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ABSTRACT
This article explores the Kolla cosmology of commodity exchange and creativity in the Argentinean Andes by looking at the circulation of miniatures during the feast day of Saint Anne. An ethnographic description of miniature fairs discloses a complex transactional system involving different entities and fields of action, which creates an extension of the devotee’s subjectivity in space and time. The cosmoeconomics of Saint Anne fairs stress the importance of fuerza (life strength) and alegría (joy) as key values channelled by miniatures circulation, across the mundane and spiritual worlds. In this light, the increased amount of work encapsulated in delightful miniatures is interpreted as a local form of sacrifice to non-human entities, ultimately intended to enhance human creative potential. In its whole, the paper points to the fruitfulness of a cosmoeconomics approach to explore the entanglement between the creation of moral and material values in this Andean context.
Acknowledgements
The author’s first thought goes to all the devotees of Saint Anne in Santa Ana and Humahuaca, who gave her the opportunity to enjoy the delight of circulating and consuming miniatures in 2013 and 2014. The author is most thankful to the Département de Recherche at the Musée du Quai Branly for supporting her work, both intellectually and financially. She is grateful to Julien Clément, Jessica de Largy Healy, Frédéric Keck, Paz Nunez-Regueiro, and Anne Christine Taylor. At the Departmental Seminar, the author has received generous and insightful comments from Perig Pitrou and Giovanni da Col. She wishes to express further gratitude to her colleague at the LAMC Sasha Newell for sharing his thought; as well as David Berliner, Marco Di Nunzio, Laurent Legrain, Pierre Petit, and Denis Regnier for their rich discussion of an earlier version of this text at the University of Brussels.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Tinku is a Quechua word used by the authors in reference to the encounter of complementary opposites (see Citation2014: 52).
2 I am naming accurately the interlocutors from which I have received agreement to be quoted. Otherwise, I am using pseudonyms to respect anonymity.
3 To avoid confusion, I will keep the Spanish term (Santa Ana) to refer to the village and use the English one (Saint Anne) to refer to the virgin and her celebration.
4 This is the number announced by the government according to a census from 2001, which is the latest to date (see www.indec.gov.ar).
5 It is noteworthy that, while people in Santa Ana use official pesos to participate in the market, and many have a bank account to receive state allocations, they do not usually use it as a store of value. The long-term history of the Argentinean peso’s upheaval has spread suspicion on the national currency, limiting its function as unit of value and medium of exchange. While most Argentineans use dollars to store value, peasants avoid accumulating any state money, investing in cattle, means of transportation, and other productive goods, when they do not need cash for direct consumption.
6 Elders also like to remember that, in olden days, these plentiful handicrafts were mostly exchanged through barter. Nowadays barter are rare exceptions in Santa Ana and all the participants use ‘stamped money’.
7 This fact raises important questions on gender to be related to the massive participation of women in Andean market. I will not discuss it in this paper however, because as it falls beyond the issues I am concerned with.
8 Situated at the crossroad of ritual, play, and mundane economic practices, this fair is a fascinating case to explore the intertwining of these modalities of action. However, I will not further address this issue, as it falls out of the scope of this paper. I will just note that, of course, performing this economic ritual is not play in the common sense of futile recreation and entertainment. Playing Saint Anne is indeed expected to generate concrete and enduring impacts, by affecting forthcoming flows of material and symbolic resources.
9 Following other French anthropologists, I do not find the word exchange particularly suited to express the reciprocal dimension of the gift, since counter prestations is never assured, in contrast with contracts established through barter or commodity exchange (see Bourdieu Citation1980; Testart Citation2001; Descola Citation2005).
10 Everyone agrees that economic misfortune could stem from the virgin’s discontent. Cristina for instance warned me that, ‘In whatever business, if you haven’t been able to run your (miniature) business, you will never be able to run the business you will have’.
11 Although I dwell here on transfers between human and Saint Anne, I have shown elsewhere that the fair is intended to also please closer ancestors (Angé Citation2016).
12 Some miniatures are in fact burnt with a defunct to extend his prosperity in the world of the dead. Saint Anne bills are seen as particularly appropriate for this purpose. However, miniature burning is restricted to funerals.
13 The capacity to assert transcendental values is generalized by Michael Lambek as a feature of sacrifice (Citation2008).
14 Derks et al. observed a similar practice in the celebration of the Virgin of Urkupiña in Bolivia, where ‘the objects are not only used as a tangible reminder to Mary [that she must fulfill the worshippers’ wish] but also function as reminders for the pilgrims to keep their goals in mind’ (Citation2012: 209).
15 Indeed, miniatures objects seem to have also been produced and circulated as a currency within Andean economies of life. This is how I am inclined to interpret archaeological accounts of the wide distribution of conopas by the Inca state. As explained by Bill Sillar, conopas are ‘small representations of camelids carved in stone’ (Citation2016: 442), some of which were manufactured and distributed as a way for the Incas to spread their life breath at all corners of the empire. Saint Anne’s miniature objects like clothes, clay pots or tools also circulate across different ontological realms to distribute fuerza; and it is tempting to consider them as a form of currency in Kolla cosmoeconomics as well. This is an important question that I am not in a position to tackle in this paper.
16 In Humahuaca, it has become common for institutions (like schools, neighbours’ associations, rural development NGO’s, etc.) to organize a fair in order to raise funding for a collective project. I will not analyse here this specific case.
17 I have described this trend elsewhere (Angé Citation2018).
18 In 2014, tending a stall in a fair in Humahuaca could yield up to one thousand pesos, according to the skills and investment of the trader. The most successful one would thus earn approximately half of the monthly wage of a basic public employee.
19 Fairs are very common in this region, but Saint Anne’s are distinctive in that they involve only miniatures.