Taking the Corpus Christi celebration of colonial Cuzco as its overall frame, Carolyn Dean's book finds its specific focus in a series of paintings created as a documentary record of the Corpus procession and related themes in the late seventeenth century. The introduction and first three chapters are both the introduction and the conclusions; chapters four to six are about the paintings; chapter seven and eight reprise some of the themes from the first four chapters and are more historical in content; and the final chapter is an epilogue, about the modern festival of Inti Rayme, a secular solstice festival that competes with, but in no way replaces, the religious rites of Corpus.
The series of paintings at the center of the book originally consisted of 18 oversized canvases. Only 16 are known today. Designed to refurbish the parish church of Santa Ana, located at the entrance to colonial Cuzco as one arrived along the main royal road from Lima, the series included paintings from the eight native parishes, each of which annually sponsored a procession of the image of its patron to the Cuzco cathedral. At the head was a costumed Inca noble, who wore the mascapaycha, an elaborate headdress; a tapestry tunic in a latter-day Inca style, combined with Spanish items of dress in a unique combination; and other symbols of native status. This person carried a standard and was elected for the position. Immediately behind the standard-bearer was the cart with the saint's image. Following were the individual parish sponsors of the procession (alferados). Watching from the balconies of the houses painted in the background are elite onlookers; a more plebian public stands in the foreground. At least some of the people represented are distinctive enough to be likenesses of particular people, though the only individuals identified so far are the bishop of Cuzco, Manuel Mollinedo and the city administrator (corregidor) Perez. If indeed particular individuals were portrayed, then each painting, or the entire series, may be a document of the procession of a particular year. The date of the paintings has been estimated to be sometime around 1680, when both Mollinedo and Perez were active in Cuzco. This date suggests that the series was painted to quickly decorate the church of Santa Ana, which had been entirely destroyed by the earthquake of 1650 and had to be rebuilt.
What has most interested scholars in these paintings is the use of native symbols. How does one interpret this display? Some have viewed the paintings as a window on the Inca past, useful for mining survivals of past practice. Garcilaso de la Vega, "the Inca", a man born to an elite Spanish father and an equally elite Inca mother, wrote in the early seventeenth century that, under the guise of Corpus, the Incas were able to celebrate their solstice, or rayme, festival. Garcilaso lived and wrote in Spain, and was not widely read in the Andes by native people until the eighteenth century. Others interested in Corpus have interpreted the use of Inca symbols as nostalgic Utopianism or as a framework for resistance. Certainly in the eighteenth century, after the rebellion of Thupa Amaru, who claimed to be descended from Inca kings and launched the most successful independence movement among native people during the colonial period, these symbols could be read as expressions of nationalistic sentiment. Although native Andeans did not generate a documentary record that adequately gives voice to their aspirations in this regard, the few who wrote, like Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala in the early seventeenth century, strongly suggest such sentiments were not far from the surface during the period represented by the Corpus series.
Dean, however, wants to read the paintings as a representation of the alterity of the individuals dressed as Incas. The paintings tell "the story of how Corpus Christi alienated the colonized and enacted colonization" by requiring the participation of people dressed as the non- Christian other. Although Dean does not explicitly say it, her argument would support a view that Corpus was a yearly re-enactment of the conquest of the Incas by the Spaniards. Because of this history, however, Spanish viewers feel not only their triumph, but also a sense of menace. After all, the spectre of people dressed as the enemy, even a long- conquered one, should engender complex emotions.
But, and here is the crux of the matter, how did the people dressed as Incas view their participation? Are these elites mediating between the opposing worlds of Spaniard and Indian, "framing their necessarily interstitial stance ...to formulate puissant statements of mediativity in which the oppositions betwen Andean and European, pagan and Christian, past and present, empowered their new colonial selves" (2)? Does she mean that the subjects of structuralist analysis were conscious of their roles in the mechanics of opposition? It seems so. She also argues that Inca elites enacted their subordination of other Andean peoples, reminding viewers of their former imperial majesty.
But what is an Inca in 1680? Dean's presentation of the paintings introduces us to some of the nuances of Inca status at the same time as she constructs "the Incas" as a fairly homogenous category. To start with the former point, her analysis focuses on the difference in headgear and insignia associated with the surviving representations of standard-bearers. These men are representing Incas, but not particular Incas and not the Inca lineages, or panacas, that were still meaningful social units in Cuzco. The differences in headgear may reflect some other kind identity, and possibly, parish identity. The Incas of dynastic lineage, those who could wear the mascapaycha headdress, were not uniformly distributed among Cuzco's parishes. They were located in only three: San Blas, San Sebastian and San Jeronimo. The other five parishes were peopled by non-royal Incas and others who had inhabited the Cuzco valley, all resettled by viceroy Toledo in eight Cuzco parishes in 1572. Perhaps, by 1680, there were panaca members in all parishes, but it is even more likely that the elaborate renditions of the mascapaycha had evolved to symbolize the native parishes of Cuzco themselves. It would be extemely interesting to have paintings from the same parishes, but from different years, so that the differences in headgear could be understood.
There are other fissures in the framework of structural opposition between Incas and Spaniards, chosen by Dean.. If the standard-bearers are not representing particular Incas or their lineages, then some distance had been travelled by 1680 toward developing images of Inca or indigenous elites as full participants in the Spanish city. Every parish had the same civic structure as a town, that is, it possessed a town council (cabildo) and a mayor (alcalde). Spanish Cuzco, centered on the cathedral and its annexes, had a Spanish cabildo. Each native parish had its own cabildo authorities, who were also the elite of the parish. The structures, then, are absolutely parallel. Corpus Christi is a time when both the religious and civic hierarchies were on parade. It would be unthinkable to be left out. To draw a line between Andean and Spanish and argue that the elites from the parish are intermediaries misses the point. They are the top of the hierarchy in their respective religious/civic unit. Today in Spain, the Corpus parades in small towns still represent the entire society. There are noteworthy differences between the groups who parade, that can often be related to the different sides taken in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Corpus may be about triumphalism, but it celebrates something that those who participate can agree upon or cannot possibly avoid, even when the groups share a complex and antagonistic past relationship. What is enacted in Corpus is the social and political fabric of the city.
Dean ends on a modern note, but she has chosen the wrong celebration. Corpus Christi is still the main religious/civic rite on the calendar. The processions draw tourists, but behind the scenes are a series of events, the invitations to which are coveted by the various elite groups that constitute Cuzco today. It would be difficult for an anthropologist to get to the heart of the modern celebration; obtaining even one of those invitations would be a minor miracle for an outsider. Still, for those who belong to the various elite groups in modern Cuzco, being left out is unthinkable.
This review has not dealt with many of the issues raised in Dean's book, which is certainly food for thought. More can be found to analyze in the paintings, especially if identifications can be made of those people who were portrayed by likenesses. The book is a welcome introduction to this important series of documentary paintings.