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How the huacas Were: The Language of Substance and Transformation in the Huarochir Quechua
Manuscript
Author(s): Frank Salomon
Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 33, Pre-Columbian States of Being (Spring, 1998),
pp. 7-17
Published by: President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology
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How

the huacas

were

The language of substance and transformation in the

Huarochiri Quechua manuscript
FRANKSALOMON

Two of the most

important verbs relevant to Andean

concepts of being have already been well dealt with by
researchers: camay, or roughly "to animate, to impart
specific form and force" in G. Taylor's article
and hua?uy, or "to die" in Urioste's article
(1974-1976);
about existence
(1981).1 Other clues to assumptions
in
Duviols's
and
(1978)
appear
Taylor's (1980)
seems
of upani, or roughly "shade," which
clarifications
Quechua
supay, or "demon." This
further
essay
usages and implications of the
lexicon about being and substance and transformation
of beings as we know them from the one and only
related to colonial
sketches

early text that presents an Andean belief

an Andean
in
system
language, namely the anonymous
of
Huarochiri
(circa 1608; for
Quechua
manuscript
see
Salomon
and Urioste
translations,
Taylor 1987;
available

1991). It is important to understand at the start that,

while the Huarochiri
book contains origin myths,
legends, and priestly lore of clearly pre-Hispanic
the colonial Quechua
derivation,
language and the
inwhich
writing practices
they are expressed by 1608
had been much

influenced by the Church's

labors
the former "Language of the Inca" into
1991, Duviols
interlingua (Mannheim
and Itier 1993). Thus the concepts of being implicit in
are
colonial Quechua
language and writing practices
not necessarily disconnected
from the largely
toward making
an evangelical

Aristotelian
and Augustinian
discussion
philosophic
lies in the background
of Peruvian evangelization.
The source for the Quechua
is a
manuscript

that

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

Quechua

rephonologized.

the latter. The master argument of the manuscript

concerns
how a group of formerly marginal herding
under the
lineages rooted in the high tundra advanced
patronage of the mountain
deity Paria Caca into the
richer middle and then lower valleys, conquering
the
same
at
Yunca
time
and
the
peoples,
aboriginal
welding
into the complex
themselves
ritual regimen the Yuncas
had possessed.
Itaccords great importance to the
is in some
aboriginal female deity Chaupi ?amca, who
Paria
Caca's
ways
counterpart.
down-valley
Ifwe curb assumptions
that "verbs of being" in the
to familiar notions of
Quechua
manuscript
correspond
in their semantic
and
being
becoming,
regularities
domains

and usages emerge and become

useful for
the
view.
world
manuscript's
interpreting
implicit
use the word
In this discussion
Iwill occasionally

not with any claim to discovering

ontology,
ontological
inAndean
categories
thought, but rather using familiar
as an aid to textual
western ontological
categories
the
attributes we think we
exegesis by making explicit
in
assertions
Andean
about
recognize
being, substance,
and change. Panayot Butchvarov
reviews
(1995:490)
sense of "first philosophy,"
in itsAristotelian
ontology
that is, "the study of being qua being, i.e., of the most
that anything must
general and necessary characteristics
have in order to count as a being, an entity (ens).,f The
root problem
in ontology
is that (at least in languages
known to European philosophers)
the range of "things"
that can be subjects of the verb "to be"?that
is, the
can
as
of
be
that
discrete
range
percepts
recognized
in
features on a common
spaciotemporal
grounding?is
most respects a non-set: not apples and oranges, but
apples, events, and abstractions. The common
ontological

categories

are,

in Butchvarov's

summary:

individual things (Socrates, a book)

properties (Socrates' baldness, a book's rectangularity)
relations (marriage, the priority of one book to another)
events (Socrates' death, a book's publication)
states of affairs (Socrates' having died, the fact that a book
is in print)
sets (the set of Greek philosophers or books)

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RES33

Concerns

SPRING1998

of western

heading, which similarly offers an introduction

This instance is not forced into Spanish:

for

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

ymanam

"whether

any entity has essential

not
itwould
i.e.,
properties without which
properties,
exist/' and "whether properties and relations are
(Butchvarov 1995:490).
particulars or universals"
Do the implicitudes of a nonwestern
source, the
us to glimpse
allow
of
Huarochiri,
Quechua
manuscript
momentary";

about problems of this order?

any Andean assumptions
out
the
be
worth
may
trying
following
suggestions.2

1 :Cay and

tiay are in complementary

and dynamic being versus

qualitative

contrast
situated

It

as
being

headings:

anteguam[en]te

ydolos

y como

141

concerns being as
that is, situated. The distinction
versus
as
existence.
situated
This particular
activity
being
the
of
the
concepts by
quotation
separability
highlights
using different tenses; the great female power Chaupi
?amca
"was," "acted" (carcan) in a past-tense
form,
because prior to the time of writing Christians had

1a: Cay denotes

being manifested

qualitative

in action

en

auia

"How

cascan

Point
. . .

or

14 and 126 of the manuscript.

in sections
A being may have either or both of these attributes,
with somewhat different ontological
implications. We
will therefore examine each one separately.

that make anything or anybody ontologically

The
first substantive chapter (Ch. 1) of the
present.
is one of the six that have
Huarochiri manuscript

los

t?an,

occur

attributes

fue

maypim

and ritual ly deactivated

her, but she
already desecrated
at
"is"
the time of writing still "situated" (tian), because
"is" still hidden where
her stone embodiment
she was
buried (at a specified site, Tumna Plaza). Similar contrasts

can start considering

the lexicon of being by
of
the
the
Huarochiri writer tends
that
noting
language
as
to place two verbs of being in contrasting opposition,
if suggesting
them name the
that the two between

Spanish-language

carean

?amca

was and where she is [situated]''

Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec.

and tiascan stand in complementary

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

Here

We

Como

chaupi

Chaupi ?amca

to a huaca.

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

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

There does not appear to be any such semantic

isolate as mere existence,
certainly no verb exclusively
as
to nonexistence.
"to
exist"
The
opposed
glossed by
best colonial
lexicographer, Gonc?lez
Holgu?n,
"ser de essencia o de
understood
cay as meaning
existencia"
("to be, in the sense of essence or of
1952 [1608]:668).
existence," Gonc?lez
Holgu?n
Like similar verbs inmany
languages, cay can function
as a simple copula (for example, pirn canqui, or "who are
you" [Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991: sec. 238]). As an

that posit ontological

necessary to the task
presence?both
that
of introducing huacas,
is, superhuman
beings, but
or
one
to
"ser"
"haber" (or
neither
semantical ly congruent
are
a
in
later chapter's
learn what these verbs
"estar").We

an agentive form
auxiliary verb combined with
habitual action (muchac carcan, or "they used
[Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec.
worship"
Beyond that, cay brackets together cases of

. . . and

How

the Natives

Existed"

Salomon

and

Urioste,

eds.

1991:sec.

The

2.
with

In the examples,
the abbreviation

section
meaning
citation

references
"Ch." and

are made
references

to chapters of the original

are made
to passages
by

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

number,
section

is section-numbered

eds.

1991:sec.

translation.
original,

3)
This

which

specificity
via action
. . .

(of condition,
attribute,
time.
In usages
through

ymanam

casac

?ispa

tapuspam,

it signifies
to
7]).

being as
manifested
identity)
like:
or

".

. .

asking,

saying

'how shall I [orwe] be?'"

Salomon

in parallel.

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and

Urioste,

eds.

1991

:sec.

472

Salomon: How the huacas were

the petitioner merely wants to know a future qualitative

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

cunirayap

cascanracmi

is also often
?ahca

vira

appropriate:
cochap

cascanman

tincon, or "this Cuni Raya's deeds ('nature'? Identity'?)

almost match Vira Cocha's deeds"
Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991 :sec. 7;
see

also

sees.

1, 126

Gerald Taylor, a careful semantic analyst, also includes

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

Point

1b: T/ay denotes

situated

being

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

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

sutilla

runi

escay

runahina

tiacon,

or

"two

stones

just like people are [located] there even now"

Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991 :sec. 18;
see

also

sees.

14, 32,

34,

50,

etc.

Tiay is the verb that seems to emphasize

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

and changing

situation

modify

Various researchers mentioned

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

kinetic,

fleshly,

point has already been well explored by Allen and other

researchers whose work is summarized below. It is useful
to notice, however, that though the myths speak of
purportedly continuous entities?substantial
beings, in the
sense of entities that survive changes of
Aristotelian
refer to them in their successive
property and relations?to
states entails emphasizing
sorts of
different categorical
mean
I
sorts
which
the
of
being, by
being summarized
above

be

called

by Butchvarov. This shifting emphasis might

accent. For example,
change of ontological
being Paria Caca is spoken of as the following:

the

5 eggs
5 falcons
5 heroic "men," collectively
(pichcantin)
a

snowcapped,
and

mountain

double-peaked

storm, red rain and yellow

a person

called "the five of him"

voice

[that

rain, flood and earthslide

is, oracle]

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10

RES 33

SPRING 1998

noted above, that is, by sorting out

to
different sorts of realness we can
percepts according
accord them, but rather by organizing
ontological
in terms of single beings that unite
heterogeneity
sorts of realness and demonstrate
them through
multiple
Aristotelian

then, is Caca the eponym of? The first three

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

L -w
mk

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

^H^BkI^^^HE^^

fashion

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

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

"^sr/^^^:

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

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

Salomon.

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Salomon:

transition can be seen as one segment of a more

inclusive view of life and death in continuum. Duviols

(1978) and Allen (1982) have each independently

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

desiccated

as a
the Spanish word anima, or "spirit") is visualized
small flying creature that departs from the dead person,
much as a seed departs from a dying plant, and
conserves

its vitality in a sacred space, Uma Pacha. In

idolatry trials, some defendants gave voice to an image of
Uma Pacha as being a farm where spirits, like seeds,
could flourish back toward fleshly life. The destination of
souls is sometimes also identified with the origin shrines
a
of ego's group, again emphasizing
circulating principle.
At the highest extreme of permanence,
beings of
actions actually
whose
importance?those
prototypical
existence?are
the
conditions
of
shaped
spoken of as
into everlasting material,
having hardened
or other land features. These most durable

namely

stone

beings
indeed literally become,
the ground on which
provide,
new transient beings emerge. The overall direction
is to
structures
of
congruence
map general
among
living
human collectivities,
ancestral or legendary society
is shrines and the consecrated
(whose material substance
forms
and
(mountains and waterways),
dead), landscape
the
facts
climate).
bodies,
cosmological
(cosmological
However
this is not to assert that the world of huaca
devotees was of the sort that Bellah (1964) recognized
in speaking of societies where divinity
is so close as to
be ontological
lymerged with society. Although people,
mummies,
huacas, and the cosmos are kindred beings,
they relate to temporality and the laws of nature in
dissimilar ways. The individual being passing through
accent or
in ontological
eventful time actually changes
as characteristic
association.
The mode of life described
is characterized
of huaca devotees
by a complex
regimen of ritual behaviors governing
between beings of unlike standing.

relationships

How

the huacas

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

were

11

through

Since ritual consisted of reciprocity among beings of

all classes, human and nonhuman,
it implied
communication
among beings of unlike ontological
in the Quechua
source,
standing. The rituals described
as well as some ethnographical
observed
which
rites,
ly
a
common
continuities
with
have
them,
embody
or genre scenario for
this.
metaprogram
achieving
in the example of Paria Caca,
As was suggested
interest was
huacas were cultural postulates whose
in the fact that they united in
rooted precisely
of reality as
"persons" heterogeneous
perceptions
so
on.
The attributes
and
event, category,
substance,
in
continuum
the
vital
with
different
of
parts
beings
to
their differing ontological
accents,
appealed

of

ritual needs, with the predominant

mode
more
to
and
exalted, permanent,
being approach
more
mutable
empowered
beings by lower, softer,
differing

ones.

tend to be governed
approaches
by a fairly
are:
one
sacred
(1) at least
regular program. The actors
being; (2) a person, generally
acting as part of a
collectivity,
transacting a reciprocal gift; and (3) at least
one person who acts as mediator. The collectivity
and
These

in divergent actions. The

engage
enters
states of heightened
ritual
collectivity
vitality
as
inwhich
and solidarity,
they display themselves
more so; alcohol
serves
themselves
1987)
(Saignes
only
the mediator

to liberate huge discharges of social and physical

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

eds.

1991:sec.

183),

because

this

huaca

unlike

others had no priest and demanded personal contact.

Parents who had to ritual ly avert the bad consequences

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of

12

RES 33

SPRING 1998

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

5/eep (po?oyj and dreaming (muscoyj: The human sleeper,

a person temporarily removed from
daily vitality, is
into
contact
with
nonhuman
brought
beings and
In

knowledge.

chapter

and

(Salomon

eds.

Urioste,

is, outer

of dead

appearances,

or

animals

Urioste,

eds.

death

mask,

made

1991:sec.

60).

The

most

dramatic

of

acting

is the donning of the huayo or flayed-face

from

a sacrificed

captive,

which

imbues

the

wearer with the power of Uma Pacha, the mythical

high
farm wherein the departing anima of the dead were
replanted

and

regenerated

1991 :secs. 322-324,

empowered
owner
of

a person
the animal

(Salomon

and

Urioste,

eds.

404). The skin of a dead animal also

ynataccho

like English

process,

today.

Paria

Caca

consoled

his

And as he'd foretold, on Chaupi ?amca's festival, in the

courtyard called Yauri Cal Iinca, on top of the wall, a very
beautifully spotted wildcat appeared. When they saw it
they exclaimed joyfully, "This iswhat Paria Caca meant!"
and they held up its skin as they danced and sang with it.
(Hernando Cancho Uillca, who used to live inTumna, was
in charge of it. But by now it's probably gone all rotten.)
and

Urioste,

eds.

1991:

sec.

314

shamed

so?"
1991:sec.

eds.

Urioste,

313

andman carcoy tucorcan, or "they got swept away into the

jungle"
Salomon

and

Urioste,

eds.

1991:sec.

see also 228 and 100, an ambiguous

9;

instance

As a freestanding
a being assumes

inwhich
verb, tucoy covers processes
a new outer aspect. Some of these
be translated as "become":

caca

?a paria
human"

ru ?aman

or

tucuspas,

"Paria Caca,

Salomon and Urioste, eds.

1991: sec. 74

to stone"

turned

Salomon

and

Urioste,

But tucoy is more inclusive, covering

sense "to feign, pretend to be":
cay cuni
huaccha

becoming

rumi tucorcan, or "right then and there

tuylla pachampitac
she

raya

vira

cochas

tucospalla

ancha
or

purircan,

eds.

1991

:sec.

as it does

the

runa
hue
?aupa
"In very ancient

ancha
times

69

this

Cuni Raya Vira Cocha used to go around posing as a

miserably

poor

man"
Salomon

people for the loss of a treasured headdress by giving them

a wildcat skin:

Salomon

and

"get":
I be

"shall

Salomon

or
the sacred
approach
patron
common
and was
the most
among

communities

or

casac,

pincay

to

ritual gestures (Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:secs. 21,

it is still practiced in at least one of
64, 150, 455-458);
Huarochiri's

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

people.

Huatya Curi acquired the magical power to beat his

challenger by turning into (tucoy) a dead guanaco and
thereby stealing power from a rival huaca (Salomon and
wearing

states accenting
dissimilar
are expressed with tucoy

between
statuses

In passages

could well

248).

Assumption of a deathlike aspect or wearing dead skins:

Repeatedly, humans achieve crucial dialogue with
superhuman powers by placing on themselves the skins,
that

ontological

emphasizing

1991:sec. 42), Huatya Curi, while sleeping and

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

4: Passage

ancha

yachac

tucospa

pissi

and

Urioste,

yachascanhuan,

eds.
or

to be very wise with the little that he knew"

Salomon and Urioste, eds.

1991:sec.

"pretending

1991 :sec. 40

chaypim huanaco tucospa hua?usca siriconqui, or "there

pretending to be a guanaco you'll lie dead"
Salomon

and

Urioste,

eds.

1991:sec.

These

instances show that the semantic scope of tucoy

includes change of aspect without
any premise about
a
whether
change of what Gonc?lez
Holgu?n called
"essence"

is entailed.

Because this noncongruence

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

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58

Salomon: How the huacas were

Figure 2. Today, inhabitants of Tupicocha, Huarochiri, still don animal skins?most

importantly, the puma?to perform festival dances. This puma skin, used by
dancers of the Sibimol Society in the Pascua Reyes cycle, is reminiscent of the
in the Quechua Manuscript's chapter 24. Photo:
spotted wildcat skin mentioned
Frank

Salomon.

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13

14

RES 33

SPRING 1998

to think of as a change
like the editor/compiler
people
is
the language of "becoming Christian"
of essence,
when
it
about
talks
itself ambiguous
religious change.
huaquin
pactach

runacunaca
padrepas

christiano
pipas

tucospapas

yachahuanman

in different
instances of their
of single beings
no
arose.
such
The
human who
existences,
problem
a
to
is not
dead
be"
guanaco
"becomes/pretends
an
a
unreal
real
because
his
for
substituting
identity
evidences

manchaspallam
mana
alii cascayta,

or "some people becoming/feigning

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

notions

and reality.
about appearance
saddest of many misunderstandings?because
went
most damaging?that
into the making

the
it is the

of colonial

the Church and rural society.

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

point of view, inwhich

appear as attributes or

devotees'

categories"

the

is not imputed to him as an unchanging

humanity
essence
in the first place.
5: The hierarchy of durability versus transience
received
ideas about social rank
represents

often

on
Up to this point the argument has concentrated
the emic viewpoint,
ideas
implicit
sketching
expressed
in ritual and myth. But these beliefs, of course,
an orientation
toward a particular observed
expressed
social
authors

understood
system as itsmembers
of the stories, and the Quechua

it. (The oral

compiler/editor
about this system,
viewpoints
the latter being apparently a strong Christian convert
from the world view of the tellers.)
alienated
In discourse
that refers to the upper brackets of
themselves

had different

social/superhuman/cosmological
hierarchy, the salience
to "thing," "person") is
of the category "set" (as opposed
imagery, which places durable
high. Ancestor-focused
in the natural-social world,
beings at apical positions
an ideology that reifies the real-life processes
expresses
of social reproduction
into segmented
kinship
A common
example of this is the usage of
corporations.
inca or sapa inca to identify the person who stands
all incacuna (persons
highest in the set containing
In effect the
affiliated to Inka descent groups).
as
use
term
of the
Inca
the name of a
eponymous
the entire "set" of Inkas. The
at lower levels, for example,
in the various Huarochiri
instances where
the firstborn
of a sib bears a name that is also that of the sib, so that
his name is the name of a category.
supreme god-king denotes
same structure is pervasive

When
the tellers assigned Paria Caca supremacy
and attributed to him a
among the deified mountains,
fivefold essence manifested
through five heroic
and
their respective "children,"
selves
anthropomorphic
each "child" being the ancestor-hero
of a major branch
the tellers appear to have
of the dominant population,
a taxonomic
and explaining
been recognizing
likeness
as
as
well
of
cultic
practice) among
(perhaps
language
known
separate, but mutually
disparate and politically
allied invading populations.
and sometimes
(Of course
a Paria
in doing so, they may have been appropriating
than the
Caca cult older and more multiethnic

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Salomon: How the huacas were

allows; Guarnan Poma 1980 [1615]:113,

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

have

received

process,

inwhich

kurakas attributed

to ancestors

of

lines whatever
leading (putatively senior) descent
achieved and voiced the
prosperity the community
needs to them. We know from extirpation
community's
lords who died
inquiries into the funerals of Huarochiri
in the era of the manuscript
that the aggrandizement
of
leaders to primacy among ancestors continued
political
after Spanish conquest
(Salomon 1995, Marzal
1988,
1998).
Saignes
The passage to durable being was accordingly
in favor of persons
unequally
though society
the
interests
whom
of
through
kinship corporations were
And
the
transmitted.
effectively
landscape over which
ancestor shrines, huacas, and deified
land features were
as
an
could
be
taken
spread
integrally naturalized map
of social hierarchy, so that one lived enclosed
by an all
across
structure
encompassing
correspondence
distributed

levels.
ontological
to that of
The idiom of ancestor cult, as opposed
taxa
in
concretize
did
focalized
deities,
persons,
apical
sets as do the
but their names never stood for whole
accent seems to
highest names. Rather their ontological
fall on the category "relation." They were
like milestones
for measuring
the spaces of relatedness. A milestone
is a
a
to
but
is
whose
the
express
thing,
thing
significance
it and other points in space, and the
relation between
relation called "mile" has no meaning
except the space
such points. So major ancestors became not
to relational
of relation but were accented
markers
just
of
and
affiliation.
concepts
genealogy
political
between

6: Notwithstanding
includes a trickster
relativizes
One

hierarchies

this schema, mythology

principle, which upsets

15

centrally
and

of being

of the most

interesting properties of the

is
that
it idealizes a priestly order, it
manuscript
although
also contains, as Fioravanti-Molini?
(1987) has shown, a
that
order, namely the principle of
principle
relativizing
the trickster-demiurge.
His name in the Huarochiri
source is Cuni Raya Vira Cocha.
as Rostworowski
Raya?is,
name
a
the
of
(1989) ascertained,
far-flung coastal deity
associated with the transformation of landforms by water.
In the desiccated Andean
landscape, water signifies two
things: longed-for fertility (via rain or irrigation) and
dreaded danger (because rain often takes the form of
Half of his name?Cuni

devastating earthslides and flash floods). Thus the mythic

persona of water tends to be a life-giving but tricky,
and dangerous one. In the Huarochiri
uncontrollable,
Cuni Raya's tricks generally take the form of
manuscript,
seduction or sexual provocation
by magical means,
in
unwanted
(Ch. 2) or elopement
pregnancy
resulting
and irregular unions that
(Ch. 31), that is, unpredictable
produce fertility but do so inways that upset the normal
water does
social and productive arrangements?as
it gets out of control.
when
The compiler,
like many Europeans, was influenced
the
but already popularized
by
equation
misleading
Vira
between
Cocha and the God of contemporary
Cuni Raya's ability to create whole
Catholicism.
an allusion to the way
landscapes by fiat?probably
water can transform land dramatically?led
the compiler
to think of Cuni Raya as a creator deity, like Dios, the
Christians' God. He was therefore puzzled by his
inability to verify from oral testimony that Cuni Raya had
the expected
divine attribute of priority to all other
(Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec.
7,
superhumans
189, ch. 15).
Cuni Raya Vira Cocha
is the exception
to every rule
one
at
about huacas. Although
point he (like most
is said to have lithified in a determinate
huacas)
place
(Salomon and Urioste, eds. 1991:sec. 90), a
transformation
that usually marks the passage from
humanlike action to permanence,
he is present at all
ages and places, popping up in primordial, mythic,
legendary, and Inka times. The invasion of the Spaniards
as yet another of his tricks. In
in chapter 14 is explained
all his interventions, he brings people to act by their

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16 RES33

SPRING1998

normal desires and expectations,

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

but not

in their manifestations.
limited to superhumanity
of cosmos was, then, asserted not by a
on the part of
unifying theory, but by social mediation
its inhabitants. They were the ones who brought all

The coherence

sorts of beings
things

into relationship.

Itwas

ritual that held

together.

into

breaks
On a more
anW-huaca,
for the

of
Cuni Raya seems to
and the unpredictable.
mutability
In the terminology of
occupy a category all by himself.
the
he
Aristotelian
points toward is a
"thing"
ontology,
"state
This
vivid
of
affairs."
permanent
deity personifies
and focalizes
the fragility of all structures and categories
even
The
humor.
Andean
person struggling to
paradox,
to his evasive wit as to the source of
learn appealed

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