Journal of Latin American Lore 22:2 (2004), 167-196 Printed in u.s.A.

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The Cult of the Dead and the Subversion of State Justice in Moxos, Lowland Bolivia
AKIRASAITO

National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan

Until the mid-l 980s, the Trinitarios, an indigenous people of the Moxos region of Lowland Bolivia, occasionally held nocturnal seances where the medium invoked the spirits of the dead at the request of their living relatives. The dead who appeared at the seances were, with one exception, all indigenous people. The only exception was a white man named Virtuchi. He would often come to the seances and help the Trinitarios find a missing person or object and, as a reward for this service, receive Catholic prayers that were indispensable for his salvation. I first heard of Virtuchi when I had an interview with an elderly woman in San Lorenzo (Moxos Province, Beni Prefecture). 1 She told me about a seance she had attended in her childhood. That seance was held at the request of a man whose mother had recently died. Before her death, she had buried her gold ornaments inside the house without telling her sons where they were hidden. Therefore, in the seance, the man wanted to ask the spirit of his mother
AUTHOR'S NOTE: An earlier draft of this article was read at a Spring Semester Seminar, Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, England, 9 March 2000, and at a Lent Term Open Seminar, Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, England, 13 March 2000. I thank the participants of the seminars for their valuable comments. My research in Bolivia was made possible by the 1993 Overseas Study Scholarship for Japanese Students provided by the Ishizaka Foundation, Keidanren, Japan, and the 1997 Overseas Research Grant provided by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan. 1 am grateful to these institutions. 1. Interview with a Trinitario woman, aged 55, San Lorenzo, 11 February 1996. My field research was mainly conducted in San Lorenzo and Trinidacito, Moxos Province, Beni Prefecture, between October 1994 and March 1996.

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about their location. Her spmt, however, refused to answer the question because she had buried the ornaments in order to prevent her sons from quarreling about them. Among the dead in the seance was Virtuchi. In place of the mother, who kept silent, he answered the question. He said, "There, at the base of that pillar." Then he added, "No matter how hard you look for it, you won't be able to find it because it moves." This means that the spirit of the mother moves the ornaments or that the ornaments themselves move in order that her sons not find them. When I carried out my field research in the mid-1990s, many elderly Trinitarios still remembered Virtuchi. According to them, he was a white man who, in the remote past, had killed many people. He was caught by the police and publicly executed by firing squad. A number of questions might be raised about this white murderer: How did the Trinitarios get to know him? What motivated them to let him appear at their seances? Why was he the only white to do so? Is the fact that he was a murderer and was executed related to his appearance at the seances? This article seeks to answer these questions. The stories that my Trinitario informants told me about Virtuchi are typical examples of the "great criminal" genre, namely, stories that center on fabulous exploits of criminals and their inevitable deaths at the hands of the judiciary. My informants went to considerable lengths to convince me of the almost superhuman qualities of Virtuchi. Although they knew nothing about his victims, they unanimously stressed that there were many of them. They said that every time the police caught Virtuchi and put him in jail, he managed to escape. The police made every effort to catch him and finally arrested and then executed him. At the moment of the execution, he showed a surprisingly strong hold on life. It is said that it took the firing squad several volleys of shots to kill him. According to Walter Benjamin, "great criminal" stories owe their main attraction to the fact that they demonstrate to the public that violence still exists outside the law. He claims that it is an essential characteristic of the modern legal system to monopolize violence and to deny the public the right to resort to it. The "great criminal" fascinates the public because the latter is no less a target or potential victim of modern legislation than the former: One might perhaps consider the surprising possibility that the law's interest in a monopoly of violence vis-a-vis individuals is explained not by the intention of preserving legal ends but, rather, by the intention of preserving the law itself; that violence, when not in the hands of the law, threatens it not by the ends that it may pursue but by its mere existenceoutsidethe law.The same may be more drastically suggested, for one reflects how often the figure of the "great" criminal,howeverrepellenthis ends may havebeen, has arousedthe secretadmiration of the public.This can result not from his deed but only from the violence to which it bears witness. In this case, therefore, the violence that present-day law is seekingin all areas of activityto deny the individ-

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ual appears really threatening, and arouses even in defeat the sympathy of the masses against the law. (Benjamin 1996:239)

Benjamin suggests that "the masses" see in the figure of the "great criminal" a symbol of defiance against the law, which implies that the criminal could be their liberator from an oppressive legal system. From such a viewpoint, the Trinitarios' fascination with the white murderer may seem less strange than it first appeared, for the law that condemned him is an instrument of social control in the hands of the white population, who are none other than their oppressors.' In Latin America, the relationship between the whites and the natives is based on an uneven distribution of power and is, accordingly, filled with tensions and frictions.' The Trinitarios' case is no exception to this rule. In the days of Spanish colonialism, the Trinitarios lived under the tutelage of the Jesuit missionaries, maintained a relatively peaceful relationship with the Jesuits, and developed a distinctive Catholic culture. However, the cooperation with the whites ended with the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the Spanish dominions in 1767 and, since then, the whites have almost always been oppressive and exploitative toward the Trinitarios. From the middle of the nineteenth century onward, large numbers of white immigrants came to settle in Moxos, with a view to commercializing the natural resources of the region. They deprived the Trinitarios of their land and cattle and exploited their labor. Today, cases of oppression and exploitation have become less frequent, but the basic structure of an uneven power relationship still remains. The white immigrants came into conflict with the natives when they attempted not only to monopolize economic resources but also to control violence. Throughout the nineteenth century, one of their main concerns was to create a centralized judicial system and to concentrate violence in the hands of the State. For this purpose they established courts of justice in major towns, staffed them with qualified lawyers, and reinforced the police force. They also tried to take the administration of justice out of the hands of the natives and to impose on them a modem, white concept of justice that was largely alien to the native traditions. As a result, two culturally distinct ways of administering justice collided with each other. It is my intention to show that the case of
2. The Australian Aborigines' stories about Ned Kelly, a famous bushranger of the nineteenth century, are another example of the sympathy the oppressed have with outlaws. As Deborah Rose states, for the Australian Aborigines, Captain Cook brought the immoral law of oppression, which Ned Kelly broke and, "in doing so, he aligned himself with the moral position of those who were being dispossessed" (1994:183). See Rose 1984; Rose 1994. Throughout this article, I use the term "whites" (blancos) to designate the non-indigenous people who trace their descent from Spaniards because, in Moxos, it is the term they use in order to distinguish themselves from the natives. Its use is not very frequent, however. More generally, they simply call themselves nosotros (we) in contrast to ellos (they) or esa gente (those people).

3.

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Virtuchi fits into place precisely along this boundary between two opposing forms of justice. The incompatibility of the white and the native concepts of justice and the conflict arising from their juxtaposition in a colonial situation have received much attention from scholars. A growing number of studies on legal pluralism and alternative justice are now available.' This article, however, does not pretend to be a full-scale analysis of the traditional justice in Moxos; neither does it aim to assess the feasibility of incorporating native practices into the modem judicial system. Its scope is more limited. It takes up the case of Virtuchi as a telling example of the contradiction between two forms of justice and attempts to illustrate the native perception of white justice, especially, the whites' monopoly of violence and their self-attributed authority to kill.' The public execution is a pseudo-ceremonial event in which the State's power of life and death over its citizens is spectacularly displayed and reaffirmed." These "rites of execution" (Masur 1986) are designed to give the public a clear message that the State dispenses justice and that it is ready to intervene wherever there is an infraction. I shall argue that the Trinitarios who witnessed or heard about the execution of Virtuchi had not missed this message and that their belief about him was formed as a counter-argument against it. The Trinitarios' stories about Virtuchi were and continue to be an act of subversion against State justice. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, I want to clarify the cultural peculiarities of the contemporary Trinitario belief about Virtuchi. I attempt to explain the exact nature of the relationship the Trinitarios maintain with the spirit of the white murderer and to show that despite its seeming abnormality, his appearance at the seances makes perfect sense within the context of native understanding of death and afterlife. What comes to the fore with this examination is the theme of atonement and salvation. The State condemned Virtuchi to death, whereas the Trinitarios are helping him atone for his sin and achieve salvation. Second, I want to locate the case of Virtuchi within its historical context and to bring out its implication for the broader issue of State justice and the subversion of it. Using historical documents, I attempt to reconstruct the murder case and its impact on the Trinitarios. My hypothesis is that the
4. See, for example, the following thematic issues of journals: "Popular Justice: Conflict Resolution within Communities," Marie-Claire Foblets, Anne Griffiths, Carol LaPrairie, and Gordon Woodman, eds., Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 36 (1996); "Pluralismo juridico y derechos indigenas en America Latina," Milka Castro Lucic and Maria Teresa Sierra, eds., America indigena 58, no. 1/2 (1998); "Justice et societes rurales," Juan Carlos Garavaglia, ed., Etudes rurales 149/150 (1999); "Justicia comunitaria en los Andes," Antonio Pefia Jumpa, ed., Allpanchis 59/60 (2002). The following studies provide testimony of the Native Americans' critical appreciation of white justice: Grabowski 1993; Grabowski 1996; Krippner-Martfnez 1995; Zeitlin and Thomas 1992. On the public execution, see Evans 1996:25-189; Foucault 1975:9-72; Masur 1989:25-49.

5.

6.

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Trinitarios understood the public execution in religious terms and considered the State's appropriation of the power of life and death over mortals a sacrilege.

The Trinitarios
This article focuses on an ethnic group of Lowland Bolivia who call themselves Trinitarios.? They live extensively scattered in the south of Beni Prefecture. A large part of their territory belongs to the tropical savannah called Llanos de Moxos (Moxos Plains) and, therefore, there are high temperatures and a great deal of precipitation throughout the year. Their population is estimated at a little less than 10,000, the bulk of which is concentrated in three areas: Trinidad, San Lorenzo, and San Francisco. A significant number of white settlers live in these towns and the natives are obliged to coexist with them. The whites are usually government officials or owners of cattle farms or shops, while the vast majority of the Trinitarios are subsistence farmers. Using slash-and-burn farming, they cultivate rice, manioc (cassava), plantains, sweet potatoes, and squash. They also catch fish in the rivers and lakes and raise pigs and chickens. They occasionally hunt wild game in the forest. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, their main subsistence activity was raising cattle in the savannah. Today, however, the whites control most of the livestock industry. In order to earn money, the Trinitarios sell their products to the whites or work for them as herdsmen or domestic servants. Anthropologists know the Trinitarios as a subgroup of the Arawakspeaking people, called Mojos or Mojefios." In the second half of the seventeenth century, the Society of Jesus came into contact with the inhabitants of the Moxos Plains. The Jesuits gathered these inhabitants into large towns and organized them into a centralized mission system known as the Mojos Missions. When the Jesuits first reached the upper Mamore River, there were many different ethnic groups, and most of them spoke an Arawak dialect. The Jesuits, indifferent to their ethnic diversity, called all of them Mojos. Later, most of these groups were gathered into four towns: Loreto, Trinidad, San Ignacio, and San Javier. Thereafter, they lived under the mission system until the expulsion of the religious order in 1767 and, during that period, their society and culture were fundamentally transformed. One of the most notable results was the creation of new ethnic identities based on the mission towns. The inhabitants of these towns gradually took on a common identity relating to the town in which they lived and came to call themselves Loretanos
7. On the Trinitarios and their neighbors, see Denevan 1980; Metraux 1942:53-80; Lehm Ardaya 1999; Riester 1976:311-339. The preliminary report of the national census of 1994-1995 gives the following estimations of their populations: the Trinitarios 9,813, the Ignacianos 6,317, the Javerianos 410. See Bolivia 1995:755. On the history of the Mojefios, see the excellent study of Block 1994.

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(inhabitants of Loreto), Trinitarios (inhabitants of Trinidad), Ignacianos (inhabitants of San Ignacio), and Iaverianos (inhabitants of San Iavier). Except for the Lorentanos, who recently disappeared, these groups still exist today. As mentioned above, the Trinitarios and the other groups have long experience with white settlers' abuses. They call the whites carayana and strongly resent them for taking away their land and cattle and exploiting their labor,? They say that their hometown, Trinidad, had been founded by their ancestors in the remote past but that the incoming carayana seized the best part of it and marginalized the native inhabitants. They complain that although it is their town, they cannot stay or eat there without paying. They also say that the same process is repeating itself in San Lorenzo and San Francisco, where the whites have large houses constructed around the plaza, while the natives live behind them in small huts made of cane and palm leaves. The Trinitarios often express the difference between the whites and themselves in religious terms. According to them, the carayana are highly irreligious.'? They show little interest in Catholic observances and do not obey God's commandments. They usually stay away from the fiestas (festivals) and do not help during them. They rarely engage in religious devotional acts, such as velorio (vigil) or limosna (charity). They are extremely greedy and never share their wealth with the poor. They lose their tempers easily and often quarrel among themselves. In short, they look more devilish than godly. The Trinitarios maintain a highly religious culture, with Catholicism at its core. This culture, which they call costumbres (customs), is a form of Catholicism unique to them and does not coincide with the religious practices the contemporary Catholic Church has endorsed since the Second Vatican Council. For this reason, their relationship with the Church is often strained. The Church tends to be intolerant of those aspects of the costumbres that smell of idolatry or paganism and, as a result, in towns like Trinidad or San Lorenzo where there are resident priests or nuns, the indigenous people perform their practices not in the church but in the council house. They attend Mass and other ceremonies in the church side by side with the whites. However, after Mass, they move to the council house and practice their own devotions under the supervision of doctrineros (catechists). The costumbres consist of community festivals, familial rituals, and individual works of charity. These include festivals of saints, those of the
9. The word carayana is probably derived from the Guaranf word karai, by which the Guarani designated the Spaniards. -ana is a Mojo suffix signaling the plural form. The word was already in use at the time of Jesuit entry into Moxos in the second half of the seventeenth century. See Castillo 1906:343. 10. Testimonies abound. To take a single instance, a Trinitario man said to me: "They (the whites) say that they are truly Catholic. But they are not proper, not those who are truly Catholic. They care about their business only, because they don't know how to pray, how to do the office of the church, do they?"; interview with a Trinitario man, aged 45, San Lorenzo, 29 February 1996.

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virgins, a series of ceremonies that commemorates the life of Jesus from Christmas to Holy Week, various rites of passage from birth to death, and rituals and prayers dedicated to the dead. In the Trinitarios' view, participation in these costumbres is a crucial difference that separates them from the whites. The whites, it is true, are no less Catholic than the natives. They attend Mass and receive Holy Communion and have their children baptized. However, for the Trinitarios, participation in the costumbres means much more than that. It means becoming a full member of local organizations, assuming a position within them, and performing corresponding duties. Almost all the whites fail in this respect. In Trinitario communities, some organizations and professions exist in order to support the observance of the costumbres. The most important organization is the town council, the Cabildo. Each community has a Cabildo and all the adult male members are supposed to participate in it. The Cabildo has officers, who are elected on the first day of each year. At one time the Cabildo performed some secular functions, such as maintenance of public order and administration of community properties, but today the public offices of the republican government supersede the power of the Cabildo and its role is limited to religious affairs. Of the professions, that of doctrinero is preeminent. The doctrineros preside over religious ceremonies and lead prayers. They are the living depositories of traditional knowledge and, as such, are held in high esteem. The Trinitarios maintain some beliefs that are not part of orthodox Catholicism. These are the cult of the devil, witchcraft, the cult of the dead, the belief in the spirits of the natural world, and messianism. I call them "unorthodox" beliefs because the Trinitarios themselves admit that they are different from and opposed to the faith in the Christian God. They often hesitate to talk about these beliefs and some feel guilty about putting them into practice. 11 One such belief that has received much attention from anthropologists is the movement in search of the mythic place called Tierra Santa (Sacred Land) or Tierra Prometida (Promised Land)." The participants of this messianic movement believe that there is a vast flat land rich in livestock and wild game in the west or southwest of the Moxos Plains. God reserves this land for the Trinitarios as a replacement for their hometown, Trinidad, which they consider lost to the white settlers." God encourages them to move to this promised land and does not permit anyone else to do so. It is said that God hides the land from the eyes of any white who dares to approach it. In order to attain their
11. The Trinitarios themselves do not use the words "orthodox" or "unorthodox," nor do they have any words that might have similar meaning. The distinction, however, is quite clear. In addition to the uneasiness the Trinitarios feel towards unorthodox practices, neither the Cabildo nor doctrineros take part in them. 12. See Jones 1980:289-295; Lehm Ardaya 1999; Riester 1976:311-339; Roca 2001: 128-133. 13. "It is said that each town has its substitute"; interviews with a Trinitario man, supposedly aged 70, Trinidacito, 12 and 14 July 1995. "What they are looking for is a substitute for that Trinidad"; interview with a Trinitario man, aged 62, Trinidacito, 5 August 1995.

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aim, the Trinitarios must have a firm faith and pure hearts unstained by any sins. They may not speak Spanish or wear manufactured clothing introduced by the whites, which are thought to belong to the devil. 14 This movement occasionally takes on millenarian overtones. Rumor has it that God's judgment is imminent, that towns like Trinidad or San Ignacio will be submerged under the weight of their inhabitants' sins, and that only those who have reached the Promised Land will be saved. The messianic belief about Santa Tierra has a strong grip on the Trinitarios and their neighbors and, throughout the twentieth century, migratory movements occasionally broke off, which led to the dispersion of the native population and the creation of many small settlements in the Isiboro-Secure region (Moxos Province). As I explain in the next section, the spirit medium has played a key role in these movements.

The Seance
Among the Trinitarios, there used to be mediums who were able to invoke the spirits of the dead. They are called espiritista (spiritualist) in Spanish and muechjiru viya (or iiechjiru viya, if the speaker is female) in Trinitario, which means "those who are spoken to by God." In fact, being a medium is nothing less than a vocation, a calling from God. Such people become aware of their vocation when, one day, God, Christ, or the Virgin Mary suddenly addresses them. Ordinarily they live normal lives. They hold seances when they are asked to invoke the spirits of the dead. There is no payment in money, though the best part of the food and drink prepared by the client for the dead is given to the medium as a token of gratitude. It is not known when this practice started. As far as I could find, the earliest record of the seance dates back to 1887, when the fame of an Itonama medium named Andres Guayocho attracted a large number of Trinitarios to San Lorenzo, and the white population of Trinidad, fearful that the natives were preparing a genera] uprising against them, sent an expeditionary force, which ransacked the town and abused its inhabitants." According to testimonies made at the time, Guayocho held seances at night and God, Christ, and the spirits of the dead came to talk to the congregation." It is noteworthy that the earliest mention of the Santa Tierra movement was made in connection
14. Interview with a Trinitario woman, supposedly aged 45, San Lorenzo, 4 May 1995. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 45, San Lorenzo, 29 February 1996. l5. Early Jesuit chroniclers recorded the existence of mediums and the practice of holding seances among the Mojefios (Altamirano 1979:32-33; Castillo 1906:355-357). However, there is no evidence to link this practice to the contemporary one. On the turmoil of 1887 commonly caLLed Guayocheria, see Arteche 1989; Lehm Ardaya 1999:55-68; Rene-Moreno 1974:75-80,388-391; Roca 2001:119-127; Suarez l887. 16. An interesting report by a white public servant who participated in Guayocho's seances is published in Los Debates, no. 117 (Sucre, 10 October 1887).

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with this event. A report of 1888 states that those Trinitarios who had escaped from the persecution fled deep into the jungle in search of "the Cross and plain" (Arteche 1989:21). When I carried out my research in the mid-1990s, there were no mediums among the Trinitarios. The last woman known to be a medium died in the first half of the 1980s. People still remembered her and had clear memories of the way she held seances.'? In this article, I shall call her Angela Cayuba. Angela was born in San Lorenzo and, as an adult, practiced her profession there. But the white inhabitants of the town denounced her for devil worship and threatened her with punishment, forcing her to leave the town and lead an itinerant life in the Isiboro-Secure region. She died in a small town near the upper Secure River. 18 The medium invokes the spirits of the dead at the request of their living relatives. People ask the medium to hold a seance simply to greet their dead relatives; but, more often than not, they also do so for a specific purpose, for example, to know the cause of the death of a relative, to locate a missing person or object, or to identify the thief when something is stolen. The Trinitarios believe that since the dead are on their way to heaven, they can see everything on Earth. Like God himself, the dead know everything that happens in this world. For this reason, the seance is closely related to the Santa Tierra movement. The dead, like God, know the exact location of the Sacred Land and are willing to reveal it to the Trinitarios through the medium. Therefore, the medium is in fact nothing other than a principal promoter of the movement. As an interpreter of the divine will, the medium urges the Trinitarios to go on an exodus in search of the Promised Land. The spirits of the dead who come to the seances often tell their living relatives that Santa Tierra is within their reach and indicate the direction to follow. "Let's look for that Sacred Land. Do not get dispirited. Just keep up. Be men of courage," they exhort.'?
17. The disappearance of mediums is only one of many symptoms of the decline of native traditions in Moxos. Educated in state-run schools, younger generations show little or no interest in the costumbres. The majority of them cannot speak Trinitario, do not attend Cabildo meetings, and do not participate in the festivities. Another important factor is the spread of Protestantism. Since the late 1960s, missionaries of the New Tribes Mission have been active in the region and have gained a large number of converts. They show some respect for native culture but advocate a spirituality with all the Catholic gaudiness eliminated and discourage the natives from participating in these customs. 18. During my field research, I neither knew nor heard of any white who had participated in an indigenous seance. There are several reasons for this. The Trinitario seance is not a healing session like those held by the shamans of Southwest Colombia (Taussig 1980; Taussig 1987:139-473) or Northern Peru (Joralemon and Sharon 1993). Though privately sponsored, it is an occasion for communal gathering, and it is never a business. Moreover, as its history shows, it has always been a subject of conflict between the whites and the natives. It is highly improbable that Angela Cayuba, a strong supporter of the Santa Tierra movement, would have accepted a white man's request for a seance. 19. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 62, Trinidacito, 22 July 1995.

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The basic structure of the seance is like that of the Catholic festivals, which consist of prayers and a banquet. After the Mass and the procession during a festival, the community members gather together in the council house, recite prayers, and hold a banquet. This practice is called limosna (charity) or comilona (banquet). Here, "charity" refers to practicing charity toward the dead. The prayers and banquets on festive occasions are always dedicated to the dead. The idea of entertaining the dead with food and drink is widely held among the indigenous people of Latin America. According to the Trinitarios, the dead are souls (espiritus) without bodies and they do not eat and drink. However, they can taste the vitality (alma), essence (espiritu), or grace (gracia) of the meal. The seance does not have a special name. It is simply called limosna or comilona. However, it differs from the limosna or comilona of the festival in that the latter is held in the council house in daylight under the supervision of a doctrinero, while the former is held in a private house in darkness under the guidance of an espiritista. In the house of the client hosting the seance, an altar with images of saints is set up and food and drink are prepared to serve to the dead. A partition of mosquito nets or blankets hides the altar from the participants. The medium takes a seat in front of the altar. When these preparations are completed, the candles are put out and, in the darkness, first the saints come to visit. The Archangel Michael, Saint J ames, or the Virgin of Carmel often descend to the altar and greet the congregation. Because of the partition and the darkness, people cannot see the saints, but they hear their voices and any noise they make. The participants recite prayers for them and, when they have finished, the saints leave. Then the spirits of the dead come, one by one. The spirits give their names and greet their relatives. When the spirits are all present, people recite prayers again. The dead then have a meal. There are chickens, boiled eggs, rice cakes, boiled plantains, and chicha (an alcoholic beverage made of manioc). The Trinitarios maintain that they can clearly hear the spirits eat and drink. However, after the dead leave and the candles are lit again, they are surprised to find the food and drink still laid out, exactly as before the seance. Oral Traditions about Virtuchi The dead who come to the seances are all indigenous people whose identities are well known to the participants: they are deceased relatives. The only exception is Virtuchi. My informants explicitly admit this and talk about him with surprise and curiosity. They state that Angela Cayuba would invoke him every time she held a seance and would ask him about the locations of missing objects or the identities of thieves. Since the seances largely depend on the medium's dramaturgic creativity, it is most likely that Angela is the one who chose Virtuchi and let him work for her as a spiritual helper.

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According to the Trinitarios, Virtuchi killed many people in his lifetime, before he was arrested by the police and publicly executed by firing squad. At the time of my research, there were no living eyewitnesses of this event. However, some elderly people were still able to give me a full description. The following is a summary of one of their testimonies:
Virtuchi was a murderer of the past. He was a white man and he killed many people. The police arrested him and chained him up. But he escaped as many as three times. He was no longer a man but had become a real devil. The last time he was caught, he wasn't chained up but tied up with a rope. He had such a Herculean strength that no less than twenty policemen were needed to hold him and put him in jail. Then he was blindfolded and shot dead. The execution took place in the middle of the plaza in Trinidad. He was made to sit on a chair, but kept talking. He was still alive after having been shot with as many as five bullets. "Give me the gun, I'll show you how to shoot," he shouted. It was not until he was shot in the upper arms that he died. It is said that his soul was in his upper arms." Virtuchi came to Angela's seances and talked in Spanish. People went to her when things were lost. Then Virtuchi showed up and answered their questions. When clothes, axes, ploughs were lost, or cows were gone, people had Virtuchi tell them who the thief was and then claimed damages. The reward for Virtuchi was prayers or Mass, not money."

The Trinitarios' stories about Virtuchi dwell, at great length, on the scene of his execution while they say little or nothing about the murders he committed. It is clear that for the Trinitarios, it does not matter whom Virtuchi killed. What is important for them is how he met his end. I think this reflects the way the Trinitarios came into contact with Virtuchi, namely, they attended his public execution as spectators. Most of them would not have known him personally. They only gathered at his execution as curious spectators, and then the execution somehow impressed them. They felt compelled to tell their experience to others, and the stories were passed down from generation to generation. I think the stories I collected in Moxos are a kind of aftereffect or reverberation of the impact that Virtuchi's execution must have had on the indigenous people. In order to understand that impact, I begin by examining another of its aftereffects, namely, Virtuchi's appearance at the indigenous seances. I explain the Trinitario concept of death and afterlife and clarify the exact nature of the relationship between the white murderer and the natives. This seemingly roundabout way is, in my opinion, the surest way to understand the Trinitarios' view of the event. When it comes to native concepts and values,
20. My informant compares Virtuchi to the ukumari (u'ari in Trinitario), the Andean bear (Tremarctos omatus), which in Moxos is a purely imaginary creature. According to tales similar to the ones collected by Morote Best, this hairy monster lives on top of rocky mountains and goes down to human settlements to kidnap adults and children (Morote Best 1988). Some Trinitarios think that the ukumari is a kind of devil with its soul in the upper arms and that, in order to kill it, they have to shoot it in the arms. Interviews with a Trinitario man, aged 73, San Lorenzo, 23 and 29 February 1996.

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ethnographic data often give us more insight than historical documents, which are usually written from the whites' perspective.

The Living and the Dead

There are two different ways the Trinitarios invoke the spirit of Virtuchi, and the medium plays a key part in both. One is the previously mentioned nocturnal seance. The other is to celebrate a Mass for his skull. This second method is interesting and worth close examination. When something is stolen, the Trinitarios procure a human skull and ask the medium to perform a Mass for it. Not every skull can be used for that purpose. According to my informants, the skull of a murderer is one of the most suitable. They say that when Angela Cayuba was alive, people used Virtuchi's skull. They dug it up from the graveyard and made Angela say Mass for it, so that he might return to this world and help them identify a thief. However, the skull of a murderer is not the only type used for this Mass. The Trinitarios say that it is also possible to use the skull of one who got lost and died in the wilderness, of one who has no relatives to pray for him or her, or of one who died a long time ago and whose identity nobody remembers." First, one must "buy Mass" (comprar misa), which means asking the priest to perform a special Mass for a dead person on an anniversary of his or her death or to read out a dead person's name and pray for him or her during normal Mass on Sunday or a festive day. In either case, the Trinitarios feel it necessary to pay a fee and voluntarily bring the priest money or chicken eggs." It is said that it is necessary to buy Mass from three to six times for a dead person in order to persuade that spirit to find the thief. After having bought Mass, the natives go to the graveyard and dig up a skull, that of Virtuchi or someone else. They wrap the skull in a black cloth or put it into a wooden box and take it to their house. At night, they cover the floor with a black cloth, put the skull on it, and light two candles. Then they recite prayers for an hour or two. After that, they talk to the skull. They explain what has been stolen and beg the skull to identify the thief and recover the stolen objects. When all this is finished, they put out the candles and go to bed. Then, in the darkness, the skull returns to human form and goes out to look for the thief. The Trinitarios say that they can clearly hear the skull stand up, open the door, and leave the house. When the skull finds the thief, it bites him, pokes
22. 23. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 71, San Lorenzo, 27 February L996. Interview with a Trinitario woman, aged 55, San Lorenzo, 28 February 1996. The idea of comprar misa is widespread in Latin America. In the mid-1990s, the incumbent priest in San Lorenzo requested nothing for this service. It is likely, however, that his predecessors were not as generous as he. I am grateful to the JIAL's anonymous reviewer for this piece of information.

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his body, pulls his legs, and keeps tormenting him until he gives up and returns the stolen objects. Why do the Trinitarios use the skulls of murderers, of those who died in the wilderness, of those who have no relatives, or of those who died a long time ago and are lost from memory? In the Trinitarios' view, all these people have lost a link with the living and have fallen into oblivion. Nobody recalls them and recites prayers for them. Therefore, they are particularly in need of prayers. This is why they sell their services and contract with the living to find thieves and, in return, make those who are not their relatives pray to God for their salvation. To the Trinitarios' way of thinking, the dead go to purgatory and are burned in the flames in order to atone for the sins they have committed in their lifetime. The torment of purgatory is severe and hard to bear. But if their relatives remember them and recite prayers for them, they are momentarily cooled and able to take a short rest. In this way, thanks to the prayers of their relatives, the dead can endure the torment of purgatory and achieve salvation. The Trinitarios have a variety of ways to pray for the dead. To buy Mass is one of them. Another common way is to hold a private limosna or comilona. The relatives of a dead person usually hold one on the first anniversary of her or his death, but they may also do so any time they feel it necessary. In either case, they prepare food and drink, invite friends and neighbors, and have prayers recited for the dead. On All Saints' Day, November 1, the souls of the dead are believed to visit their living relatives and stay overnight with them in this world. On that day, people go to church with food and drink and have prayers recited for the dead. Moreover, the limosna or comilona that accompanies any public festivity is also dedicated to the dead. Therefore, it can be said that Trinitario Catholicism is none other than the cult of the dead in its entirety. The seance and the Mass for the skull, unorthodox though they may be, are simply other ways of praying for the dead. In Trinitario society, strong bonds closely link the living and the dead. The dead do not cease to be members of the community. They occasionally return to this world and intervene in the lives of their relatives. The living can feel their presence close to them on many festive occasions. The dead, on the other hand, need the collaboration of their living relatives in order to follow, without any missteps, the path to salvation. However, there are people who have strayed from the path to salvation. These are the murderers, those who died in the wilderness, those who have no relatives, or those who have fallen into oblivion. They are, so to speak, outcasts from the community of the living and the dead. They are unable to atone for their sins and, therefore, they are on the verge of damnation because they have no one to recall them and pray for them. Fortunately, the Trinitarios have two mechanisms in place to rescue these outcasts from damnation and reincorporate them into the community of the

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living and the dead. One mechanism is orthodox, and the other is unorthodox. The orthodox mechanism consists of the prayers and banquets offered during Camival.s' In Trinitario communities, there is a religious confraternity called Hermandad (sisterhood), composed exclusively of elderly women called abadesas (abbesses), who play an important part in the festivities. They recite prayers in the church and hold a banquet in the council house during the three days of Carnival, namely, the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. According to my informants, the prayers and banquets of the second and third days are specifically dedicated to those who died an unnatural death: those who got lost and died in the wilderness, those who drowned when their canoe capsized, those who were killed by a snake, an alligator, or a jaguar, those who were homed by a bull, those who were struck dead with a stick, or those who are missing. While in the church, the abadesas recall them and pray to God for their salvation. The banquets in the council house are also held in their name." The unorthodox mechanism is the seance and the Mass for the skull. These methods are dangerous in that they make use of the abnormality of outcasts. These outcasts urgently need prayers and are willing to perform difficult tasks in order to obtain them. In addition, they are devilish creatures who have deviated from the path to salvation. This makes them suitable for such violent work as threatening thieves and recovering stolen property. Nevertheless, it is also true that the seance and the Mass for the skull provide the means for socially rehabilitating the outcasts. They reestablish a relationship of responsibility and obligation between the outcasts and the living. This is true in case of the relationship between Virtuchi and the Trinitarios. According to my informants, Virtuchi made a contract with the Trinitarios. He promised to identify thieves for them and, in fact, he kept his word. This became his obligation, or his cargo, which means office of the town council." By means of the seance and the Mass for the skull, Virtuchi was converted into a member of the Trinitario society. We now have a partial explanation for why the spirit of a white murderer shows up in indigenous seances. In the eyes of the Trinitarios, Virtuchi was an outcast from the community of the living and the dead. Publicly executed, he had been ostracized from society and, therefore, nobody recalled him and prayed for him. This is why he made a contract with the Trinitarios and agreed

24.

25. 26.

This orthodox Carnival should not be confused with the merrymaking we are more familiar with today. The orthodox Carnival involves a three-day penance that marks the beginning of Lent. The popUlarCarnival was introduced into Moxos by the white settlers and today many Trinitarios celebrate it, calling it Camaval Chico (Small Carnival): its celebration is, however, voluntary, and the Cabildo and doctrineros do not participate in it. Interview with a Trinitario woman, aged 68, San Lorenzo, 4 March 1996. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 45, San Lorenzo, 4 March 1996. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 57, San Lorenzo, 26 February 1996.

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to identify thieves and locate missing objects for them. He fulfils his obligation more faithfully than do other spirits who are not outcasts because, with no relatives in this world, he is more in need of prayers. Historical Reconstruction This explanation is, however, still insufficient in that it does not explain why the Trinitarios singled out Virtuchi and let him appear at their seances, for he is only one among many available outcasts. Even if it is true that they chose him because he was a murderer, the question why this singling out happened to him and only him still remains. Like all the other dead persons who appear at the seances, he has an individual identity and life history: he cannot be reduced to any generic type, be it racial stereotyping or criminological labelling. If we consider the peculiarities of Virtuchi, the relationship the Trinitarios maintain with him looks quite abnormal. As they acknowledge, he is a white man who does not share their customs and beliefs. Moreover, he is among the most sinful of persons and, therefore, least deserves to be saved. Despite all this, the Trinitarios invoke his spirit at the seances, pray for his salvation and, in so doing, help him atone for his sins and go to heaven. Thanks to their "charity," Virtuchi undergoes a double metamorphosis: from outsider to insider and from damned to saved. Why, however, do the Trinitarios take so much trouble for his sake? Clearly, they have no obligation to rescue this white murderer from his merited destiny of damnation. It is improbable that they help him simply because of his suitability for the task of recovering stolen property, for they could easily find an indigenous dead person, murderer or not, who could do them the same service. Now is the time to turn our attention to history. In this section, having examined available documents such as official reports and newspaper articles, I intend to reconstruct the past event upon which the indigenous traditions have been built. 27 Our protagonist, Jose Virtuchi, was born in Loreto. His father had migrated from Naples, Italy, to Bolivia and had lived in the town for many years. Virtuchi was, in a word, the son of an Italian immigrant. His name, "Virtuchi," may well have been a Spanish rendering of the Italian name "Bertucci."

27.

Through a mix of meticulous research and good fortune, I was able to identify Virtuchi and his case at the National Library. The historical reconstruction is based on the following sources: Callau 1906; La Ley, nos. 1400 (Santa Cruz, 28 March 1906), 1464 (17 November 1906), and 1468 (I December 1906); El Trabajo, nos. 70 (Santa Cruz, 6 October 1906), and 10] (23 January 1907); La Abeja, no. 277 (Santa Cruz, 18 January 1907); La Democracia, nos. 139 (Trinidad, 1 July 1906), 149 (9 September 1906), 151 (23 September 1906), 158 (11 November 1906), and 163 (16 December 1906); El Beni, nos. 26 (Trinidad, 11 November 1906) and 104 (4 July 1908).

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On February] 9, 1906, a whole family was murdered in a place called Jayunaje on the right bank of the Mamore River near Loreto. The victims were Juan de Dios Montalvan, Ange1a Navarro, his wife, Ribeldina, their four-yearold daughter, and Leonor Terrazas, their domestic servant. Their bodies were found seven days after the murder. The murderers were soon arrested. They were Jose Virtuchi and R6mulo Hurtado. Hurtado was Virtuchi's servant and a minor still in his teens. According to the annual report the public prosecutor submitted to the Ministry of Justice, the motive for the crime was money. The prosecutor's report says that Virtuchi owed 50 bolivianos (Bolivian currency) to Montalvan and begrudged paying it back. Instead of settling the debt with him, he killed him. He also killed his family to silence them and so as not to leave eyewitnesses of the crime. However, only one day before their execution, Virtuchi and Hurtado retracted their previous testimony and confessed that a Scot named Carlos Pollock had contracted them to kill Montalvan and that they had received 100 bolivianos each as payment. At that time, Beni Prefecture was an independent judicial district (distrito judicial) with its own high court in Trinidad (Cespedes 1906:120; Cronenbold 1910:26-27). The district was divided into three areas (partidos): Trinidad, Magdalena, and Riberalta. Since the murder was committed in the Trinidad area, the local judge (juez de partido), Rene Barba, took charge of the investigation. He interrogated Virtuchi and Hurtado in person for four days, June 26 to 29, and on September 6 sentenced them to death. The judge of the high court, Manuel Cespedes, approved this decision on September 22. In those days, the president of the Republic had the authority to grant pardons to convicts on death row. Therefore, before executing them, it was necessary to ask him whether he would make use of that authority. However, while the officials of Beni were waiting for a reply from the president, Virtuchi broke out of prison and escaped on the afternoon of November 4. An investigation showed that a servant named Jose Abaroma, who had free access to the prison, had handed him a file and that he had sawed through the bars with it and escaped. Virtuchi was not at liberty for long, however. He was caught again and sent back to prison by December 3, the day when the presidential decision not to grant a pardon to Virtuchi was communicated to the high court of Trinidad. Unfortunately, the documents I have seen do not indicate where Virtuchi took refuge following his escape or how he was found and arrested again."
28. According to oral testimony, Virtuchi took refuge in San Lorenzo and set up a kind of modus vivendi with the villagers: Virtuchi promised the villagers not to do them any harm, and the villagers gave him food, until their relationship worsened and the Cabildo denounced him to the authorities of Trinidad. However, this is the only testimony I collected about Virtuchi's whereabouts during his escape, and there are no documents that support it. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 57, San Lorenzo, 25 February 1996.

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Virtuchi and Hurtado were publicly executed on the morning of December 6, 1906. Let me quote a relevant passage from an article in the local newspaper La Democracia:
At night, they slept well. At dawn, the priest, who had come from San Javier, went to administer the sacrament to the convicts. One and the other received it strictly in conformity to the norms. At 9:30, they were taken to the path of sufferance, which they followed in a perfect state of mind. At 9:40, they sat down on the bench. While the priest delivered an admonition to the public, the executioners tied up the convicts. But when they tried to put a bandage over Virtuchi's eyes, he resisted and said, "I want to die like this." Despite that, he was blindfolded at the priest's request. At that moment, they handed over the crucifixes they held in their hands. Virtuchi raised his voice as loud as he could and shouted, "Ladies and gentlemen, I will say good-by, farewell to everyone!" Then the guns banged and each of them took four shots. Then Virtuchi shouted, "Another shot!" Two soldiers stepped forward, while R6mulo moved as if he was trying to stand up breathing strongly. The soldiers shot at the chest of each of them where General Monje had indicated. They were still breathing and the medical doctor, Dr. Vargas, declared that they were alive. New movements in the victims. Once again, two soldiers stepped forward and shot at the place indicated to them. Finally, at that moment, the bodies slumped forward. It was 10:02. The medical doctor examined them and declared them dead. At this instant of general stupefaction, Dr. Rigoberto Justiniano went into the enclosure and delivered a speech, which we will make room for in Sunday's La Democracia. In this way, for the first time, with this sanguinary justice, the criminals of Beni were given a good example. For the moment, we do not intend to discuss whether the procedures were correct and whether the sentence was perfectly sanctioned. We only confine ourselves to relating the facts as faithfully and exactly as possible."

The Social Significance of the Murder Case

Let me now address the social significance of this criminal case. First, it will help to outline the historical details that make Beni Prefecture unique." The prefecture was created in 1842, seventeen years after the Republic of Bolivia became independent from Spain. It was founded on the former Jesuit missions. At the time of its creation, Beni Prefecture was the most backward region of the Republic in terms of white immigration and its transportation network. It
29. 30. El Trabajo, no. 101 (Santa Cruz, 23 January 1907). This is a reproduction of an article published in La Democracia (Trinidad). The English translation is mine. Because of its marginal position in the Republic, Beni Prefecture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has attracted little attention from historians, which permits us only a cursory discussion of its history. See Block 1994:149-173; Carvalho Urey 1975:35-65; Carvalho Urey 1983:30-50; Greever 1987:31-112; Rene-Moreno 1974:68-85. The best published source is Limpias Saucedo 1942. The following travel diaries are also useful: Bayo 1911:323-406; D'Orbigny 1844:3(1):84-250; Gibbon 1854:193-262; KellerLeuzinger 1874:142-170; Mathews 1879:119-164.

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was the frontier region least controlled by the republican government. From the historical viewpoint, the political economy of Bolivia always centers on the Andean highlands, while the Amazonian lowlands are neglected, despite the fact that they occupy more than half of the national territory (Klein 1992:3--4). The main factor that encouraged such a backward region to become an independent prefecture was the growing awareness that the transatlantic trade through the Amazon River system would be a matter of vital importance for the future economic development of the Republic (Greever 1987:8-30). The aim of the republican government was to incorporate the Moxos region firmly into the State and explore its economic potential. The immigration of the white population into Moxos began in the 1830s. At first, government officials and professionals comprised a considerable proportion of the white immigrants (Block 1994:154). Originally, in Moxos, there was no white population and the mission towns founded by the Jesuits served the settlers as a foothold for penetration into the region. They settled in these towns, formed a privileged minority, and gradually relegated the indigenous majority to a marginal position. However, the number of white settlers was too small and the Moxos region too vast. In order to control every corner of its territory and make full use of its natural and human resources, white immigration had to be encouraged in every possible way. The republican government worked out various programs to promote white immigration, including land sales and loans to entrepreneurs. At the same time, the government also encouraged foreign immigration (Block 1994:154-155). It is because of this policy that foreigners such as an Italian and a Scot appear in Virtuchi's case. From the middle of the nineteenth century, international demand for the natural resources of the Amazon basin rose, and so did the importance of Beni Prefecture. First, from the 1840s, entrepreneurs started collecting the bark of the cinchona trees in the south of Beni and the north of La Paz. The bark was an ingredient in a medicine for treating malaria. This cinchona bark industry came to an end in the mid-1860s when it lost out to competition from European and other Andean countries." However, from the 1860s, the collection of rubber sap started around the Madeira River in Brazil, and its influence spread to Beni Prefecture." From the 1880s, many people started exploiting the rubber forest of the Beni River and the Bolivian rubber industry developed rapidly. As economic activities intensified, the numbers of white settlers increased and the local administration became more elaborate. The exploitation of the natural resources and the growth of the white population had a negative impact on the indigenous people. Since the mission towns were close to the center of cinchona and rubber production and since
31. 32. On the regional level, however, the Bolivian cinchona industry remained financially viable until the end of the nineteenth century. See Pefialoza Bretel 1992. See Fifer 1970; Gamarra and Kent 1992; Roca 2001:173-312; Sanabria Fernandez 1988:35-102. A thorough history of the Bolivian rubber boom has yet to be written.

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they had a large number of settled inhabitants, these towns served as a major source of labor. The indigenous people were taken to the Madeira River or the Beni River either by force or by being tricked with stories of quick gains. They were forced to work under harsh conditions as bark and rubber collectors or canoeists. As a consequence, they came to dislike coexistence with the whites. Many of them abandoned the mission towns, migrated to the savannah to the west of the Mamore River, and built new towns, freeing themselves from the oppression of the whites (Suarez 1887:10-11). The Trinitarios who had abandoned Trinidad founded San Lorenzo as one of these towns in the mid-nineteenth century. In the words of an ex-prefect of Beni, San Lorenzo was "the refuge of all the spongers who shirk the cancellation of their debts and the fulfilment of contracted obligations" (Suarez 1887:11). Thus, at the beginning of the twentieth century, when Virtuchi's case occurred, the frontier region of Moxos was being gradually incorporated into the political and economic system of the Republic and, at the same time, the domination of the whites over the indigenous population was being consolidated. Nevertheless, it is also true that their dominance was still limited to the major population centers such as Trinidad, Magdalena, and Riberalta and that the vast majority of rural areas were out of the reach of State control. This is clearly shown by the fact that the indigenous people who had abandoned the mission towns created liberated districts to the west of the Mamore River. The white settlers in Moxos worked hard to construct a local State apparatus. One of their concerns was the creation of a centralized judicial system." This was brought to fruition when the law of October 5, 1892, created the Beni . judicial district, with its own high court (Limpias Saucedo 1942:275). In the colonial and early republican period, the administration of justice was largely in the hands of the priests and the Cabildo officers who were their indigenous auxiliaries. With the creation of the judicial district, the white settlers tried to take this authority out of the hands of priests and Cabildo officers and monopolize it. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, thejudicialsystemof Beni sufferedfroma numberof defects, whichareapparent in theannual reports thatthejudgeof the high court and the publicprosecutor submitted to the Ministry of Justice in 1906 (Callaii 1906:227,232-234; Cespedes 1906:120-121, 123-126). FIrSt, therewas a serious shortage of judges. The post of superior judge (juez superior) and those of local judges (jueces de partido) were filled. But,of the postsof preliminary judges (jueces de instruccioni, only that of Trinidad was occupied, while those of Magdalena, Villa-Bella, Riberalta, Santa Ana, and Reyes remained vacant. Moreover, there were no rural judges at all. The public prosecutor frankly admits in his report, "the rural judges are an exotic plant in our country. They have neither object,
33. The formation of the State judicial apparatus in rural areas is one of many lacunae in Latin American historiography. See the valuable study of Mocho 1997:8-20 on New Mexico and those of Fradkin 1999, Garavaglia 1999, and Gelman 1999 on Buenos Aires.

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nor raison d'etre" (Callaii 1906:234). The main reason for this shortcoming is that, in Beni, very few people were qualified in law. To fill the posts of judges, it was necessary to bring lawyers from other prefectures. Second, there were not enough fixed venues and furnishings for the courts and the prisons. Among the courts of Beni, only those in the capital secured their own space. The rest of the courts probably had no fixed venue at all. The shortage of furnishings was a serious problem for all the courts except the high court. A proper prison existed only in Madgalena. In Trinidad, "a small room, insecure and unhealthy, in the garrison's post, which was insufficient to accommodate 10 people" (Callau 1906:233) served as a prison. Virtuchi may well have been confined there. Naturally, breaking out of prison was the order of the day. Virtuchi's case illustrates how easy it was to escape from prison in Beni. He obtained a file without difficulty, removed the bars, and escaped in broad daylight. According to a newspaper article, the guard was absorbed in playing cards while a prisoner named Jacinto Tarraga watched over the other prisoners." As the article says, "it is the old story of Beni." Such being the case, it seems that Virtuchi believed to the very end that he could escape at any time if he wanted. In fact, one day before his execution, someone informed the police that he had the intention of escaping after dark. The police examined his belongings and found scissors for a haircut. He was moved to another room for security. In short, in 1906, the judicial system of Beni was far from being established. The judge of the high court summarized its limited capacity to deal with criminal cases in the following way:
As for the criminal cases, the crimes that deserve the death penalty and imprisonment go their own way mainly because of the shortage of police officers in the countryside. The majority of suspects cannot be arrested because the natural environment of the country makes it easy to escape. Those who are arrested run away because the prisons provide very little or no security. (Cespedes 1906:121)

Virtuchi's case was a highly memorable event for the authorities of Beni because it was the first death sentence and the first execution since the creation of the prefecture." It was not the first criminal case that deserved capital punishment, however. Such cases may well have been numerous, but none of them was brought to a conclusion because of the defects in the judicial system. From the beginning, Virtuchi's case was extraordinary and attracted public attention. The cruelty with which a whole family was slaughtered profoundly moved the society. A great deal of pressure was put on the judicial authorities to complete the hearing, decide on the case, and punish the convicts. The public prosecutor stated in his annual report that he would direct the judge in
34. 35. El Beni, no. 26 (Trinidad, 11 November 1906). El Trabajo, no. 70 (Santa Cruz, 6 October 1906), and no. 101 (23 January 1907).

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charge to give preferential treatment to the case, to open a hearing, and pronounce sentence as soon as possible because of the gravity of the event and the public verdict demanded by it (Callaii 1906:228). In fact, Virtuchi's trial came to its conclusion with exceptional rapidity. It took less than seven months. In Beni, the trials were generally very time-consuming and often took over a decade. Some people even attributed the frequency of prison breakout to the fact that the prisoners did not have enough patience to wait until the end of their trials." Virtuchi's case was indeed exceptional. To sum up, the public execution of 1906 was a splendid opportunity to proclaim that State administration of justice existed in Beni. It was, in a sense, a pseudo-ceremonial event to let the public know that the State was in control of the administration of justice and, when necessary, was determined to take strong action. The details of the execution reported by the newspaper clearly show its ceremonial nature. The execution was carried out at the site of the garrison, inside an enclosure set up for that purpose. It is probable that a crowd of spectators was jostling around the enclosure. They may well have observed the first public execution they had ever seen quite intently. At the beginning, a priest preached a sermon and, at the end, a government official gave a speech. In this way, the message of the execution was explained to the spectators. A local newspaper concisely summarizes the significance of the execution in the following terms: "The punishment has been severe, but it was necessary to teach a lesson. "37

Execution and Atonement

The hypothesis that guides the argument of this article is that Virtuchi's execution may have had a profound impact on the indigenous people who witnessed it and that this impact may have given rise to their peculiar beliefs and traditions about him. We have seen that the execution of 1906 was in fact a memorable event. It was the first public execution in Moxos and, as such, served as an ostentatious manifestation of the power of the newly formed local judicial apparatus. What remains to be determined is the way the indigenous people saw and understood this State ceremony. Historical documents do not reveal anything about indigenous views of Virtuchi's execution. Therefore, it is necessary to turn again to contemporary beliefs and traditions. Fortunately, there is one revealing piece of information: the belief that Virtuchi's soul was saved. The Trinitarios believe that after being shot to death, Virtuchi was purified of his sins and went to heaven, despite the fact that he had killed many people. Here are some examples of my informants' statements:
36. 37.
La Democracia, no. 396 (Trinidad, 29 April 1911). La Abeja, no. 277 (Santa Cruz, 18 January 1907).

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If you kill sinners with a gun or a shotgun, you purify them of their sins and they become clean. If you kill them with a rifle, you clean them. This is why Virtuchi atoned for his sins and he alone came to the seances. Of the white men, he is the only one who came to the seances."

Since Mr. Virtuchi was killed with fire, he cast aside his sins, which fell on his executioners. So, his heart is now clean. If he had been killed with a knife or a stick, he would have died with his sins on his shoulders. But, since he was killed with fire, he was purified and his executioners took over his sins."

In the Trinitarios' view, the fact that Virtuchi shows up in Ange1a Cayuba's seances is sufficient proof of his salvation because, otherwise, he would be in hell and unable to return to this world." It is because his soul is in heaven and can see everything on earth that he can tell the Trinitarios who the thieves are and where stolen objects are. Why could such a sinful person as Virtuchi have been saved and gone to heaven? According to my informants, the answer is that he was shot to death. If he had been stabbed to death with a knife or struck dead with a stick, he would have gone to hell, as he deserved. But, since he was shot dead, by some mystery his soul was saved and his executioners took over his sins. The Trinitarios believe that all those who are killed with a firearm atone for their sins and go to heaven, while their killers are unexpectedly burdened with their sins and go to hell in their place. The idea that firearms purify sinful persons is a matter of general acceptance among the Trinitarios. I have heard this idea expressed in a different context. When I stayed in Trinidacito, in the Isiboro-Secure region, a man explained to me how to kill witches." The Trinitarios firmly believe in witchcraft and attribute illness and death to witches' activities. According to my informant, we must not kill them with a firearm, because if we do, their souls would be saved and go to heaven while we would go to hell in their place. Therefore, we must strike witches dead or drown them. But why do firearms purify sinners? One of my informants gave me an interesting explanation." Firearms are a kind of fire and, as such, have the same power as the fire of purgatory that purifies the dead of their sins. In his view, shooting someone to death can achieve in an instant the atonement that the dead normally accomplish only after many years of burning in the flames of purgatory. Naturally, not only firearms but fire in general has the same purifying effect. In fact, my informant argued that if we burned murderers alive
38. 39. 40. Interview with a Trinitario woman aged 55, San Lorenzo, 11 February 1996. Interview with a Trinitario man aged 57, San Lorenzo, 26 February 1996. "He was saved, because, if he hadn't been saved, how would he go to talk there where the deceased ones are?"; interview with a Trinitario man, aged 73, San Lorenzo, 29 February 1996. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 62, Trinidacito, 22 July 1995. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 73, San Lorenzo, 29 February 1996.

41. 42.

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instead of shooting them dead, their souls would also be saved. Furthermore, he suspected that the electric chair might have the same effect. It seems that he saw a scene of electrocution on television. If he is right, heaven must be crowded with criminals. This explanation is not entirely satisfactory, however, for it overlooks an important element. It does not take into account the fact that the sins of those who are shot to death do not disappear. Their sins are transferred to the shoulders of their killers. Accordingly, the atonement by fire in this world is, unlike that of purgatory, a mere pretence. The sins remain in this world and someone has to pay for them. One soul goes to heaven instead of hell, while another goes to hell instead of heaven and there is no change in the balance. Therefore, the argument that fire in general purifies criminals of their sins cannot be accepted without reservation. Since criminals can atone for their sins insofar as their killers take them over, killing is a necessary condition for the atonement of sins. Nobody would shoulder the sins of those who perish accidentally, for example, in a grass fire. Nevertheless, my informant's explanation is outstanding in one respect: it ingeniously links such a worldly affair as the execution of a murderer to such a religious affair as atonement. In so doing, he helped me understand that, for the Trinitarios, the traditions about Virtuchi are in fact highly religious stories whose central theme is atonement and salvation.

State Monopoly of Justice

As my informants' statements make clear, the Trinitarios implicitly or explicitly equate the execution of Virtuchi to God's judgment. In their view, it was a kind of penance, which sought to purify the criminal of his sins and in which the firearms worked as a substitute for the flames of purgatory. However, compared with God's judgment, this human judgment had a serious shortcoming; namely, the sins did not disappear but fell upon the executioners. In consequence, the execution resulted in failure as an awkward mimicry of God's judgment. Why did the execution of Virtuchi fail? What was its cause? To answer these questions, it is helpful to explore further the Trinitario concept of pagar pato (to pay someone else's debt). This concept is not exclusively linked to the use of firearms. In contradiction to the opinion of the above-mentioned informant, another Trinitario affirmed that there is no way of punishing witches without the person who does so taking over their sins." The witches' sins fall on those who strike them or otherwise punish them. For this reason, the spirits of their victims who show up in the seances urge their relatives not to do any harm to witches. On the contrary, the dead persuade the living to do them
43. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 57, San Lorenzo, 11 February 1996.

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good: "Go get acquainted with them and like them. Receive them and give them a chair when they come to the house. Give them something to drink and something to eat." If treated in this way, it is said, the witches' sins stay with them and, after death, they go straight to hell." Needless to say, the whole idea is based on the Christian moral imperative: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:44-45).45 This does not mean, however, that due justice cannot be meted out to criminals in this world. There are God's earthly representatives, namely, the Cabildo officers. The Trinitarios call themjueces (judges) and invest them with the authority to judge and punish in God's name. Before the police were permanently stationed in San Lorenzo, the Cabildo officers dealt with crimes such as robbery, adultery, injury, and the like and inflicted a certain number of whippings on offenders. Their violence was considered a legitimate, divinely sanctioned punishment, not an arbitrary act of vengeance based on personal resentment. It was believed that the Cabildo's punishment was a kind of penance and, therefore, helped offenders atone for their sins." The judicial function of the Cabildo dates back to the Jesuit period. In the mission towns, the missionaries served as judges and the Cabildo officers executed their sentences." This justice was firmly rooted in Christian ethics. The seven deadly sins, violations of the Ten Commandments, and such acts as failing to attend Mass or breaking the fast of Good Friday were considered offenses. The punishments were usually whipping, imprisonment, and obliga-

44.

45.

46.

47.

Wayne Gill, a missionary of the New Tribes Mission who worked at San Lorenzo in the late 1960s, recorded a similar belief: "A man who hits another man will carry the sins of the man he hits, the attacker will have to pay for the sins of the man in hell, infiemo or purgatory." San Lorenzo, December 1969. I am grateful to Joe Snyder for allowing me to consult the manuscript in his possession. It is possible that the concept of pagar pato has a prehispanic antecedent. As Eduardo Viveiros de Castro states, the idea that the killer assimilates the victim through killing is widely held among the Amazonian societies (1992:238-248; 1996). In Moxos, an early Jesuit chronicler recorded the killer's practice of adopting his victim's name (Altamirano 1979:50). The witch's sins may well be considered a contemporary example of the victim's metonymic attributes that the killer assimilates through killing. However, the comparison cannot be pushed too far, for, in the case of pagar pato, "the fusion between the enemy and his killer" (Viveiros de Castro 1996:87) does not occur. Like the labor produce of a market economy, the sins are alienated from the witch and transferred to the killer. As a result, far from sharing the same destiny, the two follow completely different paths. Alienation is, of course, quite the opposite of the "ontological predation" Viveiros de Castro detects in the Amazonian practices (1996:98-102). Referring to the Cabildo's punishment of adulterers, a Trinitario affirmed, "God will punish adulterers in hell. If they are whipped here, the whip is the 'justicia' or judgment of God, it will save them from eternal punishment." San Lorenzo, October 1969. From the manuscript of Wayne Gill. On the justice of the Jesuit period, see Altamirano 1979:94-95; Eder 1985:363-366; Eguiluz 1884:50-51.

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tory participation in an act of contrition. The most serious punishment was deportation. There were no executions. After the expulsion of the Jesuits, the Cabildo officers assumed the full power of judges in their respective towns. The late eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury official reports and travel diaries often refer to their enormous authority over the townspeople. For example, a French traveler of the early nineteenth century stated, "The Indians showed great respect for them and feared them to the ultimate dcgrce.?" In the mid-1990s when I carried out my research, much of the judicial functions of the Cabildo had given way to the authority of the police. However, many elderly people still remembered the time when "Whipping reigned" and held the Cabildo officers in great respect." For the Trinitarios, the Cabildo's authority ultimately derives from God. On the first day of the year, the priest, or the doctrinero in his absence, gives his blessing to the newly elected officers and to the staffs that are the symbols of their authority. These are called vara virtud (staff of virtue) and are considered a real embodiment of Christ.'? The holders kiss them with veneration and treat them with great care. From what has been said so far, it can be deduced that the Trinitarios distinguish two forms of justice: one is the divinely sanctioned justice of the Cabildo, and the other is the arbitrary justice of those who are motivated by a persona] grudge. The former helps offenders atone for their sins and reach heaven; the latter incriminates those who dare to perform such justice and sends them to hell. The execution of Virtuchi falls into the second category. For the Trinitarios, the execution of 1906 was an abnormality because it depriveda man of his life and because those who sponsored it were the white settlers. In the Trinitarios' view, the whites were like enemies of the faith of God. In the republican period, the whites attacked indigenous customs as anachronistic superstitions and as stumbling blocks to the progress of the region. For example, at the end of the nineteenth century, Beni Prefecture prohibited the natives of Trinidad from celebrating Catholic festivals in the traditional way." This measure provoked a reaction among the Trinitarios, who left the town en masse and migrated to the savannah to the west of the Mamore River. Even in the mid-1990s, elderly people repeatedly told me that the whites made fun of their customs and interfered with their observances.

48. 49. 50.

51.

D'Orbigny 1844:3(1):94. See also D'Orbigny 1844:3(1):230-231; Gibbon 1854:243-245; Limpias Saucedo 1942:156--158, 170; Mathews 1879:152-154. Interview with a Trinitario man, supposedly aged 70, Trinidacito, 9 July 1995. Interview with a Trinitario man, aged 62, Trinidacito, 10 July 1995. "What they (the Cabildo officers) had in their hands had been Christ himself'; interview with a Trinitario man, aged 45, San Lorenzo, 23 February 1996. "Our Lord is there (in the staft)"; interview with a Trinitario man, aged 71, San Lorenzo, 29 February 1996. El Heraldo, no. 1179 (Cochabamba, 16 April 1887); El Pueblo Cruceiio, no. 7 (Santa Cruz, 26 November 1887).

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Now we can understand why the whites' attempt to judge Virtuchi failed. In the Trinitarios' eyes, the whites were not qualified for the office of dispensing divine justice. At first glance, it looks as if the State-organized public execution had successfully replaced God-supervised purgatory. Virtuchi seems to have atoned for his sins by taking numerous bullets as a substitute for the expiatory flames. But, in fact, his sins did not disappear. They were only transferred to his executioners, who were none other than State representatives. Therefore, he who went to hell was in fact the State itself, which was impertinent enough to meddle in God's affairs and play with fire. From the native viewpoint, the white settlers dared to replace God as the dispenser of justice in their attempt to create a local judicial apparatus and, naturally, they paid dearly for this sacrilege.

Conclusion
This article started with the question of why the spirit of a white murderer is invoked during indigenous seances. My examination of the indigenous concept of death and afterlife has shown that there is a contractual relationship between Virtuchi and the Trinitarios, with Virtuchi recovering stolen property for them and the Trinitarios praying for his salvation. The previous discussion helps us understand a deeper meaning of this contract, which is not merely utilitarian. As shown above, the execution of Virtuchi was intended as a public proclamation that the whites and their State controlled the administration of justice. The Trinitarios who witnessed or heard about this event, however, did not accept the message of the execution the way it was intended for them. They denied the whites' self-attributed authority and reduced their justice to a simple act of vengeance. In so doing, they exonerated Virtuchi, saving him from damnation, and transferred his sins to the State, which, as a result, went to hell in his place. This argument makes clear that, in the Trinitarios' view, Virtuchi serves as a mediator in their antithetical relationship with the whites. The Trinitarios make a contract with Virtuchi and support him in his attempt to achieve salvation. But his salvation is possible only insofar as the whites and their State take over his sins and go to hell. In other words, his salvation presupposes damnation of all the other whites." If Virtuchi were a damned, devilish creature, the Trinitarios who invoke him would also be destined for hell. But if he is purified of his sins and capable of salvation, this is because the whites and
52. The Trinitarios' condemnation of the whites as a whole is implicitly, but quite clearly, expressed in their belief about Tierra Santa. It is said that the Sacred Land is accessible only to the Trinitarios and that the whites can never reach there. It is also said that God will save only those who have managed to take refuge in Tierra Santa. We can easily guess what will become of the whites at the moment of the Last Judgment.

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their State are burdened with his sins and go to hell in his place. In short, the Trinitarios and the whites compete with each other in a seesaw game of salvation and damnation via the intermediary of Virtuchi. As mentioned above, it is Angela Cayuba who chose Virtuchi as her spiritual helper. Angela was born in San Lorenzo and, as an adult, practiced her profession in the town. But the whites denounced her for devil worship and persecuted her. This forced her to leave the town and lead an itinerant life. It is possible that her interest in Virtuchi was born out of this personal experience. By means of Virtuchi, she may well have tried to throw back on the whites the blame that they had cast on her. The whites stigmatize the spirits she invokes as devils and her seances as devil worship. But, in her view, those spirits who come to her seances are on their way to salvation, while those who do not are tormented by devils in hell. Therefore, the fact that, among the whites, only Virtuchi shows up in her seances means that all the others must have gone to hell after death. Virtuchi is supposed to have been banished to hell by the whites. If he is the only person to be saved, it implies that all the other whites are in fact damned. In my opinion, this is why Virtuchi has such a strong grip on Angela's and other Trinitarios' imagination. He enables them to reverse the power relationship between the whites and themselves, to their own advantage. In fact, what a telling irony it is that the only faithful white man who comes to the seances in pursuit of prayers is none other than a murderer who was banished to hell by the white society!

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