Monday, July 13, 2009

June in Cusco - Corpus Cristi and Inti Raymi

June in Cusco is quite the month. Seems like just as one celebration ends, another begins. I wanted to share with you a bit of the culture of Peru and what June looks like here. The month begins with the celebration of Corpus Cristi around the 10th. Corpus is supposedly a celebration of the body of Christ. Supposedly, because it really has nothing to do with the body of Christ. It is a Catholic adaptation of an ancient Incan Native American tradition in which the mummies of former Incas (rulers) were paraded around the plaza of the city to celebrate and honor them. When the Spanish came and conquered and wanted to convert the Incas to Catholicism (mostly by force), they decided to replace the mummies with saints and parade the saints around. (I've even heard that in some cases they put the mummies inside the saint statues in some way in order to heighten the acceptance of Catholicism). The tradition has persisted for the last roughly 500 years in that manner. Various churches around Cusco have their own resident saints. The part of Cusco where I live is called San Jeronimo. Surprisingly enough, the patron saint of this part of town is San Jeronimo! Since I'm not in the Catholic church, I don't know exactly how all this works, but this is what I understand. Every year, people who worship these saints are chosen or asked to be in charge of making clothes for the saints or carrying them into Cusco. It's a great honor. But it also comes with its downside. Many times people spend excessive amounts of money to fulfill their responsibility to the saint, so much so that their families suffer. I was talking to my friend Rene the other week. She gave me some interesting insight into this tradition. She told me she used to carry a saint before she became a Christian. She said she really believed the saint was God. I asked her if she ever wondered why, if this was the case, there were so many different saints. She said she'd asked and was told that they are all different expressions of God (or something like that). Coming from my Christian worldview of growing up hearing "Don't worship idols", I still have a ways to go to understand all this. Anyway, all the 15 saints receive richly ornamented, expensive, lavish new clothes and are carried into Cusco on litters from their various churches of residence. They meet in the plaza and form a parade around the perimeter. One by one, they are carried into the cathedral where they supposedly have some sort of party for a week. The entering of the cathedral is solemn. Each of the saints is preceeded by a band consisting of horns and drums. There are also highly decorated banners that preceed each saint to proclaim the name of the saint, where it comes from and some of its worshippers. Afterwards there are traditional dances. It is a procession full of color and noise. Most of the schools in Cusco have off that day, since it's a religious holiday. The plaza is packed with people. However, the holiday is not completely religious. It is also somewhat of a tourist attraction and many people come to watch and eat chiriuchu (a plate of cold food including guinea pig, chicken, fish eggs, seaweed, toasted corn, cheese and a thick, cakey omelet....I'm not sure how to describe that part). This dish is usually only eaten during this time of year. Close to the main plaza there is another plaza called the Plaza de San Francisco. The plaza is full of vendors all selling chiriuchu and beer. Can't forget the beer. No Peruvian religious celebration is complete without it. Many people go home drunk. Another one of the sad realities of Peruvian religious celebrations is that they are often followed by abuse due to drunkenness.
A week later, the saints are taken from the cathedral and carried back to their places of residence throughout the year. Though this is not as big a deal as is their advent to the cathedral, it is still important. People set up stands all along the route back home, selling mainly food and beer. We saw San Jeronimo's procession resting and eating in front of the prison on the way home from school.
Just as the saints are being taken back home, the parades for Cusco Day begin. Cusco Day is celebrated on June 24th. As its name suggests, it is a holiday celebrating Cusco and coincides with one of the most important religious festivals of the Incas: Inti Raymi. More on that in a bit. The 2 weeks leading up to Cusco Day are full of colorful dances celebrating the typical culture here. Schools work hard to prepare dances (during this time we are working hard on schoolwork, not dances, at PROMESA.) and participate in a contest in the main plaza. One night I went to the post office only to discover that one entire side of a main road had been blocked off in order for this competition to happen (this is a quite normal phenomenon and is accepted without complaint by the motorists of Cusco). I decided to head up to the plaza to see what was going on. I stood there for about 2 hours watching the dances (unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me). The dances also continued on for a while after I left around 9 PM. The funniest part was the man with the big drum protruding from his stomach Energizer bunny-style and the Energizer knapsack on his back. That one made me laugh.
The dances and parades continue day after day, with virtually all the schools and colleges participating. Bellas Artes, a local art college, does its own parade every year with all sorts of floats. The culminating parade is on June 23, the night before Cusco Day. Businesses, organizations, neighborhoods, people from the communities around Cusco - all are invited to participate. The parade lasts for hours, with music, some floats, dances, and a ton of people in ponchos walking.
Cusco Day dawns bright and early. Again streets are blocked off and the celebration of Inti Raymi begins. Inti Raymi literally means Festival to the Sun. The Incans believed themselves to be children of the sun and worshipped the sun as their supreme deity. Inti Raymi was celebrated in Incan times and repressed by the Catholic church with the advent of the Spanish. For hundreds of years it was not celebrated until someone decided in the mid 20th century that the practice should be resurrected. It is a time of asking the "father sun" to be kind and to bring a good harvest and not forget the people. It's also a major tourist attraction, probably even more so than an actual sun-worship ceremony. The festivities begin in Korikancha (the ancient Incan temple of the sun - the name literally means "the golden place"), early in the morning. During the times of the Incas, Korikancha was built in such a way that the sunrise on the morning of June 24th hit the temple of the sun just right and the whole room, covered with gold, shone brilliantly. Today there is a colonial church built on top of it and there is no gold (thanks to the Spanish) and that part is lost. It is, however, still the beginning point for the celebration of Inti Raymi. The Inca, after much fanfare on the part of the court (honestly, sometimes it felt more like they were worshipping the Inca rather than the sun), emerges from Korikancha and sings a song to the "father sun". The ceremony is entirely in Quechua, since that is historically accurate. The Inca is played by a professional actor. Royal Incan lineage plays (or has historically played) somewhat of a part in the choosing of this person. The ceremony here is rather short and all the courtiers and lastly the Inca then move to the main plaza of the city for stage 2. The courtiers enter the plaza in groups - the musicians, the dancers, the soldiers, the princesses (literally chosen young women called ñustas who served the Inca), the Inca's wife and lastly the Inca himself. There is much fanfare, dancing, ceremony, color, music and celebration. Again, the Inca sings to the "father sun" and meets with the mayor of Cusco to admonish him to be a good ruler of Cusco and remind him of the values of his people. After this ceremony, the entire group moves up to Sacsayhuaman, the ancient Incan fortress overlooking the city, where the main sun worship ceremony takes place. Again the fanfare. Again the worship. Again the ceremony, the music, the color. Since Inti Raymi is such a tourist attraction, the only really really good views are from the main stage area (which costs about $70 a ticket). But the hills are covered with people for hours before the beginning of this ceremony, trying to see what they can from where they are. The entire procession enters the stage area, again with much ritual. The Inca receives reports from the four regions of the empire and then there is the reading of the coca leaves and the most important part, the sacrifice of the llama (due to animal rights, this is not truly carried out, but is simulated). It's a long day, ending about 3-4 PM. My friends and I left early to go home, so there are no pictures of either of these parts.
However, if you'd like to see more pictures of all these events, please click here to view the album I made on facebook.
Being here in Cusco, sometimes it is hard to know where worship ends and tourism begins. During these holidays, some people really are worshipping the saints and the sun. Others are just there for the chiriuchu or the tourist aspect. Vendors selling ice cream in the streets make a killing. But, whatever the motives of the people may be, I pray that God opens blind eyes and softens hard hearts so that people can see who He truly is and be open to Him. I pray that the glory of the Lord shines upon Cusco and that all may truly know Him. Jesus, You are the only one really worthy of worship.