Paige Lovejoy

As my time in Lima draws to a close, the preparations for the festival of Señor de los Milagros are gearing up. Peruvian friends and cab drivers alike have chastised me for my poor planning – how could I go to Chile in the most exciting week of the year in Peru? If only I had known, but alas, I will miss Lima awash in bright purple as thousands flood the streets.

The existence of the “Señor de los Milagros” (Man of Miracles) is one example of a fascinating religious phenomenon in this country. Indigenous culture, beliefs and practices were so deeply ingrained in this part of the world that when the Spanish arrived in the middle of the 16th century they made the unusual decision (when it comes to colonialism) to allow some of these traditions to survive. Rather than wiping out the existing indigenous population along with their language and culture as occurred elsewhere in the region, Peru retained it.

Pachacamac was one of the most important pre-Incan deities on the central Pacific coast of South America for hundreds of years. I had a first hand experience here in Lima a few weeks ago that made it clear to me why the god of the earth has such importance here. I woke up around 3 am to my bed shaking violently; my first earthquake ever (I am from Ohio, not California) lasted about 5 minutes and yet I heard nothing about it the next day until I asked someone. “Terremotos” or earthquakes are extremely common in Peru and the fear they caused in the people who lived here hundreds of years ago brought about the belief in a god who had the power to shake the surface of the earth.

When the Spaniards brought Catholicism to a group so deeply committed to their faith in this god, they told the indigenous people that they were right – such a god did exist and they call him “Señor de los Milagros” and represent him with the image of Christ on the cross.

A similar mixing of Catholicism and ancient religious tradition can be found in a depiction of the Last Supper hanging in the Cathedral in Cusco where the disciples can be seen eating a platter of “cuy” (guinea pig) which is a traditional dish here with roots in the country’s pre-colonial history. Cuy, I hate to admit, is another part of this story with which I have first hand experience.

When I leave Peru in a few days, I will only be leaving with questions. For me, Peruvian religion and culture have turned out to be a lot like the layers everyone keeps reminding me to wear at high altitudes. There is a lot of ambivalence in this country – about the merits of the old dictator, about whether Chifa is Chinese or Peruvian food, and about the way Catholicism fits into a quickly modernizing country. One has to look closely at the layers added by each generation even before the Incas and the Spaniards in order to see why the procession of the Señor de los Milagros holds such deep meaning in Lima to this day.

After wrapping up a month in Lima I felt as though I still didn’t understand the crosscutting roles that race and religion have on Peruvian culture. I have just as many questions at the end of a month in Chile, but they are of an entirely different character. There is nothing ambiguous about race or class in this country; on the whole, I’d say that Chileans like to know where they stand. As a country, they situate themselves in reference to their neighbors – clearly better, whiter, richer and more cultured than Bolivians and Peruvians (some, like my host grandmother, will tell you this outright) but willing to look to Argentina for taste in music (though they are certain their wine is better) and to North America and Europe to set the standards for how to live a cultured life. As individuals, Chileans situate themselves within an extremely stratified social system where class and whiteness play an important role. In her novel, Paula, author Isabel Allende asserts that Chile has more of a caste system than India. Deven Comen and I can discuss that proposition back at Georgetown.

A former Hoya who now lives in Santiago went with me to watch an Equestrian Show at the Military School last Saturday. We were shocked by how much the attendees looked like the Sunday brunch crowd in Georgetown. This was the upper crust of Santiago, dressed in Ralph Lauren and gold watches. As I began chatting with my friend about my research on the dictatorship, it slipped my mind that to this day the divisions of class point to political persuasions and lingering emotions about the Pinochet era. Our conversation was in Spanish and I was startled when a woman two seats down kindly leaned down and advised us that we might not have picked the right venue to speak about our opinions on human rights abuses under the regime – “many of the people here played a role in that government,” she whispered to us. And almost all of the women wore gold crosses around their necks.

Earlier last week, I interviewed Father Jose Aldunate, SJ, a 92-year-old blind Jesuit who has been the recipient of numerous international awards for his work as a defender of human rights under the regime. As he told me stories of torture, detainment, exiles, and assassinations and the work that the official Church tried to do in opposition, I struggled to understand why Pinochet was able to maintain such incredible support after 15 years of ruling oppressively and violently.

Roman Catholics make up a huge majority (around three quarters) of the Chilean population. So how is it that the country is divided nearly fifty-fifty in their opinions on the dictatorship? How could it be that half of the country’s Christians were inspired by their faith to fight for human rights and the other half of them used that same faith to defend the military regime?

Another Jesuit that I met here explained to me that although Chile had a progressive Archbishop who created the Vicaria de Solidaridad and faith-based community groups that served as points of mobilization against the regime, there is a huge sector of the Catholic population in the country that thought Marxism was a greater threat to the country than the dictator was. Aldunate said, about those individuals, “Yes, they are Catholic, but not in the same way I am.”

The divisions in this country, according to professors, my host family, and my Chilean friends, are never going to go away. And yet, they all cut through one faith.