CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: HIERARCHY, HEGEMONY, AND RESIST ANCE IN A "SYNCRETIC" RITUAL SYSTEM 1.1. The Research Problem 1.1.1.

[nidal Rcsearcli Goals: Change in "Syncretic"

.'\vmara Collective Rites When the research on y: 'eh this dissertation is based was no more than a glirnmer in this anthropologist's ey. , and the Andes something only dimly reflected there from others' ethnographies, 1 saw an opportunity to remove the motes from those others' eyes through research which would make fiesta-cargo systems, indeed ritual in general, intelligible as historically active forces through which Andeans come to grips with--that is, change--the changing world in which they live. My original research plan called for an examination of change in the ritual systems through which Lake Titicaca area Aymara constitute their authorities, and through them, their polities. In brief, 1wanted to investigate the logic of the reported conversion of whole communities in the area to evangelical protestantismo According to such (largely unpublished) reports, the people of the area were rejecting fiesta rituals, and indeed much of what (it seemed) defined them as "Indians" in the eyes of others. After arriving in Bolivia, a few preliminary field trips and sorne additional reflection convinced me that understanding the changes that had taken place in ritual required a considerably thicker baseline understanding of the supplanted form, possible only by turning my back on the region of greatest change and seeking out an arca in which "fiesta systems," and "traditional" ayllu organization, were still intact. Correspondingly, my attention turned to the Norte de Potosi region, an extemely interesting 1 2 one in the few accounts then available (such as Platt 1976), which apart from the conservation of an apparently "traditional" culture, had the added advantage of being very little studied. Tristan Platt, who proved a generous tutor in Andean ethnohistory and ethnography, suggested K'ulta 1 (see map 1) as a possible research site, into which my wife, Mary Dillon, and Imoved in June of 1979. It has taken considerably more effort than went into the writing of the research proposal to come to grips with the bea.m in my own eye, a theoretical outlook obscuring a c1ear view of the relationship between cultural orders (such as ritual is made of) and historical processes (inc1uding, but not limited to, colonial and neo-colonial domination). The problem is already present in formulations like the foregoing one, in which we (sometimes unawares) pose that relationship as one between statics (cultural "orders") and dynamics (historical "processes"). But it is more than just the effect of ingrained turns-ofphrase which are at fault The problem seems to begin in the idea that the societies often studied by anthropologists, in contact with western capitalist society but "different" from it, continue to be distinct (and for that reason remain interesting) because of what, in their "cultural orders," they manage to preserve or reproduce. That is, 1, at least, began fieldwork with the unexamined assumption that the Aymara society chosen for study existed still (in the face of unrelenting ex ternal pressure) because of the inherently inward directed, conservative nature of its cultural system. Only from the present perspective do the faults of this assumption seem glaringly obvious: it now clear that it is not because they are insular that Andean societies still exist, but rather because they are central1y concerned lOrthography for Ayrnara terms fol1ows Yapita M. (1968). Unmarked consonants are unaspirated, aspiration is represented by ["] following the aspirated

consonant, while ['] signifies glottalization. When referring to Aymara-defined social units, 1 have preferred to employ the orthography outlined aboye. Nevertheless, for cIarity in referring to maps and other "official" sources, 1have spelled the offically recognized names of social units and place names in the most cornmonly encountered orthography. Thus in referring to the self-designated social group, 1prefer Ayllu K'ulta, while references to the canton or town are given as Canton Culta or S