilt that accompanied his first sexual encounter. As was
discussed previously, in various moments in earlier narratives,
women are used as sexual objects, and Arguedas highlights the pro-
found sense of guilt that characterizes those encounters, but before
El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, most of the women in Ar-
guedas’s national vision are maternal, kindhearted, and suffering,
and as such can effect positive change. In the capitalist, Western-
oriented society of Chimbote, woman is now, like others, corrupt,
and as such she can only corrupt. She thereby loses the purifying
potential emphasized in the earlier novels; she can no longer stand
as the basis for a new society.
However, as Cornejo Polar notes, there is still some of the former
vision of Arguedas at work in this text. From time to time the myth-
ical, redeeming aspect of woman struggles to come through. A
prime example of this can be seen in the serrana prostitute who,
near the beginning of the narration, damns her situation and finds
comfort in her connection with nature. She calls out to the seagulls,
‘‘gaviotas; gentil gaviota . . . de mi ojo, de mi pecho, de mi corazon-
cito vuela volando. Bendice a putamadre prostı́bulo’’ (ZZ, 46) [Sea-
gulls, graceful gull . . . from my eye, from my bosom, from my
little heart fly, flyin’. Bless son-of-a-bitchin’ whorehouse (FF, 50)].
In an act of casting judgment, a recurring position of women in Ar-
guedas’s work, the prostitute spontaneously creates a song, enumer-
ating those things and people she finds responsible for her
suffering: ‘‘Culebra Tinoco / culebra Chimbote / culebra asfalto /
culebra Zavala / culebra Braschi / cerro arena culebra / juábrica ha-
rina culebra / (etc.)’’ (ZZ, 47) [Serpent Tinoco / serpent Chimbote /
serpent asphalt / serpent Zavala / serpent Braschi / sand mountain
serpent / fish-meal factory serpent / (etc.) (FF 51)]. Singing in
Spanish, a language foreign to her, the prostitute is alienated, forced
to try to speak in the language of the dominant masculine world.
Indeed, her vocabulary is strictly limited; she is unable to express
herself fully, silenced as it were by an alien language. In repeating
the phallic symbol of the snake, the prostitute emphasizes that
which invades, violates, and subjects her—the masculine, dominant
society. Yet she is also drawing on Andean symbolism, the serpent
as auki who with his insatiable appetite devours all.
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William Rowe notes that in this song, the prostitute ‘‘summarizes
the complex and multivalent intersection between the process of de-
structuring, centered in Chimbote, and the possibilities of a new
synthesis.’’35 He asserts that the repetition of the symbol of the
snake ‘‘creates as much an effect of fragmentation (the traditional
Andean symbol is disarticulated) as of synthesis (the symbol, now
plurivalent, penetrates the world below, creating a new critical and
transforming coherence.’’36 Indeed, Arguedas uses the song in an
attempt to give voice to the feminine (again, in this sense both
women’s and indigenous cultures), to that which opposes the domi-
nant masculine culture. However, as Rowe states, this symbol of
Arguedas’s is decomposed, fragmented, unable to express what it
did in his fiction set in the highlands.
Song and music are important elements of Arguedas’s narrative,
and thus the inclusion of the prostitute’s song is of no casual sig-
nificance. Referring to the role of music in Los rı́os profundos,
Rama observes that in Arguedas’s work songs concentrate the emo-
tional and artistic elements of the narratives and ‘‘cite the meanings
that the entire narrative is obligated to develop extensively.’’37 It is
through music that meaning is generated; music links humanity
with the natural world, the past with the present, and the individual
with the community. Rama determines that ‘‘music, and in particu-
lar song . . . fulfills a central ideological function. . . . It reappears
as the model of a superior order, not divine but rather natural, that
establishes the concurrence and equilibrium of a multiplicity of fac-
tors. . . . It reestablishes unity within diversity.’’38 In this sense, it is
one of the creative instruments that best expresses Arguedas’s na-
tional vision, which in its most hopeful moments seeks to unite a
diverse Peru.
Kristeva links music with the function of the chora, ‘‘a nonex-
pressive totality formed by (semiotic) drives and their stases in a
motility that is as full of movement as it is regulated.’’39 While nei-
ther a sign nor a signifier, chora is bred to occupy a signifying posi-
tion, which it attains through ‘‘regulation’’: ‘‘its vocal and gestural
organization is subject to what we shall call an objective ordering
(ordannancement), which is dictated by natural or socio-historical
constraints such as the biological differences between the sexes or
family structure.’’39 The drives are pre-oedipal semiotic functions,
which orient the body toward the mother; ‘‘the mother’s body is
. . . what mediates the symbolic law organizing social relations and
becomes the ordering principle of the semiotic chora.’’40 In Ar-
guedian narrative music rejoins the Peruvian community with the
semiotic, back to the mother’s body, which for Arguedas is the ori-
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gin. The use of music in his work reflects his use of the feminine,
as a mediation of the semiotic and the symbolic, as a unifying force.
Indeed, the majority of songs in Arguedas’s work are performed
by women, and the textual presentations of their music mirror what
happens to Arguedas’s social vision as his works progress.
In this light, it is interesting to compare the prostitute’s song to a
similar one by La Kurku, the deformed servant woman from Todas
las sangres, who was raped as a child by Bruno. Both women, one
deformed and one a prostitute, are doubly marginalized, and in this
sense receive special attention in the narration. But the extent to
which the narrator is able to identify with each varies significantly.
La Kurku sings in Quechua, the mother-tongue that links the text
to the origin. Furthermore, she has, in effect, two lenses focusing
the reader’s attention on her: the narrator and Anto, a fellow pongo
(a house servant who occupies the lowest stratum of society, in that
he or she is irrevocably caught between and scorned by both Indi-
ans and whites). As La Kurku is singing, Anto notes, ‘‘Don Bruno
la maltrató; le sacó el alma. Pero, seguro, a veces su alma se le
acerca y es cuando ella canta. Porque no son de nadie esos versos;
derecho le salen a la kurku de su cuerpo que le duele. Porque bajo
su pecho no hay más que silencio y . . . la pena que le tengo’’ [Don
Bruno mistreated her; he took out her soul. But, certainly, at times
her soul creeps back to her and it is when she sings. Because those
verses belong to no one; they come out of La Kurku directly from
her body that pains her. Because under her breast there is nothing
but silence and . . . the pity I have for her.] (TS, 52–53). The narra-
tor further focuses the scene, first, by adjusting the light on the fig-
ure: ‘‘El sol reverberaba sobre la tierra blanca del patio, alcanzaba
con su luz penetrante el pequeño cuerpo de la kurku; pero la sombra
del sauce también la alcanzaba con más vida’’ [The sun reverber-
ated over the white soil of the patio, reaching with its penetrating
light the small body of La Kurku; but the shadow of the willow tree
also touched her with more life] (TS, 53). Second, the narrator ad-
justs the reception of her voice: ‘‘Su voz era algo dispar, como de
anciana, pero con aliento infantil. El timbre era viejo, tanto como
la cabellera seca, algo rojiza y con aspecto cadavérico que caı́a en
hilachas desiguales sobre sus hombros, sin embargo, en lo profundo
de esa voz extraña, Anto oı́a que toda la tierra se quejaba’’ [Her
voice was somewhat uneven, like that of an old woman, but with an
infant’s breath. The timbre was old, just like her dry hair, a bit red-
dish and with a cadaveric aspect, falling in uneven threads over her
shoulders; nevertheless, in the depths of that strange voice, Anto
heard that the entire earth complained] (TS, 53). Here the narrator
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enters the narrative, identifies and identifies with the subject, and
notes the active effort made by nature to join the singer, to the point
that there is a fusion of the two.
The lamentation that comes from the center of the earth is present
in both songs, but their power is different. The song of both women
surges from their bodies, La Kurku’s from her ‘‘body that pains
her,’’ the prostitute’s from her ‘‘pussy,’’ which also pains her. Both
songs are ultimately products of a rape. La Kurku’s emphasizes
song and light, the same elements that the narrator uses to highlight
her. The first verses focus on her lack of identity as a ponga, such
a minor factor in the world that she remains ‘‘sin sombra y sin lágri-
mas’’ [without shadow or tears] (TS, 52); she continues to sing of
the freedom of the flight of birds, which she lacks, and ends by
stressing her own marginalization, ‘‘las flores que en todo corazón
crecen no pueden crecer en el mı́o’’ [the flowers that grow in every
heart cannot grow in mine] (TS, 53). The prostitute’s song is more
overtly critical, and at the same time more fragmented, correspond-
ing to the change in the role of the feminine in the later novel. In
this sense, while the songs are related in their lament and criticism,
both reflect the narration in which they are situated.
Indeed, within the respective narratives, the force and effect of
the songs differ. If La Kurku’s song is affirmed by its ‘‘observer,’’
the prostitute’s is destroyed by the same. There is an initial attempt
to highlight the woman as La Kurku had been highlighted; as she
looks out at the seagulls, the narrator notes the changing light in the
bay. Her companion, a prostitute impregnated by Tinoco, the owner
of the bordello, sees that ‘‘la gran bahı́a, el más intenso puerto pes-
quero, se concentraba en las arrugas del ojo de su compañera’’ (ZZ,
47) [the great bay, the busiest fishing port, focused in the wrinkles
around her companion’s eyes (FF, 50)]. Yet, as the woman begins
to sing, her companion walks away, and she is surrounded by a
group of hostile observers. The narrator moves the focus from the
natural and universal aspect of the woman to the sexual one, point-
ing out the carnivalesque rhythm that moves her body. Her song is
interrupted by economics; she notes that the fishing boats have left
‘‘a trayer plata’’ (ZZ, 47) [to bring back money (FF, 50)]. A male
observer (an Indian day laborer) replies, ‘‘on centavo para ti, on
centavo para mı́; ochinta para patreon lancha, vente para pescador;
mellón, melloncito para gringo peruano extranjero. ¡Baila no más,
continta!’’ (ZZ, 47) [a cint for you, a cint for me; eighty for boat
skipper, twinty for fisherman; mellion, cool little mellion for Peru-
vian foreigner gringo. Just dance, be happy! (FF, 50)]. Rather than
being affirmed, the woman and her song are negated by the mascu-
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line order surrounding them. When she tries to dance with the day
laborer, she changes the tone and words of her song: ‘‘Gentil
gaviota / islas volando / culebra, culebra / cerro arriba, culebra /
cerro abajo, culebra / bandera peruana, culebra’’ (ZZ, 48) [Graceful
gull / islands flying / serpent, serpent / up mountain serpent / down
mountain serpent / Peruvian flag serpent (FF, 50)]. The attempt at
communication and unification fails, as the Indian, an army veteran,
is offended by the affront to the Peruvian flag and kicks the woman,
who stands up, throws sand in the man’s face, and walks away. This
scene highlights Arguedas’s understanding of the failure of his vi-
sion; before, the woman and the Indian had been allies and potential
founders of a unified community, now they are shown to have a
relationship corrupted by new allegiances to the dominant system.
Immediately following this scene, the two zorros meet and com-
ment, in an extensive dialogue, the situation thus far. Their com-
ments on the power of the word and its ability to express reality is
revealing of one of the novel’s central themes and echoes funda-
mental concerns expressed in the diaries:
EL ZORRO DE ABAJO: ¿Entiendes bien lo que digo y cuento?
EL ZORRO DE ARRIBA: Confundes un poco las cosas.
EL ZORRO DE ABAJO: Ası́ es. La palabra, pues, tiene que desmenu-
zar el mundo. . . .
EL ZORRO DE ARRIBA: . . . El canto de (los) patos es grueso . . . ; el
silencio y la sombra de las montañas lo convierte en música que se
hunde en cuanto hay.
EL ZORRO DE ABAJO: La palabra es más precisa y por eso puede
confundir. El canto del pato de altura nos hace entender todo el ánimo
del mundo. (ZZ, 49)
[THE FOX FROM DOWN BELOW: Do you fully understand what I

say and tell you?
THE FOX FROM UP ABOVE: You mix things up a bit.
THE FOX FROM DOWN BELOW: That’s the way it is. Well, then, the
word must shatter the world. . . .
THE FOX FROM UP ABOVE: . . . the song of (the) ducks is deep-
toned, like a large fowl’s . . . ; the mountain’s silence and shadow trans-
forms it into music that sinks down into everything there is.
THE FOX FROM DOWN BELOW: The word is more precise, that’s
why it can be confusing. The highland duck’s song makes the whole
spirit of the world understandable to us.] (FF, 52–53)
Here the foxes highlight the struggle between the symbolic and the
semiotic. The symbolic, the word, breaks up the world and prevents
the unmediated relationships fomented by the semiotic; therefore,
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the semiotic must be given an open place within the symbolic. Ar-
guedas’s earlier novels work toward that end; the song of La Kurku
is a prime example, as she expresses the semiotic, nature, and the
pre-symbolic in her search for identity, and Anto, in his observation
and commentary, gives her music form and brings it into the sym-
bolic, in a sense giving her identity.
Throughout the work, the attempts to insert the semiotic fail.
Lienhard looks at the discursive struggle that takes place in the
novel, stating that, as an Andean native, Arguedas had secured the
right to represent the Andes, but not Peru in its entirety.41 Examin-
ing the wide variety of linguistic registers found in the novel,
Lienhard notes the sense of impossibility or failure that accompan-
ies Arguedas’s attempt to speak for all of Peru and to make the An-
dean spirit speak in all of Peru. Whereas before Arguedas had
realized an oralization or ‘‘Andeanization’’ of narrative discourse,
in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, ‘‘the Arguedian literary
operation, executed in ‘‘enemy’’ territory—dominant written cul-
ture—is unable to invert the hierarchies of imported literatures,
much less defeat the predominance of written over oral expression.
Even so, a work like El zorro . . . ( . . . ) weakens and uncovers the
mechanisms of Western domination over Peruvian culture and lev-
els the path towards a radical questioning of the sociopolitical struc-
tures that sustain it.’’42
Certainly, the text is filled with a constant, albeit somewhat al-
ready defeated, struggle to insert Andean culture into the dominant
culture. The hybrid intellectual finds his ultimate frustration in the
problematic spaces of Chimbote and of the written text; it is the
difficulty (impossibility?) of this project that terminates the narra-
tive, and, possibly, the author’s life. Arguedas begins to see his so-
cial vision frustrated in the violent, capitalist world of Chimbote;
this understanding is intimately linked with his increasing inability
to speak as an Andean writer on the Peruvian coast, and is in turn
reflected in the increasing silence of the feminine.
Edmundo Gómez Mango looks at the struggle to find a new lan-
guage through which the narrator of the diaries may speak and this
language’s link to the diaries’ discourse on death. He finds that the
conversations of the foxes relay a plurality of meanings, uniting the
worlds of the Sierra and the coast, and that they introduce the dis-
course of the Other, that of dream, myth, origin, and prophecy, and
link it to the modern world of Chimbote. For Gómez Mango, in the
diaries ‘‘the representation of the ‘individual who writes,’ in the
‘time’ of the past, and whose current destiny, in the manner of tell-
ing and saying found below, is uncertain, opens and calls to an in-
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digenous speech, a Quechua oral literature.’’43 Gómez Mango

concludes that the greatest achievement of El zorro de arriba y el
zorro de abajo is the creation of a new language that allows the
silenced to speak. I would amend this conclusion to read that the
novel presents a new language, which could potentially be used by
the silenced. However, the text also represents a linguistic struggle
in which the dominated language ultimately triumphs. The song
from the Andes that allows him understanding of the world is swal-
lowed by the word of the dominant culture. The harmony of song
and word, of the semiotic and the symbolic, which Arguedas pres-
ents as the necessary cure for the psychosis of the nation of Peru, is
not realized. The Sierra and the coast cannot be united, for the
coast, the symbol of the Europeanizing, masculine, capitalist world,
insists on repressing the Andean side of the nation, the feminine
and the indigenous which for Arguedas are the hope for the future.
Both Lienhard and Gómez Mango present valuable studies of the
linguistic struggle of the text, but they do not explore the discourse
of the feminine in this process and in fact consistently link the femi-
nine with the world of abajo. If this were true, it would be an abso-
lute reversal of Arguedas’s earlier tendencies. It seems to me that
what is really associated with ‘‘abajo’’ is the commercialization of
the feminine, something that does not come from the feminine, but
rather, from the masculine. The discursive struggle seen here is, as
Lienhard notes, a struggle to inscribe the Andean voice within the
dominant discourse. But, one must consider this effort in conjunc-
tion with the others, as does Arguedas when mentioning Todas las
sangres in his diaries. In his earlier novels, Arguedas consistently
identifies the Andean element as a feminine one; thus, the attempt
to inscribe the Andean culture in this work as well must be under-
stood more broadly as an attempt to inscribe the feminine. Indeed,
if one interprets the feminine not strictly as woman, but as nature,
the maternal, the nonrational, and opposition to the dominant cul-
ture, as Arguedas does, the struggle of the feminine against the
world of abajo becomes obvious. If the feminine here loses the
guiding power it had in the earlier novels, it is because the hybrid
intellectual himself feels he is losing his word. As shown in the
song of the prostitute, the feminine does struggle to insert itself into
the text, but is violently silenced, repressed, both physically and
economically. However, the brief appearance of the feminine leaves
its mark; to use Lienhard’s words, it weakens and uncovers the
mechanisms of Western domination. In this sense, it cannot be con-
sidered a complete failure, but rather represents moments of hope
in a sea of failure. This textual silencing of the feminine, found on
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several levels, in the women characters, in the songs, in the relation-
ships of women and Indians, in the relationship of woman and na-
ture, in the narrative focus, mirrors the consistent silencing of
Arguedas’s own voice, owing in great part to the failure (in his
eyes) of his social vision. As the hybrid intellectual increasingly
despairs the fate of his nation, he loses his ability to speak within
it; as an inspection of the trajectory of his work reveals, this loss is
reflected by the failure of the feminine to enter and maintain its
place in the dominant culture.
Conclusion
As noted earlier, there are other moments of ‘‘hope’’ in the novel,
namely through the serrano characters and their actions. The immi-
grants are shown to be the most vibrant element in the coastal town,
as they work and struggle to survive in their hostile environment.
The narration recounts how they build houses and neighborhoods,
begin small businesses, become fishermen, and move the crosses
of their dead when the upper classes take over their cemetery. The
narrative speaks of specific serranos who have become particularly
successful: don Hilario Caullama, an Aymara Indian, has a prosper-
ous fleet of four fishing boats and is shown to be well off finan-
cially, despite the hostility toward him by the leaders of the fishing
industry; Gregorio Bazalar, who raises another man’s pigs, has suc-
cessfully overturned the local power structure by being elected
president of his neighborhood association and has a four-year plan
for becoming the owner of his own pigs; Cecilio, as was mentioned
before, has begun his own construction business and helped other
serranos survive on the coast; Jesusa, the wife of Esteban de la
Cruz, the sick shoemaker visited by the fox from below, has started
her own vegetable stand in the local market. Thus, the immigrants
are shown to be active contributors to the local economy, rather
than passive parts of capitalism’s machinery, as the dominant fic-
tion would paint them. Furthermore, they make a cultural contribu-
tion to the city, through their music, their speech, and their
community life, and, as has been seen, there are moments when the
presence of the Quechua culture has a transformative effect on its
surroundings, overtly resisting the dominant fiction, which would
subordinate the indigenous element.
Thus, the narration, with its portrayal of the serrano characters
and their actions and by its textual presentation of the struggle be-
tween the symbolic and the semiotic, shows—rather than the im-
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possibility of the realization of Arguedas’s national vision, as

Forgues suggests—the difficulty of the dominant fiction’s quest to
suppress the indigenous-mestizo element in the Peruvian culture.
However, Arguedas himself does find it an overwhelming struggle
to give the indigenous culture equal playing time in the Peruvian
dominant fiction. Through the narrative portions of this last novel,
he writes in the last diary, ‘‘los Zorros corren del uno a otro de sus
mundos; bailan bajo la luz azul, sosteniendo trozos de bosta agusa-
nada sobre la cabeza. Ellos sienten, musian, más claro, más denso
que los medio locos transidos y conscientes y, por eso, y no siendo
mortales, de algún modo hilvanan e iban a seguir hilvanando los
materiales y almas que empezó a arrastrar este relato’’ (ZZ, 244)
[the Foxes run from one of their worlds to the other; they dance
beneath the blue light, holding dry pieces of worm-eaten dung over
their heads. They sense things; they have clearer, more intense pre-
sentiments than the half-demented people who have been over-
whelmed and are aware of it, and therefore, not being mortal, they
somehow stitch together and were going to continue to stitch to-
gether materials and souls this narrative had begun to drag along.
(FF, 257–58)]. However, he finds, the foxes, and he himself, are no
longer able to narrate. While Arguedas leaves indication of what
the rest of the narrative would have recounted, he feels an inability
to fulfill his plans.
The textual struggle of the feminine, the hybrid intellectual’s
own struggle to speak as a provincial writer in a cosmopolitan liter-
ary world, and the failure of his national vision culminate in this
final novel and in the death of the writer. If before in the Peruvian
Sierra he found spaces and individuals through whom he, in the
form of the feminine, could speak, on the coast he finds a hostility
to the feminine—the indigenous culture—and himself as a writer, a
hostility before which he eventually collapses. However, it cannot
be said that his mission was a complete failure; the moments of
hope are present in the text. The feminine is able to make its pres-
ence known and to show itself as an essential part of Peruvian cul-
ture. However, it is not able to hold its position; it is as if the
dominant fiction in the end proves too powerful. Arguedas cannot
fully ‘‘write’’ Chimbote because Chimbote continues to resist the
element he desires to write into it.
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Conclusion
IN OCTOBER OF 1968, ARGUEDAS WAS AWARDED THE ‘‘INCA GARCILASO

de la Vega’’ prize; his acceptance speech, ‘‘No soy un aculturado’’
[I am not acculturated] is often cited for the author’s reflections on
his own work. In this speech he states that his only ambition in writ-
ing was
La de volcar en la corriente de la sabidurı́a y el arte del Perú criollo el
caudal del arte y la sabidurı́a de un pueblo al que se consideraba de-
generado, debilitado o ‘extraño’ e ‘impenetrable’ pero que, en realidad,
no era sino lo que llega a ser un gran pueblo, oprimido por el desprecio
social, la dominación polı́tica y la explotación económica en el propio
suelo donde realizó hazañas por las que la historia lo consideró gran
pueblo: se habı́a convertido en una nación acorrolada (ZZ, 256)
[to pour out into the current of wisdom and art of the Peruvian criollo
that other stream of art and wisdom of a people who were considered
to be degenerate and debilitated, or ‘‘strange’’ and ‘‘impenetrable,’’ but
instead were really doing nothing less than becoming a great people,
oppressed by being scorned socially, dominated politically, and ex-
ploited economically on their own soil, where they accomplished great
feats for which history considered them a great people: they had been
transformed into a corralled nation . . . ] (FF, 268)
This great Peruvian writer’s narrative is a defense of autochthonous

Peruvian culture (not just indigenous, but serrano-mestizo, that
unique cultural outcome of 500 years of contact with Western cul-
ture) against the homogenizing forces of dominant society. It is an
effort that for Arguedas had extraordinarily personal implications,
as he himself indicates in the same speech:
Contagiado para siempre de los cantos y los mitos, llevado por la for-
tuna hasta la Universidad de San Marcos, hablando por vida el quechua,
bien incorporado al mundo de los cercadores, visitante feliz de grandes
ciudades extranjeras, intenté convertir en lenguaje escrito lo que era
como individuo: un vı́nculo vivo, fuerte, capaz de universalizarse, de la
gran nación cercada y la parte generosa, humana, de los opresores. (ZZ,
257)
257
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[Infected forever by the songs and myths, by good fortune taken to the
University of San Marcos, a Quechua speaker all of my life, a joyful
visitor of great foreign cities, I attempted to transform into written lan-
guage what I was as an individual: a strong living link, capable of being
universalized, between the great walled-in nation and the generous, hu-
mane side of the oppressors.] (FF, 269)1
Perhaps there is no better definition of the hybrid intellectual than

the one proffered by the author himself with these words. His trav-
els in and out of such a wide variety of cultural spaces resulted in a
personal and literary battle characterized by unhomely migrations
among a variety of spaces and creative encounters with a diversity
of subjects within the Peruvian national-cultural plane. As this
study has shown, it is also a struggle that springs from and is articu-
lated in and through the feminine, in all of its manifestations—as
women, the indigenous culture, music, dance, and the semiotic in
literary language.
With his death, as the author himself astutely recognized, ‘‘em-
pieza a cerrarse un ciclo y abrirse otro en el Perú’’ (ZZ, 245) [one
historical cycle draws to a close and another begins in Peru (FF,
259)]. Nevertheless, the legacy of José Marı́a Arguedas in Peruvian,
and, indeed, Latin American literature is immeasurable. What re-
mains to be studied is the extent to which the unhomeliness and the
role of the feminine in his textual exploration of space and subject
in Peru continue to have influence in posterior Peruvian writing. As
those whose work most openly reflects and acknowledges the in-
fluence of Arguedas, I think immediately of post-Arguedian indi-
genistas (Manuel Scorza (1928–83), Oscar Colchaldo Lucı́o (b.
1947)) and, especially, of the popular theater collective Yuyach-
kani. Like Arguedas, Scorza and Colchaldo Lucı́o combine techni-
cal and linguistic experimentation with sharp criticisms of the
treatment of the indigenous people. Colchaldo Lucı́o, who should
be studied as a recent manifestation of the hybrid intellectual, tack-
les contemporary Andean and indigenous themes in a variety of
genres, and himself took on Chimbote, in his short story collection
Del mar a la ciudad.2 Yuyachkani’s debt to and dialogue with Ar-
guedas is readily acknowledged, and one can easily see the impor-
tance of the feminine and the semiotic in their own theatrical
performances and constructions of Peruvian national space and sub-
ject, as well as a general unhomely quality to their work.
But I also think of writers whose work is not immediately associ-
ated with Arguedas, such as Alfredo Bryce Echenique, who often,
like Arguedas, seeks to reconcile his unhomeliness through differ-
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CONCLUSION 259
ent manifestations of the feminine. Of further interest in this con-
text are the works of other marginal writers, who, like Arguedas,
seek to construct themselves narratively as marginalized subjects in
a nation-space often hostile to the subaltern and the feminine. It
would be particularly revealing to read, for example, women writers
of Lima, such as Carmen Ollé, Pilar Dughi, or Giovanna Pollarollo,
or writers from other minority groups in Peru, like Afro-Peruvian
writer Gregorio Martı́nez or Asian-Peruvian writer Siu Kam Wen,
in light of this study of Arguedian narrative.
In contrast, it is also interesting to consider the silencing of or
degradation of the feminine in the work of those who would most
like to distance themselves from Arguedas’s legacy—Mario Vargas
Llosa immediately comes to mind, as does Jaime Bayly. The for-
mer’s tussle with the elder writer is evident on many levels in Var-
gas Llosa’s own literary work, most especially in the novels La
ciudad y los perros, La casa verde, and El hablador. But, as if the
intertextual references in his creative writing were insufficient, one
can turn to the many essays Vargas Llosa wrote on Arguedas, col-
lected and amplified in the 1996 book-length essay, La utopia ar-
caica: José Marı́a Arguedas y las ficciones del indigenismo, which
attacks Arguedas’s writing and national vision as archaic, incendi-
ary, moralizing, and lacking in creative originality and artistic inno-
vation. It is as if Peru’s most famous contemporary intellectual
were suffering from what Harold Bloom calls a literary Oedipus
complex.3 Despite an aggressive distancing from writers such as
Arguedas and the general project of indigenismo, the literary pro-
duction of these cosmopolitan writers is not without its correspond-
ing unhomely quality as well, as if it were simply too difficult to
find a space to call home in a place like Peru.
One should also look at more contemporary revolutionary dis-
course. The 1980s in Peru saw a time of intense violence and uncer-
tainty provoked by the guerrilla groups Shining Path and Túpac
Amaru. At times Arguedas’s literature seems to call for such revo-
lutionary violence; indeed, his second wife, Sybila Arredondo, was
incarcerated for her participation in Shining Path. Women’s partici-
pation in revolutionary movements has been widely commented
upon; what about the feminine in revolutionary discourse? Or in
literary portrayals of the time? Though the revolutionary groups
claimed to speak for the oppressed people, their reign of terror in
the highlands and in the coastal cities certainly caused more harm
than good for those for which they purportedly fought. How would
Arguedas have reacted to those horrifying times? What stance
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would the hybrid intellectual have taken in this more recent struggle
for the right to speak for Peru and determine its destiny?
Whether in the voices of the dominant or marginal cultures, in
hegemonic or revolutionary discourses, one recognizes time and
again central concerns common to the majority of Peruvian writers:
the modernizing of the Peruvian nation and its relation to the global
economy, the ever-increasing complexity of Peruvian society, the
internal migration from the highlands to the coast, the explosive
expansion of coastal urban areas, external migration—of all social
classes—to the United States and Europe. Invariably, coupled with
these concerns is an overriding preoccupation that was Arguedas’s
own: where does the artist, writer, and intellectual fit in this process
of change? What is her or his role in this complex, heterogeneous
nation? How does the writer negotiate Peru’s European, indige-
nous, African, Asian, masculine, and feminine elements in her or
his quest to articulate a communicable, coherent vision of Peruvian
national culture? In the trajectory of great Peruvian writers who
narratively explore this question—from el Inca Garcilaso de la
Vega and Guaman Poma to the present—Arguedas occupies a privi-
leged position, raising questions and proposing answers, which his
successors are obliged to engage.
In the essay ‘‘El Carnaval de Tambobamba,’’ Arguedas describes
the carnival music of the Apurı́mac region with words that we could
relate to his own literature: ‘‘es música bravı́a, guerrera, trágica y
violenta como el cauce del gran rı́o; misteriosa y triste como la ori-
lla inalcanzable del Apurı́mac’’ [it is a brave, warsome, tragic, and
violent music like the bed of a great river; mysterious and sad like
the unreachable banks of the Apurı́mac].4 He reproduces the text of
the typical carnival song of Tambobamba, which, he says, is the
cruelest and most beautiful song he has ever heard. It tells of a
young musician, killed by the forces of the river; only his instru-
ments are left floating for the rest to see. His beloved stands beside
the river weeping, as a storm falls over the town and a condor
stands by watching:
El rı́o de sangre ha traı́do [The river of blood has brought
a un amante tambobambino. A Tambobambino lover
Sólo su tinya está flotando, Only his tinya is floating
sólo su charango está flotando, Only his charango is floating
sólo su quena está flotando. Only his quena is floating
Y la mujer que lo amaba, The woman that loved him
su joven idolatrada, His young idolatrous one
llorando llora Crying cries
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CONCLUSION 261
mirando desde la orilla Seeing from the banks
sólo la tinya flotando, Only the floating tinya
sólo la quena flotando. Only the floating quena
El rı́o de sangre ha traı́do The river of blood has brought

a un amante tambobambino; A Tambobambino lover
sólo su quena está flotando, Only his quena is floating
él ha muerto, He has died
él ya no existe He no longer exists
La tormenta cae sobre el pueblo; The storm falls over the town
el cóndor está mirando desde la The condor is watching from a
nube; cloud
la joven amante, The young girl lover
la joven idolatrada The young idolatrous one
está llorando en la orilla. Is crying on the banks.
¡Wifalalalay wifala Hurray, hurray!]5

wifalitay wifalaáá!
The feminine has engulfed the man’s body; floating in the feminine
are the indigenous musical instruments that characterize his life.
And the feminine looks on, her gaze identifies the importance of
this subject to his community, her cry expresses its sorrow. Like
the young lover, with his death, the writer-composer Arguedas
leaves behind his instruments, floating in a river, and a community
that looks on, mourning his loss, is irreversibly transformed by his
existence.
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Notes
Introduction
1. Arguedas, Indios, mestizos y señores, 117. Unless otherwise noted, all trans-
lations are mine.
2. I do not intend to essentialize Peruvian indigenous culture or to obviate the
rich variety of indigenous cultures in the Andean region. Arguedas primarily fo-
cuses on the Quechua Indians of the Cuzco and Ayacucho regions, and, unless
otherwise indicated, I will use the terms indigenous culture and Quechua culture
interchangeably. When referring to Andean, serrano, or highland culture, I mean
the broader cultural complex of the region, which includes the way of life, tradi-
tions, beliefs, and cultural production of white, mestizo, and indigenous cultures.
3. See El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s Comentarios reales, translated as Royal
Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, and Guaman Poma de
Ayala’s El primer nueva crónica y buen gobierno.
4. Much has been published about Arguedas’s personal life. Many insightful
analyses examine the connection between the writer’s work and his personal trag-
edy (see especially Edmundo Gómez Mango, Todas las lenguas; Alberto Moreiras,
The Exhaustion of Difference; Antonio Cornejo Polar, ‘‘Arguedas, una espléndida
historia’’; Carmen Marı́a Pinilla, Arguedas: Conocimiento y vida; and the collec-
tion edited by Hildebrando Pérez and Carlos Garayar, as well as other noteworthy
studies that will be cited throughout this volume). Readers of English may find
helpful the ‘‘Chronology of José Marı́a Arguedas’’ in Ciro A. Sandoval and Sandra
Boschetto-Sandoval’s José Marı́a Arguedas: Reconsiderations for Latin American
Cultural Studies, 265–75; and Sara Castro-Klarén’s ‘‘José Marı́a Arguedas.’’ Most
controversially, in the 1990s a series of collections of his personal letters were pub-
lished, engaging the curiosity of some and infuriating others. These collections in-
clude: Alejandro Ortiz Rescaniere, José Marı́a Arguedas, recuerdos de una
amistad; Carmen Marı́a Pinilla C., Arguedas en familia (which also includes a very
good brief biography); Roland Forgues, ed., José Marı́a Arguedas: La letra inmor-
tal: Correspondencia con Manuel Moreno Jimeno, Edgar O’Hara, ed, Cartas de
José Marı́a Arguedas a Pedro Lastra; and John V. Murra and Mercedes López-
Baralt, eds., Las cartas de Arguedas. The latter has provoked the greatest criticism,
as it includes very sensitive letters written from Arguedas to his Chilean psychoan-
alyst, Dr. Lola Hoffman.
5. The concept of ‘‘white’’ as understood in the Andean context must here be
specified. It refers less to phenotype or family heritage than to cultural identifica-
tion. In Peru, one may have indigenous blood yet—due to the language one speaks,
the ancestry one recognizes, and the cultural tradition with which one identi-
fies—be considered white. On the other hand, there are light-skinned individuals
who speak Quechua and identify with the indigenous culture. For the purposes of
this study, ‘‘white’’ will be used to refer to those members of the ruling class who
262
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NOTES 263
speak primarily Spanish and participate in a Europeanizing culture. The term mes-
tizo will be used to refer to those of mixed blood and culture who are primarily
found in the middle and lower classes who are profoundly affected by both cul-
tures. As will be shown, there are ‘‘white’’ mestizos who identify more strongly
with the ‘‘white’’ culture of Peru and ‘‘Indian’’ mestizos who have closer ties to
the indigenous culture.
6. Arguedas says of this experience, ‘‘the Indians, especially the women, saw
me exactly as if I were one of them, with the exception that since I was white
perhaps I needed more consolation than they did . . . and they gave it to me fully.
But there must be something sad and powerful at the same time about the consola-
tion that those who suffer give to those who suffer more, and in my nature two
things were solidly planted since I learned to speak: the tenderness and limitless
love of the Indians, the love they have among themselves and for nature, for the
mountains, the rivers, the birds; and the hatred they have towards those who, al-
most unconsciously, as if by Supreme mandate, cause their suffering. My child-
hood passed burning through fire and love’’ (Un mundo de monstrous y de fuego,
195–96). One will note in this quote several motives that are central to Arguedas’s
fiction, as will be discussed later. The first is the emphasis on suffering and the
solidarity of people who suffer, regardless of their ethnic background. The second
is the play of opposites: white/Indian, love/hatred, love/fire.
7. In O’Hara, Cartas, 16.
8. All of the English versions of Arguedas’s novels are beautifully rendered by
Frances Horning Barraclough.
9. Cited in Ortiz Rescaniere, José Marı́a Arguedas, 70.
10. According to the author’s account, Quechua was his dominant language
until he entered school. Roland Forgues, however, makes a convincing argument
against Arguedas’s claim that he learned Spanish at the age of fourteen (see ‘‘El
mito del monolingüismo’’). Nevertheless, the writer’s affective relationship with
the indigenous language is clear (for example, his poetry is written in Quechua).
11. The Latin American Boom refers to a group of writers in the 1960s and
1970s who enjoyed phenomenal success internationally. Arguedas’s polemic with
Julio Cortázar will be discussed more fully in chapter 6.
12. In O’Hara, Cartas, 16.
13. In Forgues, Arguedas: Documentos, 112.
14. Ibid., 114.
15. A vast number of critical analyses have been devoted to Arguedas’s work,
particularly his third novel, Los rı́os profundos. With the commemoration of the
25th anniversary of Arguedas’s death in 1994, many new studies and collections of
essays and conference papers on his work have been published recently. ‘‘Classic’’
Arguedian studies include Sara Castro-Klarén, El mundo mágico de José Marı́a
Arguedas; Antonio Cornejo Polar, Los universos narrativos de José Marı́a Ar-
guedas; Alberto Escobar, Arguedas o la utopı́a de la lengua; Roland Forgues, José
Marı́a Arguedas: Del pensamiento dialéctico al pensamiento trágico; Martı́n
Lienhard, Cultura popular andina y forma novelesca: Zorros y danzantes en la
última novela de Arguedas; Silverio Muñoz, José Marı́a Arguedas y el mito de la
salvación por la cultura; Angel Rama, Transculturación narrativa en América
Latina; and William Rowe, Mito e ideologı́a en la obra de Arguedas. More recent
studies of interest include Hildebrando Pérez and Carlos Garayar’s collection of
essays by key Arguedian critics, José Marı́a Arguedas: Vida y obra; Maruja Martı́-
nez and Nelson Manrique’s edited collection Amor y fuego: José Marı́a Arguedas
25 años después; Carmen Marı́a Pinella, Arguedas: Conocimiento y vida; and Ciro
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264 NOTES
A. Sandoval and Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval, eds., José Marı́a Arguedas: Re-

considerations, (a collection of essays, the only English-language volume devoted
to his work). Finally, we must mention Mario Vargas Llosa’s controversial La
utopı́a arcaica: José Marı́a Arguedas y las ficciones del indigenismo, which, de-
spite its thorough discussion of the author’s fiction, includes some of the most seri-
ous misreading of his work.
16. These categories were first suggested by Tomás G. Escajadillo in a doctoral
dissertation presented in 1971 at the Universidad de San Marcos in Lima. For a
concise yet thorough explanation of indigenismos throughout Latin America, see
René Prieto, ‘‘The Literature of Indigenismo.’’
17. Mariátegui, Siete ensayos de la interpretación de la realidad peruana, 310;
Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, Marjory Urquidi, trans., 278.
18. Ibid., 310, 278.
19. Rama, Transculturación, 178. Arguedas himself comments on early ver-
sions of indigenismo and on the work of Mariátegui and other Amuata contributors
in his essay ‘‘El indigenismo en el Perú.’’ While Arguedas recognizes the impor-
tance of Mariátegui’s contribution to national discourse on the indigenous commu-
nities and cultures, he laments that the great socialist thinker knew virtually
nothing of the people and cultures he defended, a lacuna that Arguedas attributes
to the general lack of information or anthropological studies on contemporary in-
digenous communities during the time in which Mariátegui writes. See Indios,
mestizos y señores, 12.
20. Ibid., 181–82.
21. Rama’s original use of the term refers to the earlier indigenista tendencies,
in which, according to Rama, intellectuals used the plight of the Indian as a pretext
for advancing a mestizo-oriented agenda. The term is, nonetheless, appropriate for
Arguedas who is, indeed, creating a mestizo literature. For an enlightening discus-
sion of the problematic role of the mestizo in Arguedian narrative, see Silvia Spit-
ta’s Between Two Waters: Narratives of Transculturation in Latin America. Spitta
has done fundamental readings of the mestizo as an abject figure.
22. Spitta, Between Two Waters, 2. Spitta presents a beautiful analysis of several
key texts in Latin American literature as manifestations of transculturation. Of im-
portance to this particular study is this introduction, with its exemplary presenta-
tion of the key term, and her chapter on Arguedas, which focuses on the
intersection of his ethnographic studies and his creative works, with a particularly
fine reading of Todas las sangres.
23. Ibid., 144.
24. Silverman, Male Subjectivity, 15.
25. Ibid., 8.
26. Pile, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 2.
27. Ibid., 3.
28. Bhabha, Location, 9.
29. Ibid., 11.
30. When I speak of a dominant culture in Peru, I recognize that it is a slippery
term. ‘‘Dominant’’ cultures vary from region to region, and what may be consid-
ered dominant in the Sierra, for example, loses its dominant status in relation to
the coast and the capital. Unless otherwise specified, when using the term domi-
nant culture, I mean that sector of a culture, its sociopolitical institutions and intel-
lectual production, which most determine the self-image of the nation-community.
In the case of Peru, this sector is located primarily on the coast, most specifically
in Lima, and, for Arguedas, it has long promoted a Europeanizing view of Peru
that marginalizes the indigenous culture.
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NOTES 265
31. When referring to the idea of ‘‘narrating’’ the nation and alternative national
visions, I am relying on the theoretical reflections of such thinkers as Eric Hobs-
bawm, Benedict Anderson, Homi Bhabha, and Kaja Silverman. Hobsbawm
stresses ‘‘the element of artifact, invention and social engineering which enters into
the making of the nation’’ (Nations and Nationalism, 10). Anderson studies the
process of ‘‘imagining’’ the nation or community. This process in Peru is one in
which the artifacts and inventions stem from the dominant, Westernizing culture
and an essentializing and subordination of the indigenous culture. Arguedas’s nar-
rative is to a great extent an attempt to counter that national myth, or dominant
fiction, and offer an alternative which comes from and is based on the popular,
indigenous-mestizo culture.
32. See Cornejo Plar, Los universos narrativos.
33. Castro-Klarén, ‘‘Crimen y castigo,’’ 55.
34. Forgues, Del pensamiento dialéctico, 222.
35. Moore, ‘‘(Des)construyendo la mujer,’’ 207.
36. Adorno, ‘‘El sujeto colonial y la construcción de la alteridad,’’ 61.
37. Stephenson, Gender and Modernity in Andean Bolivia, 1.
38. See López Albújar, ‘‘Sobre la psicologı́a del indio.’’
39. For an in-depth study of love and sexuality in Arguedas’s works, see Galo
González, who analyzes the dichotomy of ‘‘agape,’’ ideal love, and ‘‘eros,’’ carnal
love, and its relationship to the author’s personal crisis. The author’s own traumas
regarding sexuality are quite public and have been often commented, by the author
himself and by others. As it is not the purpose of this study to realize a psychologi-
cal study of the real man through his fiction, I will not comment on Arguedas’s
views of sexuality beyond what appears in the narratives themselves. Suffice it to
say that the author’s particular conflicts with male-female sexuality, which begin
with his witnessing of the rape of an indigenous woman, undoubtedly affect his
literary portrayal of the same. However, it is beyond my area of expertise and the
scope of this study to try to analyze the author’s personal life through a reading of
his fiction—as much as the author’s reliance on autobiographical experiences as
bases for many of his works may tempt one to do so.
40. Irigaray, Thinking the Difference, 96.
41. Ibid., 96–97.
42. In his History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault illuminates how racism and sex-
ism work hand in hand in the construction of a European bourgeois identity. He
points out that the cultural configuration of the bodies of Others normalizes power
in the technologies of the biopolitical state. Foulcault writes: ‘‘The emphasis on
the body should undoubtedly be linked to the process of growth and establishment
of bourgeois hegemony; not, however, because of the market value assumed by
labor capacity, but because of what the ‘cultivation’ of its own body could repre-
sent politically, economically, and historically for the present and the future of the
bourgeoisie. Its dominance was in part dependent on that cultivation’’ (125).
43. Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, (1–2).
44. Ibid., 2.
45. For a detailed study of the definition of the woman in the making of modern
Western states, see Donovan, Feminist Theory. For a parallel study in Latin
America, see Masiello, ‘‘Women, State, and Family.’’ Both critics examine how
woman was defined by the nation-state as a danger to the state due to her Otherness
(irrationality, connection with nature) and study various feminist responses to that
definition.
46. Besides studies that question the universality of Lévi-Strauss’s theory, Carol
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266 NOTES
P. MacCormack problematizes the very logic of Lévi-Strauss’s basic structure.

MacCormack astutely points out that in the set of dichotomies often joined to that
of female/male (nature/culture, child/spouse, wild/tame, raw/cooked), the first set
of categories may become the second, but not vice versa. For example, a raw food
may be cooked; a wild animal may be tamed. However, not only may a woman
take on masculine traits, but a man may also and often does adopt feminine charac-
teristics. Therefore, the relationship shown as natural among the categories is actu-
ally invalid. See MacCormack, ‘‘Nature, Culture and Gender: A Critique,’’ 1–24.
47. Allen, The Hold Life Has, 73.
48. Bolin, Rituals of Respect, 195.
49. Harrison, Signs, Songs, and Memory in the Andes: Translating Quechua
Language and Culture, 49.
50. Carpenter, ‘‘Inside/Outside, Which Side Counts? Duality-of-Self and Bipar-
tization in Quechua,’’ 130.
51. Ortiz Rescaniere, De Adaneva a Inkarri (Una visón indı́gena del Perú), 11.
52. Ibid., 17.
53. Platt, Espejos y maı́z: Temas de estructura simbólica andina, 24. While Platt
does find the underlying duality of Andean indigenous culture to be the masculine
and the feminine, the symbolic significance given to this pairing is different from
that in Western culture, as will be shown in the presentation of the following
studies.
54. Ibid., 23.
55. Ibid.
56. There are many other sources that confirm this aspect of Andean culture.
Achiq Pacha Inti-Pucarapaxi (Luz Marı́a de la Torre), an Ecuadorean sociologist
and native Quichua speaker, offers the following assessment: ‘‘Andean totality is
transformed into the Feminine Totality and the Masculine Totality. Two existing
Universes, that are opposed but complementarily united in order to act and to real-
ize themselves.’’ Inti-Pucarapaxi, Achiq Pacha (Luz Marı́a de la Torre), Un uni-
verso femenino en el mundo andino, 12. She recounts a creation story in which
Pachacamac charges woman with the care and defense of all life. The Great Cre-
ator tells woman: ‘‘All of the Universe that is seen is feminine . . . I give you the
responsibility of generating, maintaining, and protecting life, nature, and even
man, because of you man will be able to live and he will look for you because you
will transmit to him the strength to be useful and to direct his energies’’ (16). Man
is given charge over the invisible, law, thought, and creative imagination; he must
ask permission of woman to work in the present world.
57. Rowe and Schelling note, ‘‘the transformation of the Incan past into a uto-
pian image of the future began in the sixteenth century, not long after the Con-
quest, and utopianism has been one of the main strands of historical coherence in
the Andes.’’ Rowe and Schelling, Memory and Modernity, 51. For an in-depth
study of Andean utopianism, see Alberto Flores Galindo, Buscando un Inca, 1986.
58. Rowe and Schelling, Memory and Modernity, 55.
59. Ibid., 55.
60. Frosh, ‘‘Time, Space and Otherness,’’ 293.
62. Arguedas, Un mundo, 213.
63. This manner of representing indigenous speech, abhorrent to Arguedas, was
the method employed by the most important Andean indigenista writers of the day,
Ciro Alegrı́a of Peru, Alcides Arguedas of Bolivia, and Jorge Icaza and Juan León
Mera of Ecuador. Curiously, in Aves sin nido Matto de Turner portrays indigenous
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NOTES 267
characters as speaking perfect Spanish, while the other Andean characters, land-
owners, political and religious figures, and mestizos, speak an adulterated, unedu-
cated Spanish.
64. Arguedas, Un mundo, 216.
65. For more detailed studies of Arguedas’s use of language, see Milagros
Aleza, who studies the Quechua lexicon in Arguedas’s narrative (Una cultura sum-
ergida), Regina Harrison (‘‘El substrato quechua’’), who looks at the underlying
influence of Quechua in Arguedas’s prose and the tradition behind the author’s
Quechua poetry, and Elena Aibar Ray, who offers a concise yet detailed study of
the linguistic aspects of Arguedian narrative. According to Aibar Ray, ‘‘the lan-
guage that Arguedas makes his protagonists speak is a linguistic transference of
the phenomenon of transculturation, a hybrid or mixed language. It is a language
invented by Arguedas as a stylistic resource, but it is based on what the author had
heard among the natives that were changing culturally. The idiomatic variations
that the novelist shows are results of his attempt to incorporate into Spanish some
of the character of the Quechua language’’ (Identidad y resistencia cultural en las
obras de José Marı́a Arguedas, 251).
66. Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, 25
67. Ibid., 25.
68. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 70.
69. See, especially, her discussion of Phillippe Sollers’s novel H, where she em-
phasizes the importance of the musicality of its language. Kristeva, Desire in Lan-
guage.
70. Commenting on ‘‘El Carnaval de Tambobamba,’’ William Rowe observes
the importance of sound, especially of the sound of the Apurı́mac river, in Argued-
as’s evocation of the Andean world. Rowe writes that for Arguedas, ‘‘the human
universe remains incrusted in the sound of the river (god that speaks in Quechua)
and the voice of the river is included in and surpassed by the human voice, the
Carnival song. . . . The voice that speaks in this writing speaks from a collective
experience, from a cultural world that is not Creole’’ (‘‘Voz, memoria y conocimie-
nto en los primeros escritos de José Marı́a Arguedas,’’ 268). Though he does not
use the term, the resonance of what Rowe perceives in his description of an Ar-
guedian poetics and Kristeva’s concept of the semiotic in poetic language is clear.
The sound of the river is but one element of the semiotic in Arguedas’s writing,
and the semiotic is, as Rowe suggests of the river, the origin of Arguedas’s literary
expression.
71. Spivak, ‘‘Criticism, Feminism and the Institution,’’ 184.
72. Irigaray, Je, tous, nous, 20.
73. Moi, ‘‘Feminist, Female, Feminine,’’ 115.
Chapter 1. The Early Arguedas

1. With respect to ‘‘Runa yupay,’’ Arguedas wrote in a letter to Donna Oshel
Levy, dated September 22, 1967, ‘‘it is a story contracted by the Department of
the Census. It’s not a free story. I never count it in my bibliography. Runa yupay
means census’’ (quoted in Obras Completas 1, 163). Indeed, this short story, a
very paternalistic and nationalistic narration designed to educate the Indians about
the census, is uncharacteristic of Arguedian narrative in terms of content, style,
and theme.
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268 NOTES
2. Noteworthy studies include Antonio Cornejo Polar, Los universos narrati-

vos and Silverio Muñoz, José Marı́a Arguedas.
3. This essay is included in the English edition of Yawar Fiesta, translated by
Frances Horning Barclough, xiii.
4. Ibid., xv.
5. Bhabha defines the ‘‘third space’’ as ‘‘the ‘hybrid’ moment of political
change’’ (Location, 28). This space is ‘‘the ‘inter’—the cutting edge of translation
and negotiation, the in-between space—that carries the burden of the meaning of
culture. It makes it possible to begin envisaging the ‘people’. And by exploring
this ‘‘third space,’’ we may explore the politics of polarity and emerge as other of
ourselves’’ (38–39).
6. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 18.
7. Ibid., 35–36, 37.
8. Pile, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 15–16.
9. Rolena Adorno presents a comparison of the situations of Arguedas and Gu-
aman Poma, recognizing the solitude of their endeavors to translate Andean culture
for a Western public. Says Adorno, ‘‘both inside and outside of both cultural
spheres, the modern mediator knows another type of solitude from the one our
chronicler-interpreter lived in viceroyal Peru. The solitude of the mediator, not sur-
prising in the case of Waman Puma in 1615, is more intense, more painful in the
mid-twentieth century. In comparison to Waman Puma’s, Arguedas’s solitude is
unique: in it is constituted the fact that, more than four hundred years after the
arrival of the Spaniards, Peru still consisted in two separate worlds. Sensibility and
understanding exist only in the space of writing’’ (‘‘La soledad común de Waman
Puma de Ayala y José Marı́a Arguedas,’’ 148).
10. Arguedas, Formación de una cultura nacional indoamericana, 20.
11. Arguedas, ‘‘El complejo cultural en el Perú,’’ in Formación, 4.
12. Ibid., 4.
13. Ibid., 3. As he continues to write, Arguedas will become increasingly inter-
ested in the figure of the mestizo and, indeed, the mestiza, and his or her role in
the formation of a Peruvian national culture.
14. Arguedas, Obras Completas, 1,16, hereafter cited in text as OC1. A note by
Arguedas tells us that k’anra is a very strong insult in Quechua. It is used repeat-
edly throughout his writings by whites, mestizos, and Indians alike.
15. In an anthropological essay, Arguedas comments on this reality: ‘‘The den-
sity of the coastal population increases, principally, through the constant influx of
men from the Andes to the cities of the coast, especially Lima. Since then (the
beginning of this influx) there has begun a new period of fusion, of dynamic ex-
change between the two regions. But this phenomenon is not unique in Peruvian
history; it occurred before and with similar cultural consequences, in ancient
times’’ (‘‘La sierra en el proceso de la cultura peruana,’’ in Formación, 10).
16. De la Cadena, Indigenous Mestizos, 30.
17. Ibid., 30.
18. Ibid., 30.
19. John C. Landreau notes the ambivalence and ambiguity of this autobio-
graphical character in early narrative, and his development in later writings, both
ficticious and autobiographical. Emphasizing the constructedness of Arguedas’s
autobiography, Landreau astutely notes, ‘‘the representation of Arguedas as a
writer whose primary source of legitimacy is his personal experience is typically
meant as praise. However, more often than not this point of view has served to
blind critics and readers to the enormous complexity of his endeavor’’ (‘‘Task of
the Andean Translator,’’ 36–37).
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NOTES 269
20. For an interesting study of the development of the narrator-protagonist in
‘‘Doña Cayetana,’’ see Landreau, ‘‘Task of the Andean Translator.’’
21. Arguedas published this collection in 1935, with the stories in the following
order: ‘‘Agua,’’ ‘‘Los esoleros,’’ and ‘‘Warma kuyay.’’
22. Ernesto is also the name of the first-person narrator of Los rı́os profundos,
a semiautobiographical novel written in 1957 and set several years after the setting
of ‘‘Warma Kuyay.’’ It is to be understood that the Ernesto of Los rı́os profundos
is an older version of the boy of the short story.
24. For a study of violence in this short fiction, see Silverio Muñoz; for a
counterargument to Muñoz’s, see Miguel Angel Huamán’s ‘‘Amor, goce y violen-
cia en el relato arguediano.’’
25. Showalter, ‘‘Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness,’’ 346.
26. Ibid., 347.
27. For a detailed study of language in Agua, see Alberto Escobar, Arguedas o
la utopı́a de la lengua.
28. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 9.
29. Auki—in Quechua culture, a sort of demigod found in nature, in this case,
in the mountain Kanrara.
30. Muñoz, ‘‘El juego propedéutica social en Los escoleros,’’ 41.
31. Apparently, a wikullo can also be made from other materials, or a small
stone or other object may be used as a wikullo. In ‘‘Agua,’’ for example, the narra-
tor say that he throws Pantacha’s bugle at don Braulio as he would throw a wikullo.
32. Part of Andean indigenous cosmology is the belief that many elements of
nature have their own spirits and, indeed, godlike qualities. Pachamama, the god-
dess mother earth, is home to many gods, demigods, and other spirits who take on
the physical forms of natural elements, such as mountains, rocks, corn, potatoes,
etc. Of the many studies devoted to Andean cosmovisions, Irene Silverblatt’s
Moon, Sun, and Witches traces pre-Hispanic spritual beliefs, especially in relation
to gender divisions.
33. Huaynos are a fundamental element in Arguedian narrative and will be dis-
cussed in more detail in later chapters.
34. The categories of ‘‘orphan’’ and ‘‘stranger, or foreigner’’ are significant ones
in Andean culture and carry an important semantic value. Because of the implica-
tions of solitude for these categories, of being without community, orphans and
strangers are understood to be particularly unfortunate people. These are catego-
ries that will appear repeatedly in Arguedian narrative, especially in reference to
Arguedas-like characters. Their importance will be further discussed in subsequent
chapters.
Chapter 2. Yawar Fiesta

1. The Subprefect is the official administrator of a province, appointed by the
government in Lima.
2. Arguedas, in Formación, 35.
3. Arguedas, in Indios, 16.
4. Arguedas, ‘‘Puquio, una cultura en proceso de cambio,’’ in Formación, 36.
5. Ibid., 38.
6. Cornejo Polar, Los universos narrativos, 63.
7. Arguedas, Yawar Fiesta, 8; Yawar Fiesta, trans. Frances Horning Bar-
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270 NOTES
raclough, 2. Further references to these works will be cited parenthetically in the

text as YF for the Spanish version and YF, 1985, for the English version.
8. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 92.
9. Ibid., 92–93.
10. Ibid., 93.
11. ‘‘Chalo’’ is a derogatory term for Indians or mestizos who have become
Westernized in their dress and speech.
12. Atatauya—an expression of disgust.
13. Tayta Inti—in Andean cosmology, the sun, revered as a god; pisco—a local
liquor.
14. This narrative act is an example of what Mary Louise Pratt terms ‘‘autoeth-
nography’’: ‘‘instances in which colonized subjects undertake to represent them-
selves in ways that engage with the colonizer’s own terms . . . autoethnographic
texts are those the others construct in response to or in dialogue with those metro-
politan representations’’ (Imperial Eyes, 7). Pratt explains that ‘‘autoethnography
involves partial collaboration with and appropriation of the idioms of the con-
querer’’ (7); this writing often uses the language of travel and exploration, may
be bilingual and dialogic, and is typically intended for heterogenous audiences.
Furthermore, Arguedas is presenting a point of view that opposes that which Pratt
calls the ‘‘anti-conquest’’: ‘‘the strategies of representation whereby European
bourgeois subjects seek to secure their innocence in the same moment as they as-
sert European hegemony. . . . The main protagonist is . . . the ‘seeing man,’ . . . he
whose imperial eyes passively look out and possess’’ (7). In Yawar Fiesta, the nar-
rator displaces these ‘‘imperial eyes’’ and replaces them with an autoctonous gaze,
which is presented not only as more authorial and authentic but as richer, more
complex, and more dynamic.
15. Many have commented on the importance of the written word to the Con-
quest: for some of the most noteworthy studies, see Roberto González Echevarrı́a,
Myth and Archive; Rolena Adorno, Writing and Resistance; and Stephanie Mer-
rim, ‘‘The First Fifty Years.’’
16. Here, Arguedas refers to the Andean system of reciprocity, in which favors
given are returned in kind. If one has nothing to give in return for what one re-
ceives, one remains unable to participate fully in the cultural system.
17. Quoted in Arguedas, Un mundo, 206.
18. Primer encuentro de narradores peruanos, 237.
20. Borras, ‘‘La musique dans Yawar Fiesta,’’ 68.
21. Rowe, Mito e ideologı́a, 26.
22. Rodrigo Montoya tells us that this character, like many others in the novel,
is based on a real Puquio resident, Nicasio Arangoita. Montoya, ‘‘Yawar Fiesta:
Una lectura antropológica.’’
23. Charangos, bandurrias, and kirkinchos are stringed instruments.
24. Quena—a reed flute.
25. Several of Arguedas’s ethnographic writings also address the internal mi-
grations.
26. Again, Rodrigo Montoya informs us that Escobar is based on a real person,
Jesús Escobar.
27. Werak’ocha—lord, from the name for the Inca’s highest god.
29. The varayok’, or staffbearer, is the leader of an indigenous community. He
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NOTES 271
carries a staff to signify his authority. Here the word varayok’alcalde is a combina-
tion of the Quechua ‘‘staffbearer’’ (which in turn contains the Spanish word for
staff—vara) and the Spanish ‘‘mayor.’’
30. Arguedas himself commented on this aspect of the novel: ‘‘There are
scarcely any Indian names in Yawar Fiesta. It tells the tale of several heroic deeds
performed by Puquio’s four Indian communities; it is an attempt to portray the
communities’ soul, the light and dark side of their being, to show how people are
constantly being disconcerted by the ebb and flow of their day-to-day destiny.
Such a tide, under the definition of limits that is only apparent beneath the surface,
forces them to make a constant effort to accommodate, to readjust to a permanent
drama.’’ (‘‘La novela y el problema de la expresión literaria en el Perú,’’ in English
in Yawar Fiesta, trans. Frances Horning Barraclough, xiv).
31. Pile, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 30.
32. A layk’a is a thing or person with magical powers obtained from the devil.
Whereas the layk’a generally provokes fear, it is also known to cure certain dis-
eases, such as insanity, hysteria, and insomnia. In an anthropological essay, ‘‘El
layk’a,’’ Arguedas explains that every town has a layk’a, and that some become
quite famous for their curative powers. (see Indios).
33. In this sense, he is anticipating the ethnographic practices of anthropologists
today, such as Clifford Geertz, Renato Rosaldo, Ruth Behar, among others. James
Clifford comments on the meaning and function of this type of exchange and on
the authority of the ethnographer in ethnographic writing: ‘‘These fictions of dia-
logue have the effect of transforming the ‘cultural’ text (a ritual, an institution, a
life history, or any unit of typical behavior to be described and interpreted) into a
speaking subject, who sees as well as is seen, who evades, argues, probes back. In
this view of ethnography the proper referent of any account is not a represented
‘world’; now it is specific instances of discourse. But the principle of dialogical
textual production goes well beyond the more or less artful presentation of ‘actual’
encounters. It locates cultural interpretations in many sorts of reciprocal contexts,
and it obliges writers to find diverse ways of rendering negotiated realities as multi-
subjective, power-laden, and incongruent. In this view, ‘culture’ is always rela-
tional, an inscription of communicative processes that exist, historically, between
subjects in relations of power’’ (‘‘Introduction,’’ 14–15).
34. Tankayllu is based on a famous scissor dancer from the Ayacucho province
of the same name. The subversion of the character ‘‘Tankayllu’’ is not only in his
status as a scissor dancer and in his actions, but also in his name. In an anthropo-
logical article, ‘‘Acerca del intenso significado de dos voces quechuas’’ (On the
Intense Significance of Two Quechua Words) the writer explains that a ‘‘tankayllu’’
is a type of flying insect, which Indian children try to catch in order to taste a sweet
‘‘honey’’ that is found on its tail. Arguedas writes, ‘‘since the noise of its wings is
intense, too strong for its little body, the Indians believe that the tankayllu has in
its body something more than a single life.’’ He notes the insect’s significance in
Andean culture: ‘‘it is not an evil being; the children that drink its honey feel in
their hearts, their whole lives, something like the caress of its lukewarm breath that
protects them from rancor and melancholy. But the tankayllu is not a creature of
God like all the other common insects; it is a reprobate. At some point missionaries
must have preached against him and other privileged beings’’ (Indios, 147–48).
35. ‘‘La sierra en el proceso de la cultura peruana,’’ in Formación, 24.
36. Bolin, Rituals of Respect, 208.
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272 NOTES
Chapter 3. Los rios profundos

Portions of this chapter were published in Latin American Literary Review. See
Lambright, ‘‘Time, Space and Gender: Creating the Hybrid Intellectual in Los rı́os
profundos.’’
1. This space, as will be shown, is an urban space heavily occupied and influ-
enced by the indigenous culture. It is one in which various ethnic and regional
elements converge, and one that is in many ways dominated by the feminine.
2. In a detailed study of the function of light and music in this novel, not in
relation to the feminine but rather to the mythic cosmovision of the work, Jorge
Garcı́a Antezana writes, ‘‘the multiple meanings of this text are a result of the in-
tertextual transference of a mythic chain of elements from the Andean world.
Those in turn are related to the following categories: the supernatural; the cosmic;
the animal, vegetable, and mineral. All of these categories are ascribed to various
uses of light and music, and permit a totalizing conceptualization of the universe
as a unique and transcendent ‘mythic reality’’’ (‘‘Cosmovisión mı́tica en Los rı́os
profundos: Conceptualización de luz y música,’’ 302).
3. Arguedas, ‘‘El complejo cultural en el Perú,’’ in Formación, 8.
5. Regarding the role of space and time in the constitution of the subject, Eliza-
beth Grosz notes, ‘‘The subject’s relation to space-time is not passive: space is not
simply an empty receptacle, independent of its contents; rather, the ways in which
space is perceived and represented depend on the kinds of objects positioned
‘within’ it, and more particularly, the kinds of relation the subject has to those
objects. . . . It is our positioning within space, both as the point of perspectival
access to space, and also as an object for others in space, that gives the subject a
coherent identity and an ability to manipulate things, including its own body parts,
in space’’ (Space, Time and Perversion, 92).
6. The plague, which ends Ernesto’s stay in Abancay, and the body of Lleras,
one of the most negative figures in the novel, will both be discussed later.
7. Rowe and Schelling, Memory and Modernity, 52.
8. Arguedas, Los rı́os profundos, 7; Deep Rivers, 3. Subsequent references to
these works will be cited parenthetically in the text and will be refered to as RP
and DR respectively.
9. Arguedas, ‘‘El complejo cultural en el Perú’’ in Formación, 2.
10. Again, in Quechua culture both the valley and the river are considered femi-
nine spaces and the mountain is considered a masculine space, and both contain
complementary aspects of their ‘‘other’’ to remain balanced. It is significant that in
order to avoid the world of his uncle and to prepare himself for entry into the
mountains, Ernesto first passes through the valley.
11. Julio Ortega offers a fascinating examination of what he terms the ‘‘drama
of communication’’ in Los rı́os profundos, focusing on this opening chapter and
the dynamics of communication between the father, the old man, the son, and the
pongo. Ortega, ‘‘The Plural Narrator and the Quandry of Multiple Communication
in Arguedas’s Deep Rivers.’’
12. The education of the girls and women of the upper classes is not discussed
in any of Arguedas’s novels, though it is shown in many instances that they are
marginalized within their own class and removed from national discourse, like the
Indian, and, in many ways, the mestizo.
13. The idea of ‘‘upper’’ or ‘‘ruling’’ classes must be understood in a relative
context when speaking of the Peruvian Sierra. In her study of Chitapampa, a rural
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NOTES 273
community near Cuzco, de la Cadena notes, ‘‘It is absolutely possible, and even
frequent, for example, that the Chitapampino small businessman that leaves the
community in the morning being considered a misti, once in the city is looked
upon by the truck driver/contractor as an Indian and treated as such. Another fre-
quent situation, and already well known, is that of university-educated mestizo
grandchildren of indigenous peasant grandparents. This is the dynamic part—the
material aspect—of interethnic relations, a particularity that is obvious enough
when observing very closely and very frequently the relationships one person—or
a group of people, the comuneros of one peasant community, for example—has
with his surroundings.’’ (‘‘‘Las mujeres son más indias’: Etnicidad y género en una
comunidad del Cusco,’’ 9). In the case of the school in Abancay, it, at the very
least, pretends to belong to the upper classes, although the material reality may
indicate otherwise.
14. Rama, Transculturación, 281–82.
15. Ibid., 283.
17. Arguedas, ‘‘El complejo cultural en el Perú,’’ in Formación, 1–8.
16. Arguedas comments on the work of the missionaries in introducing the idea
of pain and suffering as being the way to salvation. He compares an ancient Que-
chua hymn, which expresses joy upon hearing the voice of God through the song
of the lark, with a Catholic hymn, popular among the Indians, which dwells on
pain, tears of blood, and the solitude of death. Arguedas, ‘‘La soledad cósmica en
la poesı́a quechua,’’ 2. When presented in relationship to the Catholic Church or
Church authorities, the indigenous people in Arguedas’s narrative are almost al-
ways shown in a submissive position, kneeling and crying passionately.
18. Kristeva, ‘‘Stabat Mater,’’ 161.
19. For studies of similar, some more contemporary, forms of resistance among
the mestiza—working-class women of the Andes—see Andean Oral History
Workshop/Rivera Cusicanqui, ‘‘Indigenous Women and Community Resistance’’;
Westwood and Radcliffe, ‘‘Gender, Racism and the Politics of Identities’’; and An-
dreas, When Women Rebel. Hugo Neira tells of one meeting in which men were
negotiating with government officials after a massacre of 600 peasants: ‘‘Those
who had the last word, those who refused all agreements, were the women seated
on the floor of the prefects office during the entire debate. These women, more than
the lawyers and peasant leaders, represented the masses. They were the masses, an
intransigent indigenous force, disposed to die for the cause—and the leaders were
helpless to move them.’’ Quoted in Andreas, When Women Rebel, 10. During the
1980s, many of the members of Shining Path were women, and Arguedas’s second
wife, Sybilla Arredondo, was herself jailed for her activities with Shining Path.
20. De la Cadena, Indigenous Mestizos, 182.
21. Ibid., 209.
22. For Moore, la chola, the mestiza, is the most revolutionary figure in Argued-
ian novels: ‘‘She initiates rituals of transformation that subvert Andean and West-
ern patriarchal discourses and provides a space where transformations of this type
can be represented. . . . In an atmosphere of socio-economic and cultural transfor-
mation, the discourses of archetype and historicity are fused, turning the chola into
a kind of feminine Janus: as much guardian of traditional autochtonous culture as
foreshadowing of a new one. Rejecting ideal models of identity, and ethnic and
gender relations, we see the emergence of a new ‘‘counter-ethnic’’ and ‘‘counter-
generic’’ model’’ (‘‘(Des)construyendo la mujer,’’ 207).
23. Bakhtin, ‘‘Discourse in the Novel,’’ 305.
24. Cf. Bakhtin’s studies on the carnivalesque in the modern novel (especially
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274 NOTES
in Rabelais and his World). For Bakhtin the carnivalesque serves as a vehicle for
popular liberation from the social hierarchizing of language.
25. Comparsa—a Carnı́val parade with masked people singing and dancing.
26. Luis A. Jiménez offers a study of the relationship between these two women
and their effect on Ernesto. He argues that ‘‘a detailed analysis of these female
characters’ behavior offers two fragmented versions of the modern Andean
woman, her culture and society within a low carnivalesque world that Arguedas
portrays with a mocking laughter and even parody (para-ode)’’ (‘‘Wo(men) in the
Carnavalesque Discourse of Los rı́os profundos,’’ 219). He specifically explores
‘‘how these two characters act respectively as object-subject in the writing of a text
that criticizes and censures the alienating situation of women’’ (219–20).
28. Ibid., 141.
29. Bhabha, ‘‘The Postcolonial Critic,’’ 57–58.
30. Thomas Turino describes the huayno as situationally defined: ‘‘It refers to
the ubiquitous mestizo song-dance genre of the highlands, as well as to specific
musical genres and dances defined by given indigenous commuities. It is also often
used almost synonymously with ‘song’ or ‘music’ by (some) indigenous peasants.
. . . The mestizo genre is characterized by duple meter and sung stanzas in Spanish,
Quechua, or Aymara, or Spanish mixed with an indigenous language. The mestizo
dance is done by couples; in indigenous communities the dance can be done by
couples or in groups. The exact choreography and dance step vary widely accord-
ing to region’’ (Moving Away from Silence: Music of the Peruvian Altiplano and
the Experience of Urban Migration, 293).
31. Arguedas, ‘‘La canción popular mestiza e india en el Perú: su valor docu-
mental y poético,’’ in Indios, 45.
32. Ibid., 45.
33. Rama, ‘‘Los rı́os profundos, Opera de pobres,’’ 27.
34. Unruh, ‘‘Un mundo disputado a nivel de lenguaje,’’ 195.
35. Turino, commenting on the presence of brass bands in a small town of the
Peruvian altiplano, notes, ‘‘the brass instruments were learned during the musi-
cians’ mandatory military service. These groups occasionally play at ayllu wed-
dings and for mestizo-organized fiestas. Unlike the music performed by the other
ayllu ensembles, the brass band repertories consist largely of mestizo dance and
religious pieces that are not specific to the district. Brass bands have become im-
portant to musical life in rural communities throughout Peru and Bolivia; they
range from large professional ensembles that travel widely to more informal, less
active local groups’’ (Moving Away from Silence, 51). Raúl Romero argues that
‘‘the total acceptance of the saxophone and the clarinet by mestizo peasantry of
the region is clear evidence of their capacity to adopt modern elements without
rejecting their traditional roots’’ (‘‘Musical Change and Cultural Resistance in the
Central Andes of Peru,’’ 21).
36. Commenting on the inclusion of other genres (such as lyrical songs, poems,
letters, etc.) in the novel, Bakhtin observes that ‘‘all these genres, as they enter the
novel, bring into it their own languages, and therefore stratify the linguistic unity
of the novel and further intensify its speech diversity in fresh ways’’ (‘‘Discourse
in the Novel,’’ 321).
37. A kimichu is an Indian pilgrim-musician who goes from village to village
carrying a portrait of the Virgin Mary and collecting alms.
38. Beyersdorff, ‘‘Voice of the Runa: Quechua Substratum in the Narrative of
José Marı́a Arguedas,’’ 42–43.
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NOTES 275
39. Arguedas, ‘‘El complejo cultural en el Perú,’’ in Formación 7.
40. Ibid., 6.
41. Commenting on the novel as ‘‘the chronicle of an artistic apprenticeship,’’
Luis Harss argues that ‘‘despite the lack of analytical proposals that we could per-
haps expect in a bildungsroman, the assignment of roles to the characters in the
book, especially to the boys of the school, responds less to a social dialectic than
to a metaphysics of poetry’’ (‘‘Los rı́os profundos como retrato del artista,’’ 135).
Chapter 4. Todas las sangres

1. Castro-Klarén, ‘‘Dancing and the Sacred in the Andes: From the Taqui-
Oncoy to Rasu-ñiti.’’
2. De Grandis, ‘‘The Neo-Postcolonial Condition of the Work of Art in Latin
America: Evidence from Peruvian Ethnoliterature,’’ 59.
3. Garcı́a Canclini, Hybrid Cultures, 41.
4. Ibid., 42–43.
5. Critics tend to agree that while this is Arguedas’s most ambitious project, it
is less realized literarily than Los rı́os profundos or El zorro de arriba y el zorro
de abajo. However, it is precisely this ambition that makes the study of the novel
essential to the understanding of Arguedas’s work; it is in Todas las sangres that
Arguedas most thoroughly explores the Peruvian nation and its elements and most
directly portrays his vision.
6. Here, I am relying on the definition of nation and nationness as articulated
in such studies as Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Ernest Renan’s
‘‘What Is a Nation?,’’ and E. J. Hobsbawm’s Nations and Nationalism.
8. Arguedas, Todas las sangres, 38. All further citations from this work will
be listed parenthetically in the text as TS.
9. Arguedas, ‘‘Soledad cósmica,’’ 2.
10. Ibid., 2.
11. Spitta, Between Two Waters, 154.
12. Arguedas, ‘‘Soledad cósmica’’, 2.
13. Ibid., 2. For a similar view on the development of an indigenous community
in the southern Sierra, see Bernard Mishkin, who shows how the passage from the
colonial (feudal) system to the Republican (hacienda) system affected the Quechua
community of Kauri, in the department of Cuzco. Among other effects, Mishkin
emphasizes the downfall of the communal system of working the lands and an
increased move towards an individual approach to agricultural endeavors (‘‘Tierra
y sociedad en una comunidad quechua’’).
14. Beyond its connotation of religious affiliation, this term can also tradition-
ally be used to refer to civilized people.
16. Ibid., 194.
17. In Los rı́os profundos La Opa also climbs the church bell tower and looks
out over the town, in a similar act of judgment and condemnation.
18. At the end of the narration, the church, along with the rest of the town, is
burnt to the ground by the surviving members of the local aristocracy, in an effort
to protest the activity of the mine and the Consorcio.
19. It is important to note that up to this time, although don Andrés is speaking
Spanish, he is unable to maintain his discourse fully in the official tongue. His
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276 NOTES
Spanish is filled with Quechua expression and his ideas with indigenous beliefs. It
is a hybrid speech that turns to a preference for the marginalized aspect of that
hybrid culture.
20. The highlighting of important scenes with music is by now a familiar trope
in Arguedian narrative. Regarding this novel in particular, Rowe writes: ‘‘In Todas
las sangres the major transformative passages receive their dynamism at the level
of sound’’ (‘‘Arguedas: Music, Awareness, and Social Transformation,’’ 42).
21. It is interesting to compare this comment with the following one made in
1990 by another renowned Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa: ‘‘The price that
they, the Indians of the countryside, must pay for integration is high—renounce
their culture, their language, their beliefs, their traditions and customs, and adopt
the culture of their former bosses. . . . Perhaps there is no realistic formula for
intergrating our societies without asking the Indian to pay this price. . . . If I had
to choose between the preservation of Indian cultures and their assimilation, with
great sadness I would choose modernization . . . modernization is only possible
through the sacrifice of the Indian cultures’’ (Interview, 52–53). In both assertions,
the Peruvian author and the fictional character set up terms that Arguedas proves
false in his narrative. The problem of preserving the indigenous culture is not the
appropriate question, nor does the ‘‘savage’’ need transforming or modernization
imply assimilation. Rather, Arguedas shows, the rural indigenous populations
themselves are the most inclined to encourage the process of modernization in the
region, while adjusting (not assimilating) their culture to accommodate the
changes modernization implies. The question, as Vargas Llosa suggests, is indeed
one of priorities, but Arguedas submits that the priority of incorporating the indige-
nous culture and giving its members active say in the political and economic proc-
esses of the nation neither endangers modernization nor implies a loss of the native
culture.
22. The character of Matilde can find a literary antecedent in Lucı́a, the main
female character of Aves sin nido, a woman from the coast who moves with her
husband to the Sierra and serves as an important figure in fighting injustices waged
upon the Indians by local power. An important difference between the two is that,
whereas Lucı́a serves as a conduit through which her enlightened husband begins
to understand and combat the injustices suffered by the Indians, Matilde rebels
against her husband and defends the Indians before him. Furthermore, the charac-
ter Lucı́a and the novel Aves sin nido see the salvation of the Indians in their educa-
tion and their adherence to the ways of the coast. Matilde ultimately rejects coastal
values in favor of a more indigenous cosmovision.
23. The respectability Cabrejos sees in Asunta and Matilde seems to have no
material basis. Rather, upon seeing each woman he is immediately impressed by
her moral superiority (Asunta) or intuitive capacities (Matilde); it is only later
through their actions that his opinions are confirmed. It is as if, for Arguedas,
women, perhaps like Indians, are in essence pure, especially white women. This
vision is similar to the idealized vision of some of the women portrayed in Los rı́os
profundos, for example, in the mestiza from Cuzco who comforted Ernesto after
the chichera uprising or the young girls of the upper classes.
24. Kristeva proposes that ‘‘women today are called upon to share in the cre-
ation of new social groupings where, by choice rather than fate, we shall try to
assure our children living spaces that, within ever tenacious national and identity-
forging traditions, will respect the strangeness of each person within the lay com-
munity’’ (Nations without Nationalism, 35). It should be noted that Matilde’s
stance is exactly opposite of that of Lucı́a in Aves sin nido. The latter desires to
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NOTES 277
remove her children from the backwardness of the highlands and return them to
the civilization of Lima.
25. For Irigaray, it is man’s, rather than woman’s, sexuality that is the source of
original sin. She writes: ‘‘Urged by eros, man immerses himself in chaos because
he refuses to make love with an other, to be two making love, to experience sexual
attraction with tenderness and respect. Male sexuality has once again annihilated
human individuation, notably by entrusting the man, not the woman, with the re-
sponsibility for eros’’ (Thinking the Difference, 97–98).
26. It will be noted that the ‘‘eyes’’ of the kantuta flower that is presented to
Matilde upon her visit to the indigenous community are also said to look at the
ground and, in so doing, transmit the warmth of the stars and the sky to the earth.
27. I would like to stress again here that I find that the most sinister aspects of
sexuality in Arguedas’s portrayals of male-female relationships come less from
any intrinsic problem with female desire and more from male aggression—
especially by males of the dominant culture—and their attempts to control or ma-
nipulate the feminine. Bruno’s killing of the nameless mistress and submission to
Vicenta symbolizes his rejection of masculine domination and search for unity
with the feminine.
28. Again, for the title of this section, I borrow this term from Arguedas him-
self.
29. In this sense, the child recalls the Arguedas-like narrator-protagonists of
earlier narratives.
30. The reader will note the similarity between this statement and that by Vargas
Llosa cited earlier; both represent a fear of the indigenous element and a claim that
modernity cannot occur unless that indigenous culture is crushed.
31. Pratt recalls how women are traditionally excluded from the process of na-
tion building and that their presence in the nation is justified by, and limited to, in
the concept of ‘‘Republican Motherhood’’; that is, the role of women is that of
producer of future citizens. This role, however, places women in an ambiguous
position: ‘‘As mothers of the nation, they are precariously other to the nation. They
are imagined as dependent rather than sovereign. They are practically forbidden to
be limited and finite, being obsessively defined by their reproductive capacity.
Their bodies are sites for many forms of intervention, penetration, and appropria-
tion at the hands of the horizontal brotherhood’’ (‘‘Women, Literature, and National
Brotherhood,’’ 51). Radcliffe and Westwood note that ‘‘in Latin American history,
men and masculinity are tied to the defence of the nation and the protection of the
family, home and the people, while women are cast not as defenders but as repro-
ducers of the nation as wives and mothers’’ (‘‘Viva’’: Women and Popular Protest
in Latin America, 12).
32. For a further interesting reading of the mestizo in Arguedas’s work, with
special attention devoted to Rendón, see Silvia Spitta, ‘‘Hacia una nueva lectura
del mestizo en la obra de José Marı́a Arguedas,’’ along with her already cited Be-
tween Two Waters.
Chapter 5. Mapping Space and Subject

Part of this chapter was previously published in Revista Anthropológica as an
article titled, ‘‘Espacio, sujeto y resistencia en El Sexto.’’
1. This was a student protest against the visit to the university by General Ca-
marotta, an envoy of Mussolini. Students received the general with shouts and
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278 NOTES
whistles, protesting the Italian airforce’s participation in the Spanish Civil War,
particularly its bombing of Republican-controlled cities in Spain. By the end of the
riot, students had thrown the general into the fountain in the Patio de las Letras, a
main plaza in the university. Police arrested, apparently indiscriminately, protest-
ors and observers alike, among them was Arguedas.
2. Antonio Cornejo Polar refers to the popularity of El Sexto, especially among
the urban working classes: ‘‘it is known, by the number and frequency of pirated
editions, that in Peru El Sexto was well received. Somewhat ignored by critics, it
seems to have awoken in the popular urban imaginary the ghost of a repression
that at any moment—and increasingly—could become a reality for that reader that,
precisely because he is working class, knows—and, again, increasingly—that he is
suspect and defenseless.’’ (‘‘Arguedas, una espléndida historia,’’ 20). Among the
more notable critical readings of this work, see Cornejo Polar, Los universos nar-
rativos; Forgues, José Marı́a Arguedas: Del pensamiento dialéctico al pensamie-
nto trágico; Pantigoso, La rebelión; Rowe (Ensayos Arguedianos and Mito e
ideologia); and Sandoval and Boschetto-Sandoval, ‘‘José Marı́a Arguedas’s Els
Sexto.
3. As Rowe well states, ‘‘although El Sexto is the least important of all the
novels, the methods used to resolve the difficulties of the theme illuminate Argued-
as’s thought trajectory, especially with respect to his attitude towards groups of
power and attempts to establish a relationship between Quechua culture and the
need for a social revolution’’ Mito e ideologia, 125.
4. The APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) was a reformist
political party founded in 1924 by the exiled Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre and
Magda Portal, and led by Mariátegui until 1927, when ideological differences
caused the latter to leave the party. In 1929, Mariátegui founded the Peruvian
Communist Party, which one year later affiliated with the Communist Interna-
tional. In 1931, Haya de la Torre returned to Peru and continued to work with the
Aprista Party, outlawed from 1931–45, during which time it engaged in under-
ground activities and acts of political terrorism. The Communist Party was also not
officially recognized until 1945.
5. José Ortiz Reyes, in his narrative accounts of his own experience in El Sexto
(he, like Arguedas, was arrested during the San Marcos riot), mentions fellow in-
mates whose names are the same or similar to those in Arguedas’s novel—
‘‘Rosita,’’ ‘‘Clavel,’’ Machetero (Puñalada), Chanduvı́ (Maravı́)—suggesting that
Arguedas’s characters are strongly based on actual inhabitants of El Sexto during
the time of the writer’s incarceration. These narratives are reproduced in Ortiz Res-
caniere, José Marı́a Arguedas.
6. Pile and Thrift, Mapping the Subject, 13.
8. In many ways, El Sexto prison is reminiscent of the military school por-
trayed in Mario Vargas Llosa’s 1962 novel La ciudad y los perros, translated as
Time of the Hero. Both novels show a general failure of institutions in Peru during
this period.
9. Arguedas, El Sexto, 7. All further references to this novel will be made in
the text, parenthetically, as ES.
10. ‘‘El jefe’’ referred to here is the aprista leader Haya de la Torre. The criti-
cisms voiced by Pedro are strikingly similar to those with which Mariátegui at-
tacked the party.
11. Quoted in Cornejo Polar, Los universos narrativos, 169.
12. Foulcault, ‘‘Of Other Spaces,’’ 24.
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NOTES 279
13. Ibid., 25.
15. Pantigoso, La rebelión, 211.
16. ‘‘Puñalada’’ is eventually murdered by one of the vagos; a rather disap-
pointed Policarpio will, nonetheless, end up killing one of the most corrupt prison
officers, in a significant final act of the novel.
17. The narrator is referring to General Oscar R. Benavides, who governed Peru
from 1933 to 1939, after an aprista had assassinated his predecessor, Luis Sánchez
Cerro. Both the APRA and the Communist Party were outlawed during this time.
18. Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion, 83–84.
19. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 1–2.
20. Ibid., 4.
21. Ibid., 10.
22. Grosz, ‘‘The Body of Signification,’’ 87.
23. Ibid., 87.
24. Ibid., 88–89.
25. Smith, Julia Kristeva, 150.
26. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 71.
27. Ibid., 71.
28. Ibid., 72.
29. This sadness that comes from the ends of the earth reminds us of the com-
plaints of la Kurku from Todas las sangres. This intimate connection with the cen-
ter of the earth, the origin, is one frequently attributed to marginalized subjects in
Arguedian narrative. As if, through their suffering, these characters had access to
knowledge hidden from the general population.
30. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 3–4.
31. Ibid., 8.
32. There are other alternative subjects who meet similar fates. ‘‘Pacasmayo,’’
a man from the coast who had been unjustly incarcerated by a local official, and
who decides to make a ‘‘Peruvian’’ chess set, commits suicide, unable to bear
‘‘Clavel’’’s situation. Don Policarpo Herrera, who takes a stand and kills a corrupt
prison official, it is understood, will be killed as punishment.
33. As Gladys C. Marı́n notes, ‘‘In Alejandro Cámac, the life of the world of
the Sierra, political militancy, the capacity to understand others, and hatred
towards the exploiters are harmoniously united. . . . He understands, besides, the
words of the idealistic Gabriel, saturated with the mystery of the hills and the riv-
ers, and he is the one who prepares the guitar. . . . He recovers the song of the
earth’’ (La experiencia americana de José Marı́a Arguedas, 176).
34. Salomon, ‘‘Introductory Essay: The Huarochirı́ Manuscript,’’ 16. For lead-
ing me to this information, I am indebted to Sara Castro-Klarén’s reference to the
term in her article on El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, ‘‘‘Like a Pig, When
He’s Thinkin.’’’
35. Rowe, Ensayos Arguedianos, 86.
36. Nancy, The Inoperative Community, 15.
37. Ibid., 15.
38. Pinkullo—a giant flute used in Southern Peru; siku—a double-row pan pipe.
39. Rowe notes the disconnect between the final conclusions of Los rı́os profun-
dos and those of El Sexto. Whereas both examine the national situation from a
subjective standpoint, in El Sexto, ‘‘no longer can one defeat the cultural and social
divisions through a personal committment to Quechua culture. Gabriel’s personal
memories and attempts to maintain a connection with the Sierra are not sufficiently
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280 NOTES
strong to counteract the conditions he finds in the prison’’ (Mito e ideologia, 130–
31).
Chapter 6. Losing Ground

Portions of this chapter were previously published as an article in Hispanófila,
‘‘Losing Ground: Some Notes on the Feminine in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de
abajo.’’
1. Arguedas, ‘‘Amor mundo,’’ in Un mundo de monstruos y de fuego, 118.
Subsequent references to the short narration will be cited in the text as ‘‘AM.’’
2. The Huarochirı́ manuscript is a Quechua-language testament of ancient and
colonial Andean religion compiled in the Huarochirı́ region around 1600. Its au-
thor and compiler are unknown. The original manuscript is found among the hold-
ings of Father Francisco de Avila in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, Spain, and
was translated into Spanish by Arguedas in 1966. Despite their protagonistic role
in Arguedas’s novel, the foxes of the title appear in only one brief scene in the
manuscript, but the idea of these two mythological creatures linking the highlands
and the coast obviously caught the translator’s imagination.
3. Cornejo Polar, ‘‘Un ensayo sobre Los Zorros de Arguedas,’’ 300. I would
submit that there is another source of hope running throughout the novel, and that
is the serrano individuals and community and their struggle for survival. These
moments of hope are manifested on both a practical level (in the work that the
serranos do) and a political level, in the form of social activism (on a community
level) by certain serranos and those transformed by the serrano-indigenous cul-
ture.
4. Ibid., 300–301.
5. Forgues, ‘‘Porque bailan los zorros,’’ 308.
6. Moreiras first elaborates this idea in reference specifically to the problemat-
ics of theories of transculturation (see ‘‘José Marı́a Arguedas y el fin de la trans-
culturación’’). Later, in his book-length essay, The Exhaustion of Difference,
heamplifies the same argument to include magical realism, essentially conflating
the two terms.
7. Moreiras, The Exhaustion of Difference, 190.
8. Ibid., 204.
9. Moreiras writes, ‘‘Beyond any and all magical-real episodes in the text,
every intervention of the foxes, every piercing sound of the bug called Onquray
Onquray, the ominous messenger, every yunsa and every yawar mayu, and every
song of the mountain ducks that gives the foxes the ability to understand the soul
of the world, Arguedas’s death is the truest magical-real event of the novel, as it
gives itself as testimony to a violent conflict of cultures that will not be mediated
away’’ (The Exhaustion of Difference, 205). The avoidance of discussion of what
is written in favor for how it is written and under what circumstances is unfortu-
nate, as the text itself—though it can never be considered entirely independent of
the conditions of its production—is very revealing of ‘‘the difficult, perhaps impos-
sible (re)formation of a national allegory whose necessity, in today’s Peru, does
not need to be emphasized’’ (199).
10. Ortega, ‘‘Introduction,’’ in Arguedas, The Fox from Up Above and the Fox
from Down Below, xiv. This essay is a superb presentation of many of the most
salient themes of the novel.
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NOTES 281
11. For an interesting reading of the town of Chimbote as an urban space, see
Caviedes, ‘‘The Latin-American Boom Town in the Literary View of José Marı́a
Arguedas.’’
12. Lienhard, Cultura popular andina, 13.
13. Ibid., 14.
14. Commenting on the role of inserted genres in the novel, Bakhtin writes, ‘‘So
great is the role played by these genres that are incorporated into novels that it
might seem as if the novel is denied any primary means for verbally appropriating
reality, that it has no approach of its own, and therefore requires the help of other
genres to re-process reality; the novel itself has the appearance of being merely a
secondary syncretic unification of other seemingly primary verbal genres’’ (‘‘Dis-
course in the Novel,’’ 321). Certainly, the attention given the diaries in much of
the criticism of El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo (due, of course, to a great
extent to their referring to a lived reality) often seems to relegate the fiction to a
secondary plane.
15. Arguedas, El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, 9; The Fox from Up Above
and the Fox from Down Below, trans. Frances Horning Barraclough, 11. Subse-
quent references to these texts will be made parenthetically, with ZZ for the Span-
ish version and FF for the English version.
16. Lienhard, Cultura popular andina, 16.
17. Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, 2.
18. We recall again Forgues’s argument against Arguedas’s claim that he
learned Spanish at the age of fourteen (see ‘‘El mito del monolingüismo’’).
19. These comments on Cortázar are part of a personal polemic between Ar-
guedas and the Argentine author. In 1968, Cortázar published an article reacting
to a preliminary publication of parts of the diaries in Amaru, and Arguedas himself
publicly responded in an article published in El Comercio titled ‘‘Inevitable com-
entario a unas ideas de Julio Cortázar’’ (Inevitable Response to Some Ideas of Julio
Cortázar).
20. Oqllo translates to bosom, or heart. It has feminine connotations in Que-
chua.
21. As noted in the Introduction to this study, Rama examines Rulfo and Guim-
arães Rosa, along with Arguedas, as prime examples of literary transculturation.
In the Introduction, I also problematize Arguedas’s portrayal of himself as not
‘‘professional.’’
22. In the narrative section of El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, Arguedas
examines the commercialization of sexuality and works to undermine that of litera-
ture. Sexuality, literary creation, and music serve as elements that connect the in-
terrogations of the diaries and the explorations of the narrative.
23. Villca—a high priest, in this case, probably high priestess.
24. The Huarochirı́ Manuscript, 38.
25. Ibid., 38.
26. The English translation is missing part of the text (my italics). The transla-
tion of the first two sentences should read: ‘‘I ‘made a conquest of her,’ talking to
her in Quechua, which, in a case like that, flowed out of me and served me better
than Spanish. The black woman understood me because she was a ‘nocturnal but-
terfly.’’’
27. As seen in his comment on Cortázar, Arguedas also questions his own au-
thority to speak for the indigenous people, and yet he obviously feels a strong re-
sponsibility to attempt to do so. Andrew Lakritz writes of the ‘‘writer who is
marginalized in his culture and writes a powerful critique of that culture but who
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282 NOTES
later becomes championed as a major cultural voice by the academy’’ and analyzes
speaking situations which ‘‘make risky incursions on the uncommon grounds of
groups that have not been accorded the authority to speak for themselves, and on
whose behalf these writers have chosen to speak’’ (‘‘Identification and Difference:
Structures of Privilege in Cultural Criticism,’’ 3, 4). Such is the case of Arguedas
and his work. Lakritz continues, ‘‘we cannot merely drop our common prejudices,
take our sympathies for granted, and permit the underclass to speak; that they are
an underclass is precisely what constitutes their silence. It is the function of the
elite—and what makes them elite—to indicate and instantiate this silence’’ (9).
28. It will be recalled that individualism and personal ambition were two of the
values mentioned by Cabrejos (and feared by don Bruno) in Todas las sangres as
necessary to instill in the Indians for modernization to be successful.
29. Ortega, ‘‘Introduction,’’ xxvi.
30. Lindstrom, ‘‘El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo: Una marginación al
nivel del discurso,’’ 217.
31. Bazalar is another serrano character who manages to confront the local po-
litical bosses, rally the community, and be elected community leader in his neigh-
borhood. Before the conversation among Cardoso, Maxwell, and Cecilio, Bazalar
had met with the priest and asked for his help in making the authorities recognize
his position. After treating Bazalar in a paternalistic manner, Cardoso shows him
out and returns laughing, in the same manner he laughed at Maxwell and Cecilio.
32. This scene reflects Arguedas’s growing interest in Liberation Theology,
supported by his friendship with one of the movement’s most important propo-
nents, Gustavo Gutiérrez.
33. Lienhard, ‘‘La ‘andinización’ del vanguardismo urbano,’’ 328.
34. This actions recalls other moments in Arguedian narrative when a member
of the dominant culture throws money at a member of the marginal culture, as an
expression of superiority and power (for example, when don Julián throws money
at the dancing Tankayllu in Yawar Fiesta). In such cases, the one who throws
money is shown to have no understanding of the true significance of the situation
he is trying to resolve or silence with money. Here, Asto is also shown not to un-
derstand—to misread—the situation in which he finds himself.
35. Rowe, Ensayos Arguedianos, 338.
36. Ibid., 339.
37. Rama, Transculturación, 250.
38. Ibid., 256.
39. Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, 25.
40. Ibid., 26–27.
41. Ibid., 27–28.
42. Lienhard, ‘‘La ‘andinización,’’’ 322.
43. Ibid., 322.
44. Gómez Mango, ‘‘Todas las lenguas’’ 364.
Conclusion
1. The English translation leaves out part of the quote (my italics). It should
read ‘‘. . . a Quechua speaker all of my life, well incorporated into the world of the
ones who fence (Quechua culture) in, a joyful visitor . . .’’
2. Manuel Scorza published a five-volume series of novels under the common
denomination of ‘‘La Guerra Silenciosa’’ (The Silent War), about peasant uprisings
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NOTES 283
in the Andes. Oscar Colchaldo Lucı́o has published short collections with indige-
nous themes, the novel Rosa Cuchillo, set in the violence of Shining Path, and has
created a popular character for young readers, ‘‘El Cholito,’’ (The Cholo—or mes-
tizo) protagonist of several works.
3. Drawing strongly on Freud’s model of the Oedipus complex in the male
psyche, Bloom writes of the relationship between what he calls a ‘‘strong’’ poet
(writer) and his or her predecessor: ‘‘Initial love for the precursor’s poetry is trans-
formed rapidly enough into revisionary strife, without which individuation is not
possible’’ (A Map of Misreading, 10). He continues, ‘‘No poet, I amend that no
strong poet, can chose his precursor, any more than any person can choose his
father. . . . Whether we can be found by what is not already somehow ourselves
has been doubted from Heraclitis through Emerson to Freud, but the daemon is not
our destiny until we yield to his finding out. Poetic influence, in its first phase, is
not to be distinguished from love, though it will shade soon enough into revolu-
tionary strife’’ (12). Vargas Llosa’s trajectory from admiration of Arguedas’s work
to harsh criticism of the same closely follows Bloom’s outlining of this complex.
A detailed and comprehensive study of Vargas Llosa’s literary, political, and per-
sonal relationship with Arguedas has yet to be realized and promises fascinating
insights into both writers and their work. For initial musings in this direction, see
Lambright, ‘‘In the Name of the Father: Vargas Llosa and/on Arguedas.’’
4. Arguedas, Indios, mestizos y señores, 118.
5. Ibid., 119.
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Index
Abancay (Peru), 245; Arguedas’s life 69. See also Indians, culture of; in-
in, 12; boarding school in, 107, 108, digenous culture; Quechua culture
111, 114–21, 131, 156, 193, 272– Andean totality, 266 n. 56
73 n. 13 Anderson, Benedict, 265 n. 31
abject, the, 202–8 Andes, 214; changes in, 19, 54; class
acculturation, 18–19, 93, 105, 247. See structure in, 17, 48, 114–15, 137–38,
also transculturation 202; cosmology of, 101, 130–31,
‘‘Adaneva’’ (myth), 30 190, 269 n. 32, 270 n. 13; food of, 88;
Adorno, Rolena, 25, 268 n. 9 heterogeneity of, 111, 113; life in,
Afro-Peruvians, 119, 219, 228–29, 259 137; migrations from, 244; modern-
‘‘Agonı́a de Rasu-Ñiti, La’’ (Arguedas, ization in, 75–76, 145–49; music of,
short story), 142–45 111, 254; nature in, 9, 81, 184, 219,
agriculture, 31, 275 n. 13 226, 236, 241; novels of, 85; peoples
‘‘Agua’’ (Arguedas, short story), 13, of, 9–10, 18, 33; reality of, 151; se-
50, 60, 65–68 miotic in, 239, 253; sexuality of, 217;
Agua (Arguedas, short story collec- small towns, 60–61; and symbolism,
tion), 13, 45–46, 60–73 54, 155, 248–49. See also Sierra
Aibar Ray, Elena, 267 n. 65 anger, 61, 83, 277 n. 27
Alegrı́a, Ciro, 17 animals: gamonales’ capture of, 50, 68;
Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Ameri- mistreatment of, 61, 62
cana (APRA), 194, 210, 278 n. 4. See anti-conquest, 270 n. 14. See also con-
also apristas quest, Spanish
alienation, 231. See also isolation APRA. See Alianza Popular Revolucio-
Allen, Catherine, 29 naria Americana
Altamirano Navarro, Victoria (mother), apristas, 190, 193–94, 196, 207, 210–
11 12, 214, 279 n. 17
alternatives, 121–41, 151, 213. See also apu (god), 131
culture(s), alternative; national sub- Apukintu (god), 153
ject(s), alternative Apurı́mac River, 9, 260, 267 n. 70
amaru (snake), 101 Arangoita, Nicasio, 270 n. 22
Amazon River, 9 Arangoita de Pacheca, Grimanesa
‘‘Amor mundo’’ (Worldly Love, Ar- (stepmother), 11–12
guedas), 190, 216–19 Ardener, Edwin, 63
Andean culture: Arguedas’s attitude Aréstegui, Narciso, 17
toward, 11, 54; Christianity and, 30, Arguedas, Alcides, 17
153; colonial, 149; concept of time Arguedas, Arı́stides (brother), 11, 12
in, 108; feminine in, 31, 57, 107; Arguedas, José Marı́a: as anthropolo-
fragmentation of, 111, 113; future of, gist, 11, 13–14; award for, 257; child-
145; indigenous, 68–69, 126; music hood and adolescence of, 11–12, 61,
of, 132–37, 254; oppositions in, 29– 73, 263 n. 6; diaries of, 22, 73, 220,
30, 137–38; representations of, 45, 248, 254; disillusionment of, 220,
293
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294 INDEX
223, 224, 243–44; education of, 12– positions in, 54–55; semiotic in, 32–
13, 14, 15; goals of, 257–58; jobs of, 37, 267 n. 70; silencing of, 255
13–14; legacy of, 258, 261; literary Arguedian national vision, 21, 150–51,
projections of, 45, 56–57, 61, 68, 169, 249–50; criticism of, 259; fail-
145, 190, 216, 222; marriages of, ure of, 103, 145, 185, 222–23, 247,
13–14; as mediator, 77; political 252–53, 255–56; feminine in, 10, 23,
views of, 214; prison time of, 13, 38, 25, 31, 36–37, 147, 161–64, 189–90,
189; as provincial writer, 11, 15–16, 199–200, 220, 248; indigenous cul-
20, 225–26, 268 n. 19; psychological ture in, 49, 89–90, 113, 175, 197; se-
problems of, 11–12, 13, 22; sexuality miotic in, 32–37; spaces of, 108, 191,
of, 197, 226–27, 248, 265 n. 39, 213
277 n. 27; stepbrother of, 11, 12, 50; aristocracy. See ruling classes
suicide of, 14, 38, 220, 221–22, 256, Arredondo, Sybila (second wife), 14,
258, 280 n. 9; witnesses rape, 12, 259, 273 n. 19
226–27, 265 n. 39. Works: Agua, 13, artist, feminine and, 121–41
45–46. 60–73; Diamantes y peder- Asian-Peruvians, 259
nales, 13, 28, 104; essays, 11, 33, assimilation, 49, 119, 276 n. 21
45–46, 75, 260, 264 n. 19; novels, 19, Asturias, Miguel Ángel, 18
21, 36; poetry, 11, 263 n. 10; Los rı́os auki (snake), 79, 95–96, 100, 217,
profundos, 12, 14, 22, 24, 28, 37, 56– 248–49
57, 72, 103–41, 143, 147, 150–51, authority: confronting, 21, 88–90, 99,
153, 156, 182, 185, 189, 193, 198, 244; imperial, 132; indigenous, 96;
210–11, 226, 233, 234, 245, 249, maternal, 205; of speech, 134
269 n. 22, 276 n. 23, 279–80 n. 39; El autobiography/history opposition, 223
Sexto, 13, 22, 38–39, 45, 142, 185, autoethnography, 270 n. 14
189–216, 220, 234, 278 n. 2, 279–80; Aves sin nido (Matto de Turner), 17,
short stories, 13, 37–38, 45–74, 97, 25–26, 266–67 n. 63, 276 n. 22, 276–
103, 104, 142, 267 n. 1; Todas las 77 n. 24
sangres, 14, 23–24, 28, 37, 55, 75– Ayacucho region (Peru), 262 n. 2
76, 92, 124, 141–43, 145–85, 189, ayla (aqueducts), 217–19
216, 220, 227–28, 234–35, 250–51, ayllu, 78–84, 87, 96, 100, 102, 274 n.
254, 264 n. 22, 279 n. 29; ‘‘Warma 35
kuyay,’’ 27–28, 50, 60–66, 190;
Yawar Fiesta, 11, 13, 16, 37, 45–46, Bakhtin, Mikhail, 65, 126, 134, 273–
53, 74–104, 143, 185, 197, 270 n. 14, 74 n. 24, 274 n. 36, 281 n. 14
271 n. 30; El zorro de arriba y el barbarism/civilization opposition, 88,
zorro de abajo, 14, 22, 24, 35, 37–38, 223
73, 185, 191, 215–16, 219–56, Bayly, Jaime, 259
281 nn. 14, 19, 22; See also hybrid in- Behar, Ruth, 271 n. 33
tellectual belief systems, hybrid, 126–27
Arguedas Arellano, Vı́ctor Manual Benavides, Oscar R., 279 n. 17
(father), 11, 12 Beyersdorff, Margot, 140
Arguedian narrative: Andean world in, Bhabha, Homi K., 21–22, 33, 48, 59,
46, 158; critical context of, 16–20; 66, 108, 132, 137, 215, 265 n. 31,
feminine in, 9–10, 23–32, 38, 173– 268 n. 5
75, 197, 203; focalizing elements of, blacks. See Afro-Peruvians; race
206; hybrid intellectual in, 56–57; in- Bloom, Harold, 259, 283 n. 3
digenous culture in, 52–53, 95, 209– boarding schools, 105, 114–21, 122,
10, 212, 265 n. 31; mapping in, 123, 131
21–22, 209; marginal in, 204; music body, the: mapping of, 81, 85, 191, 205,
in, 35–36, 132–33, 247, 249–50; op- 214–15; narrative reconstruction of,
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INDEX 295
200–201; of the other, 265 n. 42; tex- agent of, 23, 104, 180–81, 196–97;
tual representations of, 32, 237 historical, 31; through music, 65–66;
body-subject, 209, 212 national, 12, 35, 55–56; political,
Bolin, Inge, 29, 101 268 n. 5. See also modernization
borders, 21, 191 chaos, 31, 99, 172, 203
Borras, Gérard, 85 characters: black, 119; development of,
Bourdieu, Pierre, 28 28, 133; feminine in, 62, 131, 185,
bridge(s): Arguedas as, 12; between 189–90, 196, 199, 226; indigenous,
cultures, 75–76, 77, 131, 134, 137– 46, 62, 190, 199; men, 22, 23, 24, 62;
39, 145; feminine as, 26, 57–60, 63, nonindigenous, 94; roles of, 275 n.
123, 125, 128–30, 164–65, 246; in- 41; women, 23–26, 30, 36, 69–71,
tellectuals as, 139; music as, 133–34; 85, 97, 146–47, 154, 161–75
in prison, 192–93; rivers as, 138–39 chicha (corn beer), 49, 106, 119, 235
brothels, 216, 232, 239, 244–47. See chicheras rebellion, 106, 120–21, 123–
also prostitutes/prostitution 30, 132, 276 n. 23
Bruno (character), 151, 154, 161, 164– chicherı́as, 134, 198–99, 233, 245
66, 168–72, 178–81, 183, 185 childhood, 62. See also orphanhood
Bryce Echenique, Alfredo, 258–29 children, mestizo, 184
bullfighting: Indian-style, 54, 74, 83, Chile, 14
84–89, 93, 101, 102; music for, 81– Chimbote (Peru), 219, 221–23, 228–
87, 96, 102; Spanish-style, 87–88, 29, 231–37, 239–43, 256, 258; as hy-
101, 102 brid displacing space, 243–55
businesses. See fish meal/fishing indus- Chitapampa (Peru), 272–73 n. 13
tries; industries; mines, U.S. chola/os, 229, 245, 273 n. 22
Bustamante, Alicia, 13 chora, 249
Bustamante Vernal, Celia (first wife), Christianity, 30, 153. See also Catholic
13, 14 Church; Jesus Christ
cities: coastal, 56, 221; culture of, 106,
Cadena, Marisol de la, 55–56, 76, 124– 107; expansion of, 260; indigenous
25, 272–73 n. 13 worlds meshed with, 124–25, 132;
Cámac (character), 190, 194, 197–202, looking down on, 77–78, 86; modern,
208, 210–11, 213–14 231; natives of, 141; nature in, 236.
capital/provinces opposition, 121 See also Chimbote (Peru); Cuzco
capitalism, 201, 231, 239; coastal, 148, (Peru); Lima (Peru); Sierra, cities of
220–21, 248, 255; domination by, civilization, 87–88, 106, 179–80
244–46, 254; Peruvian, 158–59; classes: divisions of, 48, 60–61, 92,
U.S., 209–10, 241; violence of, 247, 158; dominant, 114, 160, 191; edu-
253 cated, 141. See also hierarchies; rul-
capitalism/communism opposition, 146 ing classes; upper classes; working
carnival, 65, 101, 127, 245, 260, 273– classes
74 n. 24 classism, 114
Carpenter, Lawrence K., 29 Clavel (character), 195, 197–99, 201–2,
Carpentier, Alejo, 224–26 211
Castellanos, Rosario, 18, 19 Clifford, James, 271 n. 33
Castro-Klarén, Sara, 24, 82, 144 coast, 237; culture of, 20, 74–76, 88,
Catholic Church, 156, 226, 273 n. 16. 106, 148, 245–46; dominance of, 55,
See also Christianity; priest 81; feminine on, 201, 203, 256; in-
center/periphery opposition, 54, 121 digenous peoples on, 22–23; injus-
Certeau, Michel de, 47, 51, 77, 86, 206 tices of, 240; migrations to, 23,
chalos, 78, 100, 270 n. 11 75–76, 91–93, 220–21, 223, 260; na-
change: Andes, 19, 54; feminine as ture and song on, 196–98; novels of,
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296 INDEX
37–38, 145, 185, 229; people of, 76, corruption, 175; in Lima, 197, 210; in
268 n. 15; semiotic on, 207, 239; sex- prison, 195, 196, 200–201, 209; of
uality on, 219; Sierra communica- women, 248
tions with, 19–20; symbolic on, 239; Cortázar, Julio, 225, 281 n. 19, 281–
travelers from, 65, 67, 74, 81; whites 82 n. 27
from, 94, 167. See also Chimbote cosmology. See Andes, cosmology of;
(Peru); Lima (Peru); women, coastal Quechua people, cosmology of
coast/Sierra opposition, 31, 54–55, 76, cosmopolitanism. See provincial/cos-
85, 146–50, 160, 195–97, 223, mopolitan opposition
253–54 creoles, 17, 75
code, feminine, 23–32, 36–37, 38, 57 cultural mestiza/os, 16, 110–11, 113,
cohesion, 172, 203 138, 146, 150, 159, 175–85
Colchaldo Lucı́o, Oscar, 258, 282–83 n. culture(s): alternative, 20, 35, 113, 215;
2 autochthonous, 16, 18, 257; clash of,
colonial/indigenous opposition, 146 19, 82, 222–23, 260; connections be-
colonos, 124, 159, 175, 178; tied to ha- tween, 57–60, 69, 111–13, 222, 246;
ciendas, 12, 49–50, 109, 125, elements of, 71, 102, 237; feminine,
147–48 63, 105; hybrid, 209, 275–76 n. 19;
color, as focalizing element, 106 language and, 32–37, 240; mascu-
Columbus, Christopher, diaries of, 17 line, 23–24, 27, 29, 36, 63; mediation
communal system, 275 n. 13 between, 121–41; nature and, 66,
communication, 85, 133, 148, 272 n. 11 121, 137–38; spaces between, 21, 97,
communists, 146, 190, 193–94, 196, 132; Western, 35, 97. See also An-
211–12, 214, 232. See also Peruvian dean culture; dominant culture; in-
Communist Party digenous culture; Peruvian culture;
communities: alternative, 161–63; Quechua culture; Sierra, culture of;
failed, 212, 244; formation of, 189, Western culture
240; fragmented, 21, 191; ideal, 107, culture of difference, 37
184, 211; independent, 49, 67–68; in- Cuzco (Peru), 107, 108, 244; Incan wall
digenous, 108–9; national, 94; new, of, 110, 193, 247; indigenous ele-
183–85; sense of, 103; state and, ments of, 111–12, 115, 262 n. 2;
138; unified, 99, 252 women of, 124–25
complementarity, 35, 137, 141 cuzqueños, 56, 125
comuneros, 12, 49, 78, 108, 115, 146,
147, 154; dancing and, 98, 99; edu-
cated, 181–82; landless, 50–53; dance: coastal, 245; feminine as, 23, 57,
power of, 83, 175–76; in Puquio, 145, 189, 258; indigenous, 217–19,
101, 102; uprisings, 50–52, 65–68, 226; Quechua, 82, 148, 213–14,
74 242–43; as resistance, 37, 74, 83, 85,
‘‘Comuneros de A’kola, Los’’ (Ar- 103, 198–99; Sierra, 233, 238; tex-
guedas, short story), 50–52, 55 tual representations of, 34–36, 63–
‘‘Comuneros de Utej Pampa, Los’’ (Ar- 64, 69, 70–71, 237, 252. See also
guedas, short story), 52–53 huaynos; scissor dance
condor, 54, 143 daños, 50
conflict, power and, 246 darkness, 87, 116–18, 235–36. See also
conquest, Spanish, 15, 19, 25, 48, 62, light
81–82, 148, 214, 270 n. 15, 270 nn. death, 211, 240, 253; indigenous por-
14 trayal of, 31, 103, 142–44, 174,
consciousness, formation of, 138, 228 184–85; in prison, 205, 207–8. See
Cornejo Polar, Antonio, 24, 76, 83, 93, also Arguedas, José Marı́a, suicide
129, 147–48, 150–51, 169, 195, 220, deculturation, 247
248, 278 n. 2 degradation, 196, 200, 214, 220
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INDEX 297
de-Indianization, 56 Dughi, Pilar, 259
despair, 35, 38; Arguedas’s, 220, 223, Dussel, Enrique, 25
224, 243–44; in prison, 189, 191,
209, 215. See also hope earth, as feminine, 31
destructuring, 249 ecstasy, 144
devil, 131 education, 272 n. 12, 273–74 n. 13
Diamantes y pedernales (Diamonds ego, 205, 211
and Flint, Arguedas), 13, 28, 104 El japonés (character), 204–6, 212
diaries: Arguedas’s, 22, 73, 220, 248, El pianista (character), 204, 207–8
254; Columbus’s, 17; in El zorro de El Sexto prison: Arguedas’s time in, 13,
arriba y el zorro de abajo, 22, 73, 89, 189–215; chaos in, 203; feminine
220–29, 238, 253, 256, 281 nn. 14 in, 199–200; heterogeneity of,
and 19 195–96; music in, 193, 198–99,
discourse, 223, 238; alternative, 113, 206–8; nature in, 196–97; power in,
134, 140; contemporary revolution- 201; semiotic in, 207–8; sound in,
ary, 259–60; dominant, 10, 36, 78, 196–98, 215; spaces of, 192–93,
81, 145, 260; masculine, 31–32, 185; 206, 209, 213; suffering in, 210–11
narrative, 60, 103, 253–54; national, emotions, 122, 133, 168
17, 22, 34, 57, 66, 73, 108; political, energy, indigenous, 93–94, 101–2, 113,
210, 213 115, 139, 175–76
disintegration. See corruption; frag- Ernesto (character), 105–6, 108–25,
mentation 129–32, 135–41, 203, 211
displacement. See isolation; unhomeli- Escajadillo, Tomás G., 264 n. 16
ness ‘‘Escoleros, Los’’ (The Schoolboys, Ar-
disposition, 34 guedas), 50, 60, 68–72
dominant culture, 24–25, 33, 56, 86, ethics, 191, 200
252–53, 260, 264 n. 30; Arguedas as ethnicity, 24, 92. See also race
member of, 22; marginalized peoples Europe, 111, 141, 254, 262–63 n. 5
in, 183, 247; masculine, 23–25, 31, factories, 231–32, 239
113–21, 217–19, 249, 277 n. 27; re- Fanon, Franz, 21–22
sistance to, 45–47, 52–53, 63, 83, father, search for, 24, 138, 141
103, 189, 204, 254; sexuality in, feminine, the, 9–10, 142–85, 254; ab-
217–19 jection of, 202–5; artist and, 121–41,
dominant culture/indigenous culture 261; aspects of, 23–32, 104–5, 113;
opposition, 22, 24–25, 54, 64–65 code of, 23–32, 36–37, 38, 57; as
dominant fiction: alternatives to, 47, connection to indigenous world, 57–
204; feminine in, 111, 162, 169, 245; 60, 63, 69, 141; crisis of, 196–209;
hybrid intellectual and, 105, 224; degradation of, 26–27, 197, 199–
masculine in, 113–21, 185; Peruvian, 200, 259; failure of, 34, 209, 255–56;
20, 108, 223–24, 231; resistance to, hybrid intellectual and, 37–38, 57,
32–33, 46–47, 78, 146, 181, 221–24, 104–41; importance of, 85, 103, 108,
255–56 139, 142–45; indigenous connection
dominant society, 46, 116, 121, 201, to, 10, 66, 134, 145, 160–68, 254; as
217–19, 247, 257 mediator, 104, 106, 121–41, 165,
domination: geographies of, 21, 71, 250; narrative of, 185; purity of, 219;
195; masculine, 28, 113–21 in Quechua cosmology, 230–31; role
‘‘Doña Cayetna’’ (Arguedas, short of, 37–38, 105–6, 221, 251, 258–59;
story), 57–59 semiotic linked to, 23, 35, 57, 71, 73,
‘‘Doña Felipa’’ (character), 123–30, 145, 168–69, 189, 235, 258; silenc-
134–36, 211, 213 ing of, 199–200, 253–56, 259; ster-
dreams, 253 ile, 207; symbolism of, 244; voice of,
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298 INDEX
20, 249. See also bridge(s), feminine Garcı́a Márquez, Gabriel, 225
as; masculine/feminine opposition; Garcialso de la Vega, el Inca, 10, 64,
music, feminine as; nature, feminine 260
as; Other, the, feminine relationship Gazzolo, Ana Marı́a, 24
with; women Geertz, Clifford, 271 n. 33
Feminine Totality, 266 n. 56 gender, 29, 97, 114, 191, 249; social
Fermı́n (character), 151, 154, 157–60, constructs of, 24, 62, 105, 111. See
166, 169–70, 176–83, 185 also feminine, the; masculine, the;
fertility, 29, 31 men; women
festivals. See bullfighting; Yawar Fiesta genres, inserted, 281 n. 14
feudal system, 52, 148, 152, 156, geographies, 9–10, 215; of resistance,
158–59 21, 76–83, 107, 195–96. See also
fiction. See Arguedas, José Marı́a, mapping
works, novels; dominant fiction; and God/gods, 77, 131, 153. See also reli-
individual novels gion
fidelity, 218. See also infidelity; sexu- Gómez Mango, Edmundo, 253–54
ality González, Galo F., 265 n. 39
fish meal/fishing industries, 220–22, González Prada, Manuel, 17, 18
232, 239, 243, 244, 246–48 government, 87–88, 232
focalizers, 127, 178–80 Grandis, Rita de, 144
forastero. See foreignness; outsiders; Grosz, Elizabeth, 200, 203, 272 n. 5
strangers Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe, 10, 48,
‘‘Forastero, El’’ (The Foreigner, Ar- 64, 260, 268 n. 9
guedas), 142 Guimarães Rosa, João, 225, 281 n. 21
foreign interests, 147, 239, 244. See
also United States haciendas, 37, 48, 70, 107, 181; Ar-
foreignness (forasteros), 22, 104, 142, guedas stepmother’s, 11–12, 226; co-
224, 251, 269 n. 34 lonos on, 12, 49–50, 109, 125,
Forgues, Roland, 14, 24, 61–62, 192, 147–48; decline of, 147–48; modern-
220, 263 n. 10, 281 n. 18 ization of, 162; Patibamba, 108, 131
Foucault, Michel, 191–92, 195, 265 n. harawi (song), 170
42 Harrison, Regina, 29
Foxes, The (characters), 220, 223, 227, Harss, Luis, 275 n. 41
229–30, 239–43, 252–53, 255–56 hatred, 60, 62, 83, 119–20
fragmentation, 99, 164, 191, 249, 251; Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl, 194,
masculine causes of, 113–14, 151; in 278 n. 4
prison, 194–95, 209, 211–13 heterogeneity. See Peru, heterogeneity
Freud, Sigmund, 21, 283 n. 3 of; space(s), heterogeneous
Frosh, Stephen, 32 heterotopia, 195
Fuentes, Carlos, 225 hierarchies: gender, 152; racial, 152,
158; social, 152–55, 159, 202
Gabriel (character), 190–96, 198–200, history, loss of, 19. See also autobiog-
202–3, 207–8, 210–15 raphy/history opposition
games, 69, 114 Hobsbawm, E. J., 265 n. 31
gamonales, 48–50, 59, 64–65; fight Hoffman, Lola (psychiatrist), 14
against, 72, 92, 145; rapes by, 12, home, search for, 105, 141. See also un-
27–28, 62, 143, 168, 179, 216–17, homeliness
250; violence of, 23, 61, 68, 87, 216– homosexuality, 190, 197, 199–200
17. See also landowners hope, 190, 247, 254, 255–56, 280 n. 3.
Garcı́a Antenaza, Jorge, 272 n. 2 See also despair
Garcı́a Calderón, Ventura, 17, 145–46 huak’cho. See orphanhood
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INDEX 299
Huanupata (barrio), 107–8, 121, 130– independent, 147; loss of land, 86;
32, 245 marginalization of, 151, 158, 174–
Huarochirı́ manuscript, 280 n. 2 75, 247; modernization and, 17–18,
Huarochirı́ myth, 220 276 n. 21; sexuality of, 218–19;
huaynos (songs), 13, 49, 70, 90, 119, status of, 154–55; stories of, 229;
132–37, 140, 198, 247, 274 n. 30 urban, 124–25; U.S. oppression of,
huérfano. See orphanhood 209. See also colonos; cumuneros;
human life, 31, 202, 205 de-Indianization; ponga/os; white/In-
humanity, 66, 217–18 dian opposition; women/Indian con-
hybrid displacing spaces, 132, 151, nection
222, 243–55 indigenismo/indigenista: literature of,
hybrid intellectual: apprenticeship of, 17, 18, 26, 45–46, 97, 184, 264 n. 19;
209–15; Arguedas’s concept of, 56– narrative of, 94–95
57, 134, 258; failure of, 222, 224; indigenous culture, 27, 36–37, 257,
feminine and, 38, 104–41, 224; for- 262 n. 2; as alternative, 121–41; Ar-
mation of, 20–23, 37–38, 72–73, guedas’s love for, 11, 16–20, 93,
105, 191, 216, 219, 221–23; as medi- 104; complexity of, 97; European
ator, 212–13; products of, 142; as culture and, 111; exclusion of, 106;
traveler, 203–4, 208–9, 229; voice feminine connection to, 10, 23–26,
of, 10, 140, 223–26, 256; young, 66, 160–68, 249, 258; and focalizers,
61–66 155, 180; identification with, 56; ma-
ternal aspects of, 122–23; modern-
Icaza, Jorge, 17 ization and, 18, 276 n. 21, 277 n. 30;
ideas, actions and, 210 music of, 140, 261; narratives of, 21,
identity: European bourgeois, 265 n. 42; 52–53, 65, 74, 95; Peruvian, 32, 34,
lack of, 109, 203; mestizo, 55–56; 222–23; prostitution of, 226; as re-
moveable, 19; normative, 20; Peru- deemers, 54, 129; representations of,
vian, 32, 76, 86, 95; search for, 253 32–33, 63, 81, 224–25; and resis-
ideology, importance of, 20 tance to dominant culture, 46–47, 52,
imaginary, Peruvian national, 141, 98, 103, 112–13; semiotic linked to,
265 n. 31; dominant, 9–10, 122, 189, 35; sexuality in, 216–19; Sierra,
201; oppositions in, 85–86, 104; rev- 19–20; subordination of, 63, 255–56;
olution in, 47–48, 204; Sierra, 45– in urban worlds, 124–25, 132, 272 n.
46, 73, 229 1. See also Andean culture; dominant
immigrants, serrano, 221, 222–23, 240, culture/indigenous culture opposi-
244, 255 tion; Western culture/indigenous cul-
imperialism, 194, 209, 214 ture opposition; Western-indigenous
impotence, 151, 156 connections
in-between, the, 59, 268 n. 5 indigenous mestiza/os, 55–56, 75–76,
Incas, 110, 193, 247, 266 n. 57 88–89, 94, 105, 171, 173, 245; cul-
independence, degrees of, 49 ture of, 20, 90, 127, 265 n. 31; edu-
Indian mestiza/os, 146, 262–63 n. 5 cated, 92, 100; violence against,
indianismo/indianista, 17, 18, 25, 97 216–17, 256
Indians: accomplishments of, 93–94, indigenous peoples, 9–10, 17–19, 36,
100, 103, 175–78; Andean, 33, 160–61, 262–63 n. 5; accomplish-
157–58; Arguedas’s life among, 61, ments of, 93–94, 100, 103, 173; Ar-
225; characteristics of, 56, 114, 210, guedas’s love for, 93, 212; authority
263 n. 6; as characters, 46, 92, 157– of, 75; connections with, 57–60,
58, 161; culture of, 48–49, 61, 111, 209–10; cosmology, 30–31, 183; en-
214; dances of, 99, 100; de-viriliza- ergy of, 93–94, 101–2, 113, 115,
tion of, 61–62; domination of, 245; 139, 175–76; gamonales’ treatment
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300 INDEX
of, 48–49, 50; marginalization of, La Kurku (character), 168–72, 177,

22–23, 109–10, 120–21, 132, 150– 179, 201, 211
51, 174–75, 183, 201, 221; migra- La Opa (character), 114, 116, 128–30,
tions of, 66–67, 91; modernization 136–37, 201
and, 147; narrative of, 95; power of, Lahuaymarca (Peru), 146–47, 156–61,
63, 83, 98; representations of, 17, 79; 175–76
resistance by, 56, 78–79; speech of, Lakritz, Andrew, 281–82 n. 27
52–53, 266–67 n. 63; strength of, land: appropriation of, 81–83, 86; lack
101–2, 110, 214, 226, 247–48. See of, 61–62; power from, 52–53, 153,
also communities, indigenous; Peru, 184
indigenous; white-indigenous con- landowners, 109–11, 114–15, 137–38,
nection; white/indigenous opposi- 159, 178. See also gamonales; Viejo/
tion; women, indigenous pongo opposition
individualism, 159, 231 Landreau, John C., 268 n. 19
industries, 214, 221, 231–32, 236 language(s), 204; in Arguedas’s writ-
infidelity, 227. See also fidelity; sexu- ing, 28, 37, 107, 224, 267 n. 65; cul-
ality ture and, 21–22, 32–37, 65;
insects, 163, 228, 234–35 dominant, 82, 248, 254; experimenta-
insiders. See narrators, as insiders tion with, 45–46, 189, 253–54; hier-
insolence, political use of, 125, 127 archizing, 273–74 n. 24; hybrid,
institutions: prisons as, 195, 201; Que- 126–27, 209, 267 n. 65; indigenous,
chua, 148, 214 91, 210, 222; literary, 33–34, 35,
instruments, 77, 84, 134, 261, 274 n. 35 133, 258; loss of, 19; semiotic in, 34,
insults, 69, 99, 268 n. 14 205, 235. See also Quechua lan-
integration, 276 n. 21 guage; Spanish language
intellectuals: as bridges, 139; mestiza/o, Latin America: indigenous peoples of,
137, 141, 264 n. 21; Peruvian, 17–19; literature of, 15, 18, 220–21,
140–41; place of, 10, 105, 113; ser- 224–26; in the twentieth century,
rana/o, 21–22. See also hybrid intel- 145–46
lectual Latin American Boom, 263 n. 11
interactions, 21, 191 Law: as masculine, 59, 106–7, 138; op-
intimacy, 108 pression of, 85, 136; representatives
Inti-Pucarapaxi, Achiq Pacha, 266 n. 56 of, 102, 109; symbolic, 34, 162, 164;
intuition, 122, 158, 165–67 Western, 32, 81–82
Irigaray, Luce, 26–27, 36, 172, 277 n. layk’a, 271 n. 32
25 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 29, 265–66 n. 46
isolation, 113, 116–18, 122, 231. See Lienhard, Martı́n, 223, 227, 244, 253,
also solitude 254
life, death and, 222. See also death;
Jesus Christ, 155, 175 human life
Jiménez, Luis A., 24, 274 n. 26 light, 116–18, 163, 213, 217–18, 235;
John XXIII (pope), 232 electric, 245–46; as focalizing ele-
jungle, 238 ment, 46, 89–90, 104, 106, 127–28,
173, 206, 250–51, 272 n. 2; songs
k’anra, 268 n. 14 compared to, 134–35. See also dark-
Kauri (Peru), 275 n. 13 ness
Keith, Michael, 21 Lima (Peru): corruption in, 197, 203,
kimichu, 274 n. 37 210; culture of, 86–88, 106, 264 n.
Kristeva, Julia, 34–35, 71, 122, 128, 30; isolation from, 19; migrations to,
138, 202, 204–5, 207, 208, 224, 249, 91–92, 100, 149–50; natives of, 141;
276–77 n. 24 nature in, 196–97; roads to, 75, 76,
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INDEX 301
91, 93; whites from, 94; women writ- 32, 265–66 n. 46; destructiveness of,
ers from, 259 27, 170; in Peruvian society, 34, 106,
Lindstrom, Naomi, 238 244; in Western culture, 10, 266 n. 53
literature: imported, 253; Latin Ameri- Masculine Totality, 266 n. 56
can, 15, 18, 220–21, 224–26; mes- masturbation, 116–17
tiza/o, 264 n. 21; Quechua, 148 maternal, the, 57, 205, 254; in Argued-
López Albújar, Enrique, 17, 25 ian narrative, 27, 32, 121–23, 161,
loss, 19, 215 248; in serrano culture, 209, 244–45.
love, 27 See also feminine, the; motherhood;
love/hatred opposition, 263 n. 6 women
Lucanas province (Peru), 74 Matilde (character), 160–61, 164–66,
179–80, 182–83, 185
MacCormack, Carol P., 265–66 n. 46 Matto de Turner, Clorinda, 17, 25–26,
Macha (tribe), 30 266–67 n. 63, 276 n. 22, 276–77 n. 24
mafia, 231–32, 235, 236 Maywa, Felipe, 12, 225, 226
magical realism, 220, 280 n.9 meanings, 34, 104, 138, 215, 221
male-female relationships, 104, 141, mediators, 109, 133, 151, 268 n. 9; fem-
142, 219, 245 inine as, 104, 106, 121–41, 165, 250;
Malverde-Disselkoen, Ivette, 24 narrators as, 111, 113, 143
mamacha, 70. See also maternal, the; memory, 122, 236–37, 239; space of,
motherhood 108–9, 116–18, 209; time of, 112–
mapping: Arguedian, 206, 209; corpo- 13, 131; traveling through, 213–14,
real, 81, 85, 191, 205, 214–15; indig- 219
enous, 81; Highland town, 37, men: Andean, 244; salvation of, 172,
74–103. See also geographies; re- 248; serrano, 67, 146–47, 236; West-
mapping ern, 27, 75; white, 24, 119, 121–22,
‘‘Mar de harina’’ (Sea of Fishmeal, Ar- 153. See also domination, masculine;
guedas), 216 male-female relationships; mascu-
marginalization: double, 228–29, line, the; masculine/feminine opposi-
250–51; in prison, 207, 211. See also tion
indigenous peoples, marginalization mesticismo, 19
of; Peru, marginalization of; vagos; mestizaje, 175–85; Arguedas’s ideal of,
women, marginalization of; writers/ 31, 123, 139, 141, 244, 247; hetero-
writing, marginalized geneity and, 107–13; transculturation
Marı́a de la Torre, Luz, 266 n. 56 and, 18–19; utopian, 220
Mariátegui, José Carlos, 18, 52, 92, mestiza/os, 50, 78, 132, 154–55, 156,
100, 194, 264 n. 19, 278 n. 4 161–63; accomplishments of, 93–94;
Marı́n, Gladys C., 279 n. 33 as alternative subjects, 161–63,
Martı́nez, Gregorio, 259 175–77; in Arguedian national vi-
Marxism, 52, 55, 194, 209, 242–43 sion, 23–24, 49, 57; coastal, 222–23;
masculine, the: in Arguedian national education of, 272–73 n. 13; failure of,
vision, 185; criticism of, 145, 103; land ownership, 153; literature
146–47; domination by, 20, 59, 71, of, 10, 264 n. 21; music of, 132–37;
249, 254; loss of, 61–62, 94; mestizo resistance by, 123–28, 273 nn. 19,
instruments as, 134; models of, 113– 22; serrana, 13, 147, 257; sexuality
21, 180; in Quechua cosmology, 180, of, 218–19. See also cultural mestiza/
230–31; role of, 105–7, 111, 145, os; Indian mestiza/os; indigenous
156–62; violence of, 50, 87, 113–16, mestiza/os
158, 168, 216–19, 277 n. 27. See also Mexico, Peru compared to, 107, 141
dominant culture, masculine; men Mignolo, Walter, 25
masculine/feminine opposition, 23, 29– migrations, 20, 74–76, 86, 221–23, 260
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302 INDEX
military, 82 Nancy, Jean Luc, 211

mines, U.S., 209 narrative: focalizers, 178–80; influ-
Mishkin, Bernard, 275 n. 13 ences on, 96–97; new, 17; semiotic
misogyny, 38, 62 in, 84–85; structure of, 28; tech-
missionaries, 273 n. 16 niques of, 106, 140, 147, 176, 244.
mistis, 50, 68, 93–94, 98, 109; culture See also Arguedian narrative; Peru,
of, 75–76, 115, 119, 121; failure of, narrative of
103; hatred of, 61, 65; oppression by, narrators: ethnographer-like, 142–45;
52–54, 85–86, 95, 99, 132; poor, 72, first-person, 10, 65, 108, 143; and
88; in Puquio, 79–80, 83–84, 91, identification with feminine, 122–23,
101–3; serrano, 81, 90 160–61; indigenous, 52–54, 137–38,
modalities, 34 223; as insiders, 70–71, 76–77, 80,
modernity/tradition opposition, 31, 54, 95, 143; as mediators, 111, 113, 143;
109 movement of, 23, 105, 118; as pro-
modernization: Andean, 75–76, jections of Arguedas, 56, 57, 190,
145–49; fear of, 179–80; feminine 222; as protagonist, 61–72, 97, 109,
role in, 156, 164; Indians’ role in, 150–51, 169–70, 173–74, 176, 185,
17–18, 276 n. 21; Peruvian, 22, 37, 190, 200, 208–9, 212–13, 250–51
154, 233; threats to, 165; unre- nation, 121–22, 172, 264 n. 30, 265 n.
strained, 222 31. See also Peru
Moi, Toril, 38 national subject(s): alternative, 90, 121,
money, power of, 247, 282 n. 34 137–38, 175–77, 209, 213; new, 75–
Montoya, Rodrigo, 270 n. 22 76, 85, 113, 130, 146, 191, 221; Peru-
moon, 228 vian, 10, 11, 21, 37, 55–57, 121, 141.
Moore, Melissa, 24, 273 n. 22 See also Arguedian national vision;
Moreiras, Alberto, 220–21, 247, subjects
280 nn. 6 and 9 nationality, 220, 222
motherhood, 224, 249–50. See also ma- nation-building, women’s role in, 161,
ternal, the 183–84, 277 n. 31
movement, 91, 118, 234, 249; of na- nation-space, 10, 259
tional subjects, 21, 23; within prison, nature, 66–69, 104, 116–18, 121–22,
191, 193 158, 184, 217–18; communing with,
Muñoz, Silverio, 68 218; culture and, 66, 121, 137–38;
music: carnival, 260; feminine as, 23, death and, 174; feminine as, 23, 25,
66, 69, 73, 85, 106, 143, 145, 189, 29, 57, 73, 106–7, 143, 161, 163–64,
215, 258, 261; as focalizing element, 189, 196–97, 217, 248, 254–55; as
272 n. 2; indigenous, 9, 77, 104, 226; focalizing element, 206; as resis-
in prison, 196–98; Quechua, 82, 144, tance, 37, 103, 235; semiotic in, 239;
148, 170, 228; as resistance, 37, 74, sounds of, 81, 133; spirits of, 269 n.
81–85, 96, 101, 103, 198, 206–8; in 32; textual representations of, 34, 36,
Los rios profundos, 132–37; serrano, 237
91, 238–40, 242–43; Spanish, 82; negotiation, 96–97, 125, 215
textual representations of, 34–35, 63, Neira, Hugo, 273 n. 19
237; unity through, 249–50. See also neoindigenismo literature, 17, 18
bullfighting, music for; dance; instru- New Narrative, 17
ments; singing/songs New York City, Arguedas travels to,
musician, blind (character), 232–33, 228–29
240, 243 nonrational, the, 32, 121, 161, 166–67,
mythology, 20, 253; Andean, 143; Hu- 254
arochirı́, 226, 239; time of, 112–13, norms, 75–76. See also values
241; Vicos, 29–30; Western, 27 North America, culture of, 241–42
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INDEX 303
nothingness, 128 ‘‘Pelón, El’’ (The Bald Man, Arguedas),
novels, 32, 109, 222. See also Ar- 216
guedas, José Marı́a, works, novels; Peru: Arguedas’s vision of, 16–20, 185,
coast, novels of 249–50; corruption in, 195; Euro-
pean influence in, 254, 264 n. 30;
objects, 121, 204–5 fragmentation of, 104, 106–7, 147,
Oedipus complex, 283 n. 23 203, 212; heterogeneity of, 16, 23,
O’Gorman, Edmundo, 25 48, 104, 107–13, 137–38, 183, 190,
Ollé, Carmen, 259 195–96, 223, 260; history of, 104,
oppositions: in dominant fiction, 121; 214; identity of, 32, 76, 86, 95; indig-
interplay of, 28–31, 106, 137–38, enous, 90, 214, 222–23; literature of,
150, 263 n. 6; series of, 104–6, 221, 224; mapping of, 9–10, 189,
108–9, 146; symbolic, 20, 29. See 209, 214; marginalization of, 16,
also Arguedian narrative, oppositions 239; modernization of, 37, 145, 159,
in; Peruvian culture, oppositions in; 175, 185, 260; narrative of, 10, 23,
and specific types of oppositions 25, 35, 74, 76, 191, 275 n. 5; new,
oppression: identification with, 239, 130, 184, 212; politics of, 102, 194,
242; indigenous, 17, 31, 102; by 243–44; psychosis of, 34–35, 121,
Law, 136; racial, 27, 28–29; resis- 254; spaces of, 21, 105–6; and West-
tance to, 37, 47–48, 50, 61, 155. See ern ideals, 158–69. See also Andes;
also women, oppression of Arguedian national vision; coast; Si-
oqllo, 281 n. 20 erra; and individual cities
oral/written opposition, 31, 223 Peruvian Communist Party, 13, 194,
order, 106, 124 210, 278 n. 4, 279 n. 17
orphanhood (huérfano), 71, 82, 104, Peruvian culture, 38, 56, 73, 103, 257;
122, 213, 224, 269 n. 34. See also un- oppositions in, 45–46, 90, 104; semi-
homeliness otic in, 239
Ortega, Julio, 222, 232, 272 n. 11 Pile, Steve, 21, 47, 95, 101, 191, 195,
Ortiz, Fernando, 18, 19 206
Ortiz Rescaniere, Alejandro, 30
place, search for, 208–9. See also
Ortiz Reyes, José, 278 n. 5
home, search for
Other, the, 122, 265 n. 42; death of,
211; discourse of, 20, 119–20, 128, Platt, Tristan, 30–31, 266 n. 53
253; feminine relationship with, 25, plots, 28. See also specific novels
27, 164, 167; influence of, 84–85, political prisoners, 190, 191, 193–94,
180, 224; objectified, 33; Peruvian, 195–96, 202
239; spaces of, 47, 247, 272 n. 10; politics, 82, 200; use of insolence in,
symbolic, 204; violence toward, 62 125, 127; Western, 121–22. See also
outsiders (forasteros), 82–83, 114 apristas; communists; Marxism;
Peru, politics of
Pachachaca River, 107–8, 130–31, Pollarollo, Giovanna, 259
138–39 ponga/os, 49–50, 161, 211, 234–35; as
pacha kuti (pachacutic), 31 cultural mestiza/os, 177–78; land
Pachamama, 269 n. 32 ownership, 153; marginalization of,
Padre Horán, El (Aréstegui), 17 168–69, 201, 204; nothingness of,
Padres Linares (character), 119–21 128, 250–51. See also Viejo/pongo
Pantigoso, Edgardo J., 196 opposition
Paraybamba (Peru), 149, 181 port, 244–45. See also Chimbote (Peru)
past, present melded with, 108, 109, Portal, Magda, 278 n. 4
112–13, 118, 179 position, 191
Patibamba hacienda, 108, 131 positivism, Latin American, 35
patios, 71, 116–18, 192–93, 245 power, 95, 191, 197; community, 49,
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304 INDEX
67–68; conflict and, 246; discourse 230–31; homosexuality among, 197;

of, 78; feminine, 107, 166; force of, strength of, 83, 148
101, 234; indigenous, 63, 83, 98; Quechua/Spanish opposition, 223
masculine, 26–27, 115, 172; resis-
tance to, 83, 195, 205–7, 212; tactics race, 111; divisions of, 48, 92, 140,
of, 47, 51–52, 67 221; marginalization of, 27, 28–29,
Pratt, Mary Louise, 270 n. 14, 277 n. 31 228–29; melding, 107; power in,
prayers, 226–27. See also religion 191, 244
preaching, 144 racism, 27, 114, 119–20, 125, 265 n. 42
present, past melded with, 108, 109, Radcliffe, Sarah A., 277 n. 31
112–13, 118, 179 Rama, Ángel, 18–19, 115–16, 128,
priest (character), 82, 240–42
133, 249, 264 n. 21, 281 n. 21
principales, 84, 87–88, 92, 102
prisons, 191–94, 213–14. See also Ar- rapes, 26, 172; Arguedas witnesses, 12,
guedas, José Marı́a, prison time; El 216–17, 226–27, 265 n. 31; by gamo-
Sexto prison nales, 27–28, 61–62, 143, 168, 179,
private/public opposition, 22 250–51; in prison, 190, 206
property. See land rationality, 32, 106
prophecy, 253 readers, 76, 78–81, 85–86, 95–96
prosperity, 49 reality, 33, 93, 118, 148, 252
prostitutes/prostitution, 26, 132, 216, reason-emotion opposition, 168
219; black, 226–28; coastal, 221, rebellion(s): chicheras, 106, 120, 123–
232, 239, 244–46; prison, 190, 201; 30, 276 n. 23; discourse of, 53, 242,
serrana-mestiza, 245–46, 248–49; 259–60; indigenous, 55, 67, 83,
song of, 248–52, 254–55; white, 101–2, 103, 147, 183, 278 n. 3; mu-
246–47 sic’s role in, 198; prison, 207; over
protagonists. See characters; narrators, water distribution, 65–68, 80; women
as protagonists involved in, 24, 273 n. 22. See also
protests. See rebellion(s); resistance comuneros, uprisings; resistance
provincial/cosmopolitan opposition, 16 rebirth, 142–45, 179
punaruna, 82–83, 86 reciprocity, 270 n. 16
Puquio (Peru), 11, 74–103 redeemers, women as, 24, 26, 104,
purification, 26, 217 122–23, 163–65, 168–69, 172, 197,
217, 248
Quechua culture, 142–45, 149, 262 n. redemption, 179, 203
2; oppositions in, 106; symbols of, reductionism, socioeconomic, 232
89, 241–42, 272 n. 10, 275–76 n. 19; regeneration, 107, 163–64
transformation in, 49, 52–53, 65, religion, 82, 153; Andean, 280 n. 2;
255, 278 n. 3 Quechua, 148. See also Catholic
Quechua language, 29, 35, 74; in Ar- Church; Christianity
guedas’s writings, 32–34, 82, 97, remapping, 195, 212, 214–15
139–40, 209, 228–29, 263 n. 10; lit- Rendón Wilka (character), 162, 165–
erature of, 254; as mother tongue, 92, 66, 173, 180–85
148, 213; rendered into Spanish, 45– representation, 107
46, 49, 52–53, 65, 94–95, 267 n. 65, reproduction, 29
275–76 n. 19; singing in, 134, 170, resistance: acts of, 144, 206–7, 209,
172–73, 223, 250; speaking, 11, 14– 212, 222; geographies of, 21, 76–83,
16, 88–89, 111, 114, 127–28, 159, 107, 195–96; indigenous, 57, 64, 66,
171, 262–63 n. 5 79–80, 94; narratives of, 204; spaces
Quechua people: Arguedas’s love for, of, 20, 32, 45–47, 52, 71, 95, 98–99,
225; cosmology of, 30–31, 131, 195, 218. See also dance, as resis-
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INDEX 305
tance; music, as resistance; rebel- scissor dance, 98–100, 101, 137, 142–
lion(s) 45, 236–37, 271 n. 34
resymbolization, 95, 101 Scorza, Manuel, 17, 258, 282–83 n. 2
reterritorialization, 95, 101 self, the, 191, 199
rhythm, textual representations of, 237. semiotic elements, 63–64, 102–4; ab-
See also music jection of, 202–3; in characters, 109,
Rı́os profundos, Los (Deep Rivers, Ar- 128, 224; coastal, 196–97, 207; femi-
guedas), 12, 104–41, 182; Arguedian nine as, 23, 35, 57, 71, 73, 145, 168–
vision in, 14, 103, 121–41, 210–11; 69, 189, 235, 258; idea-action
conclusion of, 279–80 n. 39; femi- relationship, 210; music as, 132–36,
nine in, 37, 122, 147, 185, 189; hy- 238–39, 249–50; in narrative space,
brid intellectual in, 22, 56–57, 72; 84–85, 87, 98, 100; rivers as,
masculine in, 156; movement in, 118; 131–32; symbolic contrasted with,
music in, 132–37, 198, 234, 249; nar- 34–35, 66, 81, 100, 135–36, 138,
rator of, 108, 143, 150–51, 226, 144, 170, 203–5, 228, 252–56; tex-
269 n. 22; plot, 105–6; religion in, tual, 232, 234–37, 242–43
153; semiotic in, 233; sexuality in, serrana/os: characteristics of, 89–91,
245; symbolism in, 127, 130–32, 255–56; culture of, 64, 87, 99, 114,
141, 193; women in, 24, 28, 276 n. 23 240, 257, 262 n. 2; displaced, 149–
rivers, 213, 228; bridges and, 138–39; 50, 239, 247; honoring, 212; migra-
feminine linked to, 118, 130–32, tions of, 55–56, 91–92, 94, 221,
272 n. 10; songs of, 9, 163–64. See 230–32; survival of, 280 n. 3. See
also Amazon River; Apurı́mac River; also men, serrano; prostitutes/prosti-
Pachachaca River tution, serrana-mestiza
Roa Bastos, Augusto, 19 servants, 109–11. See also colonos
roadways, construction of, 75, 76, 91, sexes. See feminine, the; gender; mas-
93, 100 culine, the; men; women
Romanticism, 60 sexism, 38, 114, 265 n. 42
Romero, Raúl, 274 n. 35 Sexto, El (Arguedas), 45, 142, 185,
Rosaldo, Renato, 271 n. 33 189–215, 216; Arguedas’s vision in,
Rowe, William, 31, 85, 108, 210, 249, 13, 38, 210, 220; conclusion of, 279–
266 n. 57, 267 n. 70, 276 n. 20, 278 n. 80 n. 39; hybrid intellectual, 22;
3, 279–80 n. 39 music in, 234; plot in, 190; popular-
Rulfo, Juan, 19, 224, 225, 281 n. 21 ity of, 278 n. 2; spaces in, 193
ruling classes: corruption of, 165–66; sexuality, 31, 191, 216–19, 244–45;
men in, 113, 151; modernizing Arguedas’s view of, 20, 226–27,
forces, 158–59; serrano, 153; white, 248, 265 n. 39, 277 n. 27; commer-
56, 61; women in, 161–63 cialization of, 281 n. 22; female, 26–
‘‘Runa yupay’’ (The Census, Ar- 27, 205, 277 nn. 25 and 27; male,
guedas), 267 n. 1 26–27, 115–17, 128, 277 nn. 25 and
27. See also Arguedas, José Marı́a,
salt rebellion, 123–28 sexuality of; homosexuality; prosti-
salvation, 273 n. 16 tutes/prostitution; rapes
Sánchez Cerro, Luis, 279 n. 17 shawl, symbolism of, 129–30
San Marcos University riot, 189, 277– Shining Path, 259, 273 n. 19, 282–83 n.
78 n. 1, 278 n. 5 2
San Pedro (Peru), 146–47, 156–61, Showalter, Elaine, 63
175–76 Sierra: character of, 86, 168; cities of,
Santos Chocano, José, 18 119, 121; coastal communications
Schelling, Vivian, 31, 108, 266 n. 57 with, 19–20, 237; culture of, 10, 13,
schools. See boarding schools 19–20, 112, 209, 213, 262 n. 2; indig-
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306 INDEX
enous culture of, 102, 153, 229, 105–6, 195; mapping of, 191–96,
275 n. 13; isolation of, 148; life in, 209, 212–15; masculine, 37, 118–19,
45–46, 48–50; mapping of, 74–103; 272 n. 10; mobilizing, 95–103,
migrations from, 23, 220, 260; mod- 112–13; narrative, 77, 95, 98, 142,
ernization of, 11, 18–19, 55–56, 151, 189, 200–201, 223, 245,
145–49, 154, 156–57; music of, 198, 258–59; subjects and, 20–23, 272 n.
232–33, 242–43; narrative of, 21, 37, 5; white, 83. See also boarding
46, 73–74, 199; nature in, 196–97, schools; hybrid displacing spaces;
228; novels of, 145, 185, 201–3, 209, patios; prisons; resistance, spaces of;
222, 226, 249; people of, 11, 247; third space
problems of, 92, 102; purity of, Spanish/Indian opposition, 18
213–14; redemption of, 176; semi- Spanish/indigenous opposition, 138
feudal system of, 52; sexuality of, 29; Spanish language: in Arguedas’ narra-
society of, 19–20, 48, 100, 109, 113, tive, 33–34, 240, 248; literary, 16–
154–55; spaces of, 105; women of, 20, 32; official, 148; Quechua
24. See also coast/Sierra opposition; language rendered into, 45–46, 49,
Cuzco (Peru) 52–53, 65, 94–95, 223, 267 n. 65,
sign/signification, 34, 104, 138, 215, 275–76 n. 19; speaking, 11, 55–56,
221 171, 266–67 n. 63
silences, 34, 199–200, 253–56, 259 Spanish/Quechua opposition, 31
Silverblatt, Irene, 269 n. 32 speech: authority of, 134; hybrid, 126–
Silverman, Kaja, 20, 265 n. 31 27, 275–76 n. 19; as mediator, 126;
sinfulness, 179, 277 n. 25 of the Other, 128. See also lan-
singing/songs: feminine aspects of, 57, guage(s)
69; indigenous, 49, 90, 97, 148, 217– spirits, 143, 144, 156, 269 n. 32
18, 237–38; in prison, 193, 198, Spitta, Sylvia, 19, 149, 264 n. 22
206–8, 211; of prostitutes, 248–52, Spivak, Gayatri, 36–37
254–55; textual representations of, stagnation, 151, 154
35–36, 69–70, 237. See also bull- state, 138, 165
fighting, music for; harawi; huayno state/traditional communities opposi-
skin color, 28, 111. See also race tion, 121
smells, 117, 245 Stephenson, Marcia, 25
Smith, Anna, 203 strangers (forasteros), 269 n. 34
snakes. See amaru; auki strategies, nonverbal, 238
socialism, 184 strength, indigenous, 101–2, 103, 110,
socialization, 114 113
society. See dominant society; Western subalternity, 31, 259
society subjectivities, 10, 21, 165–66, 235
solidarity, 194–95, 212 subjects, 46, 200–203, 272 n. 5; map-
solitude, 142, 268 n. 9, 269 n. 34. See ping of, 191–96, 209, 211–12,
also isolation 214–15; narrative, 33–34, 142; semi-
sound, 133, 217–18, 267 n. 70; in El otic in, 224; spaces and, 20–23; tex-
Sexto prison, 196–98, 215; as focal- tual representation of, 258–59. See
izing element, 46, 87, 89–90, 104, also national subject(s)
106, 128, 173 subversion, 101, 184, 247
space(s), 32, 107–8, 116–18, 120–21, suffering, 174–75, 263 n. 6, 273 n. 16,
123, 125–26; alternative, 74, 85, 279 n. 29; in prison, 201, 210–11,
208–9, 213, 215, 221; decaying, 65; 213; of women, 23–24, 217
feminine, 37, 106–7, 118, 130–32, suicide, 152, 155. See also Arguedas,
272 n. 10; heterogeneous, 19, 23, José Marı́a, suicide
105; impure, 87; juxtaposition of, 46, sun, 31, 228
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INDEX 307
survival, 32, 204, 240, 280 n. 3 unhomeliness, 21–23, 58–59, 69; of
symbolic elements, 28–29, 98, 130–33, Arguedas, 12, 225; of hybrid intellec-
168–69, 173, 210, 234–35; music as, tual, 62, 71–72, 209; literary, 97,
140; in Peruvian society, 106; semi- 105, 141, 258–59; space of, 108–9,
otic contrasted with, 34–35, 64, 66, 132, 213. See also orphanhood;
81, 100, 135–36, 138, 144, 170, vagos
203–5, 228, 250, 252–56; textual, United States: Arguedas’s travels to,
239 228–29; imperialism of, 209, 232;
organizations of, 222
Tambobamba, song of, 260–61 universalism, 36
Tankayllu, 98–99, 101, 271 n. 34. See universe, conceptualization of, 272 n. 2
also scissor dance Unruh, Vicky Wolff, 133
technology, 214 upper classes, 49, 114, 119, 272–73 n.
third space, 48, 66, 137, 204, 268 n. 5 13; Chitipampa, 272–73 n. 13;
Thrift, Nigel, 191 women in, 28, 272 n. 12. See also rul-
time: contrasting, 81, 105, 112–13, ing classes
146; experimentation with, 74; indig- utopian vision, 184, 195, 220, 266 n. 57
enous concept of, 108; space and,
vagos, 190–91, 193, 195, 197–99,
131, 272 n. 5. See also future, the;
201–7, 211–13
past, present melded with
values, 22, 100, 101–2, 107, 113–21.
tinkis, 67
See also norms
Todas las sangres (All the Bloods, Ar-
varayok (staffbearer), 270–71 n. 29
guedas), 14, 124, 142, 145–85, 216, Vargas Llosa, Mario, 259, 276 n. 20,
264 n. 22; Arguedas’s analysis of, 277 n. 30, 278 n. 8, 283 n. 3
227–28, 254; characters in, 55, 92; vecinos, 48–49, 74, 78, 100, 149, 156–
dialogic structure in, 151, 167–69; 59, 176–78, 218
diversity in, 220; feminine in, 23–24, ‘‘Vengativo, El’’ (Arguedas), 59–60
147, 161–75, 185, 189; goal of, 141, vengeance, 155. See also resistance
146; hybrid intellectual, 37; mascu- Vicenta, 161, 171–72, 175, 180,
line in, 156–61; modernization in, 183–84
75–76, 145–49, 156; music in, Vicos, myth of, 29–30
234–35; narrator, 143, 145, 150–51, Viejo/pongo opposition, 109–11, 113,
169–70; opening scene of, 151–56; 137–38
Peru in, 147; religion in, 153; treat- violence, 28, 62, 132; against Indians,
ment of women in, 28, 250–51, 119–20; masculine, 50, 87, 113–16,
279 n. 29 158, 168, 216–19, 277 n. 27; in
towns. See cities prison, 199–201, 205, 213–14;
tradition/modernity opposition, 146 against women, 23, 25–26, 247. See
traditions, 22, 109, 148 also rapes
tragedy/comedy opposition, 223 vision(s): alternative, 73, 265 n. 31; im-
transculturation, 220–21, 264 n. 22, possible, 213; national, 60; totalizing,
267 n. 65, 280 n. 6, 281 n. 21. See also 142–85. See also Arguedian national
acculturation vision
transformation. See change voice: Arguedas’s, 230, 237; as focaliz-
traveler-readers, 78–81, 85–86, 95–96 ing element, 250; hybrid, 10,
trees, symbolism of, 181 126–27; silencing, 109, 128, 151
truth, 239–40, 246
Túpac Amaru, 259 wakawaka’ras (instrument), 84, 87, 96
Turino, Thomas, 274 nn. 30 and 35 walls, 192–93; Incan, 110, 193, 247.
turupukllay. See bullfighting, indige- See also patios; prisons
nous Waman Puma, 268 n. 9
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308 INDEX
‘‘Warma kuyay (Amor de niño)’’ the; male-female relationships; rapes;

(Puppy Love, Arguedas), 27–28, 50, redeemers, women as
60, 61–65, 66, 190 women-Indian connection, 24–26,
water, songs compared to, 134–35 161–62, 246, 252, 255
water distribution (yuku panchau), 50– women-indigenous connection, 171–75
51, 65–68, 75, 79–80 word(s): of indigenous peoples, 173;
Wen, Siu Kam, 259 power of, 99, 210, 252–54; symbol-
Western culture: assimilation into, 49, ism of, 32, 132–33, 173; written, 81–
119; contact with, 179, 257; domi- 82. See also language(s)
nance of, 35–37, 253–54; and mas- work, 62, 103
culine/feminine opposition, 26–32; workers/mestizos opposition, 146
understanding of, 55–56 working classes, 55, 210, 221, 242,
Western culture-indigenous culture 278 n. 2
connection, 137–38, 184 writers/writing: alternative system of,
Western culture/indigenous culture op- 221; Andean, 33, 229, 253; ethno-
position, 31, 46, 223 graphic, 271 n. 33; Latin American,
Western society, 122, 126, 248 224, 225–26, 263 n. 11; marginal-
Westwood, Sallie, 277 n. 31 ized, 225–26, 259, 281–82 n. 27; Pe-
white/Indian opposition, 223, 263 n. 6 ruvian, 33, 260; as profession, 225,
white-indigenous connection, 57–60, 253; provincial, 11, 15–16, 20, 105,
75–76, 84–85, 134, 181 225–26, 268 n. 19; serrano, 108;
white/indigenous opposition, 48–49, women, 38, 259. See also oral/written
54, 85–86, 109, 119, 121, 146, opposition; and individual writers
175–76; bridges between, 57–60, 134
white mestiza/os, 94, 105, 146, 262– Yawar Fiesta (Arguedas), 11, 13, 16,
63 n. 5 53, 74–103, 104; acculturation in, 93;
whiteness, 87–88, 121, 262–63 n. 5 Arguedas’s commentary on, 271 n.
whites, 146–47, 153, 156; Andean, 49, 30; feminine in, 185; indigenous peo-
115; culture of, 31, 83, 94, 109–11, ples in, 45–46, 94–95, 270 n. 14;
119; Peruvian, 90; ruling classes, 56, modernization theme of, 75–76;
61; sexuality of, 216–19. See also music in, 37, 81–87, 197; narrator in,
men, white; spaces, white; women, 143; plot of, 74, 85
white ‘‘Yawar Fiesta’’ (Arguedas), 53–54, 103
wikullo (game), 68–69, 72, 269 n. 31 yuku panchau. See water distribution
wild zones, 63, 97, 218 Yuyachkani (theatrical collective), 258
winko (toy), 119
women: coastal, 24, 164; education of, zambos, 229
272 n. 12; indigenous, 24, 85; mar- Zavala, Iris, 25
ginalization of, 25, 32, 38, 113–14, Zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, El
151, 158, 162, 166, 169, 228–29, (The Fox from Up Above and the Fox
272 n. 12, 279 n. 29; modern, 274 n. from Down Below, Arguedas), 14,
26, 276–77 n. 24; oppression of, 24, 185, 216, 219–56; Arguedian na-
25, 245; power of, 154, 166; relation- tional vision in, 220; despair in, 35,
ships with, 115–16; resistance by, 191; diary portions of, 22, 73, 220–
123–28; roles of, 23, 30, 62, 97, 106, 29, 238, 253, 256, 281 nn. 14 and 19;
feminine in, 24, 38, 215, 221,
146–47, 161, 171–73, 258; sexuality
244–45; narrative portions of, 256,
of, 216–17, 248, 251; suffering of, 281 n. 22; plot of, 222; success of,
23–24, 174–75; textual representa- 221, 254
tions of, 34, 244–45; violence zorros. See Foxes, The
against, 23, 25–26, 247; white, 24, zumbayllu, 233
28, 57, 115–16. See also feminine,
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Lambright Creating The Hybrid Intellectual - Subject, Space

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Creating

the Hybrid Intellectual

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Associated University Presses

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

printed in the united states of america

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Part I: The Narrative Set on the Coast

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IT IS FORMULAIC TO SAY THAT MANY HAVE HELPED ONE ON THE JOUR-

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IN AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAY, JOSÉ MARÍA ARGUEDAS WRITES

This passage succinctly and beautifully captures those aspects of

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national cultural imagination to open itself up to the Andes, to ac-

Arguedas: A Brief Biography

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conquer, I became depressed. . . . The horrible childhood and ado-

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mental positions, including Conservator and later head of the

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Arguedian Narrative in Its Critical Context

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genistas Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala, 1899–1974) and Ro-

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Creating the Hybrid Intellectual: Space and Subject

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cross-cultural initiation. The recesses of the domestic space become

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Aspects of the Feminine/The Feminine as Code

Female characters, ‘‘feminized’’ male characters, elements asso-

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las sangres expresses, it is precisely women’s suffering that con-

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from the coast, defends an indigenous family against injustices suf-

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digenous Irma of Diamantes y pedernales and the indigenous-

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jandro Ortiz Rescaniere notes a similar treatment of the concept and

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In this study, when I speak of the masculine and the feminine in

Language and Culture:

For Arguedas, indigenous culture is both a product and an instru-

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dean pronunciation of a Spanish word or employing Quechua suf-

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are of central importance in Arguedian narrative. These inserted

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