At the Mountains’ Altar: Anthropology of Religion in an Andean Community

252 Pages·2017·8.097 MB·English

by  Frank Salomon

AT THE MOUNTAINS’ ALTAR
In high-Andean Peru, Rapaz village maintains a temple to mountain beings who
command water and weather. By examining the ritual practices and belief systems
of an Andean community, this book provides students with rich understandings of
unfamiliar religious experiences and delivers theories of religion from the realm of
abstraction. From core field encounters, each chapter guides readers outward in a
different theoretical direction, successively exploring the main paths in the anthro-
pology of religion.
As well as addressing classical approaches in the anthropology of religion to rural
modernity, Salomon engages with newer currents such as cognitive- evolution
models, power-oriented critiques, the ontological reworking of relativism, and the
“new materialism” in the context of a deep-rooted Andean ethos. He reflects on
central questions such as: Why does sacred ritualism seem almost universal? Is it
seated in social power, human psychology, symbolic meanings, or cultural logics?
Are varied theories compatible? Is “religion” still a tenable category in the post-
colonial world?
At the Mountains’ Altar is a valuable resource for students taking courses on the
anthropology of religion, Andean cultures, Latin American ethnography, religious
studies, and indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Frank Salomon is the John V. Murra Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA, and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at
the University of Iowa, USA.

AT THE MOUNTAINS’
ALTAR
Anthropology of Religion in
an Andean Community
Frank Salomon
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2018 Frank Salomon
The right of Frank Salomon to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-03746-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-03750-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-17788-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the
privacy of individuals.
To Alexander Kai Niño, his family and his generation
Great things are done when Men & Mountains meet
This is not done by Jostling in the Street
(William Blake, Notebook, p. 43; 1807–1809?)
CONTENTS
Preface x
Introduction 1
Introducing a village 2
A word with the sophisticates 5
The cultural voltage of researching sacred things 7
About this book: ethnography and Western theories of religiosity 9
An alternative definition of the object: ritual studies and Bell’s fusion engine 12
About this book in context of courses: programs and chapters 15
A note about research and norms 18
Notes 19
References 19
1 A single nest (and some theories about cognitive-evolutionary
foundations of religiosity) 21
Llacuaces, the “Children of Lightning” 22
Glacial lords: the nature and rules of rainfall-based pasturing 28
Motherwoman: the nature and rules of irrigation 30
Chacras: the nature and rules of high-altitude farming 33
A traditional inner cabinet rules herding, farming, and ritual 36
Communal endowments and their rites 37
Gods in mountains, gods everywhere, gods in the brain: is religiosity
an inborn cognitive bias? 38
Gods everywhere, for adaptive evolutionary reasons: religiosity as
authenticator of “prosocial” commitments 41
viii Contents
Reductionism and the retired engineer’s parable 44
Notes 47
References 49
2 A little palace of analogies (and a revised structuralist view
of cultural fundamentals) 52
Astride culture and nature: analogism? 52
A sacred house, but not for saints 57
Works and nights at Kaha Wayi 63
The ritualist as advocate, priest, and hero 68
“Lady Storehouse” and the work of female officers 71
What does a bendelhombre know? “Analogical” erudition and monotheism 78
Notes 80
References 81
3 Children of the mummy Libiac Cancharco (and ideas about
the sacralization of society) 83
The historical context: when Spain set out to rule Andaxes 84
The uncertain antiquity of Kaha Wayi and Pasa Qulqa 86
Extirpators and the assault on Andean ancestor veneration 91
But why must the dead exist forever? A classic sociological view of death 95
The extirpators and the assault on Mama Raywana,
“Mother of Food,” in the 17th century 99
All religions are true: the Durkheimian perspective 101
Kaha Wayi taking a new shape: “little houses” of cult and
the charlatan Quiñones 103
Notes 106
References 108
4 Songs for herds and crops (and thoughts about
religious experience) with Luis Andrade Ciudad 112
Quechua, a vulnerable giant 114
Tinyas (“drum songs”) as poetry for making life flourish 117
Night songs of the animal powers 123
Nonreductionist (or less reductionist) psychological theories of religiosity 137
Directions of Andean experience? 143
Notes 144
References 145
5 Mending their sacred things (and thinking about religion
as symbolism, science, or power) 148
Convening a crew, and Friday night movies in Rapaz 149
Partnering conservation in the sacred precinct 153
Contents ix
A temple as gallery of symbols 156
The symbolic or interpretative direction 159
A temple as source of knowledge, and intellectualist theories of religion 162
A surprise in the ceiling, and theories about religion as disciplines of power 165
At a triple intersection of theories: diverging ideas about
how religion works on and in people 179
Notes 180
References 181
6 A temple by night (and religions as other ontologies) 184
Doubling down on relativism 184
Do Rapacinos disagree among themselves at the ontological level? 189
The old allegiance and the weather 190
Tourism, “doublethink,” and the day/night solution 192
Protestant dissidence and “cosmopolitics” 196
Questions and options in the “ontological turn” 199
Notes 202
References 203
7 The ground trembles (closing thoughts on secularity and
the “material turn”) 205
Secularity/religion on trial 205
“New materialism”: toward an anthropology of all things 208
Post-humanism? 209
Envoi: researchers and religionists 213
Notes 216
References 216
Glossary of non-English and field-specific terms 218
Index 225