Assignment #1: Yawar Fiesta

My friends, you are in for a real treat now.  This baby clocked in at twelve and a half pages, and it's all about the class system of 1930's Peru, as depicted in the novel Yawar Fiesta by José María Arguedas.  I don't know why I'm cackling evilly right now--it's not as if anyone out there is being forced to read this.

Grade: 96%

The Spanish Conquest of South America and the Caribbean of the late 1400's and early 1500's brought with it many serious problems for the native population the conquistadors encountered: destruction of their traditional societies and religions, forcible servitude and enslavement, death through violence or disease. The new hierarchy was clear: Spaniards were on the top, Indians on the bottom. However, this power structure was quickly complicated; as this operation was a military effort, "wives and children did not accompany the Iberian conquerors" (Hillman 1997: 20), which quickly "led to a large mestizo population with many gradations between Indian and white" (Hillman 1997: 20). Those in power tried to strictly regulate the population through a class, or casta, system involving intricate calculations of one's percentage of white, Indian, and later African heritage, leading to descriptive terms such as cholo, mulato, and criollo, all of which were supposed to clearly define one's genetic background, as attested to by physical attributes; however, by "the eighteenth century, phenotype...had less to do with these categories than, for example, occupation and clothing" (Mendoza 2000: 10). With such cultural characteristics now the leading indicators of one's label and thus one's social standing, an intriguing fluidity developed in the rigid casta system: the categories remained fixed, but people were able to move from one category to another and back again, depending on how they changed their appearance and behavior, and on who was labeling them. By the 1930's, when José María Arguedas set his novel Yawar Fiesta, this social system had become so convoluted that not even the people who lived under it could always explain it. Arguedas's novel attempts to clarify some of these complex relationships and expectations as the three major social classes of the town of Puquio, Peru--the mistis, the mestizos, and the Indians--come into conflict over the celebration of a traditional holiday bullfight.

The highest social class in Puquio are the mistis. Unsurprisingly when regarding the casta system, there is some disagreement about what exactly misti means among scholars. According to Zoila Mendoza, the term misti "has been associated with those who hold an advantageous economic and political position over the peasant population" (2000: 15), which refers explicitly to class but not race/ethnicity. She adds that the word "was commonly used to refer to landowners, urban dwellers, and Spanish-speaking people" (2000: 15), a definition which agrees with her previous one except for the crucial addition of the Spanish language, which is an ethnic attribute. In the article about Puquio by Arguedas, he agrees that mistis are people "of Western, or almost Western, culture who traditionally, since colonial times, have dominated the region politically, socially, and economically" (1985: 150). Mendoza and Arguedas agree, then, that the mistis are the leading class in this society. In terms of race, the translator Frances Horning Barraclough notes that "misti means 'white' in Quechua" (1985: 2), but she adds that "by now, naturally, none of [the mistis] is of the pure white race or of pure Western culture" (1985: 2). Although the mistis may have started out as "white," European-born landowners, the term was passed on to their descendants, who were increasingly non-European in their culture and perhaps, also in their racial background. Speaking from a more current perspective, Arguedas categorically states that a "misti is not a white person" (1985: 150) and that they are more properly known as creoles (1985: 150). According to Richard S. Hillman, a creole is the same as a criollo, which refers to "a European born in the Americas" (1997: 6). However, we also learned that "creole" can refer to "an individual who is ethnically and culturally mixed as a result of interaction with others in the Americas," which is sometimes the same as a criollo and sometimes not. Furthermore, Mendoza says that misti is the Quechua form of "mestizo" (2000: 15); "mestizo" according to Hillman refers to the "offspring of Europeans and Indians" (1997: 6); but Arguedas differentiates between mistis and mestizos, saying that to "the mestizos the Indians have given the name 'half-misti'" (1985: 150). It appears that in the novel Yawar Fiesta, Arguedas meant for the term misti to refer to the leading class of the town, whose culture and race/ethnicity is considered the most white, the most European, although by the time of the novel they are not completely white or completely European in any sense.

In Yawar Fiesta, the mistis are "the taxpaying property owners...the leading citizens" (Arguedas 1985: 3) who live along the main street of Girón Bolívar and around its open courtyard, the Plaza de Armas; their wives and daughters are "the showiest, lightest-colored girls" (Arguedas 1985: 4), reiterating their "most white" status. Because the mistis are the authority in town, all of the public and administrative buildings are around the Plaza and on Girón Bolívar as well, including the church, the Subprefect's office, the police headquarters, the Town Hall, the courthouse, and the jail (Arguedas 1985: 4). The mistis live, work, and entertain themselves completely separate from the rest of the town as a mark of their distinction above the other citizens. The mistis are led by the Subprefect, an official who is appointed by the national government.

Lower than the mistis are the mestizos. "Mestizo" is a category that is quite broad, and it can mean different things to different people at different times. According to Mendoza, the term mestizo "literally meant 'mixed blood,' Spanish and Indian" (2000: 13); however, this is not exclusive to people who are "half Spanish" and "half Indian" but rather supposedly includes everyone who is even a little bit of one or the other. Cholo, which also refers to a person of mixed Spanish and Indian background, "would later become a pejorative term associated with low social and ethnic/racial status" (Mendoza 2000: 13). A person might be referred to, insultingly, as a cholo or chola based on such attributes as "language, clothing, economic activity, and music and dance style" (Mendoza 2000: 15); speaking the native (and thus lower-class) language of Quechua instead of Spanish, for example, might qualify one as a cholo in some people's minds. Barraclough adds that cholo is also used as "a derogatory term for mestizos or Indians who have adopted the speech and dress of the Western culture" (1985: viii), used by the upper classes to designate anyone below them who tries to copy the misti ways. In Arguedas's usage, chalo is the same as cholo, being the Indian pronunciation of the word (1985: 3), and both words are used by the Indians to designate the mestizos, although there is no indication that the Indians use the term strictly as an insult. The word "half-misti" is also used to refer to mestizos, although sometimes it seems to be a synonym while other times it has a slightly different shade of meaning.

In the novel, there seem to be three groups of people to whom the term chalo applies. First, there are the "general mestizos" who live "on the lanes that come out onto the misti street" (Arguedas 1985: 8) of Girón Bolívar. They are trapped between the upper and lower classes of the society; their neighborhoods are associated with the nearby Indian ayllus, "whether [the mestizos] like it or not" (Arguedas 1985: 8), instead of with the misti areas, but it is a chalo who is chosen by the Prefect to be the Lieutenant Governor of each of those ayllus. Understandably, the chalos seem to be somewhat confused as to their position in the town; they "sometimes side with the townsmen [i.e., the mistis], sometimes with the Indian communities, according to where their interest lies" (Arguedas 1985: 8). Although some of the "general mestizos" have jobs transporting products such as "cheeses, sheep, and wheat...rum, candles, and soap" (Arguedas 1985: 9) between towns, they still spend their free time at the mistis' businesses, standing "with their backs to the walls so as not to bother anyone" (Arguedas 1985: 8) and observing the mistis' behavior, as by learning the upper classes' mannerisms and drinking habits they could somehow mimic it and in so doing elevate themselves.

Another kind of chalo is the concertado, which Barraclough says refers to "Indians who have left their community and serve in their misti's house all their lives in exchange for food, clothing, and a small annual salary" (1985: ix). Although the concertados may originally come from the Indian community, I would count them as chalos because of their close association with the mistis. I would also include as concertados the chalos who become lackeys for the mistis, even if they aren't paid directly. As Arguedas says, a prominent misti may have "three or four trusty 'chalos,' and he sends them anywhere at all, sometimes just to do him a favor" (1985: 8), such as fetching a forgotten item. The misti treats most chalos as servants to be ordered about, and many chalos eagerly go along with this in order to make themselves more trustworthy and powerful. These people are similar to some of the Indians who remain on the puna, the mountain plains, despite the encroachment of the mistis' ranches. According to Arguedas, instead of moving into town when the mistis take over the best grazing land, some of the Indians choose to sell their animals to the mistis and then "stay on as herdsmen for the boss" (1985: 17). They "declare themselves the orphan children" (Arguedas 1985: 17) of the misti, becoming completely dependent on him and his orders, behaving "[l]ike sick puppies" (Arguedas 1985: 17) instead of joining the Indian communities of Puquio.

The third kind of chalo is that represented by the highlanders who leave Puquio to go to Lima. They work at "the factories, business firms, and new construction projects" (Arguedas 1985: 69) or attend the local university, and as their numbers grow they band together both socially and economically. Having made their own way in the big city, they feel they are more progressive and enlightened than those in Puquio--they "'have already had [their] eyes opened and [their] consciousnesses freed'" (Arguedas 1985: 70). Because of this, they think they have a duty to "'look after the interests of their own provinces...[and] defend their communities from abuses by landowners, authorities, and priests'" (Arguedas 1985: 70); to this end they form the Lucanas Union Center. In Puquio many of these people would be considered Indians; however, they become chalos when they adopt the misti ways and reject their own backgrounds, saying the Indians of Puquio are "'rooted in that dark, fearful, and primitive life'" (Arguedas 1985: 120).

The third main class in Puquio is the native. They are also known as naturales, comuneros, or more commonly, Indians. They are the natives of the area who are now on the bottom rung of society. In the novel there are four main neighborhoods, ayllus, where the natives live: Pichk'achuri, K'ayau, Chaupi, and K'ollana. Each neighborhood has its own irrigation ditch, its own fields, and its own town square. The neighborhoods are run by Chief Staffbearers, one for each ayllu; each Chief has three assistant staffbearers. The neighborhoods are not as organized as a misti neighborhood; the citizens of the ayllu "put up their houses any place that suit[s] them" (Arguedas 1985: 2). Their houses are quite simple, with white walls, only a couple of rooms, perhaps a porch and a corral; the roofs are covered in tiles "made by the K'ollanas and the K'ayaus" (Arguedas 1985: 3). Each house is also marked "with some sign by which they can recognize it from the mountains" (Arguedas 1985: 2). In addition, there is another group of natives who live on the mountain plain of K'oñani, which is part of Don Julián's ranch. Although they work for him, they do not seem to be regarded as concertados. They worship Misitu the wild bull as an auki, a god or spirit.

The tensions created by the casta system are exemplified by the uneasiness with which the three classes coexist in Puquio. In the novel, the mistis first came to the area for the mining in the mountains; even then, the mistis occasionally raided the town for "provisions and women" (Arguedas 1985: 5) or stole "ten or fifteen sheep, four or five scrawny cows" (Arguedas 1985: 10) from the Indians' farms on the puna. The mistis as a whole always assumed they could do these things with impunity because the natives were of the lower class, not deserving of the same respect and consideration. Of course the Indians resented this, but "like the erratic hailstorms, [the mistis] would come to the puna for a little while, do their damage, and go away" (Arguedas 1985: 10). Sometimes these conflicts turned violent, such as when the mistis tried to take more animals than the Indians were willing to part with. Then the native communities would band together to drive the mistis off or attack them. In response, the mistis would seek help from the official government, resulting in "uniformed police...killing old Indians, women, and little children" (Arguedas 1985: 11).

Changes in the economy, however, bring the mistis and Indians into permanent contact with one another. The mistis' mountain mining towns are abandoned when the mines run dry and they turn to Puquio, "a big town, with plenty of Indians for servants" (Arguedas 1985: 6). The mistis do not see the Indians as individuals who have a right to their own land, but rather as laborers conveniently located in a good area. When there is suddenly "a great demand for cattle on the coast" (Arguedas 1985: 11), the mistis move up the puna to claim the land for their own to graze cattle and grow alfalfa on, taking advantage of the fact that in the Indians' culture, the "puna ha[s] no owner" (Arguedas 1985: 10). The Indians use their land communally, so there is nothing to stop the mistis from using the official government to claim ownership of the area. The religious authorities collude in the theft of the Indians' land; the Priest is on hand to tell the natives that they must obey this law of ownership, that "'God in heaven also respects law; law is for everybody the same'" (Arguedas 1985: 13). The law is obviously not the same for everybody, however; it is the same only for those of the same class. The mistis come into the Indians' lives, take what they want, force them into a subordinate position, and justify themselves by saying the Indians are too savage, too simple-minded, to deserve better.

Under this system, in which the Indians have almost everything stacked against them, they still have a strange kind of power and dignity. They are not as unsophisticated as the mistis believe; when they band together they can often intimidate the upper classes or at least frustrate their efforts at domination. For example, when the mistis begin taking the ayllus' fields for themselves, the first neighborhoods plundered with legal backing lose most of their land. By the time the mistis get around to Chaupi and Pichk'achuri, the natives have "learned to defend themselves in lawsuits, buying judges, court clerks, and notaries" (Arguedas 1985: 6). The Indians resort to bribery, but "they put a stop to land-grabbing" (Arguedas 1985: 6) in those ayllus. The Indians also manage to retain the all-important water rights, without which the mistis' crops and cattle will not survive. The mistis are forced to go to the ayllus and, "shivering with cold" (Arguedas 1985: 7), practically beg the Chief Staffbearer for a share of the water. When this becomes too humiliating, the mistis react in their usual manner, by trying to take what they want by force; the staffbearers are carted off "to be shut up in the jail" (Arguedas 1985: 7). The natives know their worth as laborers, however, and in protest they cease their work; then the town "become[s] as still and silent as it is in the darkness of the night" (Arguedas 1985: 7). The mistis, who consider themselves far above manual labor, thus have no one to irrigate their fields, to build their walls, to weed their fields, to repair their roads, to make their house tiles and bricks, or to do any of the hundreds of jobs normally performed by the natives. When the Indians set their minds to it, "[n]ot even bullets, whipcracking, or the pleading of the tayta Vicar [can] make the comuneros leave their ayllus" (Arguedas 1985: 8). Eventually, the mistis must "be the first to humble themselves" (Arguedas 1985: 8), ceding the authority over the water back to the Chief Staffbearers.

The natives' determination and solidarity in the face of the mistis' threats are their greatest strengths. When the mistis confront their newest problem--the government edict forbidding bullfights without a trained bullfighter--they realize they must somehow keep the Indians from discovering their plans; the natives have shown time and again that they are fully capable of organizing themselves to successfully defy the mistis' rules, and the mistis must adapt to this by using tricks and deceptions to stall for time. For example, forty of the leading mistis sign a petition "requesting that the Minister of the Interior's edict not be posted on the street corners" (Arguedas 1985: 86) as the Subprefect had previously ordered, specifically because the "'Indian mob...is liable to run riot if they find out they positively will not be allowed to hold the bullfight in the customary way'" (Arguedas 1985: 86). Perhaps the mistis do not literally think the Indians will turn violent in protest, but given advance warning they could certainly shut the town's economy down. Later, when the mistis decide the trained bullfighter will need a smaller, professional-style bullring, they enlist the aid of the Vicar to trick the Indians into building it for them. The natives have some measure of respect for the Vicar, as a man of religion--a religion which they have supposedly been converted to, even though they also continue to worship their own gods and spirits. In addition, this particular Vicar is technically a chalo: he is a Karwank'a native who was sponsored in the priesthood by a bishop. He shamelessly uses this fact to appeal to the natives, and he reminds them of all the services he's performed on their behalf: "'final consolation...confession...last rites'" (Arguedas 1985: 96). He claims he's been "'[l]ike a little brother...to the ayllus of Puquio'" (Arguedas 1985: 96) and the natives seem to agree. Then he suggests that in fighting the often deadly bullfights the natives are offending God and consorting with the devil; in order to escape this judgment, he says they must modify the format of the fights. No longer will just anyone be allowed to fight the bulls--it must be someone with great skill, as the "'[i]nnocent comuneros...watch from a distance'" (Arguedas 1985: 97). Also, a smaller ring must be built, so the spectators can be close enough to "'see bullfighters' great rage'" (Arguedas 1985: 97). The Vicar lies to the Indians, manipulates their emotions, and abuses his relationship with them in order to help carry out the misti edict. All this he does because he thinks "'the Government's prohibition is holy'" (Arguedas 1985: 45), because it "'protects the natives' lives'" (Arguedas 1985: 45). Although the Vicar at least seems to care about the natives' welfare, he assumes that they are incapable of thinking sensibly themselves and so must be taken care of by the higher classes.

Relations are similarly complex when the chalos are involved. For example, Arguedas describes the concertados as "lost souls" (1985: 24) who are looked down upon by the Indians because they "sold out" their own people in order to curry favor with the mistis. Some end up working against the Indians directly, as overseers for the mistis' ranches; their job includes rounding up animals from the Indians' herds who wander onto their bosses' land. These animals are then claimed as "strays" and kept by the mistis (Arguedas 1985: 15). The unpaid concertados, the mistis' errand-boys, are especially scorned by the Indians; in their view these chalos "follow the prominent citizens around like dogs" (Arguedas 1985: 8). The Indians refer to them as k'anras, which is an extremely insulting term meaning "[d]isgustingly filthy persons" (Arguedas 1985: 8). Other mestizos, however, "become friendly with the Indian communities and speak up for their members" (Arguedas 1985: 9). This type of person "gives [the natives] good advice and defends the ayllus" (Arguedas 1985: 9); an example is Pancho Jiménez, a mestizo store owner. He supports the Indians' right to have their bullfight and decries the hypocrisy of his fellow citizens in saying they dislike the fights. He is also the first to leak the news about the edict to the natives (Arguedas 1985: 41) and ends up in jail multiple times for sticking to his opinions. As Don Julián observes, Jiménez is "'friendly with K'ayau, with Pichk'achuri, and defend[s] them as if they were [his] own children...[he] stick[s] up for that mob of Indians every chance'" (Arguedas 1985: 134) he gets.

The chalos of the Lucanas Union Center in Lima have perhaps the most conflicted relationship with the Indians of their native town. Ironically, they have much the same attitude towards the natives that the mistis have--that they are too unsophisticated to know how to defend themselves, to know what is best for them. The LUC members don't seem to realize that although abuses of power do indeed occur against the Indians, they aren't completely helpless and in fact have quite effective methods of getting their own ways. When the LUC members are requested to hire the professional bullfighter, they aren't horrified that the traditional bullfight is being taken away from their fellow countrymen; instead, they declare that "'[n]ever again shall the Indians die in the Pichk'achuri square to give those pigs [i.e., the mistis] pleasure!'" (Arguedas 1985: 72). The LUC members believe their job is "'to save the Indians from superstition'" (Arguedas 1985: 120). It does not seem to occur to them that the Indians' traditional way of life and belief system might be as valid as the mistis'; they have indeed become chalos, adopting the misti culture as the only correct one. The LUC members quickly gain the ear of the Subprefect when they return to Puquio to see the bullfight and become confident enough with their new position to denounce Don Julián as a "'trashy little landowning exploiter'" (Arguedas 1985: 116) to his face. Don Julián may indeed be a harsh master and no friend to the Indians under his command, but at least he recognizes the hypocrisy of the townsfolk around him. The mistis who are trying to curry favor with the Subprefect themselves are almost frightened by the boldness of the LUC members, who are "looking at the prominent citizens as if they were their equals" (Arguedas 1985: 117). Clearly the idea of a chalo with political power makes the mistis nervous; it upsets the old balance of power. The other mestizos are equally shocked at this turn of events, but also pleased; they wish they could "move forward and embrace...that Indian who had learned Spanish in order to tell the biggest exploitative landowner in Puquio the truth" (Arguedas 1985: 117). In some ways, this is no different from the victory the Indians achieved when they preserved some of their land by using the same legal tricks as the mistis themselves. The Indians also seem pleased with the support of the LUC members, although I don't think they realize that the Center wants to stop their bullfight. When some of the LUC members meet the K'ayau ayllu returning with Misitu the wild bull, member Martínez, an Indian, asks if he can help drag the bull into the town. When the Chief Staffbearer agrees, people can "sense the Indian's [i.e., the Staffbearer's] joy that a mestizo friend, a Lima 'chalo,' would enter the town with the ayllu" (Arguedas 1985: 125). Even though Martínez's parents are still "walking around in the Indian quarters...in tatters" (Arguedas 1985: 117), he is now considered not just a chalo but also a mestizo, because he has so thoroughly adopted the misti ways. However, he is seen as a powerful friend, a success story, not as a concertado who has betrayed his people.

The futility of trying to preserve a racially-based hierarchy when the "colonizers" are mostly men and the homeland is thousands of miles away was apparently lost on the Spanish conquistadors, whose frantic scramble to determine just how far below them, exactly, everyone else was led to the unusably complex casta system; its careful calibration of supposed genetic heritage, calculated down to hundredths of a percentage in some cases (Hillman 1997: 217), would be absurd were its effects not so harmful and long-lasting. The system's gradual change from phenotypic characteristics to cultural ones gave it a certain fluidity; without this change, Indians like Escobar and Martínez could not have advanced to the higher level of chalo and acquired some measure of power and influence among the leading citizens of Puquio. However, in their case, the price of such power and influence was to abandon the cultural heritage they were raised with, to see the Indians' way of life as backwards and unenlightened. These and other conflicts between members of the misti, mestizo, and native social classes are untangled in the novel Yawar Fiesta by José María Arguedas, which shows how something as simple as a minor government edict can upset the balance of power in a society where everyone's position is tenuous, multi-faceted, and subject to change.

References Cited:

Arguedas, José Maria. 1985. Yawar Fiesta. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Hillman, Richard S. 1997. Understanding Contemporary Latin America. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.

Mendoza, Zoila S. 2000. Shaping Society Through Dance: Mestizo Ritual Performance in the Peruvian Andes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.