This past weekend we visited the Sacred Valley, or the area surrounding Cusco that provided the Incas with most of their agricultural products. We visited several villages, markets, and surrounding Incan ruins. Interestingly, many people of this valley still utilize Incan terraces to farm in the same ways that the Inca did hundreds of years ago.
One of the stops we made was a village called Chinchero, that is about an hour and a half outside of Cusco. Unlike the other villages, there were no skyscraping Incan ruins here, rather, the city was flat (Andean flat), quiet, and peaceful. Potatoes were left drying out in the fields, in order to save seeds for the coming year, the sun shone brilliantly across the evening mountains, and the men and women sat around in their traditional Quechua dress having beers and grilling cuy (guinea pig) to celebrate one of their festivals. Here, most people are Quechua and still speak the language and wear traditional indigenous clothing. They practice traditional agricultural practices and are most renowned for their weaving and textiles.
After our tour of the town, local churches (which featured original art from the Cusquena School), we were sent off to Chinchero's small local market to have a workshop on they cleaning, dying, and weaving processes of wool. Here we met many Quechua women, from very young to elderly, that led the workshop and demonstrated their brilliant expertise with textile making. They showed us freshly shorn wool (from one of the many alpacas that constantly wandered the land). The wool was dirty, matted and pretty gruesome. However, they easily cleaned and combed it with alpaca-bone combs and a bowl of boiling water. Afterwards, they showed us how the wool was then spun into thread. The young girl in charge of this task was amazingly adept at it and looked almost bored with the assignment. Afterward, the women showed us the various plants and bugs that they use to make the dyes for their clothes. Peru is known for its very vibrantly colored textiles and patterns, yet, most of these colors are made entirely naturally. Deep aquamarine blues, crimson reds, carnation pinks, etc. are all made from the natural environment of the Andes. It was almost like magic watching this happen. Finally, the women showed us how they weave. They pulled out a hand loom, and using the same alpaca bone combs as before, they quickly created detailed, intricate patterns of many colors as they created a shawl. I have never seen such artistry in my life. These women had clearly been doing this for quite some time, and often didn't have to look at the loom as they spoke to us about their techniques.
After the workshop, a man came and offered us deals from the market, where we could buy freshly made scarves, shawls, chompas, chullas, and more. This was an interesting and quite profitable display. Most of us, including myself, did spend quite a few soles purchasing up these beautiful goods.
This brings me to Alison Krogel's book Food, Power, and Resistance in the Andes: Exploring Quechua Verbal and Visual Narratives. This book details how Quechua women have created intricate networks through their cultural and social traditions that give them power through narrative form. They are storytellers, through their intricate and eloquent language that is full of hidden meanings. From this they are able to pass down cultural norms and warnings to those who do not respect the importance of women. Furthermore, their narratives and cultural behaviors also present the importance of food as a cultural tool. For instance, as the women of Chinchero told us their stories and showed us their work, they served us muna tea (an important Andean herb often used by Quechua peoples), and small snacks. If anyone would have refused these items it would have been a sign of complete disrespect and it is possible that they would have been asked to leave the demonstration. Furthermore, right outside of the workshop potatoes were drying in the fields, along with the wandering alpacas who had been recently shorn for wool to use in the demonstration. Krogel states that "An entire “world” is present in and signified in food…[it] transforms itself into situation and performs a social function, it is not just physical nourishment." This is precisely what we were experiencing as guests of these women in their weaving workshop. Food surrounded us both as nourishment and as a cultural element. Additionally, it determined our levels of respect for the women and their culture and thus, determined how we would be treated as outsiders. Food discretely shaped our entire experience with the women of Chinchero.
Krogel also articulates the concept of creative resistance. This is "cases in which the oppressed need to adapt and accommodate to the demands of their oppressors; this adaptation and accommodation may serve as both a tactic toward the path of future, active resistance and as a tool for immediate survival." Thus, even though oppressed peoples may appear to be working with their oppressors, in reality they are using small tactics and active strategies to ensure their survival and ultimately, to forge stronger resistance. In Chinchero, these women are using the exploitative practices of tour companies who bus foreigners in daily to see the sites and the traditional culture to create a meaningful sharing experience and to ensure their access to income and survival. Instead of allowing foreigners to merely look at the color and spectacle of their indigenous culture, these women have created an interactive workshop that makes visitors interact with people of Chinchero and truly consider their culture. Additionally, food is used as a tool to blur the boundaries between foreign and native. With their offerings of traditional Quechua foods and teas, the women are bringing the foreigners closer to their culture and giving them an offering of respect and sharing, while simultaneously enforcing respect and sharing on the part of the foreigner. At the end of these sessions, these women inevitably make a good deal of money, thus ensuring their continued survival. It is a brilliant program and emphasizes Krogel's notion of "creative resistance."
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