Memories of the Community of Vicos: This Is How We Remember With
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Memories of the Community of Vicos: The way we remember it, with joy The Peasant Community of Vicos This publication was prepared as part of the Living Memory Project, an initiative of The Mountain Institute, the Urpichallay Association and the Program of Latin American Studies at Cornell University, with the consultation and participation of the Peasant Community of Vicos. The Living Memory Project has had financing from The Mountain Institute, the Urpichallay Association, Cornell University (Division of Rare and Manuscript Collection, Cornell University Library) and Canadian Lutheran World Relief. This publication has been financed by The Mountain Institute, the Urpichallay Association and CIIFAD (Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development). This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part for educational or non-profit purposes provided acknowledgement of the source is made. The Peasant Community of Vicos, the Mountain Institute and the Urpichallay Association would appreciate receiving a copy of any publication that uses this publication as a reference. For consultations about the Living Memory Project and this document, please address: Florencia Zapata: [email protected], [email protected] Memorias de la Comunidad de Vicos: así nos recordamos con alegría Huaraz, Perú - Agosto de 2005 Hecho depósito legal en la Biblioteca Nacional del Perú: 2005-5284 © Comunidad Campesina de Vicos C. C. de Vicos, Marcará, Ancash. Perú © The Mountain Institute Jr. Ricardo Palma 100, Huaraz, Ancash. Perú Tel. (51-43) 42-3446 - Fax (51-43) 42-6610 [email protected] - www.mountain.org © Asociación Urpichallay Av. Augusto B. Leguía s/n, Marcará, Ancash. Perú. Telefax: (51-43) 44-3048 [email protected] - www.urpichallay.com Editing and revising: Vicosino team for the preparation of this book and Florencia Zapata Translations from Quechua: Luis Armas, Luis Loli, Glicerio Matías, Valeriano Mendoza and Santiago Reyes Cover photograph: Florencia Zapata Photographs (1950-1962): Property of Cornell University: Division of Rare and Manuscript Collection, Cornell University Library Current photographs: Florencia Zapata, Santiago Reyes, Luis Armas, Glicerio Matías, Luis Loli, Valeriano Mendoza, Jonathan Evaristo y Efraín Saavedra Maps: Pablo Dourojeanni Design: Florencia Zapata Layout: Corporación Gráfica Andina and Florencia Zapata Printed by: Corporación Gráfica Andina English translation: Freda Y. Wolf de Romero Table of Contents Presentation 5 Introduction 7 Maps 10 1. Origins, events and changes in Vicos 11 2. The Peasant Community of Vicos and its organization 33 3. Identity 40 4. Agricultural fields 43 5. Wild and domestic animals 55 6. Other resources and wealth 58 7. Quechua and Spanish 61 8. Education 62 9. Authorities, greetings and respect 69 10. Beliefs, practices and religion 73 11. Fiestas, dances and music 77 12. Cooking, meals and drinks 81 13. Health and illnesses 85 14. Clothing 87 15. Constructions and roads 94 16. Other customs 97 17. Some concerns and the future of Vicos 101 18. The Living Memory Project 109 List of in the project participants and people who gave their testimony 115 Presentation At the beginning of 2003, the Peasant Community of Vicos asked two local NGOs, The Mountain Institute and the Urpichallay Association, for help in negotiating the return of the documentary materials from the Peru-Cornell Project (1951-1963), which were in the care of the library of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. When these materials were returned after an arduous year of preparation by Cornell, a group of Vicosinos, including young people from the local secondary school, got involved in an effort to use the documents (photographs, documentaries and short films) to understand the significance of the long-ago events, learning to ask the memory of their collectivity for them. For almost a year, from July 2004 to August 2005, this group dedicated itself with enthusiasm to memory work: “now we see that there is more interest in knowing and it keeps getting more interesting, we want to keep on learning”. For the youngest in the group, it was also a matter of being brave enough to overcome his shyness about asking questions, “[but] I overcame my embarrassment and people responded”. In short, as one of the participants explained, the conviction “to cultivate our pasts” began to grow within them. The importance of memory for understanding the present and the future stands out in the very testimony that they give us. The Vicosinos’ testimonies for Vicosinos presented in this book show again and again the men and women who were either witnesses in person or through the words of their parents or grandparents to the events and occurrences portrayed in the documentary materials of the Peru- Cornell Project. For that reason, this book is the memories they decided to rescue and share with the world. In so doing, they give those of us who are not from Vicos the gift of the opportunity to listen to their reflections, to know the senses that capture joy or rage, individual interpretations and life in collectivity. The testimonies underscore the present generation’s full recognition of “the grandparents” and the sacrifices they made for the wellbeing of those who live better today because of them. The value of their having freed the hacienda through their own efforts with the help received from the Peru-Cornell Project stands out in the Vicosinos’ testimonies. The reflections in this memory book also speak to us of the weight of the systems of hierarchic values behind the landowner’s anxiousness to show his dominance with whip and humiliating words and how these ways of being, feeling and thinking dominate Peru today in relations between the people from the coast and those from highlands. The memory that takes shape in this book also recovers those who were courageous, despite the time that has passed: whether they are the Huaprinos Marcos Alonso, Jerónimo Tadeo and Félix Chauka, who died in the confrontation with the owner of the Huapra hacienda; the Vicosinos such as Hilario González, who organized the capture of Chancos; or the warmly remembered figure who appears in all the testimonies, Mario Vázquez. The sense of community is also at the heart of this Vicosino memory, in the history of their liberation of the hacienda as well as in the uncertain sense of the future of their land, which is the soul of the story they are telling us. The land yields less and is increasingly scarce, in part as a result of the profound change lived precisely since the time of the Peru-Cornell Project. Taken as a whole, the testimonies about forgotten abilities to produce based on integrated organic systems and a material culture free of external inputs is a way of telling us that modernity needs to learn from the past. For all the lessons the testimonies in this book leave us, with all our heart we thank the team of the Vicosino Living Memory Project, the director and teachers of the Vicos school, the various governing councils and community leaders that supported this initiative, and especially Florencia Zapata for her professional capacity and unconditional dedication to the Vicos memory. Jorge Recharte Beatriz Rojas Director of the Andean Program Director The Mountain Institute Urpichallay Association 1. Origins, events and changes in Vicos Origins: Vicos before the hacienda Before it was a community, it was an hacienda. Ilario Copitán Coleto, Tambo sector We don’t know what there was before the hacienda, because the hacienda already existed when we met each other. We can’t tell you anything about what there was from before the hacienda. Before that surely other people worked it and recently we began to work by sectors, that is the way it was. Félix Sánchez Vega, Vicos Pachán sector Why do you think you don’t know about the times before the hacienda? We are not informed. Sure, we are still from behind [later on], for that reason we don’t know. Ascencio Mesa Sánchez, Puncucorral sector Because the truth is we are our grandparents’ children and so we don’t know anything about before the hacienda. What we have managed to find out is about hacienda times. Your little grandfather didn’t tell you anything about before the hacienda? He hasn’t told us anything. Eulogio Copitán Coleto, Cullhuash sector Mama Gregoria, and before the hacienda? I don’t remember. Certainly our little grandparents from before know, we are from behind [later on]. We used to go to work to sow in Paltay, Lucma, with our cucupas [fava bean flour, wheat, cereals]. That is our parents told us that in hacienda times, when Mario Vázquez arrived, I don’t know any more than that. Gregoria Sánchez Durán, Coyrocsho sector Hacienda times I no longer remember the hacienda times, certainly our parents were on the hacienda. On the hacienda neither women nor men were idle, everyone had his or her own tasks, men as well as the women. The tenants rented out people the way we rent out donkeys, that is, to other haciendas. Marcelino Mendoza Jara, Tambo sector I was born in the year when it was already an hacienda. Potato and flax were still made to be sown. In the years 1950 to 1952 it was still an hacienda. And the hacienda had mediators like Casiano García and Orlando, the Chacasino1. In hacienda times they gave orders every week, every Wednesday. The one who was most in charge of the hacienda was Enrique Luna. I still know Sr. Casiano and the one who made us work. At this time they rented men out so they could work for another patrón2. In the hacienda time there were no days off, they were always making us work, even renting us out. They made us sow potato, flax, and the orders were always given on Wednesdays, absolutely everybody had to go to this giving of orders.