House rethatching in an Andean annual cycle: practice, meaning, and contradiction

Abstract

In the Andes, house rethatching is a labor process that creates more than just a new roof: it also produces a ritual imagery that gives form to, and is animated by, a tension between community and domestic life. This tension is expressed through the annual cycle as an opposition between a period of intensive interhousehold cooperation during the growing season and a period of appropriation by individual households during the dry season. House rethatching takes place during the seasonal shift from private appropriation to collective production, and is shaped by both of these opposed moralities, whose intersection and struggle animate the symbolism of the act and provide its practical grounding. On this basis I criticize attempts to reduce practice to a homogeneous set of dispositions through the concept of habitus, and seek to revindicate practice as a source of meaning.

La iglesia de Incahuasi. Notas sobre antropología simétrica, arquitectura e historia en los Andes peruanos septentrionales (Ferreñafe, Lambayeque)

“…Al mismo tiempo, mientras algunas secuencias rituales en los casos de las viviendas familiares se obvian, otras sólo aparecen en el caso de la iglesia 7 . En segundo lugar, el techado de la iglesia contiene un ritual que, como dijimos, no ha sido descrito en el caso de los techados rituales de casas -estudiados en profundidad por Peter Gose (1991) 8 -la «landa», que constituye la segunda expresión del proceso de antropomorfización al que aludíamos a propósito de las columnas entorchadas con rostros tallados en su madera. «Landa» es el nombre dado en toda el área Cañaris al ritual de raigambre prehispánica (tal como lo describiera, por ejemplo, el Inca Garcilaso de la Vega)…”

Comparaison entre la herranza, la « fête de l’eau » et la zafa-casa dans les Andes

“…Dans son analyse des rites relatifs à l'inauguration du foyer conjugal, appelée zafacasa dans les Andes 2 , qinchullay dans la région de Junín et wasichakuy dans la région d'Ayacucho, Peter Gose (1991) souligne l'importance de la maison pour comprendre la culture d'un peuple. Tout comme les deux rites analysés précédemment, ceux de la zafacasa ont un objectif pratique fondamental, qui est la pose d'une toiture sur une maison construite récemment ou la rénovation de la toiture d'une maison déjà terminée.…”

Household Archaeology in the Andes

“…In most cases walls do not enclose groups of cooperating households, regardless of their interdependency. Gose (1991) has discussed how superhousehold affiliations may be seasonal, with a contrast in group unity between periods of cooperative labor actions and the subsequent division of agricultural produce to smaller coresidential groups. Whether relations of cooperation are temporary or not, many variables can affect the spatial organization of large cooperative groups.…”

“…For instance, Allen's (1984Allen's ( , 2002 work in Sonqo, Department of Cuzco, Peruvian central highlands, includes details of house interiors, features, household assemblages, and activities. Allen describes how quotidian activity and occasional celebrations intersect in residential settings, demonstrating that residential spaces may have had different situational uses (see also Bolin 2006;Matos Mendieta 1972;Mayer 2001;Meyerson 1990), with the construction of the house being a ritual affair in itself (e.g., Arnold 1992;Gose 1991;Mayer 1977).…”