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The Franciscan Church of Yanque (Arequipa) and Andean Culture*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Maria Benavides
Maria Benavides*
Affiliation:
Lima, Peru
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Extract

Yanque, a village in the Colca Valley of southern Peru, was the capital of the Spanish province of Collaguas during the colonial period (1532-1821). It was also the seat of a Franciscan convent responsible for baptizing the native population, instructing them in Catholic doctrine and Spanish social customs, and discouraging indigenous worship of ancestors, mountains, and forces of nature. Supervised by Franciscan friars and “master builders” hired in the nearby town of Arequipa, native workers constructed a church in the sixteenth century and rebuilt it on a grander scale after the walls and roof collapsed during the 1668 earthquake.

Type
Research Issues
Information
The Americas , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , January 1994 , pp. 419 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1994

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Footnotes

*

The research for this essay was partly funded by a 1983 Inter American Institute grant and by the 1984-1985 Colca Valley Terrace Abandonment Project, directed by William M. Denevan. My thanks to both, and to Sister Antonia Kayser who provided welcome hospitality and pointed out the importance of the 1689-1731 Libro de Fábrica. Hipólito Rivera and Gerardo Huaracha, mayor and gobemador of Yanque respectively during the 1980s, and Sister Antonia explained Hanansaya/Urinsay division and rituals at length. However, any error in fact or in interpretation is exclusively my responsibility.

References

1 Tibesar, Antonine, Franciscan Beginnings in Colonial Peru (Washington, D.C.: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1953).Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 65.

3 Libro de Fábrica de la Iglesia de Yanquecollaguas, 1689–1731 in the Yanque Parish Archive in the Arequipa Archepiscopal Archive [hereafter cited as YPA]; Gutiérrez, Ramón, Esteras, Cristina, and Malaga, Alejandro, El valle del Colca (Arequipa): Cinco siglos de arquitectura y urbanismo (Buenos Aires: Libros de Hispanoamerica, 1986)Google Scholar; Stasny, Francisco, “Las artes en el valle del Colca,” in Descubriendo el valle del Colca, de Romaña, Mauricio, etal.,eds. (Barcelona, 1987), pp. 161–81Google Scholar; Benavides, Maria, “Libro de Fábrica de la Iglesia de Yanquecollaguas: Un documento para la historia del Valle del Colca,” in Actas del Primer Congreso de Investigación Histórica Lima, ed., Pastor, Humberto Rodríguez (Lima: CONCYTEC, 1984), 3, pp. 133–142.Google Scholar

4 In the colonies, as in rural Europe, the church’s policy was to permit the manifestations of pre-Christian symbols and rites that were not specifically considered “idolatry,” but could be classified as harmless “customs.” See Eliade, Mircea, A History of Religious Ideas, vol. 3, From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985)Google Scholar. In Peru, identifying the origins of practices is made more difficult by the fact that in many cases the native population was “evangelized” by lay Spaniards—sometimes soldiers—as well as by young monks who had not been well-trained in theology (Tibesar, pp. 37–39). Both groups could have introduced non-Christian rites practiced in rural Europe. Syncretism of Christianity with Andean religious would thus also incorporate ancient Indo-European beliefs.

5 See for example, Isbell, Billie Jean, To Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Valderrama, Ricardo and Escalante, Carmen, Del Tata Mallku a la Mama Pacha: Riego, sociedad y ritos en los Andes Peruanos (Lima: DESCO, 1988)Google Scholar; Marzal, Manuel, El mundo religioso de Urcos (Cusco: Instituto de Pastoral Andina, 1971)Google Scholar; “La religión quechua surandina peruana,” in El rostro indio de Dios, Marzal, Manuel M., ed. (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1991), pp. 197–257, as well as articles by other authors in this volume.Google Scholar

6 Urton, Gary, “La arquitectura pública como texto social: La historia de un muro de adobe en Pacarictambo, Perú (1915–1985),” Revista Andina, 6:1 (1988), 225–62.Google Scholar

7 Cook, Noble David, Tasa de la visita general de Francisco de Toledo (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1975)Google Scholar; and Medina, Alejandro Málaga, “Los Collaguas en la historia de Arequipa en el Siglo XVI,” in Collaguas 1, Pease, Franklin, ed. (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perù, 1977), pp. 93–129.Google Scholar

8 For visual images of the town and region, see Shippee, Robert, “Lost Valleys of Peru: Results of the Shippee-Johnson Peruvian Expedition,” Geographical Review, 22 (1932), 562–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “A Forgotten Valley of Peru,” National Geographic Magazine, 65:1 (1934), 110–32; Coriat, Héctor Eduardo Llosa, “La arquitectura de los asentamientos del valle del Colca como expresión de un contexto cultural: Yanque, Lari y Coporaque” (Tesis, Universidad Ricardo Palma, Lima, 1992).Google Scholar

9 Benavides, Maria, “La división social y geográfica Hanansaya/Urinsaya en el valle del Colca y la provincia de Caylloma, Arequipa,” Boletín del Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 18 (1989), 241–67Google Scholar. Each parcialidad was in turn divided into approximately five ayllus, ruled by curacas or mandones subject to their parcialidad cacique. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, ayllu organization was gradually dropped [see Cook, Noble David, The People of the Coica Valley: A Population Study (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982), p. 65]Google Scholar, suggesting that it could have been an imposition of Inca rule, as suggested by Juan de Ulloa in 1586 [“Relación de la provincia de los Collaguas,” in Relaciones geográficas de Indias, de la Espada, Marcos Jiménez, ed. (repr.; Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1965), p. 327]Google Scholar. Parcialidad division survived, and is particularly important for ceremonial and irrigation purposes. See Gelles, Paul, “Channels of Power, Fields of Contention: The Politics and Ideology of Irrigation in an Andean Peasant Community” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1990)Google Scholar; Treacy, John, “The Fields of Coporaque: Agricultural Terracing and Water Management in the Coica Valley, Arequipa, Peru” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1988)Google Scholar; Valderrama and Escalante, op. cit. According to anthropologist Alfredo Simón Bernal Málaga who was born in Coporaque, a village across the river from Yanque, of a Urinsaya father and a Hanansaya mother, parcialidades stemmed from different ethnic origins and were traditional enemies, as shown in ritual battles practiced until the 1960s. At present these displays have been replaced by dances in which parcialidades compete in stamina of dancers and band. [See“Danzas de las etnias Collaguas y Colonias: Un estudio en la cuenca del Colca, Caylloma” (Tesis, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Arequipa)] Karsten Paerregaard (n.d.) has shown that Lima immigrants from Tapay, a Coica Valley village, preserve their parcialidad affiliation irrespective of their residential quarters in the great city.

10 Benavides, Maria, “Las visitas a Yanquecollaguas de 1604 y 1615–1617: Organización social y tenencia de tierras,” Boletín del Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 18 (1989), 241–67.Google Scholar

11 Gutiérrez, et al., Cinco siglos de arquitectura y urbanismo.

12 Benavides, Maria, “The Yanque Parish Archive,” The Americas, 48:4 (1992), 519–35.Google Scholar

13 It is customary, however, for the moveable objects, other than the statues and pictures, to be fletado (rented) to churches in neighboring villages or to Yanque villagers for festivals or ceremonies. The monies received are supposedly invested in the upkeep of the church.

14 Templos coloniales del Colca—Arequipa (Lima: Atlas, 1983).

15 Tord, p. 50

16 Hagan, Paul, “Que espera el campesino cayllomino del sacerdote?,” paper read at the 4th Congreso del Hombre y la Cultura Andina, Cusco, 1979 Google Scholar; Franklin, Pease G.Y., “Collaguas; Una etnia del Siglo XVI, problemas iniciales,” in Collaguas 1, Franklin, Pease, ed., pp. 131–67.Google Scholar

17 The description and analysis of the celebrations and processions in Yanque and in other Coica Valley villages, particularly the impressive Holy Week performances, would be a valuable contribution to the study of Catholic and Spanish influence in Andean ideology and ritual. All the statues carried in processions, as well as the masks used in festivals, have European features, even when meant to represent the Sun, Moon, Stars, and the two “Turks” (Muslims), who in Spanish lore represented non-Christian and in Andean processions symbolize rival Indian parcialidades or caciques.

18 Andean celebration of Semana Santa (Holy Week) could be primarily mestizo, not Indian. Yanque, however, is a special case, because of the frequent visits of the bishops of Arequipa, the presence during approximately two centuries of the Franciscan friars, and the residence of Spanish magistrates in what was the colonial provincial capital.

19 Gutiérrez, , et al., Cinco siglos de arquitectura y urbanismo, p. 81.Google Scholar

20 Libro de Fábrica, 1783–1830, YPA.

21 Stasny, “Las artes en el Valle del Colca.”

22 The churches in both Yanque and Lari are dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, a theological description of Mary, the mother of Jesus, according to which she was exempt of “original sin” from the moment of conception. It was a devotion specifically of the Franciscan tradition, gradually incorporated into Catholic liturgy. In the Coica Valley, the term more often used is Concebida or Purísima (Conceived or Very Pure).

23 The tombolas has no connection or counterpart in universal Catholic ritual, since the eight days following Easter Sunday are days of rejoicing, not of mourning. It should be noted, however, that Easter comes in March or April, the time for the early harvest, followed by the major harvest in May or June. Apparently, peasants and shepherds in this and other Andean provinces traditionally delivered “primicias” (the earliest or best produce and cattle) to priests at Easter time, a custom that could have been instituted in lieu of the tithe, a church tax from which colonial Indians were exempt. Primicias were traditionally paid to priests visiting outlying hamlets. Father Hagan, op. cit., an American priest resident in Yanque, attempted to discourage the custom because he found that highland shepherds refrained from requesting the priest’s visit to their capillas (ritual centers) out of fear of excessive demands for cattle and wool, delivered not only to visiting priests, but also to cantors and pastoral agents who accompanied—or replaced—the priest.

24 See Benavides, 1991 for this document.

25 Pre-Hispanic Andean ritual did not conceive of a roofed building for worship. As Ulloa (1965, p. 330) explains, people worshiped their huacas (shrines, mountains, and places of mythical origin) “standing, with joined hands and outstretched arms, with great humility” (… adoración parados, alargando juntas las manos con gran demostración de humildad …). But in the late seventeenth century, if not earlier, the Yanque population, or at least its caciques, were deeply imbued with the cultic importance of the church. According to Eliade, Mircea, Lo sagrado y lo profano (Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1985)Google Scholar, religious roofed buildings have been intended historically as a symbolic representation of the world. The roof represents the heavens, the floor symbolizes the earth and the ancestors interred therein, the four walls, oriented according to the cardinal points, function as cosmic limits, while the chancel and altar represent Paradise (possibly reinterpreted in Andean thought as the traditional local sanctuaries). Thus, in 1705, don Francisco Damián Paccsi could say: “ … and upon the completion of the vaulted church I so greatly desired, I gave thanks to God, who helped me in all the work, for only He knows all I have suffered, using my children in this service, without excepting any of my family. And this is the truth …” (Libro de Fábrica 1689–1731, YPA, folio 12v.

26 Libro de Fábrica 1689–1731, folio 20v.

27 Gutiérrez, , et al., Cinco siglos de arquitectura y urbanismo, p. 65.Google Scholar

28 The custom of burying people in shallow graves encased in fragile coffins or wrapped in a blanket has made the soil extremely loose and soft, so that when a grave is dug, the soil from the sides continually falls in, together with loose bones and skulls. No doubt, the same occurred first within the church and later in the churchyard, as well as in a small chapel west of the convent, near the front churchyard. This chapel could have been used as a graveyard, or possibly as a common grave for older human remains disinterred with subsequent burials, as the ground was found to cover human bones when it was converted to a garden in 1972.

29 Libro de Fábrica 1689–1731, YPA, folio 29; and Benavides, 1991.