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c h a p t e r 3 Textual Strategies and Ritual Control in Early Twentieth-Century Salasaca The fiesta sponsorship system is a quintessential example of a colonial imposition that was transformed into a symbol of indigenous cultural identity. By the early twentieth century, indigenous men were vying for the priests’ favor in order to be named as festival sponsors. I focus here on specific interactions between indigenous Salasacans and the Catholic clergy from 1908 to 1914. Letters and telegrams, which are among the few bits of preserved correspondence between indigenous people and higher church authorities in Quito, indicate the importance of the fiestacargo system to early twentieth-century Salasacans. In the final part of this chapter I analyze oral histories of catechism in the memories of two elderly Salasacan women. Catholic authorities in colonial Latin America implemented a system of indigenous sponsorship of saints’ day celebrations in order to increase indigenous engagement with the church. By selecting fundadores (individuals to be responsible for fiesta celebrations for particular saints or feast days), as well as other indigenous officials such as alcaldes and priostes, the church authorities could use the fiesta system to bring indigenous people into the faith. In indigenous communities in Mexico, Central America, and the Andes, the institution of fiesta sponsorship is known as the fiestacargo system. Traditionally, a man agrees to take on the burden (cargo) of serving the community as an authority and a sponsor of Catholic feast-day celebrations.1 The occupation of a specific cargo for the year is marked by the sponsor’s possession of a staff of authority, called a vara. Although the sponsor often goes into debt as a result of taking on the position, he gains respect and prestige in the community. The Salasacans incorporated the fiesta-cargo system into their culture, where it became a pervasive aspect of kinship relations, cosmology, sacred geography, and collective life. For example, fiesta sponsors call on family members and ritual kin, such as matrimonial godchildren, to help with the labor and expenses Textual Strategies and Ritual Control    41 of sponsoring a fiesta. Evidence of the importance of the fiesta-cargo system to indigenous people can be found in parish archives from the early twentieth century. These archives contain letters to church authorities regarding disputes within the community over festival sponsorship, and the correspondence between indigenous people and clerics shows how individuals interacted with the institutional church in making decisions about the festive-ritual life of their community. Salasacans engaged church authorities in their attempts to control the appointment of ritual cargo holders, and they employed textual strategies to persuade clerics of their arguments. Priests preferred to appoint literate indigenous men to serve as governors of Salasaca, and these men wrote letters directly to the archbishop to address concerns about priests and sponsorship positions. For example, in 1908 Manuel Caizabanda, the governor of Salasaca, wrote to the archbishop to complain that the local priest was charging a fee for masses. He also sent a list of names of men who wanted to serve as alcaldes (Caizabanda a Arzobispo 1908). Governors were not the only individuals who communicated their concerns to the authorities in Quito: common, illiterate Salasacans hired scribes to manipulate religious discourse in their letters to the vicar-general and the archbishop. This is one strategy through which Salasacans attempted to control the ritual life of their community. I will analyze several letters written in the early 1900s. The first letter involves two men: Agustín Masaquiza and Rudecindo Masaquiza, who were competing for the position of “alcalde mayor de las doctrinas” (the lead alcalde). On New Year’s Day each year, the priest names the new alcaldes and the alcalde mayor for that year, but the candidates for the position start competing a year or more ahead of time. In 1908 Agustín and Rudecindo were competing for the position, and Salasacans were supporting either one candidate or the other. Upon hearing this, the archbishop requested that the priest send both candidates to him so that he could meet them personally and decide which one would serve (Sánchez 1908). On October 17, 1908, the acting alcalde mayor of Salasaca sent a telegram to the archbishop of Quito stating, “Agustín Masaquisa has been named alcalde mayor since the New Year, and it is not true that he has taken the alcaldeship [alcaldazgo] from Rudecindo Masaquiza” (Cuato al Arzobispo 1908). But the local priest denied that Agustín Masaquiza had been...

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