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1. Death in Pre-Hispanic Peru
- University of Notre Dame Press
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chapter one | Death in Pre-Hispanic Peru Beliefs and practices concerning death were of fundamental importance in the lives of the ancient inhabitants of the Andes. Investigating these beliefs and practices is key to understanding the Andeans’ vision of the world and the sociopolitical organization of their societies . This chapter aims to sketch out some of the characteristics of experience of death in the Andes at the moment of the Spanish conquest and to explore its diversity and meaning. While this requires an interdisciplinary focus, I seek also to situate the task historically, engaging the problem of change, and of the dynamics generated in pre-Hispanic Peru when diverse cultural practices came into contact through exchange as well as by means of conquest. Research on Andean funerary practice in particular, and on the region’s religious practice in general, underscores the significant role of the cult of the ancestors. Making use of historical and archaeological sources, I will attempt to establish which practices were, in fact, legitimate manifestations of the cult.1 To this end, I will consider those aspects concerned with the process of death: the places of burial, the placement and positioning of the body, and mourning rituals . Moreover, I wish to understand the place occupied by the dead and by funerary practices in the processes of competition and political rivalry that characterized the region’s history. I believe that this connection holds the key to understanding the dynamics of conflict and cultural reproduction that gave rise to diverse political conformations , both before and after the European conquest.| 9 Ethnographic research has repeatedly shown that death is a phenomenon that involves complex rituals composed of various phases, in which the constitution of society is central. Faced with the loss of one of its members, society redefines its ties, seeking to reestablish its meaning (Hertz 1960). Bloch and Parry (1982) observe that, in the conception and unfolding of their funerary rituals, societies recreate themselves. During this process, forebears, especially those of high social rank, are taken as a point of reference. With them, the living maintain relations that can be ambiguous: the ancestors take the role of protectors of their descendants, but they can also exert a negative influence over them (Bloch and Parry 1982, 43). Whether their influence is for good or for ill, the conviction that the dead are active in the world of the living explains the existence and vigor of the cult of the ancestors in the Andes.2 The ancestors’ sphere of influence affects practically every aspect of human activity (DeLeonardis and Lau 2004, 78–80).3 In the rituals conducted in their honor, kin invoked them to ensure the fertility of the earth and an adequate supply of the goods needed for subsistence ; they prayed for the health and well-being of their descendants and asked for their ancestors’ intercession in order to ensure the political fortunes of the group that fell under their tutelage. The concept of the ancestor implies descent and kinship, and it is directly linked to the representation and exercise of authority, to the unfolding of political life, and to the formation and use of memory. In the Andes, the certainty that a nexus existed between the ancestors, nature, and space explains their decisive role in the appropriation and control of territory by a particular group.4 Although Andean societies invoked the ancestors on many kinds of occasions, the activities that ensued when a death took place had special relevance, given that they represented a response to the worries and expectations that emerged with special force in such circumstances . These actions concern the internal order within a given society as well as its relationships with other groups. The form and meaning of the cult of the ancestors in the Andes has been studied by other researchers, whose work serves me here as a point of departure.5 What I seek to contribute in the following discussion is a consideration of the regional variations that most di10 | death and conversion in the andes [34.201.8.144] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:32 GMT) rectly concern this book, and their possible significance. My sources consist of the reports written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by chroniclers, religious, and functionaries—the majority of them Europeans—about funerary practices and conceptions about death and the hereafter that existed in the Andes up to the moment of conquest, and during the years that followed...