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

2: Mind and Body; Spirit and Flesh

35 CHAPTER TWO Mind and Body; Spirit and Flesh The next afternoon, I returned to the plaza to meet Amado and Juan Luis. On my way, I cut through one of the tourist markets and once again tried to engage in conversation with some of the vendors about yanantin. Just as before, my questions were received with strange looks and even suspicious uncertainty. As I approached the plaza, I found Amado and Juan Luis already standing near the fountain waiting for me. I liked Juan Luis immediately. As I was to learn, he had a perpetually impish look on his face, making him look as if he was always about to tell the world’s funniest—and dirtiest—joke. In fact, he often was. He laughed easily, the kind of laugh that seemed to bubble up from the depths of him and explode forth, like the carbonation in a bottle of soda that had been shaken and then opened suddenly. One got the impression that, once started, it might not be able to be contained. Just the sound of it would have me doubled over in laughter whether I understood what was being said or not. Unlike Amado, Juan Luis had the lighter skin and rounder chapter two 36 features of a mestizo, a mix of indigenous and Spanish descent. His hair was curly and stuck out at all angles. After we greeted each other with hugs and kisses, I followed Amado and Juan Luis up to one of the second-floor balcónes overlooking the square. Amado and Juan Luis each ordered a slice of apple cake and a ponche de leche—warm, sweetened milk mixed with pisco, a corn alcohol made in the Pisco region of Peru. Though delicious, I had learned on one of my previous trips to Peru that ponche goes down a little too easily and that the resulting hangover, combined with the altitude, felt like being kicked in the head by a llama. I ordered a maté de coca instead. Coca leaf is the most sacred plant among the indigenous highlanders of Peru and a component of almost all ceremonies as well as in divination practices and the diagnosing of illness. It is also a survival necessity for altitude-weary travelers. A mild stimulant similar to caffeine, it is common practice to ingest coca tea to alleviate altitude sickness.1 Symptoms of altitude sickness, or sorache, vary from person to person. For me, it always included insomnia and headaches for the first few days after my arrival. The taste was pleasant, so I ordered maté every chance I got. The waiter brought our drinks and then dashed back to get the cakes. I told Amado and Juan Luis about the strange reaction I seemed to get whenever I asked people about yanantin. They exchanged knowing looks. Juan Luis started to giggle and, trying to be polite, lowered his eyes and took a long drag of his ponche through the straw. “Not everyone here knows about yanantin, Princesa,” Amado said. “It is something that we were told to forget when colonization came in. We could not speak of it openly because, as you’ve heard, yana also means ‘black,’ and because of that, it was considered something dark. The Spanish saw it as the work of the devil, and therefore we were taught not to speak about it. That was part of the process of being disconnected from this philosophy.” “Also,” he said with a small smile creeping onto his lips, “sometimes the word yana is used as slang to refer to genitalia. They might have thought you were trying to make a sexual joke.” “Or maybe they thought you were looking for a man!” Juan Luis piped up, with a wicked smile on his face. Hearing this, my face turned bright red and I put my head in my hands. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” I moaned. Mind and Body; Spirit and Flesh 37 Amado and Juan Luis burst into laughter. The Danish tourists sitting at the next table turned to look at us. The next five minutes were devoted to Amado and Juan Luis acting out a scene in which they imagined me going around asking people about their yanantins. “Next time you should say yanantin-masintin rather than just yanantin ,” Amado advised me. “Why is that?” “As I said yesterday, yanantin is defined in thousands of ways, no? Yet, I will say...