Rock Art Research 2008 – Volume 25, Number 2 RAR DEBATE Comment on ‘AYMARA’ ROCK ART OF CUTIMBO, DEPT. OF PUNO, PERU by Matthias Strecker, Carmen Pérez Maestro, Rolando Paredes Eyzaguirre and Pablo Gómez Jareca, RAR 24: 171–180. ‘Aymara’ rock art: a critique of cultural definitions related to Andean rock art By GORI TUMI ECHEVARRÍA LÓPEZ The article of Matthias Strecker et al., ‘ “Aymara” rock art of Cutimbo, Dept. of Puno, Peru’, is a very interesting example of how some cultural components of Andean past societies are being studied and defined at the present time on the basis of badly understood cultural categories. I contend that the a priori application of concepts like ‘Aymara’, to identify material complexes (like rock art) in the Andes constitutes errors of anthropological appreciation, which can bring serious problems for the historical understanding of Andean social developments. In this sense I am going to examine some crucial aspects of this approach, with the purpose of exposing the epistemological failures of such appreciation. What is ‘Aymara’? The word aymara arises in the 16th century, basically defining a fiscal category derived from the colonial tribute system applied by the Spanish in the Andean area around the Titicaca lake — between Peru and Bolivia — which was elaborated according to the imperial rate or Tasa de la Visita General de Toledo established in 1571– 1573 (Torero 1987). This term, as Markhan suggests (mentioned by Rowe 1944), was probably taken from the toponym Aymará — plural Aymaraes (an ‘ethnic’ group located southwest from Cusco), and served originally to describe one of the three general languages spoken in that zone of the Andes in the 16th century: ‘aymara’, ‘puquina’ and ‘quechua’; being used later to tacitly differentiate between Andean populations whose highly complex social organisation and hierarchic structure were practically unsuitable for the concepts of economic tribute used by the Spanish. Although the language with the name ‘Aymara’ is recognised, the nature of the local social groups is also explicitly identified with general administrative purposes, as it is demonstrated by Visita de Chuchito by Garcí Díez de San Miguel in 1565 (Espinoza 2006), and where can be seen that in a same cultural organisation, the Lupaca nation, existed diverse socioeconomic groups and diverse interacting languages. During the Andean precolonial period, before and during the Tahuantinsuyu (previous to 1533), the word ‘aymara’ was practically unknown in sociopolitical terms in the Titicaca lake area, having been used in the original nomenclatures of sociopolitical identification in its native variants. These were names of ethnic groups, nations, or simple social names. For example Lupaca, Colla, Pacajes, Charcas or Chichas; and in greater scale using one of the Tahuantinsuyu imperial macrodivisions such as Collasuyo, imposed since Pachacuti. The concept of ‘Aymara’ then appears definitively during the colonial period, and except for rare exceptions, it was not used to identify any sociopolitical population group in that area of the Andes. All these sociopolitical formations, true nations during 15th and 16th centuries, were grouped under the label ‘Aymara’ for economic purposes, but maintaining the original nominations to describe, for example, the more relevant political organisations according to the fluctuating economic, ecclesiastical or administrative territorial interests of the colony. Although one ‘Aymaraes’ encomienda is recognised for the Colonial District of La Paz, native jurisdictional names like Carangas, Soras, Casayas, Aullagas, Uruquillas, Asanaques and Quillazas are used for the District of La Plata (Torero 1987); and until the 18th century an ‘Aymara’ political subdivision recognised by the colony does not exist. During this time the Bishopric of La Paz maintains an administrative organisation using the original nominations of Sicasica, Pacajes, Omasuyos, Larecaja, Paucarcolla and Chucuito (Cosme Bueno 1951). It is necessary to note that the term ‘Aymara’ was never recognised socially by the native populations during the entire colonial period, and this continued during the periods of Independence and Republic (1821 to the present time), maintaining its original colonial meaning which has always been used from an external or foreign perspective. This vision has stayed and the word ‘Aymara’ only began to be used systematically in sociological terms since the first half of the last century, when early descriptive anthropological parameters of the present Andean societies were made from a linguistic perspective. An excellent example is the classification of Greemberg (in Steward and Faron 1959) that includes ‘Quechua’, ‘Aymara’ and ‘Uro’ within the ‘Andean’ linguistic subfamily. The cultural identification ‘Aymara’
avoided, in anthropological terms, the social systems of selfrecognition in the Andean populations of the Titicaca lake basin, which never happened with the ‘Quechua’ populations that were understood in more diversified form. Although the linguistic approach is evidently a very primary classificatory distinction, the lack of a deeper anthropological approach has generated a false sociocultural perspective, which has not been based on the real identification of the anthropological or ethnographical variations in native populations. This reflects the colonialist parameters of identification of the 16th century. Peruvian anthropology recognises clearly that the concepts of ‘Aymara’ or ‘Quechua’ do not reflect the native conception of sociocultural affiliation. According to the anthropologist Rodrigo Montoya, the exogenous perception of the Andean populations is defined by an academic sense. Montoya (1986: 254) says: ‘Quechuas and Aymaras of the Peruvian Andes perceive their reality within a local conception of the universe in which they live (…). The terms “society”, “Andean society”, “Quechuas society” or “Aymara society” are foreign to their daily language and they do not exist like conceptual categories for them. These are categories invented by the “students” of the Andean problems’ (my translation). This asseveration reflects clearly the difficulty to identify complex societies at the present time, using categories of colonial origin and the tacit criteria of social recognition used by the old American cultural anthropology. This is probably one of the reasons why categories such as ‘Aymara’ or ‘Quechua’ are not applied to the study of archaeological materials, since these categories do not identify, explain or relate any material element associated to some Andean sociocultural formation of the past — at least from 1200 C.E. onwards, when the Andean nations and the characteristic material remains of these societies are well identified by contemporary history. This is why there is not an ‘Aymara’ culture, an ‘Aymara’ phase, an ‘Aymara’ period, or an ‘Aymara’ style. And that is the problem. What about the rock art? The ‘Aymara’ cultural association of the Cutimbo rock art is not only debatable, it is even refutable if we considered in addition that these materials present clear problems of technical identification, and several analytical aspects show serious deficiencies which generate remarkable analytical emptiness. In the first place, the adjustment of the sample is ambiguous and fragmented. Without a detailed description, the images are not compared to each other to establish minimum parameters of association and temporality, but are compared with isolated materials without an explicit context of origin, which debilitates the analysis. This type of procedure implies only similarity patterns and not defined relations of some cultural, temporal or spatial type. Using this parameter the Cutimbo rock art can be related to ‘similar’ forms in the rock art of Cusco, San Martín (Peruvian jungle), and even of the American Southwest. On this basis, all the other conclusions deserve to be reviewed. Especially the chronology and the cultural association of the rock art ‘produced during the Late Intermediate Period’ (1000–1470 C.E.) and the ‘Late Horizon’ (1470–1533 C.E.), identified according to the authors using ‘stylistic’ criteria and comparison with ‘excavated artefacts’. This is interesting because the materials used for this association do not have contexts of origin and are not defined stylistically. Also, the article does not mention if the rock arts of these two periods are related in some form to each other, and what the relation of these periods is with an ‘early phase’ of rock art recognised on site and identified as a particular rock art tradition. To this we can add the presence of another ‘tradition’ called ‘Salcedo’ that is dated to the ‘archaic’ period. How are all these rock art components present in Cutimbo articulated? It is apparent that the authors do not manage to technically identify the rock art components of the site, limiting themselves to created general groups on the basis of some similar technical or figurative characteristics, confusing the concept of ‘tradition’ with formal or stylistic variation. To have a tradition is an indispensable requirement for the existence of a continuity of the rock art in some variable (formal or technical for example) identified in the sites with rock art of the region; until now this does not exist or it has not been defined. If we accepted the concept of ‘tradition’ as this was proposed, any representative technical variation can be used to justify many local rock art traditions, which becomes even more complicated because some of the shelters, as the article suggests, have complex independent sequences. Most interesting, however, it is not the presence of these ‘traditions’, but the reduction of most rock art components of the site (because there are no clear group exclusions) to what is defined as ‘Aymara’ rock art, and it is not specified if it is a ‘tradition’ in the concept of the authors, or a specific representative ‘style’. According to the main scene of the Shelter No. 1 that is used to define this rock art (Fig. 5 in the article), the figurative variations to establish relevant associations include connections with various local ceramic styles (e.g. ‘Collao’), and representative figurations of utilitarian materials characteristic of the imperial Cusco culture (Inca): llamas from a museum, unkus and quipus. If this rock art is ‘Aymara’, why are their characteristic figurations more associated to typical Cusco forms and not ‘Aymaras’? Obviously all the interpretative references like the presence of unkus or quipus are debatable.
I believe to have exposed clearly that the identification name ‘Aymara’ for the rock art of Cutimbo as proposed by the authors presents serious problems at a conceptual as much as analytical level. I particularly think that the term ‘Aymara’ does not make intelligible the particular contexts of development of the ‘styles’ or artistic expressions of the local rock art — culturally associated to the Lupaca nation. Such expressions can be similar to those of other parts of the Titicaca lake basin, and in spite of this similarity not necessarily constitute a particular representative ‘tradition’ of this area, or generalised ‘styles’ defined socially. Gori Tumi Echevarría López San Marcos University Peruvian Association of Rock Art (APAR) Plaza Julio C. Tello 274 No. 303 Torres de San Borja Lima 41 Peru Email: goritumi@gmail.com REFERENCES BUENO, C. 1951. Geografía del Perú Virreinal. Publicado por Daniel Valcarcel, Lima ESPINOZA SORIANO, W. 2006. Aclarando a J. V. Murra: Descubrimiento, redescubrimiento y edición de la visita de Garcí Díez de San Miguel. Cantuta 16: 159–160. STRECKER, M., C. PEREZ MAESTRO, R. PAREDES EYZAGUIRRE and P. GÓMEZ GARECA 2007. ‘Aymara’ rock art of Cutimbo, Dept. of Puno, Peru. Rock Art Research 24: 171–180. MONTOYA, R. 1986. Identidad y luchas agrarias en los andes peruanos. Identidades andinas y Lógicas del Campesinado, pp. 247–278. Mosca Azul Editores, Institut Universitaire d’Etudes du Développement Ginebra, Lima. ROWE, J. 1946. Inca culture at the time of the Spanish conquest. Handbook of South American culture. Vol 2, pp 183– 330. PUBLISHER PLEASE, Washington. STEWARD, H. J, and L. FARON 1959. Native peoples of South America. McGrawHill Book Company, U.S.A. TORERO, A. 1987. Lenguas y pueblos altiplánicos en torno al siglo XVI. Revista Andina 5(2): 329–368.