Bonifacia, one of seven sisters from the Omuto Community, Province of Urcos, is dressed in a cherry-pink wool jacket hand-stitched with multicolored, stylized flowers, a full black skirt, also extravagantly-adorned, and, in keeping with the charisma of her entire outfit, a flat-topped, baby-blue and silver montera (hat) traditional to her village. Her face, slightly chubby, holds laugh lines extending from both sides of her glistening, brown eyes. When she smiles, as she frequently does, she reveals a mouth missing most of its teeth.
Illiteracy is not unusual in Andean pueblos. There are those who cannot even sign their name, but impress their mark when needed with a simple thumbprint. Bonifacia is one of them. She makes a round-trip, three-hour taxi ride several days a week to arrive at Novotel’s four-star hotel in Cuzco. Accompanying her is Ch’aska, meaning “Star” in Runasimi. Bonifacia eekes out an existence soliciting tourists to have their photographs taken alongside this 9-month-old baby alpaca who, admittedly, is enchanting.
Exploited since the imposition of colonialism, Indigenous women like Bonifacia share with me that their mountain schools do not teach a truthful history of Peru’s Native experience. No doubt, authorities in Lima don’t want their highland residents fueled by the recognition that the old might have to be leveled before the new can be built. “Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another,” affirmed Mao Tse-tung. It is left to a long line of mothers and grandmothers to pass down the ferocity of the Spanish conquest from which Bonifacia’s peoples have never recovered.
Qorikancha was arguably the most sacred place of the Inca. Described by Spanish chroniclers, it was the hub of a conceptual wheel, the Incas’ sanctuary to both sun and moon in keeping with their parallel system of worship. A niche located at its famed Temple of the Sun is reported to have held a resplendent, golden disk dedicated to Inti Raymi, the most venerated deity in Inca spirituality, god of the sun. On the winter solstice, a ray of light directly contacting the disk illuminated the hallowed chamber, captivating the spectator in wonder. Undoubtedly looted by conquistadors and possibly melted down, to this day, the legendary disk has never been found.
Constructed at the direction of “earthshaker” king Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, Qorikancha’s imperial style has become known as one of the wonders of the world. Immaculately-cut stone walls ingeniously incline inward to protect from quakes and were lined both inside and out with banded sheets of solid gold. This, plus a great field of maize made with silver stems and golden leaves and ears, a herd of golden llamas and human figurines, all shimmering to the rhythm of sophisticated water fountains, mesmerized conquistadors descending the hills north of the city, igniting in them an unquenchable lust.
Today, Qorikancha’s blended architecture perfectly exemplifies the conjoined styles of two empires, one hailing from a short-lived yet dazzling interval of time, the other from Spain. It was looted and almost completely destroyed during the European invasion, and yet remains one of Cuzco’s significant attractions.
Avoiding the buzz and hum of the crowd midmorning, it’s possible to more easily shut out the distraction of an overlayed blueprint. Progressing through the temple, we wonder about the people who first occupied this space, yearning to drink in its entirety the spell of an unadulterated, holy place. A painting by contemporary artist Miguel Araoz Cartagena depicts the Milky Way over Cuzco during July and August. It helps us to imagine many of the astronomical phenomena venerated by the Inca. The Inca looked, not only at stars themselves, but also at the dark spaces between stars, worshiping them as divinities. Cartagena’s painting includes Hamp’atu, a toad, a female llama that has two shining eyes representing the stars Alpha and Beta Centauri, a baby llama depicted upside down, a fox with red eyes, and other obscure, inky spots called yana phuyu, or “black clouds.” All of the creatures have come to drink at the celestial river, the Mayu flowing across the night sky.
Disconnecting from the ego, instinct takes over. There comes a point when we are no longer simply reacting to, but interacting in dynamic communion with Qorikancha’s walls. We become unapologetic to passion, unblushing to beauty. As with all “great” art, the dormant power that here at its zenith summons us, far eclipses that of any contemporaneous art by the Spanish. It metamorphosizes into an active force with a capacity to provoke, unnerve, shock and create us anew. Dominican Convent Santo Domingo, hastily constructed on top of the Incas’ most fabulous, resplendent Court of Gold, obliterating much of the original, sophisticated structure underneath, becomes a heartbreaking metaphor for the ravage wrecked on Indigenous populations such as those of Bonifacia herself.
Sweeping through the New World with guns, steel and horses, the Spanish tried to cut Indigenous culture off at its roots, achieving near-total success. Communities were attacked and enslaved and any treasures they may have had such as gold, silver and precious gems were stolen. In the remotest villages of Peru, a most extreme poverty exists to this day. Many from Lima, Cuzco and other more developed cities and towns where wholesale prejudice still exists, may not believe that children cling to life with no shoes and no food. American writer James Baldwin said: “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” Aloft to where they fled, scratching out an existence in frigid mountains where little can be cultivated, rarely are these forgotten people of the earth, who only 15 years ago were forbidden to utter their native languages publicly, able to visit a produce market. The high-calorie diet provided by rice, potatoes and corn is inaccessible to them. Human beings lacking cognizance of their own history, nevertheless, hold a sadness that cannot be explained. From eye sockets resembling hollow shells, tears well. Yet the grief-stricken have no consciousness of their source. A pervasive anguish and wound willfully ignored by autocratical governments is carried in the blood, bones and very DNA of those descendants of “The Land of the Four Parts,” Imperial Tawantinsuyu.
Mimicking the contours of the range towering behind it, Sacsayhuamán sits at 12,142 feet above sea level. It was built during the reign of Sapa Inca Pachacuti, beginning in the 15th century. Famous for its perfectly-interlocking, massive stone walls constructed with extraordinary precision, the fortress/temple complex overlooks Cuzco. The ancient Inca capital, conceived in the shape of a puma, had at its head Sacsayhuamán. But the engineering feat of her construction remains mysterious, with some stones weighing more than 125 tons, the weight of more than 33 adult elephants.
Remarkably little damage was done generally to Inca structures during 500 years of earthquakes. As at Qorikancha, however, the architecture at Sacsayhuamán is also relatively diminished from that of the original. Spanish accounts describe a large, circular tower centrally located within the complex. Today, only its foundations remain. To the back of the site there were additional patios, outbuildings, and a system of cisterns and aqueducts. Finally, there is an area of terracing cut into the hill which is thought to have been either an astronomical observatory or the location of a shrine/viewing platform from which Pachacuti could observe religious ceremonies.
Where Qorikancha experienced both significant demolition as well as portions of its architecture incorporated into a Castillian reinterpretation, at Sacsayhuamán, most stones were reused in the colonial buildings of Cuzco. Wanting to prevent its use by rebel Inca forces, what remained was covered in earth by the conquistadors after their successful siege under Francisco Pizarro.
Ever the flâneuse, wandering the stone streets of Cuzco, a person begins to question how Indigenous mortals like Bonifacia, still speaking the Quechua language of kings, relate to their Inca heritage. Architecture from a supremely notable Latin American historical period speaks volumes beyond words. The Inca culture was one of exceptional achievement, yet its descendants remain shattered and impoverished as a result of the Spanish conquest of their people and territories. The psychological impact is hard to conceptualize, yet must be devastating. As a white foreigner of European lineage, a guest in someone else’s land, I recognize that I too, like the Spanish, hail from settler ancestry. It’s important to remember that, while I may wish to help facilitate change, change must come from Peru’s people. With a dictatorial regime in power, and knowing from history that revolutions rarely succeed, change in this ravishingly gorgeous Andean nation may be a long time coming.
Janice Jada Griffin is a graduate of Sotheby’s Institute Of Art in London, a designer and an internationally-sold painter who owned her own art gallery in Portland, Oregon, for a decade. She lives and works in Santa Fe, and is currently writing a book based on her ongoing experiences in Peru. For more information visit avant-garde-art.com or email her at soul@avant-garde-art.com.
