Dimensions of Time in Ritual Drama: A Historical Anthropology of a “Conquest Dance” from the Central Peruvian Sierra (Sixteenth–Twenty-first Centuries)

Résumé 0

Holding on precariously to their small steeds, the Spanish conquerors attempt to break through the ranks of Atahualpa’s army, whose men defend on foot the fate of the Inca Empire. The scene is messy, at once tense and playful owing to the performers’ advanced state of inebriation. This choreography, which plays out the tragic events of 1532, has been reenacted on various patronal festivals throughout the central Peruvian Sierra since the first half of the seventeenth century. Although nowadays these reenactments may vary in configuration from one place to the next, all are financed by lay volunteers and include masses, processions, drinking, banquets, collective dances, fighting games, musical entertainment, and occasionally a bullfight. These festive performances are the latest chapter in a connected history of the circulation and reconfiguration of representations of Moors and Christians in the Iberian world. This article attempts to grasp the institutional dynamics, at the intersection between politics and religion, that have ensured the success and longevity of these performances in the Andes. It also questions the texture of this longue durée and its articulation with other temporalities. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Chiquián (Áncash), the article focuses on the temporalities of the ritual: What past, present, and future horizons are woven into these performances’ frameworks of interaction?