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Simón Bolívar, the Sun of Justice and the Amerindian Virgin: Andean Conceptions of the Patria in Nineteenth-Century Potosí

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Tristan Platt
Tristan Platt
Affiliation:
Director of the Institute of Amerindian Studies and Lectures in Social Anthropology at theUniversity of St Andrews.
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Extract

How did the indian majority in early republican Bolivia interpret the transformation of the colonial Audiencia of Charcas into an independent nation-state ? How was the new republican age and its symbols reconciled with the forms of social organisation and belief which had emerged from the meeting between native Andean civilisation and the Spanish colonial state?

Type
Commentary
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , February 1993 , pp. 159 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

This paper was written with support from the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (1980–3), the Archivo Nacional de Bolivia (1980–1992), and from the ESRC (1985–7). An earlier draft was presented to seminars on Andean history and anthropology at the Universities of Liverpool and St Andrews (1988). I am grateful to all these friends and colleagues for their many useful suggestions and criticisms.

1 See Márquez, Gabriel García, El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985)Google Scholar.

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3 See Demelas, M.-D., ‘Darwinismo a la criolla: el darwinismo social en Bolivia, 1890–1910’, Historia Boliviana (Cochabamba), vol I., no. 2 (1980)Google Scholar; Platt, Tristan, ‘Liberalism and ethnocide in 19th century Bolivia’, History Workshop Journal, no. 17 (1984)Google Scholar.

4 Platt, ‘Liberalism and ethnocide’.

5 See Condarco, Zárate, el temible Willka…; and Demelas, ‘Darwinismo a la criolla’.

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7 See Platt, Estado tributario y librecambio en Potosí; Harris, Olivia, ‘Phaxsima y qullqi: los poderes y significados del dinero en el Norte de Potosí’, in Harris, O., Larson, B. and Tandeter, E. (eds.), La participación indígena en los mercados surandinos: estrategias y reproducción social (siglos XVI a XX) (La Paz, 1987)Google Scholar.

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9 See Mitre, A., Los patriarcas de la plata (Lima, 1981)Google Scholar.

10 See Platt, Estado boliviano y ayllu andino.…

11 See Platt, Tristan, ‘Entre ch'axwa y muxsa: para una historia del pensamiento politico Aymara’, in Bouysse-Cassayne, T., Harris, O., Platt, T., and Cereceda, V., Tres reflexiones sobre el pensamiento andino (La Paz, 1987)Google Scholar; Morris, C., ‘From principles of ecological complementarity to the organisation and administration of Tawantinsuyu’, in Masuda, S., Shimada, I. and Morris, C. (eds.), Andean Ecology and Civilization (Tokyo, 1985)Google Scholar.

12 See Platt, Tristan, ‘The Andean soldiers of Christ: confraternity organisation, the Mass of the Sun and regenerative warfare in rural Potosí (18th–20th centuries)’, Journal de la Société des Américanistes (Paris), vol. LXXIII (1987)Google Scholar; Harris, Olivia, ‘De la fin du monde. Notes depuis le Nord-Potosí’, Cahiers des Amériques Latines (Paris), no. 6, Nouvelle Série (1987)Google Scholar.

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15 See Harris, Olivia, ‘The dead and the devils among the Bolivian Laymi’, in Bloch, and Parry, (eds.), Death and the Regneration of Life (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar and O. Harris, ‘Phaxsima y qullqi…’; Platt, Tristan, ‘Symétries en miroir: Le concept de yanantin chezles Macha de Bolivie’, Annales ESC (Paris), Année 33e, nos. 5–6 (1978)Google Scholar; Platt, ‘Entre ch'axwa y muxsa’ andBouysse-Cassayne, T., La identidad Aymora: aproximación histórica (siglos 15–16) (La Paz, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See Platt, ‘Symétries en miroir’; Platt, Estado tributario j librecambio en Potosí.

17 See Wachtel, N., Le retour des ancêtres: Les Indiens Urus de Bolivie, XXe–XVIe siècle (Paris, 1990)Google Scholar; V. Cereceda, ‘Aproximaciones a una estética andina: de la belleza al tinku’, in Bouysse-Cassayne et al., Tres reflexiones.…

18 See Platt, ‘Entre ch'axwa y muxsa’.

19 See Ossio, J. (ed.), Ideología Mesiánica del Mundo Andino (Lima, 1973)Google Scholar.

20 As is well-known, the problems dealt with by European historiography in terms of crisis, transition and periodisation are conceptualised in Andean terms by reference to a collective memory of previous mythic ages, each preceded by cataclysmic crisis in which the ‘world was turned upside down’ (pacbakuti; see Ossio, Ideología Mesiánica; T. Bouysse-Cassayne and O. Harris, ‘Pacha: en torno al pensamiento Aymara’, in Bouysse-Cassayne et al., Tres reflexiones…; Szeminski, J., Los objectivos de los Tupamaristas (Ossolineum, 1982)Google Scholar; O. Harris, et al., La participación indigena…; and Platt, Tristan, ‘Cultos milagrosos y chamanismo en el cristianismo surandino’, in Anderle, A. et al. (eds.), lglesia, Religión j Socieded en la Historia Latinoamericana 1492–1979, VIII Congreso de AH1LA (Szeged, 1988)Google Scholar.

21 See Platt, ‘Entre ch'axwa y muxsa’.

22 Platt, ‘The Andean soldiers of Christ’.

23 Platt, ‘Liberalism and ethnocide in 19th century Bolivia’.

24 See Platt, ‘Cultos milagrosos y chamanismo en el cristanismo surandino’.

25 See Szeminski, Los objectivos de los Tupamaristas; Hidalgo, J., ‘Fases de la rebelión indígena de 1781 en el corregimiento de Atacama…’, Chungará (Arica), no. 9 (1982)Google Scholar; Stern, Resistance, Kebellion and Consciousness; Flores, Galindo, Buscando un Inca (Lima, 1987)Google Scholar.

26 See Condarco, Zárate, el temible Willka; and Rivera, , ‘La expansión del latifundio en el Altiplano boliviano’, Avances (La Paz), no. 2 (1978)Google Scholar.

27 See Agulhon, M., Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France, 1789–1880 (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar.

28 See Platt, Estado tributario y librecambio en Potosí, and Harris ‘Phaxsima y qullqi’.

29 See Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar.

30 See Geertz, C., Negara: the Theatre State in 19th-century Bali (Princeton, 1980)Google Scholar.

31 See Smith, Anthony, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar.

32 See Platt, Estado boliviano y ayllu andino; F. Mallon, ‘Nationalist an d Anti-State Coalitions in the War of the Pacific: Junín and Cajamarca, 1879–1902’, in Stern, Resistance, Rebellion and Consciousness.

33 See Arze, A. R., Participatión popular en la Independentia de Bolivia (La Paz, 1979)Google Scholar; Vargas, J. A., Diario de un Comandante de la Independencia Americana, 1814–1829, ed. by Mendoza, Gunnar (México, 1982)Google Scholar.

34 See O'Phelan, S., Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth Century Perú and upper Perú (Köln and Wien, 1989)Google Scholar.

35 See Mitre, A., El monedero de los Andes: región económicay moneda boliviana en el siglo XIX (La Paz, 1986)Google Scholar.

36 See Anderson, B., Imagined Communities: reflections on the spread of nationalism (London, 1983)Google Scholar; and Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations.

37 See Anuarios Legislatives, 1829.

38 See Platt, ‘The Andean experience of Bolivian liberalism’.

39 See Condarco, Zárate, el temible Willka; Demelas, ‘Darwinismo a la criolla’; Platt, ‘The Andean experience of Bolivian liberalism’.

40 See Dudley, E. and Novak, M., (eds.), The Wild Man Within: an Image in Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticiscm (Pittsburgh, 1972)Google Scholar; Demelas, ‘Darwinismo a la criolla’; Taussig, M., Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man: a Study in Terror and Healing (Chicago, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Hence the modern urban phrase ‘¡le salió el indio!’, ‘He let his indian out!’, said good-humouredly of a companion who has lost ‘civilised’ self-control at a party or drinking session. We can even suspect that such metaphorical internalisation of the ‘savage indian’ by ‘civilised’ whites implies a process of ideological mestizaje, sustained by a surrogate counter-cannibalism, through which can be proposed an organic assimilation of the envied aboriginal right to the national territory.

42 See Helmer, M., ‘Note brève sut les indiens Yura’, Journal de la Société des Américanistes (Paris), vol. LV, no. 1 (1966)Google Scholar; Platt, Estado tributario y librecambio en Potosí; Harris, ‘Phaxsima y qullqi’.

43 See Platt, Tristan, 'Conciencia proletaria y conciencia andina: qhuya runa y ayllu en el Norte de Potosí, HISLA (Lima), no. 2 (1983)Google Scholar; and Harris, ‘Phaxsima y qullqi’.

44 Platt, ‘The Andean experience of Bolivian liberalism’.

45 See Saignes, T., Caciques, Tribute and Migration in the Southern Andes, Institute of Latin American Studies, Occasional Papers no. 15 (London, 1989)Google Scholar.

46 See Platt, Estado tributario y librecambio en Potosí.

47 See Wachtel, Le retour des ancêtres.

48 See Burnett, D., Bolivian Proclamation Coinage (Virginia, 1987)Google Scholar.

49 See Gavilán, A. Ramos, Historia de Nuestra Señora de Copacabana (La Paz, [1621] 1976)Google Scholar; Gisbert, T., Iconografíay Mitos Indígenas en el Arte (La Paz, 1980)Google Scholar.

50 See Gisbert, Iconografía y Mitos Indígenas en el Arte.

51 See Marzal, M., La transformación religiosa peruana (Lima, 1983)Google Scholar.

52 See Lynch, John, The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808–1826 (London, 1973), pp. 284–5…Google Scholar.

53 See Platt, ‘The Andean soldiers of Christ’.

54 See Bernal, M., Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilisation, vol. 1, 'The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1789–1989) (London, 1987)Google Scholar.

55 See Kantorowicz, E., The King's Two Bodies: a Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957)Google Scholar.

56 See Agulhon, Marianne into Battle.

57 See Gisbert, Iconografia y Mitos Indígenas en el Arte, pp. 175 ff.

58 See Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808–1826.

59 See Platt ‘The Andean experience of Bolivian liberalism’.

60 See Gisbert, Iconografía y Mitos Indígenas en el Arte.

61 See Platt, ‘Cultos milagrosos y chamanismo en el cristianismo surandino’.

62 See Platt, ‘The Andean soldiers of Christ’.

63 See de Bolivia, Archivo Nacional, Tierras e Indios, Año 1822Google Scholar, ‘Descripción del Partido de Chichas’.

64 Gisbert, Iconografió y Mitos lndígenas en el Arte.

65 See Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies.…

66 See Anuarios Legislatives (AL), I, pp. 22–3.

67 See AL, I, p. 259.

68 See AL, iv, pp. 149–50.

69 Ibid.

70 See Tandeter, E., ‘La producción como actividad popular: “Ladrones de minas” en Potosí’, Nova Americana (Torino), no. 4 (1981)Google Scholar.

71 See AL, XII, pp. 249–90.

72 Letter from a chayanteño to the editor of the Cóndor of Bolivia, no.96, Chuquisaca, 28 Dec. 1826.

73 See Platt, ‘The Andean soldiers of Christ’.

74 In 1909, after the Liberal Party had come to power, we hear of the Constitutionalist priest of Tinguipaya preaching against the ‘High Powers of the State with offensive words, as well as against the Laws which rule in the Republic’ (M. Calbimonte al Prefecto, Tinguipaya, 27 Aug. 1905), Archivo Histórico de Potosí, Prefectura Departamental, 3,211. In 1895 Tinguipaya was already dominated by the insurgent Liberals. See Anastasio Cabrera to the Subprefect of the Province of North Chichas (Potosí), Toropalca; 20 Feb. 1904 (Archivo Histórico de Potosí, Prefectura Departamental, 3,165) where Party authorities were denounced from the pulpit by the Constitutionalist priest (‘el Curita Araujo’) in 1904 as ‘atheists’ and ‘Masons’.

75 See Platt, ‘The Andean soldiers of Christ’.

76 See Harris, ‘The dead and the devils among the Bolivian Laymi’; and Platt, ‘Conciencia proletaria y conciencia andina’.

77 Ponce Sanjines, C., La República Federal de los Inkas: Los protocolos de 1880 (La Paz, 1975)Google Scholar; Gisbert, Iconografioy mitos indígenas…; and Platt, ‘The Andean Experience of Bolivian liberalism’.