Work, Reproduction, and Health in Two Andean Communities

By Anne Larme, 1993.

Chapter 3 - Cuyo Cuyo

(page 37)

messengers of the apus, and the Anchanchu (Aym., evil, supernaturally powerful being)¹⁰, who is in charge of releasing gold from the earth, and who appears only to miners in Ancoccala and Madre de Dios. Other night-time spirits are more clearly related to Spanish folk Catholicism and are purely evil. They include the kukuchis (Qu., ghost; also known as condenadus, Sp./Qu., the condemned), souls of the dead who are trapped on earth for committing sins during their lifetimes, and limbu (Sp./Qu., limbo), the souls of unbaptized babies. Both of these can cause serious illness when encountered by humans.

Relationships between humans and supernatural beings reflect the Andean theme of reciprocity and mirror human relationships on earth. The apus and the Pachamama are human-like and parental, alternately good and evil, nurturing and punishing, depending upon their judgment of human behavior and upon their whims. Both the apus and the Pachamama must be regularly propitiated in all-night rituals to ensure the well-being of Cuyo Cuyeños. Rituals called sirvisqa, or pago a la Tierra (Qu./Sp., serving or paying the Earth) are performed throughout the year in order to maintain reciprocal relations with the supernatural powers. Humans serve or "pay" the apus and the Pachamama with foods, coca, cigarettes, and alcohol to keep them happy. The supernatural beings in turn are expected to give humans their basic needs -- abundant crops, wealth, social harmony, and health.

The sirvisqa is done at midnight (Photograph 3.11) -- the mid-day meal of the spirits -- during an all night ritual called rikch'asqa (Qu., the dawning).¹¹ It is performed during certain religious fiestas, during the month of August before planting, to initiate the mining season in Ancoccala, and before any major undertaking for which humans want to request special favors, such as a house-raising, marriage, political office, or the dangerous trip to Madre de Dios. It is also performed during crises, for example major illnesses, marital disharmony, or repeated fox raids on livestock.

Just as rituals can be channeled toward positive ends in Cuyo Cuyo, dañu (Qu./Sp., harm, sorcery) can be performed for evil ends. Dañu rituals are directed toward the same ambiguously good or evil spirits, and the same ritual specialists who perform sirvisqa and curing ceremonies perform sorcery.¹² Whatever the frequency, or whether or not these rituals are actually performed, sorcery is feared as the cause of serious, incurable illnesses and of streaks of misfortune in Cuyo Cuyo.

With the imposition of Spanish Catholicism during colonial times, the apus became fused with Jesus Christ, and the Pachamama with the Virgin Mary. All of these supernatural beings, whether Andean or Catholic, are prayed to during sirvisqa rituals and curing ceremonies. Catholic fiestas are celebrated as earnestly as Andean rituals in order to ensure the well-being of humans. Syncretism continues with the more recently introduced versions of Christianity, the Adventist religion, brought by American missionaries in the 1920s, and liberation theology, introduced by French missionaries in the 1970s. For example, although Adventists cannot become godparents for Catholic

(page 38)

baptisms and weddings, they create compadrazgo ties through Andean rituals such as the unuchasqa (Qu., "the pouring of water"), a lay baptism performed immediately after birth, and the chukcha rutusqa (Qu., haircutting), the first haircutting ceremony for babies. Adventists substitute soft drinks (such as orange Fanta) for alcohol in these rituals. Likewise, the French nuns allowed an Andean rikch'asqa ritual to initiate the building of a new Catholic church in 1987, themselves contributing a case of beer to the ceremony, in accord with Andean ritual practices.

Marriage and Gender

The nuclear household is the basic social and economic unit of Cuyo Cuyo society. Within it individuals are nurtured to adulthood, and when children marry and form their own households they become adults with full rights and responsibilities. Ayni, faena, cargo, and compadrazgo obligations are based upon married couples and household units; and, although many important decisions regarding agriculture and mining are made at the community level, households are the basic production units in Cuyo Cuyo.

Marriage is not an event, but a process that occurs gradually over a period of years. Girls generally marry between the ages of 17 and 20. Boys generally marry a few years later, as it is considered important that they finish their schooling and accumulate some wealth through gold mining first. Couples usually marry through mutual agreement and elopement after a discreet courtship of which few people are aware. More rarely, a man formally asks a woman's parents for approval of the marriage, or "steals" a woman against her will.¹³ The couple is considered married after elopement when they begin a period of virilocal residence (Qu., tiyaq, the living together stage of marriage). Formal marriage may occur a year or two later, often after the first child is born, whenever the families can afford the celebration. Weddings include formal ceremonies by the District mayor and sometimes a Catholic priest, and several days of music, dancing, and drinking by the entire community (Photograph 3.12).

Confirmation of the marriage -- economically, socially, and through childbearing -- takes place over a period of five or more years, and is marked by significant ritual and social events within the household and community. These include the formal marriage festivities, the establishment of a separate kitchen and hearth during the period of virilocal residence, childbirth, and a gradual transfer of land and animals from parents to the new couple as their viability as a couple is proven. The final confirmation of marriage is a house-raising, which occurs after the couple has amassed sufficient economic capital through gold mining or other sources of income, and sufficient "social capital" in the form of ayni obligations, to sponsor an ayni house-raising.

Only with the establishment of a separate household is a couple fully integrated into the community as an economic and social unit. The couple then functions as a unit throughout their lives, sharing productive activities, household tasks, and cargo, ayni, and faena responsibilities. In old age they generally live with the family of the youngest son, assisting with whatever tasks they are able until death.

(page 39)

This is the normative view of marriage in Cuyo Cuyo. In actuality, unmarried girls sometimes have children out of wedlock, married men sometimes take up with other women in Madre de Dios, and married women sometimes get pregnant by other men when their husbands are away. Women typically bear the brunt of the criticisms and costs of illegitimate pregnancy. Single women who become pregnant are considered undesireable marriage partners, and may end up in unsatisfactory marriages. Married women who become pregnant with men other than their husbands are criticized and avoided by other comuneros. Their husbands may respond with beatings and divorce. Although women are sometimes aware of their husbands' infidelities, they have little recourse, as they are economically and socially dependent upon their husbands.

One solution to the stigma of pregnancy outside of legitimate marriage is infanticide. The folk illness limbu wayra is said to be caused by the souls of unwanted babies who have been killed by their mothers (see Appendix III). I was also told by a former Ura Ayllu official about a woman who became pregnant by her brother-in-law while her husband was in Madre de Dios. She hid the pregnancy and birth, then killed the neonate and buried it. Her act was discovered, however, when the baby was found half-eaten by dogs, and she was turned in to village authorities. Some illegitimate babies are eventually accepted by women's husbands, however.¹⁴

Domestic violence is common in Cuyo Cuyo. A moderate level is expected and condoned by both men and women, and is considered to be a sign of affection unless it becomes extreme. For example, courtship behavior includes exchanging insults, stealing clothing items, and rough play. And women in my sample joked about their husbands' beatings or talked about them matter-of-factly, as if they were expected. Cuyo Cuyeños informally and formally censure men who are excessively violent toward their wives, however. They do this through gossip and social avoidance, through formal criticism by marriage padrinos, or by complaints to ayllu and District authorities.

Domestic violence is taken-for-granted behavior after comuneros have been drinking alcohol at fiestas and rituals. It is also common during marital arguments over such issues as economic problems, infidelity, or problems with stepchildren. The recien casado (Sp., newlywed) stage, the time after legal marriage when couples are inheriting land and animals from their parents, was described to me as the most difficult time of a couple's relationship. To get through this stage, couples must take advice on how to get along from their parents and marriage padrinos.

Couples who are unable to get along sometimes separate informally, which is facilitated by the availability of various subsistence sites. One Puna Ayllu couple, who constantly criticized each other during their interviews -- whether together or separately -- had simply set up two households, one in Ancoccala, and one in Puna Ayllu. They continued to function as an economic unit, the wife tending the chakras and primarily living in Puna Ayllu, and the husband mining in Ancoccala and living with his adolescent daughter, who tended their herds. Another Puna Ayllu couple who did not get along separated temporarily after a particularly bad argument over the husband's son from his prior marriage. In this case the husband moved to Ancoccala to begin the mining season early, along with his son, who had been the subject of contention.

(page 40)

In Ura Ayllu, both Madre de Dios and the yunka are likely refuges from marital discord. Men who are dissatisfied with their marriages in Ura Ayllu, or who are simply lonely during the long mining season, sometimes begin living with other women in Madre de Dios and do not return. Stories of men living with other women in Madre de Dios were common, and fear of abandonment is a significant cause of anxiety for Ura Ayllu women whose husbands migrate (Chapter 7).

Women obviously have fewer possibilities for escape from marital discord than men. They do not travel as extensively, have less economic freedom, and must stay in Cuyo Cuyo to take care of their children and crops. Cuyo Cuyo women fear separation, abandonment, and widowhood because it is nearly impossible to support themselves and their children without income from their husbands' mining. Some women, such as O3, are able to return to their natal households with their children. This is possible if their parents are relatively young and wealthy, such as the O's. Others, however, must rely on their meager chakras and occasional cash earned through day labor in agriculture or spinning, upon wages earned by adolescent children through local work in agriculture or herding, or upon assistance from relatives.

Both men and women find it difficult to run a household and survive economically by themselves, however. On the most basic level, men need women to perform household and subsistence work, and to bear and nurture children who are important to the family economically and socially. Women need men to perform heavy work, to earn cash and to be able to bear children. The complementary roles of men and women keep the household functioning economically, providing a practical incentive for men and women to remarry if they find themselves single through widowhood, divorce, or abandonment. Thus single adults of productive age usually do not stay single for long. Men are often have an advantage in remarriage, however, as women may not be able to make as good a match if they have children from a previous liaison.

There are also social and cultural incentives to remarry. As noted in Chapter 2, in Cuyo Cuyo an adult man or woman is considered incomplete without a female or male counterpart. A single person finds it difficult to function socially in the community, whether for ayni, faena, cargos or fiestas. In effect, a single person is cut off from many of the reciprocal ties that bind the community together and that are essential for economic and social survival.

As documented for other parts of the Andes (e.g. Allen 1988; Isbell 1976, 1978), complementary gender relations are the ideal in Cuyo Cuyo. The female Pachamama produces and nurtures crops; the male apus control weather and rain necessary for their growth. Women plant the seed; men plow and overturn the soil with wiris (Aym., footplows). Women operate in the private sphere of the household; men operate in the public sphere of the community and nation. Men and women must be married to be considered adults and to fully participate in Quechua society; married couples function as complementary wholes in social roles and subsistence work. Cuyo Cuyo gender concepts stress the complementarity of male and female roles and the interplay of the two in the proper functioning of society and the universe (Photograph 3.13).

A final aspect of gender that is important for my analysis of the interrelationship of work, reproduction, and health in Cuyo Cuyo, is the strong connection of women and agriculture in the Andes, both practically and symbolically. In Cuyo Cuyo, women and girls carry out the bulk of the agricultural work. Many agricultural tasks are restricted to women. Only women are allowed to plant and store seed, for example. The predominance of women in Cuyo Cuyo agriculture partially results from the intensification of agriculture

(page 41)

(Goland 1991) and the present importance of gold mining, which takes men away from agricultural tasks they formerly performed (Recharte 1990: 150).

There are also symbolic connections between women and agriculture. Women and the Pachamama, wombs and the earth, human children and crops are all linked in Cuyo Cuyo. Goland (1991: 418-420), who conducted research on agriculture in Cuyo Cuyo, reports that potatoes are spoken of as children who must be nurtured, and a year of crop failure is called sullun wata, meaning "aborted year" in Quechua. The harvest of potatoes and other tubers has parallels with giving birth, for it literally involves opening up the "womb" of the Pachamama and removing products from it. Women, agriculture, the moon, and menstrual cycles are related. There are prohibitions against working in the fields during the full moon, for example, when the "body" of the Pachamama is "open" and vulnerable to being damaged. Christmas Day is called Mama Yawarninoq (Qu., Bleeding Mother, or Mother Having Given Birth) because it is the day the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus. Cuyo Cuyeños say that they must not weed the fields on Christmas Day when the Pachamama is "bleeding" and her body is vulnerable, or she will not produce. Goland also observed an annual pago a la Tierra performed in the month of August before the planting season, when the Earth is said to be "open." During this ritual the Pachamama was offered gifts of foods, coca, alcohol, llama fat, flowers, and a llama fetus, and was petitioned to "give us to eat from your womb."

Symbolic links between women and agriculture may be reinforced by the observation that crops in the "womb" of the Pachamama, and fetuses in the wombs of women, both take nine months to produce in the Andes. Finally, in the annual Qollana ritual in Ura Ayllu, which is celebrated at the time of the Catholic Easter, two unmarried women, who clearly represent fertility, are chosen for featured roles. They are dressed in elaborate costumes, make special offerings to the Pachamama in an all night rikch'asqa ritual, and the next morning, with male partners, conduct the first plowing ceremony.

Fertility is important in Cuyo Cuyo for practical, as well as symbolic reasons. Children are important to women's and couples' social and economic status in the community. Reciprocal compadrazgo ties formed through children's life passage rituals are essential to the social fabric of Cuyo Cuyo, as is children's labor in subsistence. A couple without children must struggle to maintain both their social and economic status in the community.

Economic Transformation and Cultural Resistance

Despite their seeming isolation, Cuyo Cuyeños are greatly affected by national and global economic processes. Gold mining and wage labor are no longer mere supplements to agricultural subsistence, performed as needed during the agricultural off-season (see Recharte 1990: 150). Migration to the gold fields of Madre de Dios and Ancoccala, and to a lesser extent to urban areas for wage labor, is now an economic necessity. It is impossible to separate the "push" from the "pull" of the market economy, however. Migration and increasing contact with urban society have provided needed cash to Cuyo Cuyeños, but have also increased desires for consumer goods. Cassette recorders, wristwatches, sewing machines, triciclos,¹⁵ corrugated steel roofs, manufactured clothing, and cases of Arequipeña beer, now part of the local prestige system, are ubiquitous in

(page 42)

present day Cuyo Cuyo. Participation in the global economy has created needs for cash far beyond amounts strictly necessary for food, clothing, and shelter.

Men's principal engagement in gold mining and the intensification of agriculture due to land scarcity, have had implications for agricultural work and how it is carried out. Females of all ages in both Puna Ayllu and Ura Ayllu now perform the bulk of the agricultural and herding work due to men's involvement in gold mining. Migration has affected both study communities, but particularly Ura Ayllu. Since the 1970s, when wholesale seasonal migration began in Ura Ayllu, men have been separated from their families for four to six months of the year. Women, who formerly performed their work in subsistence, community, and in the home alongside their husbands, now face these responsibilities alone for a good portion of the year.

Agriculture in Cuyo Cuyo is markedly intensified compared with other regions of Peru (Goland 1991), a probable response to land scarcity. Fertilizer and pesticide inputs, and especially labor inputs, have been raised to obtain maximum yields from the limited amounts of land available. The increased agricultural workload in addition to the absence of male labor during significant portions of the year have had implications for the health of Cuyo Cuyo women.

Cuyo Cuyo's marginal participation in the national and global economy deprive it of the services and amenities of urbanized areas, including paved roads, public transportation, telephone and mail service, sewage systems and electricity, well-stocked markets, and stores. In another sense, however, Cuyo Cuyo's isolation may be advantageous. Through subsistence agriculture and the entrepreneurial production of gold, which are largely locally controlled, Cuyo Cuyeños are to some degree buffered from the rampant inflation and instability of the national economy. Because they are only partially dependent on outside food sources and cash income, for the most part they decide when and where to migrate and how to dispose of their income. They retain considerable autonomy with regard to the amount and manner of participation in the capitalist economy.

Allen (1988), Isbell (1978), Silverlatt (1987), Stern (1987) and others have documented the long history of Andean cultural resistance to colonial domination and pressures for change from Western economy and culture. Forms of cultural resistance are also evident in Cuyo Cuyo. There are many ways Andean values are expressed and maintained in Cuyo Cuyo.

Recharte (1990), for example, documents cultural resistance through economic behavior in Cuyo Cuyo. Capitalism has transformed the life of Cuyo Cuyeños -- but Cuyo Cuyeños have also transformed capitalism. In many respects Cuyo Cuyeños have molded capitalism to their own ends, with the cumulative effect of conserving Andean culture. Gold income, for example, is used to promote agriculture in Cuyo Cuyo. Miners use gold to repay government agricultural loans, because there are no surplus crops to sell. Land-poor miners use gold to buy land, following Cuyo Cuyo cultural norms that give status to families controlling land in various ecological zones. Gold is also invested in "social capital" to promote Andean values of reciprocity and communalism. This is largely through lavish expenditures on fiesta sponsorships, and on beer bought to share with others during fiestas and social events. Rather than declining with social and economic change, fiestas have become more important than ever. With income from gold mining, there is more cash to spend on the drinking, feasting, dancing, music, and social relationships that are promoted by these celebrations. Fiesta expenditures, made possible through participation in the capitalist economy of Peru, level economic disparities and in general promote Andean culture in Cuyo Cuyo. While economic disparities have increased

(page 43)

somewhat in Cuyo Cuyo, in general capitalism has not had the expected effect of creating dramatic class differences and undermining Andean culture.

Women, too, are central to the maintenance of Andean culture in Cuyo Cuyo, especially now that men are principally engaged in gold mining and are often absent. Women maintain culture through their roles in agriculture, as the reproducers and socializers of children, and through language, dress, and weaving, as well as through their vital supportive role in men's economic and social endeavors. An understanding of women's role in maintaining cultural identity is a necessary backdrop to my exploration of work, reproduction, and health.

Agriculture remains central to Cuyo Cuyeños' identity, despite the small areas of land presently farmed and the importance of gold mining. I have already mentioned the investment of gold income to maintain agriculture, but there are many other indications of the centrality of agriculture and agricultural products in the lives of Cuyo Cuyeños. For example, the agricultural year determines the mining schedule, and families plan their migrations according to planting and harvest times. Ura Ayllu women are discouraged from migrating to Madre de Dios with their husbands partly with the rationale that they are needed in Ura Ayllu to maintain chakras in their husbands' absence. Puna Ayllinos, after migrating to Madre de Dios for several years, reverted to their traditional Ancoccala mines partly due to their proximity to chakras. Puna Ayllinos stated that, despite the lower productivity of the Ancoccala mines, they preferred to remain close to home so they could easily work the fields without splitting up the family, and so that they could eat their preferred foods.

Chakra foods, especially certain varieties of potatoes and oca unavailable elsewhere in Peru, are savored by Cuyo Cuyeños and are sorely missed by Madre de Dios miners and others who have migrated out of the District. Cuyo Cuyo parents who have children living in urban areas send packages of potatoes and oca to their children whenever possible, literally reminding them of their roots.

Local foods are also considered to be more healthy than store-bought foods. A prime example is the customary postpartum diet necessary to restore a woman's strength after childbirth: It emphasizes ch'uñu (Qu., freeze-dried potatoes) and fatty meats such as mutton, and enjoins comidas blancas (Sp.) -- "white" foods such as milk, foods made from white flour, such as bread and crackers, and white rice. These foods are white in color, but they also happen to be foods introduced by "white" Europeans and eaten by los blancos (Sp., white people, the mistis). To Cuyo Cuyeños, agriculture and locally-grown foods are essential to maintain both healthy bodies and a healthy culture.

Clothing is another important symbol of Cuyo Cuyo cultural identity. Men no longer wear local dress except for their everyday ch'ullus (Qu., knit caps with ear flaps) and tire-tread sandals, and fiesta costumes. Many women, however, continue to wear typical Cuyo Cuyo dress daily. It consists of several layers of p'istus (Qu., wraparound skirts), bright red, pink, or orange ankle-length woolen skirts held up by a wide hand-woven belt; a waist-length woolen chuku (Qu., head-covering) of bright green or blue wool; a black montera (Sp./Qu., hat) decorated with fresh or plastic flowers or bright woolen pom poms; a red woolen blouse (Sp.?/Qu., murana) topped by a multicolored vest decorated with buttons and ribbons; and, most important, a lliklla (Qu., mantle) with a dark background and colorful panels of geometric designs down the middle and sides.

The dress of Cuyo Cuyo women is spectacular to behold, whether they are attired in their best finery for a fiesta or stooped over their chakras wearing their oldest p'istus. This is evident to ethnographers and locals alike. Women take pleasure in wearing their

(page 44)

finest hand-woven clothing to show off to other Cuyo Cuyeños at fiestas. They weave during every spare minute before Carnavales in order to have something new to wear, and happily pose in their finery for photographs to be saved with their family treasures. Beautiful weavings are especially essential for fiesta sponsorship. Women are judged by the llikllas they and their husbands wear, and by the inkhuñas (Aym.?, coca carrying cloths) on the ceremonial mesa (Sp., table) from which fiesta sponsors serve coca and alcohol to fiesta participants.

Men, too, are judged by their wives' weavings and clothing. Beautiful weavings and multiple layers of clothing symbolize economic prosperity and represent the quality and quantity of materials they are able to provide to their wives. Weavings also represent the industriousness of wives -- and in Ura Ayllu, their faithfulness to husbands while the men are mining gold in Madre de Dios. Women place great importance on weaving during the rainy season, not only to have new llikllas for Carnavales, but to provide evidence of their industry and fidelity in their husbands' absence.

Weavings are also important as one of the few tangible assets women themselves control. They can be sold in an emergency or bequeathed to their children. Typical dress is also valued for health reasons, since the long skirts and layers of wool are considered to be warmer and healthier than urban style dress.

Some Cuyo Cuyeñas, especially younger women, have changed from the typical Cuyo Cuyo style. Some wear chola¹⁶ dress typical of the Lake Titicaca region of Peru and Bolivia, with its short pollera skirt, bowler hat, and blanket-like shawl. Others wear manufactured skirts and sweaters, often with thickly woven tights and visor caps. By far, however, women prefer Cuyo Cuyo dress over other styles. Those who have changed sometimes revert back to it for health reasons or during critical periods of their lives. Women change back to Cuyo Cuyo dress temporarily after childbirth, for example, to prevent the illness-bearing "cold" from entering their bodies. And two women in the sample, who had more or less been social outcasts for not following community norms, were considering a change back to local dress at the time I left Cuyo Cuyo. This appeared to be a symbolic move toward social reintegration within the community.

The preference for -- and protection of -- typical Cuyo Cuyo dress changes, however, when women travel. Outside of the District, Cuyo Cuyo dress becomes a marker of Cuyo Cuyeñas' lowly peasant status. It becomes a liability. Cuyo Cuyo women who travel own two sets of clothing -- typical Cuyo Cuyo dress, which they prefer, and chola dress for travel. This enables them to blend in with other Puneñas and avoid discriminatory treatment by urban people who disparage their rural origins. Even my female assistant, who had a high school education and who typically dressed de falda (Sp., with an urban-style skirt), changed the last remaining vestiges of her Cuyo Cuyo clothing identity as we walked to Sandia one day. As we neared the city, she took off the lliklla she was using to carry her possessions on her back and stuffed everything into a plastic shopping bag, she changed to her best blouse and took off her visor cap. By the time we arrived she looked like any other Sandina.

Men who migrate to Madre de Dios are under similar pressures to use clothing as an assertion of flexible (opportunistic) identity. When I accompanied a group of Cuyo Cuyeños on the week-long trip to the gold fields, I observed Cuyo Cuyo men change from campesinos to cholos within a matter of days as we traveled from Puno, through the

(page 45)

Department of Cusco, and then to Madre de Dios. They removed their ch'ullus and replaced them with visor caps, shouted insults in Spanish to Quechua-speaking peasants in Cusco, and condescendingly threw bread to poor children who begged along the way, criticizing their poverty. I silently thought how much their own children back in Cuyo Cuyo would have enjoyed that same piece of bread their families could so rarely afford.

Some Ura Ayllu migrants, influenced by their cholo lifestyle in Madre de Dios, a lifestyle which is gaining increasing status in Cuyo Cuyo, ask their wives to permanently change to chola dress and to speak Spanish. This creates a double bind for women: Should they become chola, speak Spanish, and identify with the high status urban Peruvian lifestyle, or should they maintain their physical health and Cuyo Cuyo cultural identity?

Issues of cultural identity are complex in Cuyo Cuyo. I have only skimmed the surface. Yet, they are an essential context for my discussion of gender and health. Dilemmas such as these, spurred by Cuyo Cuyo's present economic and cultural transformation, are evident in the expression of distress and illness in Cuyo Cuyo, as we shall later see.

In Chapter 4 I will begin my discussion of work and health by describing the health context of Cuyo Cuyo.