Community and the Contours of Empire: The Hacienda System in the Northern Highlands of Ecuador
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Community and the Contours of Empire: The Hacienda System in the Northern Highlands of Ecuador Zev A. Cossin 1,2 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Relationships between humans and material goods are key in the emergences of social identity and status under imperial projects. I argue that a critical focus on the concept of Bcommunity^ provides a salient frame by which to assess status and identity and that everyday materiality is a key mechanism by which such collective forms of identity are forged. I draw on historical documents, oral histories, and archaeological evidence of a late nineteenth-century indigenous hacienda laborer household from Hacienda Guachalá, highlands of Ecuador, and show that status and identity may be generated through what you do rather than what you own. Keywords Community . Materiality . Hacienda system . Household . Huasipungo .
Ecuador
Celebrating Things The third consecutive day of celebrations in the otherwise quiet parish of Cangahua, Ecuador brought another stream of highland communities singing, dancing and drinking from their homes in different parts of the mountains all the way down to the parish political center. On this day in late June, 2017, as they have year after year, the groups came dressed in outfits typical of their communities and the annual San Pedro fiesta. This was the third taking of the plaza (Bgran toma de la plaza^) and the celebrations would continue all night, all weekend, and over the next several weeks. Following the winding paths between rural homes and agricultural fields, the participants traced routes across the landscape with a common destination: the Cangahua town plaza. Some descended with the beat of their Andean instruments while others trailed behind
* Zev A. Cossin [email protected]
1
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
2
Washington DC, USA
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
trucks that were mounted with a tower of speakers blaring the tunes of traditional coplas. The events took on the form of a procession, each community representing itself with their name on large signs, through dress, musical lyrics, material props and some with presentations similar to parade Bfloats.^ Throughout the festivities everyday material objects stood out as important figures. One pickup truck was lavishly decorated with stalks of plants grown locally, including maize, potatoes, onions, and other herbs and medicinal plants (Fig. 1). On the truck bed of this Bfloat^ an older woman was hard at work grinding corn grains on a large, stone mortar. Next to her sat a medium sized ceramic jar, glazed on the inside but plain and unelaborate on the exterior and typical of jars used in the area until recently. The vessel, grains and woman formed an assemblage evocative of local social identity and wellbeing. Another group of participants, dressed in white and red colors typical of the area historically, danced and sang toward the plaza. Each brandished oversiz
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