Etnias del Norte: Etnohistoria e historia de Ecuador

Abstract

In Etnias del Norte, Chantal Caillavet gathers together, in one place, a lifetime of work on the northern Andes. The book’s chapters were previously published as articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings, but for the purposes of this project she has expanded and updated them. Most essays are devoted to the prehispanic and colonial history of northern Ecuador in general and Otavalo in particu lar, although Caillavet diverges to works on southern Ecuador on two occasions. In one essay she identifies the prehispanic ethnic groups of the area around Loja. In the other she describes the economic history of this region, especially its mining enterprises, and how they were funded principally by the now familiar censo system operated by the town’s convent.Part 1 includes ten essays on the prehispanic ethnicity, location, and ecological territory of Otavalo; the inner workings of the multiethnic salt colony at Las Salinas; and wide-ranging trade routes, prehispanic agricultural forms, and the probability of ritual cannibalism in northern Ecuador. Part 2 is devoted, in large part, to the production and transformation of traditional textiles as they were integrated into the colonial economy. In part 3, Caillavet focuses on a more cultural type of historical anthropology: racial categories and their manipulation by common people, the importance of “spectacle” for the indoctrination of indigenous peoples and the maintenance of colonial order; hairstyling as a signifier of power and sexuality among Indian men; reading the iconography of paintings given as votive offerings to Marianist shrines as “texts,” and analyzing the religious syncretism implicit in them; the metamorphosis of Corpus Christi and other rituals of aggression; and finally the location and prehispanic significance of Otavalo’s sacred landscape.In part four, Caillavet contextualizes and transcribes four documents, most of which have never been published before: the “Relacion de Oymbicho y Amaguana” and three last wills and testaments of indigenous elites.One of the most impressive aspects of Chantal Caillavet’s work is the use of wide-ranging and often tedious methodologies to attempt to answer challenging questions, especially about the preincaic past. Through the joint application of archival data, field work, archaeology, toponymy, and oral histories, she presents some interesting life scenarios (although she often presents them as facts). These are dangerous waters into which few researchers would choose to tread. Indeed, the author seems unimpeded by current debates among postmodernist scholars in Latin American studies. The latter claim that we cannot know anything about the prehispanic past, because most data is colonial in nature and therefore offers up rather skewed conclusions. This leads to the charge that many cultural forms that we once thought were prehispanic either are, or could be, colonial constructions. Although the critique merits careful consideration, Caillavet’s use of multiple methods allows her to produce a history of possibilities. Many in the field would not find this satisfying, while others would prefer to search for answers, no matter how tentative, than to abandon the quest.Caillavet, in an exemplary use of her methodological arsenal, attempts to prove that Otavalo was an ethnic group, and that it had constructed a sacred landscape with a religious nucleus, carefully built in the center of several natural land scape features—two volcanos, Imbabura and Cotacachi, and the Lake of San Pablo. The latter served as prehispanic divinities and continue to be worshiped in less formal ways today. Caillavet spends a great deal of intellectual and methodological energy trying to piece all of this together. In spite of the care with which she tends to these analyses, however, they are not totally convincing. No doubt, there are many Ecuadorianists who would strongly disagree with her, but her conclusions should be honored as good possibilities, rather than glibly cast aside as fiction.Caillavet is at her best in part 2, chapter 3, where she traces the transformation of the north’s prehispanic textile industry into a colonial enterprise, using many indigenous forms of production and trade. This chapter is especially notable for its treatment of gender roles in textile production, and its recognition of the importance of women’s work, both for tribute payment and even for state contracts involving cotton production intended for the sails and ropes of the Spanish Armada.Although Caillavet’s work is always carefully and abundantly documented, her bibliographic updates are often not fully integrated into the text, and they never seem to change any of her conclusions. In part 1, chapter 2, for example, she states at the beginning that scholars have always made a sharp distinction between highlands and lowlands when choosing their research topics (pp. 43– 44). Later, she contradicts herself by adding both old and new bibliographic citations proving that much research has occurred linking sierra and lowlands (Udo Oberem, Thierry Saignes and Ann Taylor, Frank Salomon, and Karen Vieira Powers, just to mention a few). Since half of these 20 essays were originally written in the 1980s, it seems that more serious attention to new materials would be in order. Etnias del Norte is also sometimes a difficult book to read. Some of the essays are overelaborated and include many alternate interpretations in the text that would be better placed in footnotes.Putting these few problems aside, it is a delight to have much of Chantal Caillavet’s work in a single volume, especially since so many of these essays originally appeared in venues that were not easily accessible. She also includes many important illustrations, maps, and figures that this reviewer has never seen before (photographs of colonial paintings as votive offerings, for example). Her work will prove indispensable to scholars of preincaic, prehispanic, and colonial Ecuador. It will also be of interest to Andeanists of other areas, and many Ecuadorians who simply wish to know more about the north.

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