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

Introduction: The Complement of Difference

1 INTRODUCTION The Complement of Difference The first time I heard the term yanantin was back in 2000, when I accompanied a group of people to Peru to learn about the indigenous spiritual philosophies as they exist in that region of the world.1 It was May 21, and we were sitting in the Sacred Valley, watching the kuraq akulleq2 don Manuel Q’espi construct a despacho—a ceremonial offering to the spirits of the earth. On a large white piece of paper, don Manuel created a kind of mandala from a variety of symbolic objects—coca leaves, flowers, confetti, llama fetus and llama fat, tiny figurines in the shape of ladders, caballeros, skirted women, trees, stars, and so on. Each object carried a specific intent for the health of individual, community, and planet. One of the first items to be included, placed right in the center of the despacho, was a small figurine in the form of a human being. The figure was split down the middle, with one half of it colored yellow, the other half pink. “This is yanantin,” don Manuel told us as he placed it on the paper. “Complementary opposites.” As I would later discover, one of the most well-known and defining characteristics of indigenous Andean3 thought is its adherence to a introduction 2 philosophical model4 based in what is often referred to as a “dualism5 of complementary terms” (Ajaya, 1983, p. 15) or, simply, a “complementary dualism” (Barnard & Spencer, 2002, p. 598). Similar to Chinese Taoism, Andean philosophy views the opposites of existence (such as male/female, dark/light, inner/outer) as interdependent and essential parts of a harmonious whole. Because existence is believed to be dependent upon the tension and balanced interchange between the polarities, there is a very definite ideological and practical commitment within indigenous Andean life to bringing the seemingly conflicting opposites into harmony with one another without destroying or altering either one.6 Although I did not know all this at the time, the phrase complementary opposites struck me immediately. There was something poetic about it, something that gave me chills when I heard it. Perhaps it caught my attention because it illustrated a perspective that seemed to be in such stark contrast to most “Western”7 philosophical models, which have historically tendedtowarda“dualismofantitheticalterms”(Ajaya,1983,p.15)—theview that the opposites are incompatible and are therefore engaged in an eternal antagonism and struggle for dominance. This antagonistic split shows up in much of Western thought, such as the religious dichotomies of sacred versus profane, spirit versus flesh, Absolute Good versus Absolute Evil, and so on. It plays a major role in our philosophical constructs, the most obvious of these being the debates over the primacy of mind/consciousness versus that of the physical body. As a result, much of Western thought within both spiritual and secular domains has been an attempt to prove once and for all which half of any given polarity is more constant and unchanging, and, therefore, which is more real or primary. Less accepted is the potential for their interdependence. Psychologically speaking, this devotion to what Carl Jung (1953/1956) referred to as “neurotic one-sidedness” (p. 42) presents itself in a certain intolerance of the complexity of the psyche, one that often results in a compulsion to eliminate all paradoxes and seeming contradictions of the human condition. A 2007 Time article titled “What Makes Us Moral” gives an example of this. The article begins with the following sentiment: If the entire human species were a single individual, that person would long ago have been declared mad. The insanity would not lie The Complement of Difference 3 in the anger and darkness of the human mind—though it can be a black and raging place indeed. And certainly it wouldn’t lie in the transcendent goodness of that mind—one so sublime, we fold it into a larger “soul.” The madness would lie instead in the fact that both of those qualities, the savage and the splendid, can exist in one creature, one person, often in one instant. (Kluger, 2007, p. 54) According to this statement, it doesn’t matter whether we choose the “splendid” or the “savage” as long as we align ourselves thoroughly and completely with that one side without deviation. Only then can we be considered healthy and sane. It was my dismay over what I considered to be...