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4. Mexico’s and Peru’s Diverging Forms of Neo-Indianity
- University Press of Colorado
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155 4 Mexico’s and Peru’s Diverging Forms of Neo-Indianity There is an undeniable family resemblance between neoIndians in Mexico and Peru. They share a marked taste for rituals in which they display intense creativity and both find an inexhaustible source in their pre-Hispanic past to redefine their identity, especially through the “imperialization ” of traditions that, at times, verges on revisionism. However, it would be simplistic to draw up a comparative index and promote the idea of a shared “tropical supermodernity ” in the wake of globalization. In fact, the differences between the two neo-Indianities, mexicanidad and neo-Incaism, are such that they may seem to arise from two distinct sources of inspiration. Having outlined what they have in common, we would like to illustrate some differences and thus suggest that their trajectories , which take on worldwide proportions, can generate as many variants as the multiplicity of the traditions they draw upon. We have selected two traits that seem to characterize the two orientations. In Mexico, the neo-Indians seem to be haunted by the idea of Aztlan, a fantasy territory that fits with the myth of origin passed down by the Aztecs. Although it is true that the close contact with the large neighbor to the North gives the mexicanidad almost mystical frontiers, we cannot ignore the significance of migrationsofpopulationsfromIndianregionstowarddeveloped areas, urban centers, and supposed El Dorados north of the border, several thousand kilometers away. This is why we need to describe the ethnic background of immigration in order to understand the extent to which it is interlinked but also distances itself from the ideological communitas invented by the neo-Aztecs and children of the New Age. In Peru, the conquering nature of the Incas is surprisingly minimized. The imperial Indian emerges from the ruins of Sacsayhuaman, where the Inti Raymi is celebrated to colonize not a territory but the national imagination. Since it was devised at the beginning of the twentieth century , it has acquired a political dimension that has now reached not merely the municipality of Cuzco but also, as DOI: 10.5876/9781607322740:c04 mexico’s and peru’s diverging forms of neo-indianity 156 we shall see, the sphere of the president of the Republic and its international image. Incaism even influences a Peruvian political party, whose leader lays claim to a very peculiar “Israelite-Inca” identity. We have chosen these two variants of neo-Indianity, but they should not be considered as models. We cannot ignore the fact that Peru’s neo-Indianity is spreading to neighboring countries such as Bolivia, where it is taking on specific aspects, especially since the election of President Morales. As for the mexicanidad, it has complex political ramifications that are still relatively unobtrusive but that are becoming increasingly pervasive. Mexico: Autochthony and Transnationality Mexican neo-Indianity is paradoxical in that it simultaneously makes use of the image of the original, primitive Indian, the hunter-gatherer of the Sonoran Desert on both sides of the current border with the United States, and the image of the imperial Indian, the paragon of civilization, builder of a monumental capital, Tenochtitlan. The paradox lies in the simultaneous presence of these two images in the ideology of mexicanidad without one (the imperial Indian) contradicting the other (the savage Indian). In spite of everything, this co-presence is in contradiction to the neoIndians ’ evolutionist tenet, which considers the sons of Tenochtitlan as the bearers of a civilization at its peak, the mother of sciences and arts. The Aztec migration does not indicate a simple geographical shift but the passage from one cultural macro-area to another and a colossal mutation of politicoreligious and economic organizations, from hunting and gathering to agriculture and a supraethnic tribute system. However, this dual cultural constraint—a kind of Gregory Bateson’s “double bind” consisting of worshipping both the savage and the civilized—does not seem to bother our exegetes in the Zócalo in the slightest. On the contrary, it feeds their ideology as it enables it to maintain the idea of a neo-Indian Lebensraum stretching from California to the valley of Mexico without any disruption of continuity. The Dream of Aztlan One needs to return to the role of Aztlan, the land of the ancestors, in the Mexican imagination today before examining the historical modes of constructing the image of the imperial Indian since the Spanish Conquest. Aztlan is the hypothetical place from where the Aztecs were said to have begun their migration...