La voz reivindicativa de Gamaliel Churata y José María Memet desde la filosofía andina
The vindicating voice of Gamaliel Churata
and José María Memet from the Andean philosophy
Glenda Viñamagua-Quezada
Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Quito, Ecuador
gmvinamagua@espe.edu.ec
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9514-1855
Paúl Puma-Torres
Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
pfpuma@uce.edu.ec
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3932-7196
(Received:
01/09/2020; Accepted: 01/06/2020; Final version received: 15/06/2020)
Suggested
citation: Viñamagua, G., Puma, P. (2020). The
vindicating voice of Gamaliel Churata and José María Memet from the Andean philosophy. Revista
Cátedra, 3(3), 50-67.
Resumen
La literatura reivindicativa es fuente
de pensamiento, resistencia y compromiso con el ser humano y con la sociedad.
Estas características están presentes en las
composiciones poéticas de escritores latinoamericanos que han orientado su
labor hacia la literatura comprometida.
Este estudio ha reunido a las voces de dos representantes de la poesía
latinoamericana: Gamaliel Churata y José María Memet.
Ellos abordan la temática de la reivindicación con respecto a la hegemonía
occidental, así la razón de su obra poética radica en mostrar a quienes han
sido relegados de la sociedad. A partir de esta premisa, el objetivo de este
estudio es exponer las líneas de pensamiento desarrolladas en la producción
literaria de estos dos poetas. La de Churata, configurada desde el indigenismo,
mientras que la de Memet desde la poesía
latinoamericana contemporánea. En ambos momentos históricos se demuestra que el
pensamiento hegemónico no domina el lenguaje del arte, pues este, por sí mismo,
se convierte en un espacio donde se construye la reivindicación, como una
alternativa al sistema impuesto desde occidente. Para la realización de este
estudio se ha empleado el método analítico-sintético y la investigación
documental. Así se aplicarán los preceptos de la filosofía andina desde la
visión de Josef Estermann, en el análisis
interpretativo de los poemas Holocausto
de todo amor para él de Gamaliel Churata y La misión del hombre de José María Memet.
De esta manera se identificarán los rasgos reivindicativos que emergen en
mencionadas composiciones líricas a propósito de los principios de la filosofía
andina.
Palabras clave
Complementariedad,
filosofía andina, poesía latinoamericana, reivindicación, relacionalidad,
valores sociales.
Abstract
Vindictive literature is a source of thought, resistance and commitment
to human beings and society. These characteristics are present in the poetic
compositions of Latin American writers who have oriented their work towards
committed literature. This study has
brought together the voices of two representatives of Latin American poetry:
Gamaliel Churata and José María Memet.
They address the issue of vindication with respect to Western hegemony, so the
reason for their poetic work is to show those who have been relegated from
society. From this premise, the objective of this study is to expose the lines
of thought developed in the literary production of these two poets. Churata's, configured from the indigenism,
while Memet's from the contemporary Latin American
poetry. In both historical moments it is demonstrated that the hegemonic
thought does not dominate the language of the art, since this one, by itself,
becomes a space where the vindication is constructed, as an alternative to the
system imposed from the west. The analytical-synthetic method and documentary
research have been used to carry out this study. Thus, the precepts of Andean
philosophy will be applied from Josef Estermann's
vision, in the interpretative analysis of the poems Holocaust of All Love for
Him by Gamaliel Churata and The Mission of Man by
José María Memet. In this way, the vindictive
features that emerge in the mentioned lyric compositions regarding the
principles of the Andean philosophy will be identified.
Keywords
Complementarity, Andean philosophy, Latin American poetry, vindication,
relationality, social values.
1.
Introduction
The
vindicating voice of social values in Latin American poetry has characterized
this region from the different historical processes that have marked it and
that refer, basically, to cultural imposition through violence. In this way,
the committed literature arises as a form of denunciation before the western hegemony.
This denunciation, that starts from the artistic manifestations, acquires a
collective character when assuming subjects considered as historical
preoccupations and that have ended in social inequality. Thus, Bustamante (2016) assures:
The literary
proposal that favors a vision of the world, despite the fact that it is a
subject (in this case lyric) that enunciates from the singular, also represents
an awareness of the social group with which it is in solidarity since, although
it is an abstraction, when the social class has a similar vision of the world,
that gaze identifies the enunciating voice with the addressee (p. 92).
The
artistic manifestations appeal to the sensibility, to the awakening of the
senses and the emotions that are internalized to become tangible through the
letters. This coating of language encloses a critical stance, "Adorno
proclaims that art cannot simply reflect the social system, but must act within
that reality as an irritant that produces a kind of indirect knowledge"
(Selden, 2000, p. 46). This gives way to a collective awakening, which feels
identified with the enunciation of the poetic voice, since "protest
through poetry is the form to which the lyrical self-resorts in order to create
social consciousness, at least in itself". (Bustamante, 2016, p. 95). This
way of appealing to the reader's sensibility, through content and form, is seen
in a particular way in the record of two Latin American poets, Gamaliel Churata and José María Memet,
who, despite belonging to different historical moments, have in their work the
theme of vindication, which will be analyzed in this study based on the
principles of Andean philosophy.
In this
dimension of analysis lies the importance of this study, since Andean
philosophy is considered as a claiming agent for two reasons. The first one is
because it shows a vision that remains relegated to the western hegemonic
paradigm, since it gives room to aspects that are built through feeling and
integral thought. With respect to these characteristics of the Andean being, Usandizaga (2009) reflects on the vision that Gamaliel Churata manifests in this regard:
Let us bear
in mind that Churata himself explicitly proposes to
take the indigenous and the popular out of the place where he was confined;
then, exploring the result he achieves, without making us fall into the
temptation of blurring the hierarchies, allows us to go beyond the rigid
separations between the hegemonic and the subordinate culture in the Andes (p.
149).
Churata's
literary work manifests itself from the Andean region, as a sort of reversal of
the idea that "in all societies where colonization implied the destruction
of the social structure, the colonized population was stripped of its
intellectual knowledge and its means of expression, whether exteriorized or
objectified" (Quijano, 2007, p. 123). This affirmation would seem to be
reversed in Churata's work, since it beats in it
forms of vindication of a culture that was intended to be annulled. These vindictive factors are rooted in the
use of Quechua in the elaboration of his work, which he intersperses with
Spanish, and in the themes he addresses that are
deeply related to the theme of the indigenous. In Churata's
poetic work, this desire to show what would be catalogued as a form of vindication
of the social causes that survive in South America and that have found a
representative voice within the literary sphere is present.
The second
reason why the Andean vision is considered an agent of advocacy is due to its
principles, which Macas (2010) defines from the
indigenous logic as "the fundamental pillars that determine the process of
constituting a system" (p.188). These four principles (relationality,
reciprocity, complementarity, correspondence) are interrelated with each other
to configure a comprehensive rationality. This article, however, will focus on
two of them: the principle of relationality and that of complementarity, since
they are manifested in a tangible way in both the work of Gamaliel Churata and that of José María Memet.
In order to define these two principles, the following is taken up again by Macas (2010):
Yananti
refers to the principle of complementarity, which manifests the essence of the
bond of opposites; being contradictory, they form the unity, the whole. It is
the constitution of two component elements in one, the conception of the world
of complementary duality. This expresses the indispensability of
complementarity, the adjustment between one and the other to give validity to
an element of reality. Inasmuch as nothing is incomplete, everything is
integral, relational and complementary; from its complexity and from the
dynamics of the principles, harmony and equilibrium are generated (p. 189).
In Gamaliel
Churata's Holocaust of All Love for Him the
principle of relationality is seen in the conception of life and death and with
it the generational cycle. The descendants are not only contemplated from a
space of inheritance. Its deepest bond is related to the emotional, to women
and to food as sources of life or to return to them after passing through
death. In the poem The Mission of a Man by José María Memet,
these principles are manifested in the renewal of the body from breathing and
then from the beating of the heart. This reconstruction of the body has as its
purpose the spirit of the struggle for vindication. The principle of relationality does not refer
exclusively to the reconstruction of a physical body, in the mentioned poem,
because from the Andean vision the vitality of these principles is strengthened
by taking shape through all the elements of the system, among them the human
being. With regard to this principle Macas (2010)
states:
Tinkuy is the principle of relationality, which expresses the substance of the
link between all the components of reality. It speaks to us of the
interrelationship that exists between one and the other elements that
constitute a system. Nothing is disarticulated or detached from the other.
Relationality constitutes a whole fabric; the elements of a reality are
mutually intertwined in order to make possible totality, integrality, life (pp.
187-188).
These
principles show the interrelationship that exists between the elements that
make up a system. By constructing and
deconstructing them, integrating and reintegrating them, one is referred to the
image of the conception of spiral time. This conception unites and comprises
detachments also as a space of bonding and generation. That is to say, one does
not think of dual or separate phenomena but of situations that generate one
another and that give life and motivation to a system.
This
research reflects on the vindication of social values within the poetic field
and its link with the principles of Andean philosophy. It is important to point
out that due to the characteristics of these variables, both have been
relegated from the Western vision, since their reason for being is contrary to
these precepts. In this point lies the importance of this study, since it
places the Andean philosophy as an alternative of claim, which is manifested in
the poems object of this study.
2.
Poetic language and vindication
It is vital
to remember that one of the characteristics of literary language is to question
reality. In such a way that the transmission of the traditional, which leads to
see the daily experiences as normal, is questioned. This, to give way to
different visions, that allow to observe over those ideological impositions and
to experience other realities. One of these realities imposed through ideology
and culture is the hegemonic conception that is inherited from the West through
the concept of race and that is perpetuated through language.
It is at
this point that the function of art opens up through the appropriation of
imposed language for the creation of another possible reality. It is precisely
this appropriation, use and transformation of imposed language that becomes a
strength when building other realities, there lies one of the characteristics
of artistic language.
The value of literature is to embody the
productive energies of society; the writer does not take the world as something
given but recreates it, revealing its authentic nature as an artificially
constructed product. By communicating this sense of productive energy, the
writer, more than just satisfying the consumer appetites of his readers,
awakens identical energies (Eagleton, 2013, p. 121)
Language,
being an artifice, becomes flexible, at the moment of employing it in the
literary task. Fiction creates a new front that allows the telling of new
possible stories, from a given subject. In the case of vindictive poetry, two
points of inflection arise that make it possible to make it concrete: modernity
and capitalism. These two concepts have marked the social relations, which have
been able to maintain rooted until they were understood as something inherent
to humanity, and that allows to perceive as normal the social stratification
that occurs according to the purchasing power and the race, concepts that in
practice fulfill the function of annulling the human being thus, Echeverría (2005) mentions:
What we observe then in modernity really is
that this possibility of revolutionizing identities, of crossbreeding and of
creating new identities, new forms for the human, is repressed, systematically
hindered by the capitalist form of modernity (p. 204).
Western hegemony strives to maintain homogenization, in such a way that
new ways of seeing, manifesting and living are vetoed, in order to impose a
single way of existing, framed from the capitalist logic that comes from
modernity. In this way other forms of life and being in the world are relegated,
which are annulled in function of the supremacy imposed.
This search for homogeneity is questioned from the point of view of
art, due to the excluding bias that configures it and mainly because for art,
and for poetic language, there are no absolute truths. Rather, through the
communicative function proper to artistic languages, different edges are
presented that show other possible realities where there is room for those who
have been excluded or annulled.
In this way, one of the artistic manifestations that has characterized
Latin America arises, due to the particular history of violence and imposition
that has configured its present. To illustrate this understanding of vital and
revolutionary Latin American poetry in itself, with respect to the poetry of
other parallels, Roberto Fernández Retamar relates an
episode he lived through, when he attended the VIII congress of the
International Association of Comparative Literature Budapest, 1976 on "The
contribution of Latin American literature to universal literature in the 20th
century":
The European vanguard
itself, for its part, beyond the ultimately reactionary program of the Italian
futurists, [...] implied, in its most genuine realizations (as seen in the best
of Surrealism), a challenge to "Western" values that could not but
favor such a challenge outside the West, as Mariátegui
understood it early on. ...] One of the most notable achievements of the Latin
American vanguard, in keeping with the very essence of the true avant-garde
born critically in Europe, was its defiant proclamation of non-Western values
in Latin America. This is what Oswald de Andrade did when, in 1928, he launched
his "Anthropophagous Manifesto" [...], which was already mature in
Brazilian modernism. Brazilian anthropophagy proposed, as Antonio Cândido would say, "the devouring of European values,
which had to be destroyed in order to incorporate them into our reality, just
as the cannibalistic Indians devoured their enemies in order to incorporate
their virtue into their own flesh" (Retamar,
1995, pp. 224-225).
The Cuban
thinker Fernández Retamar, agencies his discourse on
Latin American values with the paradox of destruction as a form of rebirth. In
such a way that by devouring the impositions that came from the West, they were
assimilated so that an avant-garde proper to the region, not western or
imposed, would emerge from Latin American thought. Whose purpose would be to
differentiate the realities present in this geography and their affectation
when analyzing them under parameters alien to the environment itself. In
addition, it would be a denunciation to the homogenization that raises the
modernity with artistic productions developed in Latin America and with
subjects that would arise from the own reality and that simultaneously would
work like generators of critical thought to end up in an unavoidable
vindication of the processes that were being developed in these Latin American
societies.
In this
context, literary manifestations, through their use of language, would be a
kind of X-ray of Latin American reality. Through them, one would see in depth
what generates them and at the same time one would work on diverse answers to
understand them, to confront them or to question them. In view of the fact that
this last point would contemplate the historical subjugation to which the West
has subjected the Latin American region.
In this
way, the emergence of committed literature in the Latin American context
becomes visible and at the same time opens a space for vindication, through the
literary work of writers who address the issue of denunciation from their
poetic work. At this point, it becomes necessary to indicate that the theme of
vindication has constituted an articulating axis within the artistic and
literary manifestations, without this meaning that the characteristics of
poetic language have been left aside. Such is the case that neither the thought
that generates these works nor the way to represent it has been limited, but
rather they coexist in the creation of an aesthetic product.
Thus, the
works analyzed in this study: stand out both for the subject matter they
address and for their literary scope. In this regard, Bustamante (2016)
indicates:
Poetry
is a weapon of resistance through language and although it is true that a literary
product cannot change the system of injustices, it does manage, through certain
technical, rhetorical and ideological resources, to communicate, dialogue with
the reader, denounce or question social events (pp. 104- 105).
The role of
literature, besides fulfilling its innate aesthetic function through the use of
language, materializes the thought that has been forged in this region with the
enunciation of the lyrical voice. And in the case of the poetic work of Churata and Memet, this space of
vindication takes shape with the presence of the principles of Andean
philosophy, which are addressed in the compositions analyzed in this study.
3.
Principles of the Andean philosophy as
configurators of social vindication
In this
context we will analyze the poem Holocaust of All Love for Him by Gamaniel Churata and The Mission
of a Man by José María Memet. The selected works have
aspects that allow a comparative study. In these elements, principles of Andean
philosophy are identified that constitute the common thread of these poems and
at the same time form a space for vindication.
It is
necessary to mention that Andean rationality starts from an integrating
principle, so much so that Sobrevilla (2008) states
that "Andean rationality is revealed -as already said before- in the
principle of the relationality of the whole with the whole. Other characteristic features of Andean
rationality are that it is symbolic, affective, and integrating" (p. 234).
The characteristics mentioned by Sobrevilla are
evident in the poems that are the object of this study. Thus, Churata (1931) relates food to a state of affectivity and
recovery of the loved one, in this case a dead child.
I don't want the breast of the imilla anymore,
or her nipple painted with honey,
I don't want his leg or arm for me:
they will be for my wawa that already comes
(II: 1-22)
In Holocaust of All Love for Him, Churata
links emotional and symbolic elements in the desire for the return of a dead
son. Food as a symbol of life, mother's milk as a symbol of rebirth.
In the following chart, the elements of the Andean philosophy present in
the selected poems will be related. In addition, it is necessary to notice the
use of Spanish language to transmit the principles of the Andean philosophy.
Through this transgressive attitude, one of the strategies of vindication
present in the poems under study is outlined.
|
Holocaust of all love for Him Gamaliel Churata |
Analysis dimensions |
One Man's Mission Jose Maria Memet |
|
I lost my wawa one morning, when the tuqus
danced best touched in my singing! I have been shouting loudly at him ever
since, and since then my ears, They are full of water, they are full of wind What are you crying for? The imillas tell me, giving me her breasts enjoying ñuñu I have felt like a million bucks, new! More again I claim it, Scarfing blood through the clouds, on the edge of the morning, in the wind of the water; because this wawa that was gone from my mind
for a little while, no more, was a happy shot from my slingshot, the michujilla
stone, the dominating vigilante who flourished! I don't want the breast of the imilla anymore, or her nipple painted with honey, I don't want his leg or his arm for me: They will be for my wawa who is coming! |
1. Generation and renewal. 2.Claiming through reinvention. 3. Vital processes and vindication |
A man is a man anywhere in the universe if he still breathes. It doesn't matter that you have removed the legs so that it does not walk. It doesn't matter that you have removed the arms so that it does not work. It doesn't matter that you have removed the heart so that it does not sing. None of that matters, because of how much, a man is a man anywhere in the universe if still breathing and if you still breathe must invent some legs, a few arms, a heart,to
fight for the world. |
Table 1.
Poem Holocaust of All Love for Him by Gamaliel Churata
and The Mission of a Man by José María Memet. In the
center are the common elements of both poems, which will be analyzed under the
precepts of Andean Philosophy
According to Table 1, the dimensions of analysis highlighted in this
study address three aspects that are considered significant for understanding
Andean logic in the face of aspects such as the renewal or rebirth, reinvention
and vitality of Andean culture. These dimensions are related to the principles
of the Andean philosophy, which in this case constitute a finding within this
study, thus it is understood this way of seeing the world, as a space of
vindication against the hegemonic culture.
With respect to the principles of Andean philosophy, Josef Estermann (2006) mentions that "These are 'logical'
principles in a non-western sense, that is, principles that express 'Andean
logic' (its rationality suigeneris)" (p. 123).
These principles are: relationality, correspondence, complementarity,
reciprocity. In this study we will address both the principle of correspondence
and that of relationality.
The principle of relationality is understood as a space of communication
between the human being and the cosmos, which "being a network of
unfinished links with the cosmos, allows the rune at all times, consciously or
unconsciously, to have a top-down, left-right relationship with every part of
the universe, and likewise, the universe communicates with everything" (Torres,
2015, p. 11). This way of understanding the relationship of the human being
with his environment, allows an interconnection that provides vitality and
mutual nourishment to all the elements and entities of the environment.
While the principle of correspondence, is linked to "the way the
rune conceives life and relates to its environment. However, in this harmony and balance,
conflict is presented as a mechanism that releases tensions and smoothes out the roughness that is generated in
coexistence". (Torres, 2015, p. 12).
Everything that makes up the universe plays a role; here lies the
importance of balance as the nucleus of coexistence and continuity.
3.1 Generation and death, a space for
rebirth
With
respect to this section, in the three verses with which he begins the poem
Holocaust of All Love for Him, by Churata, and in the
four with which he ends it, we read:
|
Start verses |
End verses |
|
I lost my wawa one morning, when the tuqus danced best touched in my singing! |
¡I lost my wawa one morning, when the tuqus danced best touched in my singing! |
Box 2. Beginning and ending verses of the Poem Holocaust of All the Love for
Him by Gamaliel Churata
In table 2
the opening and closing lines of the poem are confronted, with the purpose of
noting how in the first three lines, the poetic voice tells of the loss of a
child and the pain that comes from this fact. While the verses that end the
poem, while addressing the same theme of loss, are no longer considered as
such, but as a return. Using the composition "ya
viene" gives the poem a feeling of hope for a
new return. Here converge the perception of time from
the indigenous vision where nothing ends, everything is renewed and reborn and
the principle of relationality, where reality is understood as a space of union
of aspects that give life to each other, in the case of this poem this
principle takes shape in the relationship that is established between life and
death, as a new beginning.
In this
regard Estermann (2006) mentions: "The most
important temporal categories are not 'advanced' or 'delayed', nor 'past' and
'future', but 'before' (ñaivpaq/nayra)
and 'after' (qhepa/qhipa).
Time has a qualitative order, according to the density, weight and importance
of an event" (p. 196). It is evident, then, that the conception of time,
which characterizes the Andean worldview, as a set of events that arise without
coming to an end, since there is a constant renewal, which prevents the
conception of death as a definitive and permanent culmination.
In this way,
the sense of inheritance emerges as the continuity of ties that unite
generations by means of aspects such as affections, either by blood ties as it
happens with the genealogical aspect or by affective ties such as food. This
element must be analyzed from the perspective of the origin of life, when the
woman who breastfeeds two generations and allows the return of the death of the
younger one is mentioned. In this way, reference is made to cyclical time and
the principle of relationality is taken up again. In this regard Sobrevilla (2008) states:
The Andean
principle of relationality holds that there can be no unrelated or absolute
entity; and positively expressed: this principle affirms that each entity or
event is immersed in multiple relationships with other entities, events, states
of consciousness, feelings, facts and possibilities (p. 234)
In the
verses cited in Table 2, there is the link between the feminine as the origin
of life, food, in the form of mother's milk and honey with the waiting, the rebirth
of the child that left and the renunciation of life by the parent, so that the
dead child returns. In this way the
generation is renewed and life is preserved as a space of hope. Thus, life and
death are related as a series of elements that generate one another, where the
end is not conceived from the western vision, but as the beginning of new
processes and experiences.
With
respect to the principle of complementarity, and its relationship with Churata's poem, it is necessary to resort to what Guerrero
(2010) states:
A feature of
the Andean wisdoms is that this complementarity is made possible through
symbolic, celebratory and ritual interaction, not epistemically, conceptually,
but symbolically, ritually, corporeally, experientially, existentially, through
the various wefts of meaning that the Rune weaves from its culture, to give
meaning to the totality of its existence within this infinite cosmos (p. 500)
The rituality that the feeding process involves as an act that generates
life is found in the woman, in the image of the imilla
[4 In Quechua and Aymara, Imilla means young woman].
She provides the food generated by her breasts to a father who lost his son,
and he in turn denies this vitality in order to return it to the son, whose
return he longs for.
Why are you crying? I am told by the imillas
giving me her breasts
enjoying ñuñu
I have felt like a million bucks, new!
[…]
I don't want the breast of the imilla anymore,
or her nipple painted with honey,
I don't want his leg or his arm for me:
they will be for my wawa who is coming! (II: 1-22)
Rituality,
through the principle of complementarity links two generations, even though
they no longer share the same space. "The Interlude develops a story, an
encounter between a character and a world beyond life" (Medinaceli, 2020, p.102). Death and life are not separate
but are generated reciprocally through the image of woman and the food that
emanates from her. "The sexual
condition not only 'complements' what is deficient and 'halfway' in itself, but
also 'generates' life and preserves the great life cycles. (Estermann,
2006, p. 226). Through this foundation
of the Andean philosophy, the symbolism of opposites before the resurgence of a
new life is shaped.
The way of
understanding the world based on Andean philosophy is based on aspects that
appeal to sensitivity, affectivity, and feelings, as an integral and inherent
part of the human being. "Andean sensitivity and sensibility do not give
preference to 'seeing', and therefore, cognitive rationality is not primarily
'theoretical' (theorein), but rather
emotional-affective" (Esterman, 2006, p.
113). From these principles, one
understands the symbolism present in Churata's poem,
such as the return to life, which arises from paternal love and from the food
that emanates from the woman's breast. Contrary to the western vision, where
the principles that govern this thought are based on seeing and verifying.
3.2 Claiming through re-invention
Within this context, it can be seen in table 3, how the theme of the
conception of time is addressed in the poem The Mission of a Man by José María Memet. Where the same structure is found that was analyzed
in Churata's poem, since the beginning of the poem is
linked to its final verses. In this case there is a variable that gives the
poem a sense of continuity of ideas, in which a series of possibilities remain
latent, where no end is admitted. This idea is generated by linking the breath
with the source of life, which reconstructs the body to give it meaning.
|
Start verses |
End verses |
|
A man is a man anywhere in the universe if he still breathes. |
and if you still breathe must invent some legs, a few arms, a heart, to fight for the world. |
Box 3. Opening and closing verses of the Poem The Mission of a Man by José María Memet
With
respect to the value of the connection of the human being with his own being
through the senses, the principles of Andean philosophy are reflected, whose
conception orients towards the understanding of the environment through
sensations that come from the interior of the human being. In this space, there
is a link that connects this interior with vital elements of the environment.
It is there where the function of the senses is appealed to, as well as the
breathing or the heartbeat, to establish a means of connection with the
environment that allows the exploration of vital spaces, which are not only
apprehended through vision. Thus, Estermann (2006)
states:
Andean
philosophy emphasizes non-visual faculties in its approach to reality. Touch,
for example, is a privileged sense (just think of religious devotion or
expression of affection), but so are smell and hearing (p. 112)
This latent
relationship between the senses and the approach to reality can well be linked
to the value given to the act of breathing as a generator of life. In this way,
the reconstruction of the being is oriented towards the reinvention of the body
motivated by a desire to reclaim and fight. The interiorization of these
concepts finds a space in the principle of "the relationality of
everything, the network of nexuses and links that is the vital force of
everything that exists. Nothing 'exists' (in a very vital sense) without this
transcendental condition. (Estermann, 2006, p. 110).
We can read this principle in the verses of Memet, when
a link is established between the breath with the resurgence of legs, arms and
heart.
In this
regard, Estermann (2006) states: "The rune/jaqi 'listens' to the earth, the landscape and the sky; it
'feels' reality through its heart" (p. 113). Andean philosophy reverses
the Western logic of approaching or understanding the world through seeing, and
gives way to feeling, thus establishing its relations with the environment and
with its own constitution. Andean logic is based on prioritizing sensations and
understanding internal and external phenomena from the logic of the heart.
Thus, the principles of the Andean Philosophy are constituted, whose space of
enunciation starts from more integrating scopes. In this regard, Guerrero
(2010) mentions:
It is essential
to begin to build a knowledge embodied, because reality is inscribed in the
body and the body speaks; that we learn to look at reality, not only from two
external preceptors that prioritized positivism, as a criterion of truth and
objectivity, the look and the ear; because if we intend to understand the
totality of the sense of reality and existence, it is necessary to incorporate
the totality of the other senses, the totality of the body as possibilities of
knowledge. (pp. 503-504)
In Memet's poem the idea of reinventing the body is based on
its reconstruction from two moments considered key within Andean philosophy:
the breath and the heart. Both appeal to the interior of the being, since their
own nature allows them to move away from the conceptual and visible way of
approaching the world. However, they are then projected outwards, to reflect on
the body's motor functions, aimed at the struggle for the world. In these
spaces a dichotomy converges, while one side leads to Western thought (seeing),
the other refers to Andean thought (feeling).
Thus, the concept is left aside as the main configurator of thought, in
this respect, Orrego (2015) states:
On the other hand, the very category of
"concept" is alien to indigenous thinking, not because it suffers
from the use of terms to express the ideas, mental representations and
experiences of the subject, but because of the logo-centric idea that lies
behind the explanation of the world through the concept (p. 49).
When
priority is given to feeling as a form of communication with the environment,
factors are considered that make the relationship of the human being both
inside and outside dialogical. In this
way, an integral being is noticed that is constructed in both its internal
relationship and its relationship with external elements, thus the principle of
complementarity is understood. In this regard, Guerrero (2010) states:
"Therefore, if everything in the cosmos is articulated, no being, fact,
process, phenomenon, or problem can be looked at in a fragmented way, but
rather in its multiple interrelations, in its profound complexity and
complementarity, in its multi-causality" (p. 501). These multiple
interrelations are read in the poem The Mission of a Man by Memet
(2019) when he mentions in his verses:
1. A man is a man
2. In any part of the universe
3. If you are still breathing
4. It does not matter that you
have
5. removed the legs
6. so that he does not walk.
7. It does not matter that you
have
8. removing the arms
9. so that it does not work.
10. It does not matter that you have
11. heart removed
12. so that it does not sing.
13. None of that matters,
14. inasmuch as,
15. a man is a man
16. anywhere in the universe
17. if still breathing
18. and if you are still breathing
19. you must invent some legs,
20. a few arms, a heart
21 to fight for the world.
(One
Man's Mission, p. 18)
In the
central verses 10, 11 and 12, the poetic voice relates the heart with the song,
which appeals to the feeling, characteristic of the Andean vision, however it
links it with actions that refer to the visible as the word walks, in the sixth
verse or work in the ninth verse. Placing the heart as the central part of the
poem (verse 10) and relating it to the song (verse 12) transmits the idea that
from there the other possibilities that allow tangible action in the human
being are bifurcated.
Half of the
poem constitutes a sort of epicenter of the spiral, the previous verses refer
to an absence of legs (verse 5) that prevent walking (verse 6). While the 8th
verse reports the absence of arms, which prevent work (verse 9). The central
verses, which emulate the human body, with a centrifugal force that orients the
heart indicate that from there a new body will be formed, from the breath
(verse 17). They unite heart, song and breath, intangible actions related to
feeling, to give way to the tangible parts of the body invention of legs (verse
19) appearance of arms (verse 20). Both legs and arms, extremities of the body,
are united to the heart, internal organ, to recover life and find a
functionality that links both seeing and feeling. Thus
in the last verse we read: fight for the world.
The
principle of complementarity takes shape in this poem, when an internal and
central organ of the body is linked to the extremities, to give them a deep
meaning, a new life with a renewed objective: to fight for the world. In order
to contextualize the meaning of the word struggle from the Andean philosophy,
it is necessary to understand it from the meaning of life. In this respect, Estermann (2013) mentions: "I refer to the conception
of 'life' that plays a primordial role when thinking about cosmic coexistence
and the Andean ideal of 'Living Well'. (p. 5) Thus, struggle and life are
related to a harmonic coexistence.
4. Conclusion
In this
context, it must be stated that poetry is a source of thought and resistance to
power. It has the capacity to recognize and dismantle the hegemonic paradigm
that governs nations and is transmitted through ideologies. In Churata's and Memet's poems, a
being displaced from society is described, who takes up again his philosophical
principles to refound himself as an act of resistance
and vindication.
Through poetic language, Andean philosophy
takes shape to describe through relationality and complementarity the web that
is woven between the elements that form a system. In Holocaust of All My Love
for Him, by Gamaliel Churata, the vitality of this
principle is identified in the conception of life and death. These two
manifestations that from the western vision are opposed, have a link of
generation from the Andean philosophy. Both life and death share the same
spaces and their relationship is based on the emergence of vitality in the new
generations, with whom the same values and worldviews will be shared. Then the
pain that causes a death, from the western vision, from the Andean philosophy
becomes hope of a return. In this way, it is considered that one way of
claiming is to retake the cultural heritage from the new generations.
These principles
are present in José María Memet's The Mission of a
Man in the regeneration of a body that disintegrates due to the struggle to
claim its rights. In this process of regeneration there are factors that appeal
to a way of feeling life from the breath and the heart, both spaces have been
relegated from the vision of the West, where priority is given to seeing and
overlapping the tangible. As a counterpart of this thought, the Andean
philosophy offers the possibility of seeing, rebuilding and coming back to life
from two sides: feeling and fighting. These principles of the Andean philosophy
take shape through this poetic construction because they offer the possibility
that the objective of the fight is the balance and the integrality, but not the
subjugation and the overthrow of a cultural heritage.
Although Churata and Memet belong to
different periods and tendencies, they are linked by the perspective of
vindication that directs their feelings and their work towards the excluded
sectors of society. The significance of this study lies in the fact that it
takes a philosophy banished from the Western vision to validate the
denunciation that is manifested through the poetic voice. That is to say, two
forms of manifestation that have been banished from the hegemonic power, such
as the cultural resistance present in poetry and the principles of Andean
philosophy, are recovered one from the other in an effort to vindicate and thus
realize a committed art
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Authors
GLENDA VIÑAMAGUA-QUEZADA Degree in Education Sciences,
Specialization in Literature and Spanish, from the Pontifical Catholic
University of Ecuador, Master's Degree in Art Studies from the Central
University of Ecuador. Graduated from the Master's Degree in Ecuadorian and
Hispano-American Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador.
Currently
he is a professor at the University of the Armed Forces ESPE. He worked at the
University of the Americas, the National Polytechnic School, the UTE University
and the Central University of Ecuador. He wrote for the magazine Anaconda Arte y Cultura, for the magazine
Artes of the newspaper La Hora. She was Style Corrector in Diplomacia
Magazine of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in La Hora Newspaper. She
participated as a jury member in the Literature Category of the "National
System of Competitive Funds for the Arts and Editorial Fund" organized by
the Ministry of Culture.
PAÚL PUMA-TORRES Degree in Education Sciences, Specialization
in Literature and Spanish, from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador,
Master's Degree in Art Studies from the Central University of Ecuador.
Graduated from the Master's Degree in Ecuadorian and Hispano-American
Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador.
Currently
he is a professor at the University of the Armed Forces ESPE. He worked at the
University of the Americas, the National Polytechnic School, the UTE University
and the Central University of Ecuador. He wrote for the magazine Anaconda Arte y Cultura, for the magazine
Artes of the newspaper La Hora. She was Style Corrector in Diplomacia
Magazine of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in La Hora Newspaper. She
participated as a jury member in the Literature Category of the "National
System of Competitive Funds for the Arts and Editorial Fund" organized by
the Ministry of Culture.