Download file 186 KB Texto completo en español More of: Juan M. Ossio A.

This essay evaluates the CEP survey on Mapuche identity in the light of common denominators that can be found with the ethnic panorama in Peru. In order to reveal these denominators, the author has principally made use of indigenous Andean groups which, although they may not claim, at a conscious level, to be different in an ethnic sense from other Peruvians, in practice maintain beliefs and behaviour patterns that effectively demonstrate great socio-cultural differences. So as to underline that they are a present and established fact in these peoples, he manages to tie these denominators together in significant groupings in such a way that that each appears complementary to the others.

Starting with a revision of the nature of the social relations that dominate in those communities most representative of this ethnic sector, the author points out the role that reciprocity plays and its relationship with the dualist system of historical tradition. At the same time he pays attention to Messianism and the nature of religious feeling, the development cycle, inter-ethnic relationships, political power and factors that are derived from the magic-religious sphere. With all this information, he then undertakes a valuation of the CEP investigation, making distinctions between questions of descriptive content and those of opinion so as to bring out the viability of each. Straight after this, and with the idea of comparing Mapuche traditionalism with that of the Andean groups, he analyses the contrasts that exist between those who live in rural areas and urban ones so as then to pass on and look at the understanding and practice of certain expressions peculiar to their culture recorded in the survey. Given that in the Andean case, the system of social relationships offers important suggestions for the understanding of recreating identity, the author places special emphasis on the questions in the investigation that have to do with matrimony, residence, kinship and migration. Finally he makes an attempt to find common tendencies between the articles of Mascareño and those of Irarrazaval and Morande, which place different emphases on their analyses of the investigation.