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Abstract
Peru's Quechua-speaking indigenous people have been portrayed by the dominant Spanish-speaking society in different ways throughout the five centuries since the Conquest, in response to contemporary social, political and literary trends. Nevertheless, they have always been perceived as ‘the other’ by mainstream society, and have rarely had a voice of their own. It may be, however, that in the 21st century they are able to reclaim their voice, although the ways in which they choose to do so may surprise us. This paper examines the portrayal of the highland Quechua people in Peruvian literature, government documents, academic writings and the media. Rather than an in-depth study, it is a survey of the differing perceptions of the Quechua people from the late 16th century to the beginning of the 21st century, with reference to the Inca Empire, romantic portrayals in 19th-century poetry, the sociological interpretations of the ‘Indian problem’ in early 20th-century Peru, and the use of indigenous people as political or spiritual symbols in more recent times.
Notes
1. The concepts of representation of ‘the other’ and of voice appropriation have been extensively covered elsewhere and will not be discussed in this paper.
2. Although indigenous voices have indeed been present in public records, including legal documents, since colonial times, the focus of this paper is primarily on the historiographical record.
3. Although there are estimated to be 93 languages currently spoken in Peru, Quechua is by far the largest linguistic family and has the historical clout of being the language that the Inca Empire used as their lingua franca.
4. J. M. Arguedas wrote both fictional and anthropological works over a span of 35 years in the mid-20th century.
5. Translations from Spanish are the author's.
6. But not completely: see MacQuarrie (Citation2007) and Flores Galindo (Citation1988) for their comprehensive discussions of the numerous rebellions and uprisings that have occurred in Peru since the first conquest. See also Garrett (Citation2005) for an analysis of the decline of the nobility in Cusco.
7. After some thought, I decided to use the Spanish term ‘indio’ to refer to the Quechua indigenous people vis-à-vis Peru's Spanish-speaking mainstream. The English equivalent ‘Indian’ carries far too much baggage, and even though there have been heated polemics over the use of ‘indio’, which has certainly often been used pejoratively, this term has been used in Peru for centuries. Quechua-speakers do not call themselves ‘indios’, but this paper deals with their representation in the wider society, so I feel that its use is acceptable in this context.
8. José Santos Chocano (Peru 1875–Chile 1934) often wrote in the romantic style, although he was considered to be one of the leaders of Latin American modernism.
9. González Prada (1844–1918) is well known for his fierce if sometimes idealistically romanticized defence of the indigenous people of Peru.
10. An Indian subjected to forced labour. This often took place in mines, where many workers died due to the poor working conditions. This poem was first published posthumously in Baladas peruanas in 1939.
11. J. C. Mariátegui uses it in this sense in his essay ‘El problema del indio’ from his work Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana, when he speaks of the need to ‘redimir al indio de [su] servidumbre’.
12. Castro Pozo's classification of the ‘ayllu o comunidad’ was discussed by J. C. Mariátegui in his essay ‘El problema de la tierra’ (Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana).
13. Castro Pozo (1890–1945) was briefly exiled in 1923 because of his opposition to the Leguía regime. He was a co-founder of the Socialist Party of Peru in 1930.
14. Born in Cusco, Sivirichi lived in Lima and was a respected Aprista intellectual. He saw mestizaje as an inevitable step in the progression towards a new national identity.
15. APRA was a centre-left political party founded by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre in 1924.
16. The ‘anti-cocainism’ movement in the United States led to the gradual criminalization of this substance between 1905 and 1922. The Coca-Cola Company had already ‘de-cocainised’ (sic) the soft drink of that name in 1903. See Gootenberg (Citation2004) for a discussion of the complicated US–Peruvian relations surrounding the use and control of the coca leaf and its derivative, cocaine.
17. Caciques (feudal lords).
18. Juan José del Pino was a frequent contributor to the magazine El Deber Pro Indígena and a delegate to the Asociación Pro Indígena.
19. It is not my intention here to provide an in-depth discussion of Mariátegui's analysis on this point. As one of the most influential Peruvian thinkers his works have been extensively discussed elsewhere.
20. The final report in August 2003 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which examined reports of the killings, found The Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path to be responsible for 54 per cent of an estimated 69,280 deaths, 75 per cent of which were Quechua-speakers or speakers of other indigenous languages living in rural areas.
21. It is worth noting that in the Spanish-speaking coastal areas ‘bilingual education’ is a stated goal of education authorities, but it refers to classes in English, not in Quechua.
22. More recently, in 2009, anti-government protests in Peru's Amazonian region led by local indigenous groups finally ended when the García government rescinded decrees that would have allowed corporate access to indigenous lands for oil exploration, but not before many deaths among both police forces and indigenous protesters: numbers vary and indigenous groups are calling for a truth commission to investigate.