Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism in Modern Peru

9: Male and Female

137 CHAPTER NINE Male and Female As Jung (1953/1968) said of man and woman, “This primordial pair of opposites symbolizes every conceivable pair of opposites that may occur; hot and cold, light and dark, north and south, dry and damp, good and bad, conscious and unconscious” (p. 152). And so it is. Perhaps no duality has garnered as much attention, either in the Andes or anywhere around the world, as the dyad of male and female. In the Andean perspective, male and female is considered the most fundamental polarity—the absolute basis of the philosophical ideal of yanantin. Scholars (Harrison, 1989; Platt, 1986; Silverblatt, 1987; Urton, 1981) have noted that indigenous Andeans interpret the world around them as if it were divided into two interdependent spheres of gender, that the polarities of male and female act as “the prisms through which the universe and society are viewed” (Silverblatt, 1987, p. 212). Platt (1986) was told by his Macha informants, “Tukuy ima qhariwarmi”: “Everything is man-and-woman” (p. 241). He noted that when drinks are served, the Macha pour a few drops on the ground, speaking the name of the receiving divinity. This is done twice, which is explained as being yanantin, or chapter nine 138 “for the conjugal pair” (p. 245). Urton (1981) described at length how the people of Misminay, Peru, split the natural world into male and female categories. For example, natural phenomena such as lightning and thunder are considered either male or female, depending on the specific form that they take. Likewise, during our conversation, Dr. Jorge Flores Ochoa pointed out that the Q’ero people of the high Andes divide native animal species into categories of male and female. For example, llamas as a general category are considered male, while alpacas are considered female. Interestingly, however, these distinctions have not been applied to cows and sheep and other post-Conquest animals. Classen (1993) suggested that the division of the human body into male and female elements (left side female, right side male) reflects the Andean desire for achieving a balance between the genders. This equal division of energies within one entity is also revealed in the Inca and pre-Inca imagining of the creator deity Viracocha. While referred to as a “god,” scholars (Andrien, 2001; Classen 1993; Cruz, 2007; Harrison, 1989; Joralemon & Sharon, 1993) noted that Viracocha is typically depicted as having both male and female attributes, implying that, as the creator of the world, the deity encompasses, integrates , and transcends all polarities. Similarly, other Andean deities come in pairs. Pachamama (Mother Earth) is typically matched with Inti Tayta (Father Sun) and so on. In her study of Inca and pre-Inca society, Silverblatt (1987) noted that, based on this dual conception of the world, Andean men and women were seen as having equal status. Marriage, she noted, was celebrated as the formation of a unity made up of two equals. Although some tasks were defined as appropriate to men and others to women, women’s work and men’s work were seen as complementing one another, with each being equally necessary to the well-being of the household and community. Silverblatt, as well as others (Joralemon & Sharon, 1993), have pointed out that it was only after the Spanish Conquest that the once complementary gender roles were replaced with patriarchal relations and values associated with machismo. However, it has been noted (Allen, 1988, 2002; Harris, 1986; Heckman, 2003; Isbell, 1977; Platt, 1986; Seibold, 1992) that male-female symmetry still plays an essential role in both the social and ideological organization of the ayllu structure in many of the rural communities of the highland Andes. For example, the earth’s fertility is considered strengthened by the combination of men and women working together (Heckman, 2003). The Male and Female 139 survival of the community is therefore seen as dependent upon the balanced union of the conjugal pair (Harris, 1986). Scholars (Harrison, 1989; Platt, 1986; Vasquez, 1998) have observed that whether something is paired or unpaired is an important distinction within the Andean cosmovision. Harrison (1989) noted, “Quechua speakers persistently distinguish objects which are not well matched or ‘equal’” (p. 49). Among the Macha, yanantin contrasts with chhulla, which refers to something that is unequal or odd—“one of things which should be twice” (Platt, 1986, p. 245). Vasquez (1998) found that the people of Cajamarca say that something incomplete is chuya [alternate spelling...