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A Peruvian Journey -- And QuestFollowing are excerpts and extrapolations from my journal of my trip to Peru, taken in late May and early June. While there were so many curiosities begging to be satisfied by the journey, my focus on these pages is the vibrant yet thorny story of Afro-Peruvians, an “etnia,” as they say, that I’ve been interested in since discovering the delights of their music many years ago. Hotel Larcomar View Miraflores Lima, Peru 23rd May, 2007 All Peruvians have black blood, observes Erick casually. I’ve struck up a conversation with him at breakfast in the hotel dining room. They don’t want to admit it, he continues, his interest piqued by my curiosity about Afro-Peruvians, so they perpetuate this myth of great divisions. Erick is a native Peruvian from a criolla family (white descendants of the Spanish settlers) who has lived in Houston for over 25 years; he returns “home” yearly. Erick’s thinking is that, since there’s been so much mestizaje, or miscegenation of whites with the indigenous, and since miscegenation between blacks and Native Americans is equally prevalent, it’s inevitable that Afro-Peruvian blood has seeped unwittingly into criolla veins. The notion may seem far-fetched, but it has a familiar ring, reminding me of Brazilian writer Jorge Amado’s book, Tent of Miracles, in which mixed-race ethno-sleuth, Pedro Archanjo, goes about outing the African bloodlines of Salvador da Bahia’s aristocracy. I’d like to visit Callao, the port area at the northwestern most tip of the Lima sprawl where many esclavos bozales (slaves with bits in their mouths—the term reserved for those born in Africa, also referring to their thicker, heavier sounding Spanish) were settled and where many black Peruvians sill live, mostly as fishermen. Esclavos bozales were said to be more ornery, tougher to keep in line. The hotel staff is unanimous in warning me off going. They say it’s the most dangerous area of the city, and, with virtually no police protection, often violent crimes are committed there in broad daylight. I think they’re being overcautious, erring on the side of, “Oh my god, if something should happen to this woman, there goes the tourist industry!” I’ll hold off on the trip until I’ve investigated further. My hotel is in Miraflores, surprisingly one several high-rent districts in this ever-expanding city of 9-plus million. I’m in anticipation, waiting for the shoe of poverty to drop, but so far I’m loving wandering the quiet residential streets lined with graceful old Spanish colonial homes, here and there dwarfed by up-to-the minute luxury high-rise apartment houses. I’m a stone’s throw from Larcomar, a spiffy amusement park of tony shops and Starbucks and Tony Roma’s. Three levels of excess are carved into a 500 foot cliff that plunges onto a gray pebble beach. I spend long moments watching the shore being punished by a raging Pacific and surfers being punished by the penetrating cold.
Bourgeois instincts get the better of me and I spend some time window shopping. No Afro-Peruvians in sight, and precious few people of color, not even behind the counters, although Afro-Peruvian music “extra-lite” is a frequent backdrop, its gently persuasive strains making handing over Daddy’s American Express card a little easier. Barranco Lima 24th May, 2007 Peruvian cuisine is arguably the tastiest and most sophisticated in all of South America. It’s a guiso (stew) of the sensibilities of many ethnicities. While most agree that there is a distinct African hand helping to stir that pot, documenting specific recipes is dicey, due to Afro-Peruvians’ prolonged invisibility, being lumped in with indigenous Peruvians as part of the brown masses. Manos Morenas, in the artsy neighborhood of Barranco, celebrates that hand, dedicating its extensive menu to all the “brown hands,” native and African, that have stirred Peruvian pots. They also showcase, late nights, Afro-Peruvian music. All Peruvian gastronomy is African, my waiter Miguel announces categorically, continuing, They threw them [the slaves] the leftovers, didn’t they? And from leftovers you get cuisine. Miguel suggests I order tacu tacu, a fitting example of manos africanas in the pot. I do and, at an ancient wooden table covered with hand-crocheted ecru placemats, proceed to enjoy my best meal. This tacu tacu is the apotheosis of rice and beans: a thick and savory shellfish stew over creamy rice and white beans, cooked to a perfect tenderness. I’ll later learn that African cooks are esteemed the masters of bean cookery, a cultivated gift, since many varieties of the legumes we know today originated 6 thousand years ago in the Peruvian Andes. Lima Friday, 25th May I’ve been seduced by Lima’s malecón, museums, dining tables. But, for now, I’ve had my fill of big-city life and will head south to pick up on the pre-Inca Paracas culture then settle in the area around Chincha, the hub of Afro-Peruvian history and culture. Casa Hacienda San José Chincha Sunday, 27th May As I climb the steps to the hacienda, the sound of African rhythms impels me through the main building to the rear verandah. A piebald group of musicians is rollicking a wild alcatraz with only-too-willing men from the brunch crowd lined up, trying their best to ignite with a flare the “tail” of a gyrating female dancer before them. Los Hermanos Cumbianca de Chincha follow this up with a number of spirited tunes from the small but varied Afro-Peruvian repertoire. Their configuration is typical of Afro-Peruvian bands: bongos, cajón--box drum, originally an old crate that is sat on and played between straddling legs--acoustic guitar, and the mischievous cajira de burro, a donkey jaw bone, its teeth loosened to make an eerie rattling sound when struck (traditionally) with a cow bone. Missing is a favorite: the cajita, or church tithing box, the opening and shutting of its hinged lid replacing a percussion instrument. All forms of drums were forbidden by their masters, so, as in Brazil, Peruvian slaves improvised masterfully. The hacienda Next morning After yesterday’s compelling atmosphere of music and sociability on the verandah, I explore my environs and amble a different, dreamlike world of 300 year-old buildings, including a baroque Jesuit chapel, and acres upon acres of verdant fields adorned by brilliant bougainvillea and grazing horses. This lushness is outlined by parched, dun-colored clumpy dirt paths. My natural surroundings and the hacienda when I look back upon it, are struggling to free themselves of a thick morning mist. The fog is like the persistent cloud that enshrouds the tranquility of this outpost, leaving it under a heft of history that will never lift, seeded with the shame, sorrow and pain of slavery that shackled up to 1000 Africans at once.
Hacienda 29th May It’s late morning after a leisurely breakfast. The fog has finally lifted and I head off to el Carmen, about 2 miles away, a pueblo populated by the descendants of slaves and native Peruvians. As I walk the dirt and paved roads, I see nothing but cotton bushes, little white heads bobbing like bubbles in field after field of, again, inescapable collective memories. El Carmen is dozing. The sun’s at its highest, and the few folks in the street are headed for home. For the first time, I hear a radio from the street: Colombian salsa, cumbia. Reggaeton. I peruse the town, taking photos of the well-kept and gaily painted cement-over-brick one-story houses. When the mid-day heat eases, el Carmen’s main square begins to animate. From the zocolo, I peer out over the surrounding park. It’s whistle-clean and green. A few stray dogs frolic before making a bee-line for a tossed bucket of entrails. On a far side of the park stands a group of young men in improvised soccer outfits chattering away like testosterone pumped versions of the caged canaries kept by nearly everyone here. Further on, a cadre of men sweeps the sand from the street, a seemingly Sisyphean task. The plaza is dominated by Church of Virgin of el Carmen, its sunny yellow and sparkling white facade giving all of its surroundings a note of optimism. On the 27th of December every year, the statue of la Virgen is venerated in a uniquely Afro-Peruvian procession that snakes through the pueblos of the district. A small knot of eight or nine year-old boys clusters. One is carrying a beat-up cajón, or box-drum, one of the signature Afro-Peruvian instruments. He puts it down and sits on it, and the other boys gather around while he plays, tentatively, then with a sure hand. He stops and the boys scatter. One beckons to me, and I inch up towards them. Some townsfolk gather as well and an SUV with tourists pulls up. The boys have their audience and they begin to dance, zapoteando, tapping their feet in place to a complex rhythm, lightening-fast. I’m amazed to recognize this fancy footwork. It’s an ancient traditional dance from the Ivory Coast.
After supper at the hacienda, I make friends with Julio, the bartender. He was born in el Carmen and lives there still. He’s deeply brown, like many of the folks from his town, but confesses that he can’t call himself truly Afro-Peruvian. They would call me “moreno” instead, he says. He tells me that the people of Guayabo, a hamlet nearby, might be suspicious even of him because he’s not African through and through. (It seems like the casta system of discrimination that stratified people according to the amount of black or indigenous blood and served very well to disunite Spanish America’s brown populations, is dying a long, hard death.) Guayabo 30th May Guayabo is overwhelmingly African; there are a few people of mixed race and a smaller number of indigenous. This contrasts el Carmen where the majority are of mixed race. The town is clearly poorer than el Carmen, the roads all of dirt, several houses are unsurfaced. The dogs are watchful. And the brio of el Carmen is gone. I wander about, more inhibited about photographing, my smile switched from automatic to response as people are not as ready to say hi. Off the short, snaking main street, I come upon a flurry of activity: Three men are enclosing the large patio outside a house that doubles as a food establishment. They cut off the electric saw as I approach, curious, and hail Mamainé, reposing inside. I’ve hit upon Guayabo’s most famous personage. She’s a cook of wide repute and hostess of frequent dance parties in Guayabo. Maimané’s a big woman with lustrous ebony skin; she surprises me, in this seemingly dour town, with her ear-to-ear grin and effusiveness. She tells me that her parties draw the best dancers from far and wide, many of whom also participate in masked and costumed carnival and other processions that she helps to organize. Despite her wide repertoire of dishes, Mamainé maintains that there are no traces left of the recipes brought to Peru by the slaves, nor of those prepared in plantation kitchens. Tonight, back at the hacienda, I pigeonhole Agusto, the most knowledgeable of San José’s tour guides and amateur historian of his region and people. He is a wealth of information and a well of curiosity, and we talk about my impressions, especially how I’ve found all of the people of Chincha--except for Guayabo--more open, more relaxed and trusting, more soave than those in Lima. Do you think they’re docile, I ask, beaten down after all those years as slaves? It’s just that way here, he responds, but he can’t put his finger on a definitive explanation. I’m thinking that perhaps the relative absence of whites and white authority in the area adds to the sensation of harmony amongst its people. Agusto agrees that Guayabo is uncharacteristic, not hostile, but insular. Until 1960, in fact, the town had an ordinance prohibiting intermarriage between any but pure African-descended partners. Agusto diplomatically disagrees with Mamainé’s position that African influence has been lost in Peruvian food, observing that Mamainé has “very definite” ways of thinking about things. I bring up visiting Callao. Agusto is adamant. “Do not go,” he says with surprising finality, echoing Julio’s earlier adviso, but nudging my curiosity even further. Lima 4th June I’m back in Lima after 4 days south of Chincha exploring the polluted, noisy and sometimes menacing cities of Pisco and Ica, also spending some quality museum time and a glorious day at sea. I spend today in the city center, an unsettling melange of majestic and seedy. Peruvians seem less ambiguous about the African presence in their religious practice than in their history. Two figures of African descent play dominant roles in Roman Catholic ritual here, St. Martin of Porres and an Angolan born slave who may have been named Pedro Falcón. St. Martin of Porres, canonized in 1962 by the ecumenical Pope John XXIII, was born of a Spanish nobleman and a freed Panamanian slave. He became an excessively devout Dominican monk and was said to levitate and to walk through walls in order to reach fellow monks in need. Several devotees, Peruvians of all stripes and foreigners, are visiting the magnificently mosaic-ed Convent of Santo Domingo, praying and prostrating themselves at the facsimile of his tomb.
The Church of the Nazarene, conveniently nearby, was built around the wall on which the slave had painted a crucifixion scene, in 1650. The wall is the only structure in the area to have withstood two devastating earthquakes and is venerated as a miracle. Every year the wall, weighing 2 tons, is paraded through the streets of downtown Peru, in the largest religious procession in all of South America. Lima 6th June I’ll look back on my afternoon with Susana Baca and her husband Ricardo Pereira as a musical coda to my explorations of Afro-Peru. Susana has become the emblem of Afro-Peru; she is the first internationally-known Afro-Peruvian musician and, with Ricardo, has dedicated herself to researching and advancing the story of her people. They have amassed a considerable body of scholarship on Afro-Peru, housed presently in their home in Lima, but it will all be moved shortly to Cañete, a town near Chincha where they are setting up a separate library and cultural center. I spend some time looking over books and documents, including one Susana and Ricardo wrote in 1992 with another researcher, Francisco Basili, Del Fuego y del Agua (Of Fire and Water) which includes details of the slaves’ contribution to both the pharmacopoeia and gastronomy of the country thanks to their wisdom about herbs. Susana graciously invites me to stay for lunch. We sit, Susana, Ricardo, Ricardo’s sister who is doing most of the archiving, and I, throwing out observations and opinions, with Ricardo acting as our fact checker. Ricardo stresses the importance of continuing to individuate Afro-Peruvians from the indigenous majority. This search for integrity was begun—or revivified—thanks to the influence of the American civil rights movement and the movement for African liberation of the 1950s and ‘60s. He made special note of the beloved Nicomedes Santa Cruz, a black Peruvian poet, journalist, historian and musician who charmed issues of Afro-Peruvian individuation and integrity into the popular mindset. Jackson Heights, NY 11th June, 2007 I’m home now, writing for the first time since my visit to the Baca/Pereira home. That night I was felled by the most frightening case of dysentery (no, it wasn’t lunch there that brought it on) and lay immobilized for 4 days until my departure. I never made it to Callao. While stricken, I watched a lot of Peruvian TV, my interest in black visibility in mind. It was daunting: news anchors, the telenovela divas, and housewives in insipid commercials were all equally pale. A few products made an embarrassing bid for diversity. One, selling cooking oil, portrayed an indigenous family tripping lightly home after a day in the fields. Another was even more shameful: in a Kylos toothpaste ad, an aging, rag-waving black man radiating a Louis Armstrong grin diligently washes down a luxury car before a family of happily expectant criollos. It was hard for me to make comparisons between Afro-Peruvians and African Americans despite their shared African roots, history of chattel slavery and the experience of institutionalized racism post-manumission. For one thing, I visited Afro-Peru in a rural setting and have no coordinates linking me to rural black America. In addition, Afro-Peru comprises only 3% of the population (if that). After so many years being conveniently and insidiously conflated with Peru’s majority indigenous population, Afro-Peruvians have the additional mission of “finally and firmly” convincing Peru that they even exist. At the same time, one comparison did seem inevitable: the way both cultures made and used music to get them through the day—and the centuries. 10th July Postscript: I received an e-mail today from a major Peruvian tour operator who’d recently been down to Chincha, pretty much covering my route. He’d like to talk about how best to exploit the potential of putting the “rich culture” of Afro-Peru on the tourist map, opening the area up to the “thousands of tourists who pass by Chincha daily” on their way further south. As the global economy churns deeper and more definingly into cultural integrity, will this be the way by which Afro-Peruvians finally exert their existence?
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Carol
Amoruso has had several vocational callings over the years. She's
taught young children, run volunteer programs for seniors, had a
catering business, designed clothes. Ultimately, she found that
nothing engaged and challenged her the way writing has. She's
written every day since childhood, professionally since 1990. Her
involvement in the arts, society and politics of Africa, the
Caribbean, and the Latin World have been the most inspiring and her
work concentrates on those areas. She travels extensively but lives
in New York City.