Pathways of Memory and Power: Ethnography and History among an Andean People
by Thomas A. Abercrombie
University of Wisconsin Press, 1998 Cloth: 978-0-299-15310-6 | Paper: 978-0-299-15314-4 | eISBN: 978-0-299-15313-7 Library of Congress Classification F2230.2.A9A24 1998 Dewey Decimal Classification 984.12
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK Pathways of Memory and Power crosses the disciplinary boundary where anthropology and history meet, exploring the cultural frontier of the colonial and postcolonial Andes. Thomas A. Abercrombie uses his fieldwork in the Aymara community of Santa Barbara de Culta, Bolivia, as a starting point for his ambitious examination of the relations between European forms of historical consciousness and indigenous Andean ways of understanding the past. Writing in an inviting first-person narrative style, Abercrombie confronts the ethics of fieldwork by comparing ethnographic experience to the power-laden contexts that produce historical sources.
Making clear the early and deep intermingling of practices and world views among Spaniards and Andeans, Christians and non-Christians, Abercrombie critiques both the romanticist tendency to regard Andean culture as still separate from and resistant to European influences, and the melodramatic view that all indigenous practices have been obliterated by colonial and national elites. He challenges prejudices that, from colonial days to the present, have seen Andean historical knowledge only in mythic narratives or narratives of personal experience. Bringing an ethnographer’s approach to historiography, he shows how complex Andean rituals that hybridize European and indigenous traditions—such as libation dedications and llama sacrifices held on saints’ day festivals—are in fact potent evidence of social memory in the community.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Thomas A. Abercrombie is associate professor of anthropology at New York University.
REVIEWS
“What Abercrombie gives us is an understanding of how people in an Andean community shape, rethink, and reshape their past.”—Gary Urton, author of The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Inkas
“A groundbreaking and important contribution to Andean anthropology and history. Among Abercrombie’s aims is bridging the gap between writing and non-writing peoples by confronting history with ethnohistory, and confronting written ethnohistory with the oral traditions and ritual practices through which K’ultas themselves remember their past.”—Florencia E. Mallon, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“A major theoretical, ethnographic, and historical contribution to Andean studies. It could well become a classic.”—Paul Gelles, University of California–Riverside
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
1.
Introduction: From Ritual to History and Back Again, Trajectories in Research and Theory
History and Memory, Narrative and Landscape
Ethnography and History in a Postcolonial Interculture
Part One.
An Ethnographic Pastorale: Introduction to K'ulta and the Local Sources of History
2.
Journeys to Cultural Frontiers
From the University of Chicago to La Paz
Journey to a Crossroads
Cruce: A Cultural Frontier
3.
The Dialogical Politics of Ethnographic Fieldwork
An Ethnographer in Santa Bárbara de Culta
Getting to Know the Mamanis: Hamlet and Town, Vila Sirka and Santa Bárbara
Counterethnography: The Roles and Persona of the Ethnographer
A Balance Sheet of Cultural Positioning
Empathy, Trust, and Murder
4.
Structures and Histories: K'ulta between Gods and State
Ethnographic Border Crossings
Council and Corregidor, Ayllu and Cantón, Fiestas and Cargos: Some Formal Institutions of K'ulta Life
Citizenship in Ayllu and Nation
Household and Collective Rituals
Culture and the Clandestine
Rethinking “Syncretism”: Coordinates in Space and Time of a Colonial Interculture
From Historical Consciousness to a History of K'ulta
Part Two.
Historical Paths to K'ulta: An Andean Social Formation from Preinvasion Autonomy to Postrevolution Atomization
5
Pathways of Historical Colonization: Stories of an Andean Past from the Archives of Letters and Landscapes
The Conquest Moment: A Conflict of Histories
Killaka and Asanaqi in Colonial and Perhaps Inca Times
Spanish Pasts and Memory Techniques
Recollections of Andean Memory Techniques
Narrative Conquests: Spanish Encounters with Mythic Andean Journeys
Christianizing Qullasuyu Wanderers: Tunupa as Martyred Apostle
6.
Colonial Relandscaping of Andean Social Memory
From Negotiated Toleration to Heterodox Synthesis and Counter-Reformation Response
The Colonial Counter-Reformation of Viceroy Toledo
A New Center of the Andean World: Mita Pilgrimages to Potosí
Institutions for the Reshaping of Space and Time: Visita, Reductión, and Doctrina
An Andean Pidgin Baroque: The Counter-Reformation of Intercultural Heresies
Indian Sacrifices and Indian Eucharists after Taqui Oncoy
Composiciones and Boundaries: Circumambulating New Polities
Festivals of Rebellion: Genesis of an Andean “Revolution of the Communities”
Liberalism and Ethnocide: From Land Privatization to Cantonization and the Law of Popular Participation
Part Three.
Social Memory in K'ulta: A Landscape Poetics of Narrative, Drink, and Saints' Festivals
7.
Telling and Drinking the Paths of Memory: Narrative and Libation Poetics as Historical Consciousness
T“akis of Modern Life: History and Social Memory in K'ulta
The Narrated Past: The Solar-Christ Defeats the Supay-Chullpas
Space-Time in the Contexts of Everyday Life
Amt'añ T“aki: “Paths of Memory” Traveled in Drink
Ch'allas in Sequence: Amt'añ T“aki as Text and Performance
Uywa Ispira T“aki: The “Herd Vespers Path”
Corn Beer and Cane Liquor in a Concatenated Cosmos
8.
Living on Tatala's Path: Uses of the Past in Sacrifice and Antisacrifice, Saints' Festivals, and Sorceries
The Great Fiesta Paths
A Jach'a P“ista Performance: The Events of Guadalupe, September 1982
Gods, Men, and Llamas in Herding and Sacrifice: Poetics of a K'ulta Eucharist
Inverted Memories: From K“arisiris to Protestants
9.
Conclusion: Ethnography and History of Social Memory and Amnesia
Orality and Literacy, Ethnography and Historiography
Historicizing the Colonial and Postcolonial Frontiers
Postcolonial Social Memory and (Post?) Modernity
Documentary Appendix
A.
Francisco Pizarro's Grant of Acho and Guarache to Hernando de Aldana
B.
Juntas de Indios en Pueblos Formados; Alcaldes Hordinarios, Regidores Cadañeros
C.
Chapters and Ordinances for the Town of Our Lady of Bethlehem
D.
Extirpation Report of Priest Hernán Gonzáles de la Casa (Late Sixteenth Century)
E.
Circular Letter to Alcaldes of K'ulta, 1781
F.
Corcino Pérez' Petitions to the President of Bolivia, 1894
Notes
Glossary
References
Index
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Pathways of Memory and Power: Ethnography and History among an Andean People
by Thomas A. Abercrombie
University of Wisconsin Press, 1998 Cloth: 978-0-299-15310-6 Paper: 978-0-299-15314-4 eISBN: 978-0-299-15313-7
Pathways of Memory and Power crosses the disciplinary boundary where anthropology and history meet, exploring the cultural frontier of the colonial and postcolonial Andes. Thomas A. Abercrombie uses his fieldwork in the Aymara community of Santa Barbara de Culta, Bolivia, as a starting point for his ambitious examination of the relations between European forms of historical consciousness and indigenous Andean ways of understanding the past. Writing in an inviting first-person narrative style, Abercrombie confronts the ethics of fieldwork by comparing ethnographic experience to the power-laden contexts that produce historical sources.
Making clear the early and deep intermingling of practices and world views among Spaniards and Andeans, Christians and non-Christians, Abercrombie critiques both the romanticist tendency to regard Andean culture as still separate from and resistant to European influences, and the melodramatic view that all indigenous practices have been obliterated by colonial and national elites. He challenges prejudices that, from colonial days to the present, have seen Andean historical knowledge only in mythic narratives or narratives of personal experience. Bringing an ethnographer’s approach to historiography, he shows how complex Andean rituals that hybridize European and indigenous traditions—such as libation dedications and llama sacrifices held on saints’ day festivals—are in fact potent evidence of social memory in the community.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Thomas A. Abercrombie is associate professor of anthropology at New York University.
REVIEWS
“What Abercrombie gives us is an understanding of how people in an Andean community shape, rethink, and reshape their past.”—Gary Urton, author of The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Inkas
“A groundbreaking and important contribution to Andean anthropology and history. Among Abercrombie’s aims is bridging the gap between writing and non-writing peoples by confronting history with ethnohistory, and confronting written ethnohistory with the oral traditions and ritual practices through which K’ultas themselves remember their past.”—Florencia E. Mallon, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“A major theoretical, ethnographic, and historical contribution to Andean studies. It could well become a classic.”—Paul Gelles, University of California–Riverside
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
1.
Introduction: From Ritual to History and Back Again, Trajectories in Research and Theory
History and Memory, Narrative and Landscape
Ethnography and History in a Postcolonial Interculture
Part One.
An Ethnographic Pastorale: Introduction to K'ulta and the Local Sources of History
2.
Journeys to Cultural Frontiers
From the University of Chicago to La Paz
Journey to a Crossroads
Cruce: A Cultural Frontier
3.
The Dialogical Politics of Ethnographic Fieldwork
An Ethnographer in Santa Bárbara de Culta
Getting to Know the Mamanis: Hamlet and Town, Vila Sirka and Santa Bárbara
Counterethnography: The Roles and Persona of the Ethnographer
A Balance Sheet of Cultural Positioning
Empathy, Trust, and Murder
4.
Structures and Histories: K'ulta between Gods and State
Ethnographic Border Crossings
Council and Corregidor, Ayllu and Cantón, Fiestas and Cargos: Some Formal Institutions of K'ulta Life
Citizenship in Ayllu and Nation
Household and Collective Rituals
Culture and the Clandestine
Rethinking “Syncretism”: Coordinates in Space and Time of a Colonial Interculture
From Historical Consciousness to a History of K'ulta
Part Two.
Historical Paths to K'ulta: An Andean Social Formation from Preinvasion Autonomy to Postrevolution Atomization
5
Pathways of Historical Colonization: Stories of an Andean Past from the Archives of Letters and Landscapes
The Conquest Moment: A Conflict of Histories
Killaka and Asanaqi in Colonial and Perhaps Inca Times
Spanish Pasts and Memory Techniques
Recollections of Andean Memory Techniques
Narrative Conquests: Spanish Encounters with Mythic Andean Journeys
Christianizing Qullasuyu Wanderers: Tunupa as Martyred Apostle
6.
Colonial Relandscaping of Andean Social Memory
From Negotiated Toleration to Heterodox Synthesis and Counter-Reformation Response
The Colonial Counter-Reformation of Viceroy Toledo
A New Center of the Andean World: Mita Pilgrimages to Potosí
Institutions for the Reshaping of Space and Time: Visita, Reductión, and Doctrina
An Andean Pidgin Baroque: The Counter-Reformation of Intercultural Heresies
Indian Sacrifices and Indian Eucharists after Taqui Oncoy
Composiciones and Boundaries: Circumambulating New Polities
Festivals of Rebellion: Genesis of an Andean “Revolution of the Communities”
Liberalism and Ethnocide: From Land Privatization to Cantonization and the Law of Popular Participation
Part Three.
Social Memory in K'ulta: A Landscape Poetics of Narrative, Drink, and Saints' Festivals
7.
Telling and Drinking the Paths of Memory: Narrative and Libation Poetics as Historical Consciousness
T“akis of Modern Life: History and Social Memory in K'ulta
The Narrated Past: The Solar-Christ Defeats the Supay-Chullpas
Space-Time in the Contexts of Everyday Life
Amt'añ T“aki: “Paths of Memory” Traveled in Drink
Ch'allas in Sequence: Amt'añ T“aki as Text and Performance
Uywa Ispira T“aki: The “Herd Vespers Path”
Corn Beer and Cane Liquor in a Concatenated Cosmos
8.
Living on Tatala's Path: Uses of the Past in Sacrifice and Antisacrifice, Saints' Festivals, and Sorceries
The Great Fiesta Paths
A Jach'a P“ista Performance: The Events of Guadalupe, September 1982
Gods, Men, and Llamas in Herding and Sacrifice: Poetics of a K'ulta Eucharist
Inverted Memories: From K“arisiris to Protestants
9.
Conclusion: Ethnography and History of Social Memory and Amnesia
Orality and Literacy, Ethnography and Historiography
Historicizing the Colonial and Postcolonial Frontiers
Postcolonial Social Memory and (Post?) Modernity
Documentary Appendix
A.
Francisco Pizarro's Grant of Acho and Guarache to Hernando de Aldana
B.
Juntas de Indios en Pueblos Formados; Alcaldes Hordinarios, Regidores Cadañeros
C.
Chapters and Ordinances for the Town of Our Lady of Bethlehem
D.
Extirpation Report of Priest Hernán Gonzáles de la Casa (Late Sixteenth Century)
E.
Circular Letter to Alcaldes of K'ulta, 1781
F.
Corcino Pérez' Petitions to the President of Bolivia, 1894
Notes
Glossary
References
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE