Old Habits Die Hard

The rebellion of Tupac Amaru II emphasizes the continued clashing of two cultures.  The Spanish would have very much liked to have sailed onto the shores of South America, set up cities, establish trade, and extract resources without a care in the world.  There was just one problem. There were already people living there. What was their solution to the problem?  Besides oppression and slavery, essentially they moved to turn this new territory into one that looked exactly like where they came from. That meant the people too.  The funny thing about people is, they tend to believe their way of doing things is best.  Old habits truly die hard.

The Great Rebellion shows this by scale alone.  It is not as if Tupac Amaru II is a lone ranger in this attempt to be free from Spanish authority.  As the article from Alberto Flores Galindo shows there were some 100,000 natives participated.  The conflict covered over 200,000 square miles of territory stretching all over the Andes. The scale of this rebellion went beyond simple racial lines. Tupac referred to himself as Inca, but those who followed him were made up of mixed-bloods and creoles as well.

It was not just race and prejudice that sparked the rebellion.  The Spanish crown made several economic reforms during the late 1700’s that created a rift in society.  The calls for higher tributes, crack down on corruption, and increased slave labor for silver mines caused many natives to resent the Spaniards even more.  The racial divide permeated all society including economics.

The clash of race against race can be seen most clearly in the treatment of Tupac after being captured.  His, “horrendous crime” was plotting against the monarchy.  His punishment was having his remains spread out over the Andean region.  Galindo makes a clear point of the clash of societies by stating that Tupac’s body, for those that viewed him as Inca, represented the Indian nation.  It is clear then the respect that the Spanish had for the Indian nation.  If the did not submit, they would be made to.  Tupac’s rebellion represented the great clash of two societies, two cultures forever changed, and struggle to maintain long held values by people on both sides of the Atlantic.

Red Tape and Duct Tape.

Marriage was much more than companionship.  There wasn’t flirting over text messages, twittering “i love you’s”, dates over spaghetti, or late nights at the movies.  In fact I’m not convinced that half of the people that ended up married in Spanish society even liked each other.  For that matter there were a great number who probably had never met before there engagement.  Marriage was a means for families to rid themselves of the financial burden of daughters (as it appears they were seen as), enhance their own familial status, make some money, or perhaps in the smallest of cases pursue love.  The legal system as well as the rules of society placed so much red tape around marriage that its a wonder people were ever really able to get married.  There were two totally separate authorities on marriage.  The first was society, and this was judged by a legal system that was so thorough in its writings that you may as well have your marriage license notarized by every aunt, cousin, grandmother, and best friend.  The state demanded that all marriages be of similar class status.  The church was the other authority over marriage.  If perhaps two young lovers did decide to ignore their parents wishes it was possible for them to be married through the church out of their own free will.  This free will was the key.  After the Council of Trent the church believed that marriage, as one of the sacraments, must be entered into by free will for it to provide grace.  In this case marriage was more like duct tape.  It could fix anything.  If there were two people that were not permitted to be married through the state, no matter, seek union through the church.  If a young maiden did not wish to be married against her will she could seek sanctuary through the church and not be married against her will. Just like duct tape, problem solved.

Salvation of Samaritans

In Mills article “ON the Salvation of Indians” he reflect on the way in which Christianity is mixing in with the native religions.  He does not question their passion for religion, but rather that they do not fully understand worship and fail to worship Jesus alone.  He remarks, “They do not venerate Him from deep inside, they do not give true worship or hold to the faith as is required.”  Something as complex as religion cannot not be expected to be understood cross culturally, across the boundaries of language, culture, distance, and prejudice.   The gap in culture alone from Spain to the Andes was so great that their were misunderstandings of even simple nature. When you begin to factor in how rooted the native religion was in Andean society it is no wonder that with the arrival of Catholicism it did not simply replace native religion, but became a part of it, and was added into the pantheon of religion. Mills compares the struggles early Christians has with the Samaritans continuing to worship other gods.  However, he does not give up hope.

You can see the determination the Spanish had to make the New World just like that of the Old.  In  a small way, the determination of Spanish missionaries to continue to pour their devotion into making native peoples devout Catholics, helped Spain create a lasting foothold on the South American region.  He reaffirms his belief that Christ will instill  faith in the people, but that there is the problem of not having enough missionaries for the harvest.  Mills does not question the civility of the native peoples as many of the early writers complained. Rather in them he does not see, “barbarousness, irrationality, inhumanness, or a lack of logic”.  His soft side is reflective of the move of the Crown to move away from the harsh treatment and slaughter of natives, to the gentle approach of the Church. (All sarcasm intended).   Though Mills out right condemns the mistreatment that many natives endured, both those who came with the sword and those who came with the Word intended to make native peoples more like Spain.

Purchasing Whiteness.

I’ll have a number three, value sized, with a side of white please.  That statement might seem a little ridiculous, but trust me I’ll get there.

Concerning slavery:  The Portuguese were the first to open up the African slave trade in the mid 15th century.  The Western coast of Africa became the center for trans-Sahara slave trading.  Warring African peoples were eager to sell off conquered captives to Portuguese slave traders who then shipped millions of slaves to the Americas.  Records show that some 11-13 million survive the passage, and with the survival rate being minimal, the true numbers of those actually shipped would be mind boggling.

Slavery in the Americas: There was a great shift in the slavery trend that had begun by the Portuguese in the 15th century.  Once it was discovered that sugar could grow so rapidly in the Caribbean, the money making train had left the station.  Slaves would begin to be shipped for agricultural work and not the domestic/artisan help that many had been before in cities across the Americas.  The treatment of slaves varied drastically based on the location and occupation.  Those fortunate to live in some cities were afforded rights, legal proceedings, and could expect fair treatment.  This might surprise some.  Slavery was not yet systematically racist against one group of people.  Being a slave meant simply being of the slave class in society, much the same as it meant to be of the noble class.

This mean that race was seen as just another status symbol.  It had nothing to do with biology, DNA, or segregation.  This pertains heavily with the article on Pedro Ayarza.  He attempted to purchase whiteness for himself and his sons.  Yes you read it right, purchase whiteness, as if it were on the menu of a drive through near you on the dollar menu of: noble birth, artisian status, Spanish decent, Andean native, and whiteness.  This exemplifies my point that race was only seen as one of another categories of status.  Society was built on a class system in which you were only allowed to do, or to be, what your specific class allowed. Pedro was attempting to better the lives of himself and his sons, but giving them the best money could buy; the status of being white.

Aguirre and Acustomization (I know, not a real word)

The film Aguirre: The Wrath of God took a very interesting approach to the story of Spanish exploration in the Andes.  Herozog himself admitting, “This film, I think, is not really a narrative of actual happenings or a portrait of actual people. At any level it is a film about what lies behind landscapes, faces, situations, and works.”   I understand that Herozog’s motives were to show human emotion and relations, but it is clear that, the stereotypes surrounding the Spanish-Andean encounters were fully evident in the film even still.  Herozog made sure to include the overweight nobleman, the classic Spanish monk (who was not even really on the trip), the strong willed noblewoman, the classic Spaniard leader in Usura (who looked more and more like Indigo Montoya from The Princess Bride), and lets not forget the gold mongering power hungry Aguirre.  The cast was perfect for portraying the emotion, and relational stress Herzog was trying to portray.  However, at what cost.  Have we really become so accustomed to historical stereotypes?  Even though Herozog makes no attempt to be historically accurate by the actions, cast and plot of the movie, he also clearly makes no attempt to even dress the characters relatively accurately.  The natives are depicted as incompetent, meek, careless individuals with almost no will of their own, with the exception of those that attack the rafts on the river.  Aguirre, perhaps the most stereotyped, was portrayed as a power crazed, manipulating, and gold mongering explorer who could not be persuaded to divulge from his pursuit from power no matter how perilous the journey.

The only thing that Herozog did portray accurately was the dripping wet rain forest, extremely mountainous terrain, miserable living conditions, and raging rivers that the Spanish conquerors had to deal with. He had a way with his cinematic touch to make the audience feel the agony of carrying a cannon through swampy jungle trails, and laboring up steep Andean mountain sides.  So to his credit he was able to bring out some of the emotion, struggle, and complications that would have been present during some of the first contact between the people of the Andes and Spaniards.

Spanish Conquest?

The question mark is because I believe that there is some debate on whether the Spanish really conquered the people of the Inca empire or if it was only circumstantial that they happened to take over.

Hind sight is 20/20.  It is easy for us to look back and see the events in history as facts, and as though the events are on a predetermined track.  As though the Spanish were simply destined to come into the Peruvian borders and wipe out a civilization that had previously controlled over 500 miles of territory.  It is easy to believe that it was only a matter of circumstances, that led to the obvious take over of a much higher developed civilization.  Did they not possess better weapons, ships that sailed over 2,000 miles, trained war horses, a written language, and an understanding of science, astronomy, medicine, engineering, mathematics, and sociology? So wasn’t it inevitable that the expanding Spanish empire would put these things to work and be the first European empire to colonize and rule in the Americas?

The answer is resoundingly no.  As we have seen in class the people of the South American coast were a highly developed and well functioning society.  The Inca empire expanded to rule over a number of different sects of specialized peoples.  They were one of the most progressive societies the Americas had ever seen.  Yet, even for all of this they were conquered by the Spaniards.  And conquered is truly the word. Merriam-Webster puts it like this, “to gain mastery over or win by overcoming obstacles or opposition.”  There were more than a few obstacles that the Spanish overcame in their take over of the Inca empire.  It was no simple circumstance of better technology by which the Spanish were able to take over.  It was through tact, not firepower that the men of Spain came to power.  Yes, their weapons were superior, but it was because of their ability to ally with the indigenous people that this handful of foreigners were able to bring down one of the most expansive and advanced societies in South America.  It was not circumstantial, it was conquest.

Marx Quote…

The way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means of subsistence they find in existence and have to reproduce. This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.

Breaking down Marx’s quote allows the reader to take an exegetical approach to understanding this compact statement.  The first sentence makes his point clear from the beginning.  The nature of a man’s surroundings and what is there has a direct cause effect relationship to what he is able to produce to stay alive.  He goes on to draw a further conclusion about what it is that people are actually doing by providing sustenance for existence.  They are not merely gaining enough nutrients for life and sexual reproduction, they are instead expressing life on their own part.  They are not just producing life, but expressing it, and by this Marx makes the claim that as they express, “so they are.”  This is drawn to a final conclusion by linking his two arguments together to say that what men are is what they produce and that is determined by their environment.

This is clearly applicable to the civilizations that made their home in the Andean mountain ranges.  Certainly what they produced was limited and even dictated by their surroundings.  What they were therefore able to produce certainly began to reflect what they did.  They became specialists, and this shaped their basic trade and economic systems.  The development of the Ayllu was a direct result of pockets of society being specialists of some.  The social structure developed along with it, creating those who were the center, those who were outliers, those who were on the noble side of the city and those who were on the commoner half.

Ritual Sacrifice: Final Thoughts…

After coming to the conclusion at the end of my first post that perhaps the peoples of ancient Peru were not so different in their intentions from peoples of the modern era in terms of worship, sacrifice, and desires, I feel even more strongly so at the conclusion of the book.  In the thesis statement for chapter 5 Benson states, “sacrificial practices and funerary rituals were the building blocks of Moche liturgy.”  As Benson unfolds the methods of construction of the sacrificial sites, and lays the archaeological framework from which these sacrifices take place, the reader begins to see just how eloquently performed these ceremonies had to be as well as how integral they were to society.  Their sacrificial worship was the center.  This is not so different from the central act of liturgy in Western-Christian Society.  In fact the majority of Christian services are built around the Eucharist service.  Spaniards at the same time period were holding Catholic services in Cathedrals in the shape of a crucifix centered around the living sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Even more alike is the Catholic belief of Transubstantiation in which the emblems of the Eucharist actually become the actual flesh and blood of Christ upon entering the participants body.  These two societies developed entirely independant for thousands of years and yet focused their liturgical services around human sacrifice in equally important and central roles.

Lastly I was thoroughly impressed with the amount of physical evidence that has been uncovered regarding these early peoples.  The painstaking practices taken by archaeologists to preserve, document, and extract articles left behind in some of the most remote parts of South America is beyond impressive.  Also interesting is the way archaeologists determine the cause of death as either sacrifice or natural.  Often a blurred line separates the two, but by taking into account the burial site as well as preservation of the body they are able to induce some clues.

Ritual Sacrifice and Attempted Permanence

As a History major, it’s only natural for me to be curious about the people that have come before me and wonder what they were like.  I wonder if they were like myself.  Did they like to eat? Did they play sports or games? Who or what did they worship?  As I come to know more and more about the great number of civilizations that have come before ours today, I do see one common connection.  Every person, every village, every city, and every people group wants to be remembered.  Every civilization from the dawn of time through the 21st century has attempted to obtain permanence, lasting effect, and to make their mark in history.

The ancient people of the Andes were not so unlike ourselves in regards to sacrifice as well.  While our methods of human sacrifice might be different, we still believe that for someone to lay down their life for another is the ultimate sacrifice.  The people of ancient Peru sacrificed because they believed it would bring about fulfillment of the things for which they hoped.  They hoped for rain for crops, fertility, plenty of animals to hunt, and for the rains to stop.  They hoped for increased wealth, connection with their gods, and life eternal.  Do we today not hope for similar things?  In order to fulfill these hopes have some not had to die to preserve and provide for the rest?  Do the things we value most not also require the sacrifice of life?  Do people today die for their faith, in African diamond mines, in childhood prostitution, in the smog of industrialization, and in the rat race of corporate America?  Though it is likely that that the people who were sacrificed in ancient Peru had no say in the matter, unlike some today; it is also likely that we sacrifice life no less than they.

In their sacrifice of human life the ancient peoples of Peru also attempted to fulfill the needs of their ancestors.  The pictures of blood sacrifice to provide for those who had gone on before them show a firm belief in an afterlife.  This is only one dimension of their culture that reflects a value on the eternal.  Bundles of fabrics used in burial customs were found at the Necropolis of Wari Kayan, and despite being 2,000 years old they still reflected extraordinary skill and vibrant color.  This care to protect not only the bodies of the dead, but also the possessions of the deceased for eternity shows a desire to be remembered.  The artwork left behind of the transformation of man to animal documents what the people believed to be a transition into a permanent cycle of life.  All of these artifacts discovered today, and all of the evidence left behind provides a sensible argument that there lived a people who grasped at permanence, the eternity, and who valued life as the ultimate sacrifice. A people not altogether dissimilar than ourselves.

I finally started a blog…

It’s probably about time.