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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 August 2012
This article sketches an archeology of the apocryphal myth of Santa Efigenia, the Ethiopian virgin saint celebrated in the southern coastal of valley of Cañete, Peru. The history of Santa Efigenia is used to analyze the invention of popular myths and processions in a rural community in contrast to the cornerstone of popular national religiosity in Peru, the Lord of the Miracles (Señor de los Milagros). The popular worship and diffusion of these devotions and processions intersect with the contested formation of national identity in early and late twentieth century Peru. Moreover, they speak to how traditional and popular forms of religious worship are valued and devalued.
The African diaspora in Peru and the Pacific coast of South America has been difficult to historicize because of the scant cultural evidence for an Afro-Andean nostalgia or separation from an African homeland. The rediscovery and devotion of Santa Efigenia and her emergent popularity in Peru and larger presence in Brazil and Cuba is compelling evidence that Afro-Peruvians have a direct connection with African culture and history and the early religious history of Catholic saints and virgins.
1 Latin inscription on painting. Lozano, Cristóbal, La Apoteosis de Santa Ifigenia, 1763, Capilla de La Quebrada, Cañete, PeruGoogle Scholar.
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5 Feldman, Heidi Carolyn, Black Rhythms of Peru: Reviving African Musical Heritage in the Black Pacific (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.
6 Brown, The Cult of Saints, 20–21.
7 Greer, Alan and Bilinkoff, Jodi, eds., Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, 1500–1800 (New York: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar; Meyers, Kathleen Ann, Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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12 Martín de Porres is one of only a few saints of west African or slave descent, however, this designation is more rare if we take into consideration that most of the canonized martyrs like Saint Augustine of Hippo and Santa Monica (Augustine's mother) are of North African origins. This is true of most African saints, with the exception of St. Moses of Ethiopia and Benedict of Italy, whose father was an African slave.
13 Their confraternity, established by slaves of Angolan descent, was officially sanctioned by the Viceroy Amat in 1766, however, its original founding dates back to 1651. B., Jorge Donayre and Villanueva, Lorenzo, Señor de los Milagros: Padre Nuestro (Lima: Latina S. A., 1987), 16–23Google Scholar.
14 In 1992, Cañete was designated by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism as the Birthplace and Capital of Afro-Peruvian art and culture.
15 Radio Fesa, Radio Imperial, and Radio Estrella del Sur. Municipalidad Provincial de Cañete.
16 Cristóbal Lozano is famous for painting the Viceroy José Antonio Manso de Velasco in 1749 and Viceroy Manuel de Amat y Juniet in 1761. His works focused on the nobility and religious themes, although he also painted some works of a more popular nature. His painting of Santa Efigenia is due to his ties with the Convent of Buenamuerte run by the San Camilo order who owned the La Quebrada hacienda in the eighteenth century. Cárdenas, Ricardo Estabridis, “Cristóbal Lozano, paradigma de la pintura limeña del siglo XVIII,” Patio de Letras 1, no. 1 (2003): 99–120Google Scholar.
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21 Daniel-Rops traces the existence of churches that were hundreds of miles from the origins of the Gospel and does not attribute the success of evangelization strictly to the Apostles but does look towards venerated traditions as indicators of historical missions, one of which is Matthew evangelizaiton of Ethiopia.
Daniel-Rops, Henri, The Church of the Apostles and Martyrs, trans. Butler, Audrey (New York: E. P. Dutton,1960), 104–109Google Scholar.
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23 Ibid, 586. Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Book of Saints of the Ethiopian Church: A Translation of the Ethiopic Synaxarium Made from the Manuscripts Oriental 660 and 661 in the British Museum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928)Google Scholar; Marcus, Harold G., A History of Ethiopia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 7–8Google Scholar.
24 The original work by Jacobus was written around 1271 and translated into English in 1450. The 1483 Caxton translation has emerged as the definitive English translation, although he based his edition on prior English and French translations and not the earlier Latin versions. Voragine, Jacobus de, The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints, trans. Volfour, William Caxton (London: J. M. Dent, 1900)Google Scholar.
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27 Delehaye, S.J., The Work of the Bollandists, 226.
28 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, 150–151.
29 P. Francisco de B. Vizmanos, S.I., Las Virgenes Cristianas de la Iglesa Primitiva (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1959), 33Google Scholar.
30 Brown, Cult of Saints, 50–68.
31 The Black Atlantic is used as a metaphor of ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean and bringing forms of culture back and forth between people of African descent. Gilroy, Paul, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.
32 Ugarte, Ruben Vargas S.J., Historia del Santo Cristo de los Milagros (Lima: H. Vega Centeno, 1957)Google Scholar.
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34 Variedades, (1908): 226–227.
35 Ibid, 226.
36 Ibid.
37 Variedades, (1915): 2753–2755.
38 Ibid.
39 Affluent limeños have always financially supported the procession. Banchero and Rostworowski both point out that las zahumadoras during the colonial era were the favorite slaves of affluent families who sponsored expensive clothes and borrowed jewelry to indirectly promote their own status.
40 “La procesión en la Plaza de Armas—En la calle del correo,” Variedades (1918): 1025–1026Google Scholar.
41 “La procesión que antaño era de la gente del bronce ahora se torna aristocrática,” Variedades 893 (1925): 728Google Scholar.
42 Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Pachacamac, 14–16.
43 Variedades, 893 (1925): 729.
44 Sports commentators on a routine basis refer to soccer players from Chincha as players who are primarily Afro-Peruvian. They are described as talented, lazy, and prone to vices despite many Chinchanos having successful careers abroad. Afro-Peruvian music and dance are routinely performed by non-Afro-Peruvians who are lauded as being the guardians of these form of cultural expressions. Traditional Afro-Peruvian dishes have also become nationalized, even Doña Pepa's turron, a cake prepared during the month of October in honor of the procession of Señor de los Milagros, is prepared and sold by mestizas from the provinces.
45 Archivo del Convento de Buenamuerte, Legajo 1148, folio 1.
46 There was a proposed trainline from the port of Cerro Azul to Cañete in 1866. The line was designed to link the haciendas of Cañete to foster their ability to export their products. The line was never constructed and the concession was declared insolvent in 1867. Unánue, E. Larrabure y, Cañete: Apuntes geográficos, historicos, estadísticos y arqueológicos (Lima: Imprenta del Estado, 1874), 56–57Google Scholar. Swayne owned several sugar haciendas in Cañete until his death in 1898. His heirs and creditors formed the British Sugar Company before selling to Rizo-Patron after the fall of the sugar industry and the conversion to cotton farming. Martin, P. F., Peru of the Twentieth Century, (London: Edward Arnold, 1911), 155–156Google Scholar.
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48 PromPerú was established by the government during this period to promote international and national tourism. One of their successful projects was to recreate the image of Ayacucho from an area known as a center of political violence and terrorism to one of religious celebrations.
49 The following websites contain informational and promotional material, as well as links to related interest sites on municipalities and Afro-Peruvian topics. The official website of the Municipality of Cañete, www.municanete.gob.pe, and one that focuses on Afro-Peruvian culture, http://caneteartenegro.blogspot.com.
50 Asociación del Arte y la Cultura Negra del Perú “Santa Efigenia,” Nota de prensa-Programa y reseña histórica, (Cañete, September 8, 1998)Google Scholar.
51 Ibid.
52 This article and half-page color photograph of an Afro-Peruvian eating grilled cat exemplifies an attempt to reify existing strereotypes of Afro-Peruvians, particularly those living outside urban areas. El Comercio, September 20, 1999.
53 Ibid.
54 Asociación del Arte y la Cultura Negra del Perú “Santa Efigenia,” Programa de la tradicional festividad en honor a nuestra “Santa Efigenia” (Cañete, September 17, 1999)Google Scholar.
55 Oliveira, Anderson José Machado de, Devoção negra: santos, pretos, e catequese no Brasil colonial (Rio de Janeiro: Quartet Editora, 2008), 25–38Google Scholar.
56 Chico Rei was a tribal leader from the Congo who came to Brazil in the eighteenth century. He attracted the notice of Portuguese slave traders for his authority he held over his fellow captives and was given the name of Chico Rei. He worked in the gold mines of Minas Gerais and hid flakes of gold on his body and hair over a period of years that enabled him to buy his freedom. A natural entrepreneur he amassed enough wealth to buy a gold mine of Encardideira in Vila Rica (Ouro Preto). He used the profits from the mine to help slaves to buy their freedom and to sponsor the construction of a church of Santa Efigenia. Appiah, Kwame Athony and Gates, Henry Louis Jr. eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 45Google Scholar.
57 Kiddy, Elizabeth, Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil (University Park: Pennsylvannia State University Press, 2005), 78–79Google Scholar.
58 Ibid.
59 Sweet, David G., “Black Robes and ‘Black Destiny’: Jesuit views of African Slavery in 17th Century Latin America,” Revista de Historia de América 86 (July–December 1978): 87–133Google Scholar.
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