Professor Bristol mentioned a concept recently that is well illustrated in Stern's writing and which I thought warranted further discussion: syncretism.
The religion of the Andes was ideal for incorporating the Spanish "pantheon" of saints and spirits. By bringing the victorious deities of Castile into the pantheon of Andean huacas the Natives intended to return balance and placate the victorious colonizing spirits. In Huamanga the idea of saints being patrons of specific domains must have been accepted readily, as the idea of human progenitors becoming deities was already part of the culture (as demonstrated by Stern in the first chapter).
Beyond that, even after conflict started among the colonists and the colonized, when the Taqui Onqoy movement began several of the "huacas" who possessed the Andeans took the form of Catholic saints. As Stern says, this demonstrates an ambivalence on the part of the natives. Even as they struggle to throw aside their Spanish conquistadors, they adopt the deities of Catholicism and fuse them with their own huacas. The fusion of the two religions was representative of a larger trend.
When the Spanish came to the Huamanga region, rather than supplant the existing ruling structure they co-opted it into being part of the colonial structure. The kurakas became partners of the Spanish, and the Spanish used the tributary system that the ayllus had built over years. In turn, as the colonial structure developed, the Andeans adopted the legal system that the Spanish had built. The two cultures began in the area of Huamanga to reflect one another as aspects of the two fused.
An image that stands out for one who is looking for this idea of syncretism is illustrated by Stern at the opening of chapter 7. A man dressed in Spanish finery has the features of a native Andean, and that fusion is the expression of two cultures which merged through their interactions, adapting themselves to one another and eventually becoming a new fusion of the two.
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ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting blog post which highlights some points I had not fully realized yet. When examining Spanish colonialism in Latin America, I feel like the idea of annihilation always comes to the forefront of our thoughts. Perhaps this is because elements from native cultures are, in today's world, essentially non-existent. Viewing the Conquest with the knowledge I now have though, there certainly seems to have been a blending of different cultural ideas and structures. This mixing was not only done by the Indigenous peoples but by the Spaniards as well. I think all the facts you bring up are great points which demonstrate the way in which the two sides practiced syncretism. The idea of Indians adopting certain practices, such as Catholic elements, seems to be more well known and, thus, discussed more often. But the adoption of native traditions by the Spanish is actually quite obvious. Though some adjustments were made to it, the Spanish kept the tributary system which had become a staple in Andean society. What was essentially an Indigenous creation became arguably the greatest system of exploitation used against the Indians. To touch on the prompt of our final paper assignment, I do still believe the Spanish conquest of Latin America was an actual "conquest." However, as shown here and in our readings, it was not an annihilation of the Indigenous Americans. The role of syncretism seems to be often overlooked, but it was quite essential to the societies which developed from Spanish and native interaction.
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