Corpus Christi in Cuzco: festival and ethnic identity in the Peruvian Andes (folklore, Indian, Inca)
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Description
The complexity of the Corpus Christi festival in Cuzco, Peru, articulates the subtleties of cultural/ethnic definitions in an urban environment influenced by its unique precolombian past and pressured by modernization Participation in the festival rites form socially interwoven groups not restricted to but strongly influenced by residence, occupation and kinship--criteria which with language use, dietary habits and dress are the effective dimensions of ethnic classification and social stratification. These groups are identified with the city's traditional parish/barrios, where ethnic criteria define participants generally as Indians, specifically as Cuzquenos, and historically as Incas The festival's formal social structure is acephalous and heterogeneous. Festival performance is dependent upon the permanent, exclusive hermandades dedicated to specific festival rites and upon the ephemeral, inclusive cofrad(')ias insuring the participation of parish patronal saints. The non-hierarchical cargo structure of the cofrad(')ias has no formal relationship to secular offices Precolombian principles of socio-religious organization are encoded, validated and made manifest in the festival's symbolic structure and ritual drama Corpus Christi is commonly believed to be an extension of the Incan festival Inti Raimi. However, a close examination of the ethnohistorical sources strongly suggests that Corpus Christi resembles far more the Capacocha, a propitiatory/prophylactic rite involving both Incas and non-Incas Throughout its history, Corpus Christi has provided the overwhelming Indian majority with a sanctioned opportunity for expressing claims to socio-political precedence in opposition to Spanish/Mestizo cultural dominance, as well as for expressing shifting alliances among social groups within the Indian community Aspects of the festival's social and symbolic structures are shown to be but variants in a regional pattern when compared with other areal and calendric festivals. Corpus Christi marks a pivotal moment in a season of religious rites associated with important phases in the annual cycles of agricultural production, animal husbandry and celestrial phenomena The city's modern Jubilee Week with its ficticious 'reenactment' of Inti Raimi contrasts with Corpus Christi in the extreme. Inti Raimi is ideologically Mestizo; Corpus Christi, Indian. The two festivals embody two different but equally valid models of Cuzco and its Incan identity