The Emergence of the Modern Mesa: African-Influence and Syncretism Revisited

Bonnie Glass-Coffin, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Utah State University

Abstract:

For over fifty years, scholars have contributed to our understanding of north-Peruvian curanderismo with special reference to the healer’s mesa. While continuities and syncretism between indigenous and European beliefs, rituals, and material culture have long been discussed, consideration of African contributions to the modern mesa has been almost entirely absent from the conversation. This lacuna is especially troubling when one considers the history and the importance of slavery in colonial Peru. This paper will explore criminal prosecution of local practitioners from as early as the mid-1500’s with special attention to prosecution of Blacks and mixed-blood Afro-Peruvians. It will suggest parallels and distinctions between slaves and slavery in Peru and other regions of Latin America and will suggest parallels in the emergence of the modern mesa in Peru and altars in Afro-Caribbean traditions. The paper will also suggest some reasons that Afro-Peruvian influences on the emergence of the modern mesa have been almost completely ignored by scholars discussing and writing about this topic.



Introduction:

In 1547 a Spanish barber living in Peru had a problem with run-away slaves. In an effort to bewitch and kill don Francisco Sánchez, his slave Simón took dirt from under Sánchez' feet and wool from his pillow and sought-out an Indian sorcerer named "Poma" to hex his master. Once arrested, Simón claimed his innocence. He insisted that he had been framed by another of Sanchez' slaves, a run-away named Juanillo, to shift the spotlight away from that act. But, under torture, Simón admitted to the crime. Poma, the Indian sorcerer was also arrested and questioned. He confessed to having used the wool and the dirt to summon Sánchez' shadow-soul. He admitted to calling upon the Devil (who spoke to him with the voice of a fox) and praying to the sun to help him kill Simón's master. After the conjuring, Poma told Simón to put the dirt and the wool back in his master's bed so the hex would take effect. For his trouble, both Simón and Poma were executed (Bowser 1974:252 and AGI, Justicia 451).

As this account confirms, African slaves and Indians used sorcery to confront the inequities of the Spanish Conquest from the very earliest days of the Colonial period. And, in spite of attempts by the Crown to keep native Indians and Blacks apart, they came together to conjure and to “work” magic against their oppressors. As Garofalo (2001) and O'Toole (2001) have both suggested, these alliances often occurred because African and American born Blacks shared experiences of marginalization and oppression with Indians during the long centuries of Spanish colonial rule. Regardless of their ethnic differences, both men and women of the "lower-spheres" (O'Toole 2001) came together to resist the oppressions of employers, patrons, and masters. Similarly, those who left population centers to wander the harsh-desert as forasteros (Indians who left their communities of origin) or cimarrones (run-away slaves) sometimes shared resources to help them survive where access to water was far from guaranteed.

Over time, negros and mixed-bloods (whether the mulatos of Spanish/African descent or the zambos/pardos of Indian/African descent), Indians and mestizos all came to share rituals and beliefs to ameliorate suffering. As Garofalo has shown (2001:470-480), by the mid 17th Century, skilled-specialists of all castes and ethnic categories used coca to divine the future and invoked the Palla Inca and other non-Christian gods when asking for help to redress wrongs, to cure the sick or to otherwise ensure survival. The Peruvian Office of the Holy Inquisition agreed, suggesting that, "Blacks and Indians are more barbarous now than before they came into contact with the Spaniards…now they are sorcerers and full of superstitions; they are devotees of the Devil whom the Indians call supay " (Bowser1974:251-252). Given this concern, it might come as no surprise to the reader that more than 45% of those processed by the Inquisition for crimes of sorcery (hechicería) in the late 17th and early 18th Century were identified as negro or mulato (Millar 1998:339).

But, in spite of this evidence of early involvement by Afro-Peruvians as ritual specialists (or sorcerers as the Church preferred to call them), there has been almost no attempt to describe the kinds of contributions they made to Peruvian folk-healing or religious traditions. Instead, scholars continue to search for both archaic origins and seamless continuity between pre-Columbian and modern practices (cf Camino Calderón 1973:170-171 and Dammert Bellido 1974, 1984). There has also been a tendency to conflate ideas about what constituted authentic folk-belief and practice (cf Garofalo 2001:470-480) with the historical record about what was practiced and by whom.

In part, this lack of attention is because European and African descended specialists (those prosecuted by the Inquisition) are reported as engaging in practices that are simply reflections of medieval European traditions and of Iberian folk-Catholicism (cf Medina 1887, Millar 1998). These practices included ritual use of piedra imán (lodestone), herbal baths, and prayers to Saints as well as pacts with the Devil, poking pins in rag-dolls, and infusing food and drink with excrement "poison" to effect sorcery (Millar 1998). By contrast, Indians (those who were targets of the multiple campaigns to extirpate idolatries) are attributed with continued devotion to Andean beliefs and practices like the veneration of the dead, the use of the San Pedro cactus (Trichocereus pachanoi), and infusion of caves, lakes, and rocks with spirit power. But, just as pre-Columbian and post-contact beliefs are both a part of modern Peruvian folk-healing, it is important to re-examine all the archival data—both Extirpation of Idolatries and Inquisition records in order to begin to understand the contexts in which the modern mesa emerged.

Furthermore, this perceived dichotomy between European-derived and Andean-derived beliefs and practices is, in and of itself, false. First, as Garofalo has noted, even the supposedly European practices reflected in 16th Century Iberian folk-Catholicism emerged in a context that blended European, American-creole, and African contributions. As he notes,

Even after Iberians began to ship enslaved people directly from Africa to the Americas, slaves [and freedmen and women] continued to arrive in southern Iberia, including highly valued creole slaves [and freedmen] from the Americas….There they experienced more success and less resistance than Moors and Moriscos in joining and influencing Iberian Christianity and culture, especially the social and ritual activities of the Church. In short, many originally 'non-Iberian' groups participated in the economic, social and religious life of southern Iberia's ports (2001:404).

Thus, discerning what was innately Iberian and what was an admixture of African and even re-incorporated American contributions from the folklore that accompanied early Colonists to the New World is misguided. And, due to the evidence of very early exchanges between African slaves and Indians like that reported above, it becomes difficult to tease-out of the accounts of chroniclers and missionaries the customs that were really Indigenous and those that were not. As Millones has noted, this would be especially true for the north coast of Peru, where chronicles emphasizing local beliefs and practices appeared long after conquest, by both the Inca and the Spanish (1982:257).

For all these reasons, this essay considers the contributions of African slaves and their descendents to the emergence of the distinctly hybrid healing tradition that one finds today on the northern coast and in the northern highlands of Peru. While acknowledging the fluidity and dynamism of beliefs and practices represented in the curandero’s (folk-healer’s) mesa (altar/ritual healing ceremony), it suggests that the more than three-hundred year practice of black-African slavery in this region had a tremendous impact on traditions currently practiced. While not denying the tremendous importance of both Andean and folk-Catholic components of contemporary religious beliefs and behavior, it asks us to re-think the meanings of mesa objects and rituals in terms of African contributions as well.

Background

From 1528 (when Pizarro first reached Tumbes on Peru's far-north coast) to 1855 (when slavery was finally abolished in Republican Peru), African slaves were an integral part of the mosaic of peoples inhabiting and shaping Peru's coastal culture and economy. Although the total importation of African slaves to Peru from the 16th to the 19th Centuries probably never exceeded 100,000 persons (Bowser 1974, O’Toole 2001), African slaves were key to the development of Peruvian economic and cultural forms in the coastal cities and surrounding rural areas. Their labor was also instrumental on the rural estates farther from urban centers that were mainly devoted to raising livestock. As agricultural production grew towards the end of the 16th Century, so also did dependence on slave labor. And as plantation holdings in the coastal river valleys both north and south of Lima grew, producing sugar, wheat flour, fruit conserves for export, cotton, and grapes for wine, Black slaves were an integral part of that labor force (Bowser1974:88)..

But, unlike the plantation-style economies of Brazil and the Caribbean, even at the height of sugar-cane-production in the mid 17th Century, Peruvian slaves were not concentrated on plantations as they were in those areas. Even the largest estates in the mid 17th Century had fewer than forty-slaves working in the fields or in the mills (Bowser 1974:95). Instead, Blacks tended to work along side Indian laborers (yanaconas, forasteros, and, to lesser degrees with the passage of time, mitayos). Additionally, slaves were key to the distribution and sales of agricultural products in Colonial Peru. They were heavily used as the muleteers and sailors that linked various parts of the colony together, tying coastal Peru to both highland and selva zones as well as to the outside world. Black slaves were also the mainstay of urban economies in Lima, in coastal cities like Trujllo, Saña, and Piura, and even in mountain towns like Cajamarca. This is apparent in the population statistics for some of the coastal cities during the 16th Century where Blacks were six times more prevalent than Whites on average (Campos 1993:48). Even by 1650, the entire Viceroyalty of Peru could boast only 7,000 whites in comparison to 90,000 Blacks and mixed-bloods (Campos 1993:48). Their labor as merchants and middle-men, house-servants and wet-nurses, food-sellers and bakers, carpenters and blacksmiths, hospital workers and nannies, made urban life possible. In short, by the mid 1600's, most noblemen and commoners (whether Spanish, mestizo, or even Indian) came to own black slaves as a sign of their status within Colonial society (Bowser 1974:103 and Harth-terré 1973).

But, in spite of their status as property, many slaves were quite free to move about and interact with different segments of both urban and rural populations. Particularly in times of economic hardship, slaves were often rented-out by their masters for extended periods. As vendors, tradesmen, washerwomen, chicha-brewers, day-laborers, nurses, cooks, muleteers and herders, slaves interacted frequently with peoples of all classes and castes and, thus served as conduits for cultural exchange bringing classes and castes together who would not otherwise have had an opportunity to co-mingle (Garofalo 2001:484). These circumstances, together with a shared experience of suffering among the lower-classes, often provided the impetus for relations of both short-term utility and long-term caring. Both short-term alliances and long-term partnerships between Indians, lower-class mestizos, and slaves provided numerous opportunities for sharing beliefs and rituals designed to mitigate suffering, to combat colonial oppression, and even to subvert the balance of power between landowners and laborers.

In the early to mid 18th Century this climate of oppression and opportunism that made Indian/African alliances and partnerships possible was exacerbated on the northern coast and in the northern valleys of Peru. Due to a combination of economic and environmental stress, the sugar industry that had blossomed in the second half of the 17th Century and that had led to more concentrated use of slaves on northern haciendas, collapsed (Peralta 1998:146-147). Those landowners who didn't lose their haciendas outright, struggled to stay-afloat by turning from sugar to livestock—transforming their haciendas to pasture for grazing (Ramírez 1998:191). Drawing on a long tradition of both using slaves as ganaderos (livestock-herders) and on renting-out slaves to other patrons to help allay economic hardships there was an outpouring of slave labor into the northern countryside in the mid 18th Century. At the same time, Indians still living and farming in communities like Mórrope, Olmos and Sechura, were also struggling with the collapse of their farms because of the disastrous rains of 1720 and 1728. According to Peralta (1998), many allayed their economic woes by turning to commerce and trade, leaving their communities, with their guaranteed access to water and land in order to become merchants, muleteers, and indios foraesteros . Peralta describes these Indians as "the desert travelers", moving fruit, sugar, tobacco, and corn up and down the river valleys connecting highland and coastal markets. When the Bourbon reforms, with additional tax-burdens for producers and for sellers, (Indian as well as other castes) took hold in mid-century, these economic stresses further contributed to class, rather than caste-based alliances.

This situation was coupled with the continued increase of the Black population in the north. While the proportion of Blacks in Lima declined during the 18th Century, (Blanchard 1992:15), by 1793 the residents of the city of Trujillo, were almost 54% slave or free Blacks and mixed-bloods (Rizo-Patrón Boylan and Aljovín de Losada 1998:244). And in Lambayeque a full 57% of the region was 'of color' by 1791 (Millones 2002:71). The net result was, undoubtedly, increased commerce between all those people at the margins of wealth, security, and stability and an increased likelihood that strategies for survival would be shared by Indians, mestizos and African or Peruvian-born Blacks and mixed-bloods. Particularly after the mid 18th Century, then, African-derived traditions, Spanish folk traditions, and indigenous beliefs fused and emerged in ways that have shaped the emergence of the modern mesa.

Staffs and ground objects: constructing the north-Peruvian mesa

When examining the mesa of the northern curandero, wooden staffs (often of chonta, palo santo, membrillo, hualtaco or guayacán wood) as well as daggers, swords and iron rods are an ever-present and an integral part of mesa implements (Polía 1996:356-363). Just as "images of saints, shells, archeological objects, jars of herbs, stones, crystals…and rattles appear on all northern mesas" so also do these staffs and swords (Sharon 1978:159, see also Polía 1988:120-128). These staffs are believed to channel the power of the healer and the spirit-entities of both the plants of which they are hewn (Polía 1996:270) and the enchanted places from which they have been gathered (Polía 1996:276-277) so that the nature of the problem at hand might be revealed. They are also used to draw out or ritually cleanse (limpiar) patients of the sorcery-caused illness from which they are believed to suffer.

The presence of staffs (called varas), as well as the sheer numbers and kinds of artifacts that are contained on northern mesas, in fact, is one feature that distinguishes northern mesas from those of other regions in Peru. Neither the mesas found high in the central or southern Andes nor those found on the eastern slopes and lowland forests are as complex nor as apt to contain multiple staffs, daggers, and swords as those mesas on the northern coast and in the northern highlands.

A review of published historical sources (Arriaga 1968, Valcarcel nd, Medina 1877, Valdizán and Maldonado 1922, Palma 1957, Duviols 1986) and manuscripts (AHN, AAT) suggests that staffs, and swords were not present on these altars until very late in the Spanish Colonial period. With the exception of one case in Medina (1887:220) where a mestiza woman is accused in 1702 of superstitions that included "rubbing the patient's body with a membrillo", I have found no mention of these as elements of the curandero's mesa before the early 20th Century.

So, how (and why) did these staffs and swords become an important part of the northern healer's ritual paraphernalia? A look at contemporary altars of the Caribbean, as well as those in Ecuador and Colombia where African-derived elements of current healing traditions are more explicit, provides some important clues to this mystery.

One reason for looking north to the Caribbean is that, throughout much of that region, indigenous elements of contemporary healing traditions are almost non-existent. Instead, the blending that occurred there was between the folk-Catholicism that accompanied Iberian colonists and African religious traditions. Thus, any similarities in form and function with practices seen in the Andes would not, in the Caribbean, be assumed to be indigenous in nature. And the fact that Caribbean altars appear, at first glance, quite similar to the altars of contemporary northern Peruvian curanderos provides a point of departure for suggesting that African influence be seriously considered in the Andes.

As Sánchez (1997) has noted, the slaves who landed in the New World, whether from the slaving centers of West Africa, Benin and Togo or Angola and Zaire brought beliefs with them that blended easily into the Catholic traditions of their Spanish masters. Their worship of sun, moon, ancestors and infusion of the natural world like wind, water, rocks, trees, plants, and animals with sacred power was not lost, but rather syncretized with Christian Saints when Catholicism was imposed upon them.

In the Caribbean, however, African-inspired religious traditions survived centuries of repression more in tact than they did in Peru. First, the sheer numbers of slaves imported to the region over more than 300 years (over five million as opposed to Peru's one hundred thousand) created opportunities for cultural survival not found in Western South America. Second, the Atlantic slave trade, unlike the Pacific slave trade, facilitated sustained relationships between Africans who shared language, cultural, and ethnic affiliations—even across generations. Third, the maintenance of shared religious traditions among those who lived closely together on huge sugar plantations was possible in a way that would only have been so for escaped slaves in Peru who lived as cimarrones in fortified palenques in the desert.

These circumstances make it much easier to discern distinctly African elements in contemporary Caribbean traditions than is possible in Peru. By contrast, the lack of ethnic cohesion (especially across generations) found among Afro-Peruvian slaves means that African-inspired elements in the Peruvian mesa will be much more difficult to recognize than in Caribbean traditions. Certainly, the contemporary mesa in Peru more reflects a fusion of elements that evolved in response to local contexts of inter-ethnic relations. These elements more likely came together as the product of discrete alliances in the monte (see below) than as hacienda-based communal rituals infused with the shared memories of an African-derived "collective." But, the similarities between contemporary Afro-Caribbean altars and Peruvian mesas, even in the absence of the fusion with indigenous roots, are suggestive of African elements in Peruvian traditions as well. And, the presence of sabers and staffs on contemporary mesas in areas of Ecuador and Colombia where similar relationships between African-descended slaves and indigenous groups obtained is also suggestive (Kvist and Barfod 1991, Sánchez 1997).

The importance of the palo in both Palo Monte and Peruvian ritual healing traditions

Of the African-derived traditions that thrive today in the Caribbean, the one of most interest to this paper is a healing and religious tradition known as Palo Monte Mayombé. A distinct blend of folk-Catholicism and beliefs of the Bakongo peoples, (originally from areas of Central Africa including Southern Cameroon, the Congo, and Angola) this Kongo-based religion

is related to religious practices from the historical kingdom of Kongo in central Africa, and the language used by Cuban practitioners is heavily indebted to Ki-Kongo. It is intriguing to speculate on the origins of its Spanish name, for within the religion palo monte refers to "spirits embodied in the sticks in the forest." A palo is a segment of wood; monte is the forest or a rural area, where local rule is dominant. Palo also describes the sections of wood that form a palisade around a military outpost or rural stronghold. As such, the name of the religion reflects the reputation of people of Kongo descent in Cuba; they are rural, strong, and strong willed (Bettleheim 2001).

In this tradition, perhaps described most completely by the Cuban scholar Lydia Cabrera (2000) these palos are a fundamental part of the healer's ritual altar (called nganga or prenda). They are gathered from the forest with ritual care and embody various spirits of the monte from which they are taken (Cabrera 2000:115-117). As "trees and plants they are endowed with soul, with intelligence and with Will, just as all that is born, grows and lives under the sun" (Cabrera 2000:16). These palos are sometimes conceived of as the forest throne of a particular Divinity. And even those not thought of as such are believed to "confer the divinity to which they belong. They are full of the power, grace or 'ache' of the Divine" (Cabrera 2000:16). As such, these palos, when taken from the forest and incorporated into the healer's altar are used to "pull spirit" into the vessel (usually an iron pot or a cloth bag) that is the altar itself (Thompson 1993). They both "charge" the altar with this divine power and "tie" the power of the forest spirits to all the other spirits contained and embodied within the altar including those of animals, plants, dead ancestors, the earth, sea, and sky. As Cabrera reported, one palero (ritual practitioner) described the process of making an altar, and of charging it as follows. Items that embody these spirit powers are placed within the cauldron or in the bundle and include:

…a piece of wild cane filled with sea water, sand and mercury, sealed with wax, so that the Prenda is always alive like the mercury and in movement like the sea that never rests….A black male dog so that it will sniff-out and follow the rastro [footprint]. Whole, but completely desiccated, it is put into the middle of the pot. Next to the dog, a thunderstone [a Pre-Columbian stone weapon] that has been given blood to drink beforehand. Framing the dog's head, the jaw of a dead man….The pieces of palos are put around all this: ceiba, cuaba, ayúa, tengue, cocoyo, garaúa, laurel, zaza, jocuma, amansaguapo, guamá, guachinango, macagua, pino de la tierra, dagame, moruro, jagüey, palma, doncella, yaya, yagrumo…[names of sacred trees] and herbs….(Cabrera 2000:123, translation mine).

When the altar will be dedicated to Sarabanda (called Ogún in the related Afro-Caribbean religious tradition of Santería) swords, daggers, and iron rods are also incorporated when constructing a prenda (Thompson 1993:57 and 180, Cabrera 2000:49 and 564ff). This fierce deity is associated with weapons of combat and slave-revolts. Revered as one of the most important of Palo Monte and other Afro-Caribbean traditions because of his association with armed revolt and freedom from oppression, he is also frequently syncretized in Afro-Caribbean religious practice with San Pedro. In part, this is because of the iron keys that always accompany this saint. But that syncretism also references the legend of his role in opening the way for all the African-gods to descend from the heavens to earth. According to that pataki (origin-story), "because of the facility with which he manages the cudgel, Ogun is able to cut through the densest of forests…[he is] thereby considered a path 'maker' or 'opener.'..[He] opened the path for all the orishas [deities] on their descent from heaven" (Lindsay 1996:62).

Once the Palo Monte altar or prenda is assembled, the owner enters into a pact, achieved through trance, with the spirit of an ancestor (ideally embodied in the form of a human skull) who is considered as the owner of the altar but the servant of the palero. Then,

the receptacle is buried for a period of time in the cemetery and in the monte, in nature. [Afterwards] it is returned to its owner, for whom the nganga is a small world that is entirely dominated by him. The kiyumba [human skull] rules over all the herbs and the animals that live inside the nganga with it. The mayombero [ritual specialist] in turn rules the kiyumba, who obeys his orders like a faithful dog. The kiyumba is the slave for the mayombero and it is always waiting inside the cauldron or the macuto to carry out his commands (González-Whippler as quoted in Fernández-Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert (2003: 80).

In her summary of Palo Monte, Cabrera notes that there are more than twenty different kinds of sticks, all told, that serve to spiritually charge the objects contained within the altar. As a result of their associations with particular divinities, each palo is used to cure specific ailments, by invoking the magical powers of their spirit owners (Cabrera 2000:289-564). Among these the one known as palo tengue is claimed by some paleros to be the most powerful of all the sticks used in the altar, able to be used for any end and "a Holy Tree, filled with the power of God" (Cabrera 2000: 509, 547-548).

In northern Peru, the idea that a healer's mesa is also a microcosm of all the energies and forces in the universe that are embodied within it has been well documented in the literature about this tradition (cf Joralemon and Sharon 1993:1-14, Polía 1988: 75-82, Sharon 1978:52-61, Skillman 1990). In addition to the daggers, swords, iron rods and staffs mentioned above, rocks and seashells, pottery from ancient ruins, crystals, animal bones and skins, loadstone, iron magnets, the images of Saints and crucifixes, ropes, rattles, bells and sometimes even human skulls are incorporated into the healer's mesa. These are the artes or power objects that infuse spirit into the healer's mesa from all corners of the cosmos. Like the elements of the palero's altar, the artes of a Peruvian healer's mesa are also used for specific ends, according to the powers of those spirit-forces who enliven them (cf Sharon 1978:61-72, Glass-Coffin 1992:411-430). Some altar objects have "pacts" with ancestors, some with the sea, some with the wind, etc., and they cure in accordance with these pacts. One reason curanderos in northern Peru have so many artifacts on their mesas is because of the belief that they may accumulate power according to the number of objects that have been deposited on the mesa and which they have dominated. Thus, the objects are many and varied and the emphasis on accumulation (of both ritual objects and of power) seems shared by both Peruvian curanderos and paleros (cf. Bettelheim 2001).

But, since the contemporary healing traditions of north-coastal and highland Peru and Cuba were shaped by different local circumstances, the sacred objects infusing local altars with cosmic power would naturally be drawn from the ecological and human contexts of those histories. Therefore, it is very intriguing, and suggestive of at least some history of diffusion, that palo tengue or palo tenque (absent from Soukoup, 1970, Ramírez 1988, and from Martínez de Compañón's account of medicinal plants in use during the 18th Century [1991:vols. 3, 4, 5]), has also been documented as part of the medicine bundle of a northern curandera.

In 1771, María Isidora Asnarán, an Indian woman from the small farming community of Santiago de Cao, about 20 miles north of Trujillo, was accused of having practiced witchcraft and of causing daño against the mayor's wife and of having a pact with the Devil (AAT:1771b). When her goods were embargoed, she was found with several "suspicious" articles including avilla (an herb frequently used as a purgative by northern curanderos whose cases are on file in the Archivo Arzobispal de Trujillo) and "a little stick [palito] called tenque." She was also found with some seeds called simply pepitas de marañon, some seashells [concha perla], a suede crown and a little copper bird pendant. She claimed to have used the herb to cure throat infections and that both the crown and the copper bird were for Nuestra Señora del Rosario. Her responses were deemed unbelievable because of the testimony of others who implicated her in the practice of superstitions.

Although she was not found with many of the items normally associated with the northern healer's mesa, what is interesting about this case is the mention of the palo tenque and Asnarán's apparent devotion to Nuestra Señora del Rosario. According to O'Toole (2001), this particular representation of the Virgin Mary was the one most associated with a confraternity of slave and free blacks and the festivals dedicated to her would be the one place to look for remnants of African religious traditions disguised with a veneer of Christian allegiance. Without knowing more about the origins of Asnarán's fellow devotees, or about her social interactions with the blacks most associated with this confraternity, it is impossible to ascertain how she came to recognize palo tenque, as a valuable element of her healing bundle. But the presence of this palito, in association with these other factors is a tantalizing clue about the presence of Afro-Caribbean beliefs among at least some of northern Peru's Indian healers in the late 18th Century.

Another clue about the influence of Kongo-based traditions like Palo Monte in the northern healer's mesa comes from a tale called "the legend of the mala [evil] mesa," that was recounted to Anne-Marie Hocquenghem by a native of the little town of La Encantada, located near Chulucanas, in the Department of Piura. She describes her informant, named Max Inga, as a campesino (peasant) from Piura whose life was like that of many others. He was one "who learned to sow, irrigate and harvest; to herd animals… and, when necessary, to engage in exchange of coastal and highland products as a muleteer" (Hocquenghem and Inga 1989:9).

According to Inga, the encantos, or charmed hills of the region were the dwelling places of ancient spirits called incas gentiles who appeared to humans with their pots, their beads, their mesas, their ornaments of copper, silver and gold, even their bones until 1925. The tales of this region reflect the powerful draw that indigenous ideals hold for those whose cultural identities are more rooted in the oppression of indigenous laborers than in their African-derived slave counterparts (Hocquenghem and Inga 1983:14).

In one story in the anthology, Inga told Hocquenghem that Marcelino Chiroque Ramos went pot-hunting one day and found a mesa. He found it by a place called Monte Zambo. "It was a pot with a lid but it was sacred [huaca] with many little rocks inside, rocks in the shape of fish that shone." When he called his friends to come see the discovery, one of them carried some of the rocks home with him and put them in his suitcase. At night, the rocks made noises and shone like sparks. The man who had taken them home dried up and died. And Marcelino Chiroque also began to dry-up, but he sought the help of a curandero who told him, "What you have found is a mesa that has been buried. And it is an evil mesa, it is an Incan mesa, it belongs to the gentiles and it's evil." The healer told Chiroque to bring him the rocks so that he could refresh and cool them. And that's what he did. According to Inga,

That was a sacred mesa of the Incas. Because healers have existed since Incan times. Maybe, because the [original] mesa owner was a sorcerer, those rocks even have power today. What I understand is that when you don't refresh those rocks, they begin to suck-dry the people who have them; they need to eat, to absorb something and they take one's humor [life-force], it goes. The curandero refreshes them… and he takes them into his charge. He knows the secrets of these and they remain among his mesa as his tools (Hocquenghem and Inga 1983:87).

As suggested, the story is replete with references to Incan times and even invokes a direct lineage between contemporary healers and their ancient Inca counterparts. But the story that Inga told Hocquenghem about the mesa has more resemblance to the nganga altars of Afro-Caribbean paleros than to the supposedly Andean mesas of "indigenous" curanderos. The fact that the mesa was contained in a cauldron and buried in the ground (the picture accompanying the account shows it buried beneath a tree in the shadow of a great serpent) suggests the morphology of the Afro-Caribbean prendas, which are contained in pots and buried in the earth. The location of the story is also intriguing, considering that the place-name of the area where the enchanted mesa was found was Monte Zambo.

The importance of the monte in both Palo Monte and Peruvian ritual healing traditions

In Palo Monte, there is strong reverence for the spirits of the natural world (cf Bettelheim 2001). Healers also strongly prefer going into the monte instead of performing rituals within the confines of a house or a village (cf Farris Thompson 1993, Bettleheim 2001). These characteristics, as well as the emphasis on secrecy (Cabrera 1983:18-19, Cabrera 1979:152-165) also suggest interesting parallels between the traditions of palo monte and of the Peruvian mesa.

In historical as well as modern times, references to the monte abound in north Peruvian healing rituals. In the 18th Century documents that I reviewed, the monte is always listed as the site of the curandero's idolatries. In the 1730's, for instance, Juan Santos Reyes was accused of taking his patients,

…to a monte, a little more than half a league from the town and entering into the concavity between some rock outcroppings, where he gave them the purgative of the gigantón [San Pedro]…and much tobacco to absorb during the course of the night…." (AHN:1730).

Juan Pablo Arispe, a self-proclaimed sorcerer, also conducted his ceremonies with his "magical instruments" in a desolate cave in the late-night-hours (AAT 1804) as did several defendants from Cascas twenty-years later (AAT 1824). And in 1771, Juan Catacaos (a ganadero or goat-herder by trade), told his examiners that he kept the saddle-bag full of healing implements in the monte because the teacher had taught him the rule that he should always keep it hidden so it wouldn't be discovered (AAT:1771a).

One reason for these constant references to el campo and to el monte, may be that many of the ritual specialists cited in these documents are, by vocation, ganaderos. Juan Catacaos, mentioned above, was a goat-herder and engordadero (one who "fattens up" livestock through grazing them) from Guadalupe. In his confession, Catacaos made explicit reference to the fact that his mesa implements, contained in a saddle-bag that he carried with him through the countryside were the kind of implements that, could only belong to ganaderos like himself (AAT 1771a). And Marcos Marcelo (AAT 1768), of the same profession, notes that, although he was baptized in Ferreñafe, and pertains to that Doctrine, his very profession often keeps him from going to Mass or making Confession for three or four months at a time.

If the emergence of the contemporary Peruvian mesa occurred as ganaderos followed herds through the uninhabited monte, then it makes sense that it was developed by those who shared in both the exigencies of this wandering life-style and the opportunities it provided for practicing "idolatries" in the outback. As suggested above, in the mid to late 18th Century in northern Peru, this would have included blacks and mixed-blood slaves and cimarrones as well as indios forasteros. Of course, in the absence of archival evidence, this assumption is just that, and evidence for the nature of these interactions is lacking. However, in reviewing the idolatries cases on file in the Bishopric of Trujillo, there are tantalizing clues about the ways in which slaves and other castes shared healing traditions and the elements of these. Furthermore, it should be noted, that although the campaigns against idolatries were supposedly directed against only Indians while the Holy Office of the Inquisition focused energies on trying sorcerers of mixed-blood and European descent, by the 18th Century even these distinctions had become blurred, at least in northern Peru. As will be seen below, at least some of the accused "sorcerers" in Bishopric-led campaigns against idolatry were Black (AAT 1752, AAT 1760). Others named in these documents as "defendants" or as potential sorcerers worthy of investigation by the Church were mestizo (AAT 1771a, AAT 1768, AAT 1791, AAT 1804).

Afro-Peruvians and 18th Century Extirpation of Idolatries in Trujillo and Lambayeque:

In the first case, a Congo-born former-slave named Matheo Bazán, was accused of being widely sought-out by Indians and mestizos to heal the sorcery-caused "accidents" from which they suffered. To cure skin-lesions, he made use of cane alcohol, wine, oil, an herb called flor de muerto, one called pichana, and one called la hierba mora which he combined in a large pot and rubbed over the patient's body, untando or "greasing the entire body" with the mixture. When asked by an Indian woman from Huanchaco to provide a remedy to "bring back her husband," he prescribed a similar therapy. When faced with yet another Indian client from Huanchaco who had apparently suffered daño at the hands of her two sisters-in-law, he incorporated a few more herbs to the mixture but the emphasis was still on untando the patient's body with the mixture. In yet another instance, a mestiza woman by the name of María Venancia de Portocarrero sought-out the defendant when a hospital-based cure for her skin lesions had no effect. Suspecting sorcery, she first availed herself of one of his disciples, a Black slave named Francisco, and then, when his cure seemed not to have any beneficial effect, she went to find Matheo. In this case, the cure again included cane alcohol, oil, and wine together with herbs and the fat of a castrated goat. After greasing her body with the combination of these herbs, alcohol, oil and fat, she was reticent to drink the wine mixed with oil that Matheo told her would keep the sorcery from being repeated. So, he rubbed the soles of her feet with a mixture of wine, cane alcohol and native cotton, to keep her safe from future harm.

This emphasis on ungüents as indicative of indigenous idolatries in Colonial Peru was documented by Avendaño, by Murua and by Francisco de Avila (cf Valcárcel n.d.: 52). Corn-flour ungüents, often mixed with animal fats, were particularly mentioned in the context of curing and combating illness. Similarly, the cleansing acts of rubbing a patient with guinea-pigs, rocks, or even rope-whips to both cure and to protect against future acts of sorcery are mentioned frequently in Colonial accounts of indigenous idolatries (cf Valcarcel nd: 51, 57, 62, 122). The kind of cleansing that includes applying ungüents to the body as well as rubbing it with sacred objects combines the idea of cleansing, purification, and food offerings all rolled into one. But, what seems different between the herbal-rubs mentioned in the case against Matheo Bazán and those limpias documented by Arriaga, Murua, Polo de Ondegardo and others is the emphasis on herbs and magical plants rather than other elements as key ingredients. The use of herbal rubs and herbal baths is an integral part of modern Afro-Caribbean religions, and especially those associated with Palo Monte. It may be the precursor to the ritual rubbing with staffs that has become such an important part of limpias on the Peruvian healer's mesa.

In the idolatries cases on file in the Trujillo bishopric, the use of an ungüent to hide the patient from future acts of sorcery while appeasing the spirits and purifying the victim is seen once again in the case brought against Domingo Atuncar and Juan Catacaós in 1771. In this case, Domingo, an indio forastero is originally from Chincha, on the southern coast of Peru but settled in Moche (just south of Trujillo) when he married. Although no details of his life before moving to Moche are noted, it would be very unusual for an indio living in Chincha to not have substantial contact with Blacks, both slave and free. In the idolatries case on file in the Bishopric archives, Atuncar's profession is listed as a chacarero or gardener, a profession which almost certainly also brought him into sustained contact with market-vendors (many of whom were probably Black) near Trujillo. He is accused of having sought-out Juan Catacaos to heal an Indian friend named Don Miguel Chunbe y Guamán who was the church organist in the town of Guamán, near Moche. To this end, he borrowed Chunbe's hat and his undergarments and set off to find Catacaos. Atuncar found Catacaos a league distant from Guadalupe in the hills outside Chepén. After explaining himself, Catacaos took the clothing and, holding it up to the sun, he confirmed that Chunbe was, indeed very sick. He told Atuncar to wait until nightfall when he would return to complete the cure and send him on his way. That evening, he came back to where Atuncar was waiting and took him to the site of a carob tree. Taking out the undergarments, he blew on them three times and told Atuncar to hurry back to Chunbe, without tarrying along the way because he was very sick. To facilitate his return,

He put an ungüent of something with which the witness was unfamiliar on [Atuncar's] face and his whole body. At the same time, he gave him a piece of gigantón [San Pedro cactus] to rub over the sick man, and some powders, half of which he was to give as a drink in wine [at midnight]; and the other half again at six in the morning….

With all this, [Atuncar] returned to Guamán. He told Don Miguel all that had been said and he did what the curandero had instructed. Then, he set-out once again for Guadalupe, with Don Miguel and another Indian woman named Nicolasa….Two days later, they arrived in Guadalupe and got off their mounts at the home of a Black man named Antonio Chala. The witness set-off to find Juan Catacaos, bringing him back to that same house the next night. After greeting Don Miguel, Catacaos was asked by him if he could be cured and he said that he could, but that he would need time….

Later, Juan Catacaos was captured and questioned about his "tools of superstition…[that were found] hidden under a bush called chilco (or chilca) in the same hills in which he was apprehended. He admitted to using these implements to "call upon his Winds, and upon his Mountains absorbing tobacco to do so" (AAT:1771a). When called to his side, these arrived "spinning, in the form of whirlwinds" and remained present with him while he cured the sick, disappearing from his presence when the cure was concluded. Among the items used to call upon the spirits who helped him in his cures was a gourd rattle and several little rocks in his curing bundle of different shapes and sizes that he used to cleanse patients.

As the narrative continues to unfold, it appears that Atuncar also asked Catacaos to help him find some treasure that was buried on the road between Mansiche and Huanchaco and that he spent seven days in the hills with Catacaos to achieve this goal. While in the monte with the healer, Atuncar shared his experiences with some other clients and learned that Antonio Chala (the Black man whose house Catacaos had visited) was the curandero's trusted confidant and messenger. His was the base of operations in Guadalupe to which Catacaos came in from the monte when potential clients arrived to seek-out his services.

This case adds evidence to the supposition that Blacks and Indians interacted on many levels, including as trusted confidants in the healing arts. It is also interesting because of the relationship between Catacaos, a zambo named Joseph Sabaleta, and Marcos Marcelo, another Indian ganadero from Ferreñafe who was tried for idolatries by the Bishopric in 1768. We know from the case against Catacaos that Sabaleta was another of Catacaos's confidants as well as being romantically involved with a married mestiza named Bernarda Florian who was also tried by the Church for the practice of idolatries and superstitions. In fact, Florian claims that it was Sabaleta, with whom she laments having had an "illicit friendship" who first introduced her to Juan Catacaos. Nicknamed the Guerequeque and denounced as a witch to Church authorities by her own daughter, Florian is also among those who denounced Marcos Marcelo in an attempt to ameliorate her own sentence. According to the testimony given by Florian's daughter, Bernarda,

Always took her [the daughter] to the montes to the Indian ganaderos with whom she has always had much correspondence, visiting them frequently by night….Once when she was suffering from lesions on her face, her mother took her by force to the monte to a where an Indian named Marcos Marzelo (alias el Pabito) was tending goats…in order to cure her…and giving her an Herb to drink which he cooked on the spot, and passing some smooth and cold rocks over her face…[while calling] on his winds and declaring to the witness that she was hexed; with that cure her health returned.

Among the artifacts that were seized in a saddle bag when Marcos Marzelo was later captured were,

four pieces of an herb called gigantes [San Pedro]; that was to cure hexes, a little pot for cooking the herb, a gourd for giving the drink, a gourd rattle and a cascabel was for calling on his wind…various rocks of different colors, sizes, and shape that he took from the mountain…in which his wind lived…[and] tobacco that was given to the patient so the herb would take effect.

When asked how he effected his cures, Marzelo admitted cooking the gigantes that is regularly found on hillsides, and after drinking it and giving it to his patients until "they became drunk and surrendered [to the spirit of the plant]" he would,

Whistling, call upon the wind that he possessed, which came down from a mountain called cuculi in the shape and form of a whirlwind and when this came and covered the patient, they would get well, and when the wind didn't come, nor arrive to the patient, it was a sure sign that [they]…were unable to be cured.

When asked what other people he knew who shared the same profession, Marcos Marzelo mentioned, among others, Juan Catacaos and Bernarda Florian. He also mentioned a Joseph (no last name given) who was a drum-maker (tamborilero) in Chepén. One can only wonder if this Joseph is Joseph Sabaleta, the sambo mentioned by Bernarda as the conduit through which she met Juan Catacaos. If this Joseph is one and the same, the case for cultural exchange between African-descended and Indian healers in the northern countryside would be strengthened. Furthermore, since many parallels exist between the curing styles of Catacaos and Marzelo, one can only wonder what Sabaleta's curing bundles and rituals would have looked like had he been captured and tried by the Church.

Conclusions and caveats:

The composition of contemporary mesas can be seen reflected in these 18th Century idolatries cases. Among these parallels are use of the San Pedro cactus (then called hu/achuma or gigantes/gigantón), as well as tobacco mixtures, nasally imbibed, to make the cactus more effective. Similarly, the importance of helping-spirits (which often appear as whirlwinds) as a key component of the healer's power is also seen in contemporary mesas. The use of rocks and crystals–believed to be powerful because of their association with mountain spirits–to cleanse patients and facilitate their cures, are also key components of the modern curandero's ritual paraphernalia and process that have 18th Century referents.

But, there are important elements of the modern mesa that are lacking in these 18th Century documents. Among these are references to the staffs, daggers, and swords that are so frequently associated with contemporary ritual. And then there is the evolution of the term San Pedro itself, which has come to replace the Colonial terms of gigantes and achuma in reference to the cactus that is the catalyst for mesa ceremonies. In the absence of literature that shows the in situ evolution and emergence of these changes, many questions about factors influencing change in mesa rituals must be left open.

Even so, it is intriguing to wonder about the links between the origins of palos on the mesa and use of herbs in ungüents to cleanse and protect. It is also intriguing to think about Afro-Caribbean associations between Ogún or Sarabanda, worshipped by slaves throughout the Americas because of his association with war, and incorporation of swords and elements of ritual combat into contemporary mesa traditions (cf Joralemon and Sharon 1993, Glass-Coffin 1996). Could there be a connection between the appearance of swords and sabers and the emergence of San Pedro as the name given to Trichocereus pachanoi —whose powerful plant spirit makes all healing possible? The fact that mesas incorporating swords and sabers also exist in the montes of Ecuador and Colombia where Afro-Latin and Indian practitioners co-existed also needs further exploration.

In northern Peru, our understanding of historical mesas is limited by the documents that have survived into the present to provide clues about the similarities and differences between those mesas of the 18th Century and those of the present. Only a few such documents have been found to date, and it is not at all clear whether these documents are representative of healers who escaped the circle of influence that led the Church to question them. We might suppose, for example, that Catacaos and Marzelo cured in similar ways because they knew one another. Juan Santos Reyes, the mestizo sorcerer from San Pablo de Cajamarca who was tried by the Inquisition in the 1730's predates these men by more than a generation but shows striking similarities in his curing styles. But, the cases here are still far too few to provide any certainty about which of the elements found on their mesas were typical and which were more idiosyncratic in nature. Similarly, we are simply left to wonder about the influence on either Marzelo or Catacaos's healing traditions of a single mixed-race Black man, named Joseph Sabaleta. If he did share healing styles with these two ganaderos, where and from whom did he learn his trade?

Much more work must be done before any definitive ties can be established between African-derived traditions and late-Colonial mesas. We must know more about the origins of 18th and 19th Century slaves who worked as ritual specialists in the north and about the specific contexts in which they learned and shared their professions. Given the current state of evidence, the task of mapping these relations between specific people living (most likely) in the monte as goat-herders and muleteers may not, in fact, be possible.

One task that can be accomplished along the way, however, is an investigation of the specific economic, social, and cultural histories of places like Santiago de Cao, San Pedro de Lloc, Salas, Guadalupe, Ferreñafe, Huancabamba and other communities that are known today as "centers" of this northern tradition of healing. Many of these communities are the same as those appearing in the 18th Century documents referenced above. Through understanding more about the ganaderos working in these regions as well as their social networks within and between boundaries of class and caste, we will come to have a better understanding of the emergence and evolution of the modern mesa.

If, as I suspect, the areas of the monte where the mesa tradition is said to be most endemic were also areas of sustained social contact between Afro-Peruvians and mestizos during the 18th and 19th Centuries, we may be one step closer to understanding why the northern Peruvian mesa looks so much more like its Caribbean than its Southern Andean counterpart. In the meantime, we will have heeded the advice of the few scholars who have suggested that a more serious look at African contributions to northern healing traditions in Peru is warranted (Millones 2002:71, Frisancho Pineda 1986:16-17). And we will have allowed ourselves to listen to voices too-long silenced from the ethnographic record.

References cited:.

Manuscripts:

AGI:

Archivo General de Indias. Spain (1549) "Residencia tomada a los licenciados Diego Vásquez de Cepeda, Pedro Ortiz de Zárate, Alonso Alvarez y al doctor Lisón de Tejada, del tiempo que fueron oidores de la real Audiencia de Lima, por el lic. Pedro de la Gasca, presidente de dicha Audiencia." Justicia, 451:623, 877-89.


AHN:

Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid. Spain. (1730). Transcription of cargos and capítulos in case brought against Juan Santos Reyes by Lima Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition. Sección de Inquisicion, no. 1647, Doc. 44.

AAT:

Archivos Arzobispales de la Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1752). Autos criminales seguidos contra un negro de la Alameda de Mansiche (Trujillo), por estar engañando a la gente, con supersticiones y hechicerías. Legajo DD, Extirpación de Idolatrías: 8

Archivos Arzobispales de la Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1768). Autos seguidos contra un indio nombrado Marcos Marcelo por el delito de su escandaloso ejercicio de supersticiones y hechicerías (Pueblo Nuevo). Legajo DD, Extirpación de Idolatrías:

Archivos Arzobispales del Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1771a). Autos criminales seguidos contra Domingo Atuncar, indio del pueblo de Moche; don Miguel de Cruz Chumbe Guamán, oriundo del pueblo de este nombre y contra Juan Catacaos, por el delito de practicar la hechicería (Moche). Legajo DD, Extirpación de Idolatrías: 32.

Archivos Arzobispales del Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1771b). Autos crininales seguidos contra María Isidora Asnarán, india del pueblo de Santiago de Cao, por el delito de hechicería. Legajo DD, Extirpación de Idolatrías: 17.

Archivos Arzobispales de la Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1774). Autos seguidos contra Petrona Alegria, por prácticas de hechicería. Lucma. (Pueblo Nuevo). Legajo DD, Extirpación de Idolatrías: 16.

Archivos Arzobispales de la Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1791). Autos seguidos contra el Pbro. Joaquín Casós, Cura de Pisuquia (Chachapoyas), sobre la muerge de Justa Guadalupe, su feligrés, sucedida en circunstancias de haberla castigado con algunos azotes, para que confesase el delito de hechicería. Legajo DD, Extirpación de Idolatrías: 39.

Archivos Arzobispales del Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1804). Autos seguidos contra Juan Pablo Arispe, operario de la Hacienda "Colpa", comprensión de Lucma por prácticas de hechicería. Legajo DD: Extirpación de Idolatrías: 11.

Archivos Arzobispales de la Diocese de Trujillo, P. (1824). Diligencias efectuadas por el Gobernador de Cascas, contra los individuos que se indican, por prácticas de hechicería. Legajo DD, Extirpación de Idolatrías:


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