John Stewart on the Andean Influence on Catholicism in South America
By: John Stewart
March 21, 2007
Riding on horseback through the Sacred Valley in Peru, my attention was grabbed by a unique phenomenon: Every single one of the small mud and straw huts that spread lazily across the verdant river basin was festooned with a small wooden cross and a diminutive statuette of a bull. This was my first introduction to the magnificent combination of traditional Andean beliefs and Catholicism that defines religion in the Andean region of Latin America.
There is no question that religion here is a comprehensively influential power that affects the majority of the population every day. Though Latin Americans are predominately Roman Catholic, the nuances and idiosyncrasies of this Catholicism change significantly in each country. Historically, the religious center of Latin America was the viceroyalty of Peru which stretched from northern Chile to Ecuador, encompassing most of the decapitated network of the Incan Empire.
It is no accident that the political boundaries of the new Spanish colony in Latin America correspond almost exactly with that of the Incan empire. When Francisco Pizarro kidnapped, threatened, and eventually killed the Incan leader Atahualpa (despite the Incan's acquiescence to his ridiculous request of a room filled with gold and another with silver), all the governing structures necessary for the appropriation of an empire were in place. The Spanish simply took their place at the top of the pyramid of governance and tribute that the Incas had set up a hundred years earlier.
The successful takeover of the Incan tribute system, along with a serious desire to spread the word and influence of the Catholicism of Spain through missionaries, are what allowed Christianity to spread so rapidly in Latin America. However, as Matthew Restall highlights in his book The Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, the Spanish conquest, though it did devastate the indigenous cultures in terms of population, was neither complete nor did it destroy native culture or religion.
Restall appropriately names these two misconceptions the "myth of completion" and the "myth of native desolation," and in fact, it is these two anomalies that allowed religion in Latin America, particularly in the Andean region, to transform into the rich cultural fusion that it is today.
Best representative of the way in which native culture was allowed to survive was the cacique, or village leader. Traditionally in the Andes, indigenous populations lived in an ayllu, or a self-sufficient community made up of three or four families. The cacique was the ayllu's contact with the outside world, first handling tribute duties with the Incas and later with the Spanish. It is figures like the cacique who allowed native culture to survive, appeasing the Spanish by providing labor and tribute while maintaining indigenous identity and prestige in his ayllu.
The cacique also had to assure the Spanish that the Catholicism that had been spread by Franciscan and Dominican missionaries was actually being practiced in the ayllu. This is the foundation of the incredible Catholic façade that Andean populations put around their indigenous belief system and religious practices that they maintain today.
When I was traveling in Bolivia and Peru, making my way slowly towards my final destination of Buenos Aires, where I would be studying the next semester, I was witness to this same tradition of spiritual synthesis every day. To the people of these countries, there is no difference between the Pachamama (the Incan notion of mother earth: an integral part of the Incan belief system) and the Virgin Mary. Both hold a beautifully equal significance. In Potosi during carnival (a celebration of both the coming of Lent in the Christian calendar and the coming of spring in the Incan calendar), I saw a leather-faced Bolivian woman wrapped in a traditional Andean poncho, holding on her bowler hat with one hand, and spreading flowers on the cobbled streets and doorsteps with the other. I asked her why she was performing this curious ritual and she looked at me was a toothless grin and said matter-of-factly: "Mijito, es para la Virgen y para la Pachamama."
In Cuzco the melting pot of religion and culture was even more evident. An entire city, nicknamed the ombligo del mundo, or bellybutton of the world, for its centrality to the Incan empire both geographically and administratively, was superficially covered with the same Catholic façade of Spanish influence. The main plaza, for example, once the site of Inti-Rayni, or the vital Incan festival of the sun god, was transformed into the site of the oldest and most important cathedral in Latin America. Inside the cathedral as well, the hand of indigenous influence is clearly laid. The proliferation of mirrors in the cathedral is a curious phenomenon that was used as a strategy by the Spanish to attract native converts. Then, once converted, the natives were often used as artisans to construct the beautiful wood carvings gracefully adorning the chorus and religious icons. They left their mark subtly by transforming the costumes and faces of religious figures to look more like themselves. Jesus is not Aryan, but rather dark-skinned and wholly indigenous in appearance; the virgin's garb looks more like the Virgin of Guadalupe than it does the pale Mary of medieval European art.
The culmination for me of the unique blend of Andean and Catholic beliefs is manifested in Koricancha, a Dominican convent in Cuzco built on the stark foundation of an Incan temple. From a viewpoint outside the enormous edifice, you can see clearly the contrast between the simplistic skills of Incan architecture: grand blocks of volcanic rock held together by the ingenuity of Incan engineering, and the grandiose stylistic Spanish architecture of the convent, built literally on top of the austere base. Inside, trapezoidal hollows line the walls of the 500 year old temple, empty sockets that bore witness to the appropriation of three different sacred rooms dedicated to the celestial beings: Inti, the sun God, the moon, and the stars. It is a blessing that the temple wasn't destroyed, and a testament to the intellect of the Dominican monks, who realized that the Incan engineering would last much longer than that of the Spanish. However, the holy idols that filled the hollows were replaced with Catholic religious icons. This process of appropriation gave the convent a grave sentiment of loss for me as I sauntered through the trapezoidal portals to each of the sacred rooms, and I lamented the loss of a richness of an empire and entire culture.
This sentiment changed, however, when I was explained to that during the Incan empire, when this temple was the center of Andean religiosity, the hollows were filled not just with Incan religious idols, but with the idols of all of the peoples they had conquered. The Inca, like the Aztecs, had a tribute system where they allowed their subjected populations to practice their own religion while honoring that of the Inca. It was then that I realized that this process of the transfusion of religion has been going on for centuries: that it is not a loss of culture but a wonderful morphing and creation of completely new one. I thought once again of the bull defiantly positioned next to the cross on top of every single hut in that Peruvian village, every brujería (Andean shaman shop) market that sold everything from llama fetuses (buried under the foundations of new houses to sanctify them) to Incan calendars, every statue of Ek´eiko (a miniature deity supposed to bring luck for the new year), and of the brilliantly decorative and wholly indigenous costumes of the Catholic festival of carnival: all symbols of religious conviviality, of indigenous cultural subversion and transformation, and of the perseverance of the richness of culture in Latin America.
It is no accident that the political boundaries of the new Spanish colony in Latin America correspond almost exactly with that of the Incan empire. When Francisco Pizarro kidnapped, threatened, and eventually killed the Incan leader Atahualpa (despite the Incan's acquiescence to his ridiculous request of a room filled with gold and another with silver), all the governing structures necessary for the appropriation of an empire were in place. The Spanish simply took their place at the top of the pyramid of governance and tribute that the Incas had set up a hundred years earlier.
The successful takeover of the Incan tribute system, along with a serious desire to spread the word and influence of the Catholicism of Spain through missionaries, are what allowed Christianity to spread so rapidly in Latin America. However, as Matthew Restall highlights in his book The Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, the Spanish conquest, though it did devastate the indigenous cultures in terms of population, was neither complete nor did it destroy native culture or religion.
Restall appropriately names these two misconceptions the "myth of completion" and the "myth of native desolation," and in fact, it is these two anomalies that allowed religion in Latin America, particularly in the Andean region, to transform into the rich cultural fusion that it is today.
Best representative of the way in which native culture was allowed to survive was the cacique, or village leader. Traditionally in the Andes, indigenous populations lived in an ayllu, or a self-sufficient community made up of three or four families. The cacique was the ayllu's contact with the outside world, first handling tribute duties with the Incas and later with the Spanish. It is figures like the cacique who allowed native culture to survive, appeasing the Spanish by providing labor and tribute while maintaining indigenous identity and prestige in his ayllu.
The cacique also had to assure the Spanish that the Catholicism that had been spread by Franciscan and Dominican missionaries was actually being practiced in the ayllu. This is the foundation of the incredible Catholic façade that Andean populations put around their indigenous belief system and religious practices that they maintain today.
When I was traveling in Bolivia and Peru, making my way slowly towards my final destination of Buenos Aires, where I would be studying the next semester, I was witness to this same tradition of spiritual synthesis every day. To the people of these countries, there is no difference between the Pachamama (the Incan notion of mother earth: an integral part of the Incan belief system) and the Virgin Mary. Both hold a beautifully equal significance. In Potosi during carnival (a celebration of both the coming of Lent in the Christian calendar and the coming of spring in the Incan calendar), I saw a leather-faced Bolivian woman wrapped in a traditional Andean poncho, holding on her bowler hat with one hand, and spreading flowers on the cobbled streets and doorsteps with the other. I asked her why she was performing this curious ritual and she looked at me was a toothless grin and said matter-of-factly: "Mijito, es para la Virgen y para la Pachamama."
In Cuzco the melting pot of religion and culture was even more evident. An entire city, nicknamed the ombligo del mundo, or bellybutton of the world, for its centrality to the Incan empire both geographically and administratively, was superficially covered with the same Catholic façade of Spanish influence. The main plaza, for example, once the site of Inti-Rayni, or the vital Incan festival of the sun god, was transformed into the site of the oldest and most important cathedral in Latin America. Inside the cathedral as well, the hand of indigenous influence is clearly laid. The proliferation of mirrors in the cathedral is a curious phenomenon that was used as a strategy by the Spanish to attract native converts. Then, once converted, the natives were often used as artisans to construct the beautiful wood carvings gracefully adorning the chorus and religious icons. They left their mark subtly by transforming the costumes and faces of religious figures to look more like themselves. Jesus is not Aryan, but rather dark-skinned and wholly indigenous in appearance; the virgin's garb looks more like the Virgin of Guadalupe than it does the pale Mary of medieval European art.
The culmination for me of the unique blend of Andean and Catholic beliefs is manifested in Koricancha, a Dominican convent in Cuzco built on the stark foundation of an Incan temple. From a viewpoint outside the enormous edifice, you can see clearly the contrast between the simplistic skills of Incan architecture: grand blocks of volcanic rock held together by the ingenuity of Incan engineering, and the grandiose stylistic Spanish architecture of the convent, built literally on top of the austere base. Inside, trapezoidal hollows line the walls of the 500 year old temple, empty sockets that bore witness to the appropriation of three different sacred rooms dedicated to the celestial beings: Inti, the sun God, the moon, and the stars. It is a blessing that the temple wasn't destroyed, and a testament to the intellect of the Dominican monks, who realized that the Incan engineering would last much longer than that of the Spanish. However, the holy idols that filled the hollows were replaced with Catholic religious icons. This process of appropriation gave the convent a grave sentiment of loss for me as I sauntered through the trapezoidal portals to each of the sacred rooms, and I lamented the loss of a richness of an empire and entire culture.
This sentiment changed, however, when I was explained to that during the Incan empire, when this temple was the center of Andean religiosity, the hollows were filled not just with Incan religious idols, but with the idols of all of the peoples they had conquered. The Inca, like the Aztecs, had a tribute system where they allowed their subjected populations to practice their own religion while honoring that of the Inca. It was then that I realized that this process of the transfusion of religion has been going on for centuries: that it is not a loss of culture but a wonderful morphing and creation of completely new one. I thought once again of the bull defiantly positioned next to the cross on top of every single hut in that Peruvian village, every brujería (Andean shaman shop) market that sold everything from llama fetuses (buried under the foundations of new houses to sanctify them) to Incan calendars, every statue of Ek´eiko (a miniature deity supposed to bring luck for the new year), and of the brilliantly decorative and wholly indigenous costumes of the Catholic festival of carnival: all symbols of religious conviviality, of indigenous cultural subversion and transformation, and of the perseverance of the richness of culture in Latin America.
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