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Abstract
This essay discusses beliefs and practices concerning gender, musical instruments and vocal performance in rural communities of northern Potosi′, in the Bolivian Andes. While instrumental performance is a male preserve, critical to the construction and expression of manhood, it is also argued that much value is ascribed to women's singing and creation of song poetry. It is further suggested that women's exclusion from instrumental performance should not necessarily be understood in terms of subordination, but approached within broader models and contexts of gender relations. This involves exploring gendered aspects of fertility, llama husbandry, seasonality, the cosmos and the landscape, leading to an examination of courtship, androgyny, notions of ‘marked’ and ‘unmarked’ gender, and the possibility of multiple gender and degrees of gendering.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the British Academy for funding fieldwork in the Andes, to Primitivo Nina, and to the friendship and hospitality of the people of Kalankira. My special thanks go to Veronica Doubleday who originally asked me to write a much shorter version of this essay as a case study. Her enthusiasm, patience and immense input as an editor are especially appreciated.
Notes
1. For example, symbolic gender equality is sometimes expressed through the use of the tara wasu (‘double cup’) during weddings. This consists of paired cups (for the bride and groom respectively) connected by a tube which ensures that liquid always regains equilibrium between the paired cups.
2. The ayllu is an indigenous Andean unit of socio-political organisation, which refers to a group of people who are typically linked through ethnicity, kinship and territory.
3. For details of musical instruments played in the Bolivian Andes, see Baumann Citation1982; Cavour Citation1994; and Stobart Citation1998. For examples of wind instruments exceptionally played by women, see Baumann Citation1982; Cavour Citation1994, 180–84; Martinez Citation1992, 29–30; Citation1994, 51–74.
4. Over the past few decades in larger Bolivian towns it has become commonplace for young, educated, middle-class women to play folkloric and rural-style instruments. For the case of female urban folkloric groups, see Pekkola Citation1996.
5. In a performance evidently intended to symbolically invoke fertility as a gendered division of labour, the feast sponsor's sister and her husband (tullqa) sound their respective instruments outside the church door at the end of mass. While the man sounds a cane trumpet with a calabash bell (pululu), the sound resembling the bellowing of an ox, his wife periodically beats a double-headed drum (quchana) (see Calvo and Sánchez Citation1991, 20; Sánchez Citation1989, 35).
6. Women play the jantarka pipes alongside the men's saripalka flutes and drums during the feast of Carnival in the village of Calcha. The two tones of the jantarka are typically pitched around a minor third apart (Baumann Citation1982; Cavour Citation1994, 180–84; Martinez Citation2000, 24; Stobart Citation1988).
7. In his Quechua/Spanish dictionary of 1608, González Holguín glosses the Quechua tinya with forms of both drums (atabal, aduse) and guitars (bihuela, guitarra), suggesting their interchangability in the early colonial period as rhythmic accompaniment to song (González Holguín Citation1989 [1608], 343).
8. The Quechua and Aymara term pincollo (which has many variant forms, such as pinkullu, pinkillu, pinkuyllu) is today applied to many forms of vertical flute, especially duct flutes and often carries explicit phallic associations (Parejo-Coudert Citation2001; Stobart Citation2001, Citation2006b, 223).
9. For example, they work in towns of the region as builders’ labourers or porters, or in coca production in the tropical Chapare region, or on tobacco plantations in Argentina.
10. Certain mountains are, however, considered female. For example, two important mountains of the region, Condor Naasa and Janina, are respectively considered male and female, and a married couple, qhariwarmi (‘man-woman’). According to Rösing, large mountains which stand out tend to be classified as masculine (1997, 81).
11. Rösing observes that among the Bolivian Kallawaya (Charazani region) the morning—as the sun rises—is seen to be masculine, whereas the afternoon and evening are feminine. Similarly the future, upper, and right are linked with the masculine, while the past, lower, and left are connected with the feminine (Rösing Citation1997, 81).
12. This is a widespread practice; see for example Weismantel Citation1988, 179 for the case of Ecuador. My hosts were quick to dismiss the idea that sitting directly on the ground reflects women's subordination, although in racialised contexts this can clearly be the case, as reported by Canessa Citation2005a, 144.
13. Paradoxically, the Spanish-derived wirjin (‘virgin’) is more common among Quechua speaking rural communities, whereas the Quechua/Aymara pachamama is heard more frequently in towns (see Howard-Malverde Citation1995).
14. Al hombre le cuesta, al hombre a veces copiamos lo que dijo el abuelo asi, la mujer empieza a crear su propia palabra de acuerdo a su vivencia, de lo que esta pasando, de lo que falta, lo que no está bien, lo que algo esta pasando. Es mas facil y lo acomoda el tono, el ritmo, todo eso. Al hombre nos cuesta. Eso se ha comprobado basicamente. A ver, digale, a ver te voy a pagar plata, diez mil euros! Necesito un composición de los hombres y despues de eso convoque a la mujer. La mujer primero va a hacer que el hombre, en menos tiempo ademas. Y se acuerda ademas. El hombre es el que desarolla todo el tiempo, la mujer por un tiempo. La siguente fiesta ya esta otra cancíon, no es lo mismo. El hombre sigue con la misma cancíon.
15. Compare this, for instance, with Gregor's Citation1985 account of threatened gang rape among the Amazonian Mehinaku.
16. Primativo Nina suggests that women commonly carry men's instruments (in the Northern Potosí region) in order to ensure that they are not used to seduce other women. However, in the Betanzos region (Potosí) where he was raised, he observes that women are not permitted to touch or step over a man's charango (personal communication).
17. This contrasts with the community of Sullk'ata (Potosí department, Bolivia), discussed by Van Vleet, where many girls travel to the cities to work as domestics and, in comparison to boys, are more closely associated with ‘commodities, the urban sphere, and displays of fashion’ (Citation2005, 122).
18. Trading journeys to the valleys with the male llama herd have become more infrequent in Kalankira over the past decade. For example, my own host family have not made this journey again since I travelled with them in 1991.
19. However, exceptionally, in areas of Southern Potosí the qina is frequently linked with Carnival.
20. Pinkilluswan phuyus tiyan... Phuyu warmi takimanta... Qhari pinkilluta tukashan, warmi phuyumanta takishan, warmi phuyumanta takishan... yaku phuyumanta lluqsin. Chanta para phuyumanta lamarman rin, sirinusman rin.
21. Olivia Harris (Citation2000), 177) also notes that the nearby Laymis described the two moieties of their ethnic group (ayllu Laymi) in terms of older and younger brothers, rather than as a man and woman.
22. These larger rainy season guitars include the kitarra, talachi and qunquta (khonkhota). For further details see: Calvo and Sánchez Citation1991; Cavour Citation1994, 270–73; Laime Citation2002; Lyèvre Citation1990; Sánchez Citation1989; Solomon Citation1997, 114–27; Stobart Citation1987, Citation1994. In central and northern parts of the northern Potosí region it has become common, since the mid-1980s, for the dry season charango and rainy season qunquta to be played together.
23. For more details of sirena/sirinu traditions see Stobart Citation2006a and, for example, Allen Citation1988, 50; Arnold and Yapita Citation1998; Harris Citation2000, 190; Solomon Citation1997, 236–70; Turino Citation1983.
24. Hay siway sarita siway manzanita/Ima kapaz kanman suwayki kunitan/Suwaylla suwayki, siempre casarayki/Mana casaraspa tantallapis kayki.
25. With reference to courtship genres (especially takis), these restrictions sometimes amounted to prohibitions. For instance, despite often enthusing about the beauty of his wife's voice during their courting days, my host rejected my suggestion that it would be nice to hear her sing. His uncharacteristically harsh and unequivocal response, made in the presence of his wife, was an explicit prohibition against her singing for me.
26. From this external perspective—which may also be adopted by rural men with aspirations to migrate to towns—women who speak little Spanish become racially subordinated as ‘ignorant’ or ‘uncivilised’ (see also Canessa Citation2005a, 146).