aurora awakes

After seventy-three years, Club Aurora secured its first major honor, the 2008 Clausura Championship. Defeating the favorite Cruceño team Blooming in a penalty shootout in Sucre, 'Celeste' attained victory in the final deciding match. Only a few months ago, however, Club Aurora was floundering and in need of a crucial change. The gamble to appoint the former Bolivian captain Julio Cesar Baldivieso served well. Speaking after his team's upset victory, Baldivieso remarks of the underdog team, "At the outset, no one gave us a prayer, but we've shown that with dedication you can achieve a great many things."

Since inception, Club Aurora has been referred to as El Equipo del Pueblo (the People's Club). In 1935, a dissenting student faction from the American Institute of Cochabamba began formulating plans for an independent soccer club. After being refused permission to compete in a tournament under the institute's name, the teenagers met in Plaza Colon to discuss the new venture. Conversing into the early morning, the group formed a decision as dawn broke over the city. To honor the moment, Aurora was elected as the team name and sky-blue was chosen for the team color.

This November, the youngsters of 1935 finally witnessed their new dawn, triumphant over the Bolivian terrain.

beneficial ancestor

[from alison l. spedding, Coca, Cocaine, and the Bolivian Reality: The Coca Field as a Total Social Fact]

In symbolic terms, then, coca is a woman, and may be interpreted as a female ancestor, counterpart of the achachila (whose name means ‘dear grandfather’) who is invoked at crucial stages in the cultivation of coca.  After the coca has been picked, the process of drying converts it into a beneficial ancestor, parallel to the dried corpses of the ancestors whose cult was so important in the Andes until the extirpation campaigns of the seventeenth century.  The green matu corresponds to the recently dead, the fresh corpse who is said to be ‘hot’ (junt’u) and ‘stinking’ (thuksa).  The matu easily heats up and ferments, and has a penetrating, bitter, and almost nauseating odor…

(It) was used as a ritual offering – the counterpart of the living victims, human and animal, who were offered to (the 'idols').  The matu is stored in the same room of the house where corpses lie in wake, and a person who has matu, like one whose relative has recently died, is obligated to stay home to dry it and cannot go to work.  One young woman said, of her mother and sister who were drying coca, “They’re holding a wake for the dead.”

Once the coca has been dried, however, all anxiety disappears… It has been converted into the beneficial ancestor who is a source of good luck and prosperity… Coca leaf, when chewed, has the ability to protect one from all kinds of malignant spiritual influences, from the witchcraft of one’s neighbors, from the mountain spirits who may attack sleeping travelers, from the kharisiri who extracts from living victims the fat that in Andean thought represents their life force.  It is chewed incessantly in funerals and wakes when one is in the presence of the contaminating and malignant recently dead.  It represents a positive channel between the chewer and protective ancestral forces, and forms part of almost all offerings in Andean religon (whether included in the offering itself, and/or chewed by the participants as part of the rite.)

tawantin suyu

Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es.
Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.

[Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1826]


Evidence suggests that agricultural practices in South America have been present for about 8500 years, beginning with the cultivation of potatoes, chilies, and beans.  Andean cultures eventually domesticated llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs for transportation and food.  By 2000 BCE, agrarian developments established communal settlements and growth of provisions.  The Quechuas and Aymaras occupied present-day Peru and Bolivia, respectively, irrigating the land for the production of quinoa, corn, beans, manioc, sweet potatoes, and squash.  Further advancements arrived as the Incan civilization assimilated the local populations in the 14 and 5th centuries.  The Tawantin suyu, land of the four regions, provided a socialist system of sustenance for 10-15 million people.  With the difficult climate and terrain of the Andes, cultivation required a complex system of terrace farming, irrigation, and drainage.  The Inca also developed manual-powered tools, fertilization, and crop species improvement.  However, it was their development of a 25,000 kilometer road system complete with storehouses that assisted in the fusion and spread of the food culture in the region.

kikirikí

Kikirikí,
estoy aquí,
decía el gallo
Colibrí.

El gallo Colibrí
era pelirrojo,
y era su traje
de hernoso plumaje.

Kikirikí.
levántate campesino,
que ya está el sol
de camino.

-Kikiriki.

levántate labrador,
despierta con alegria,
que viene el dia.

-Kikiriki.

Niños del pueblo
despertad con el ole,
que os esperan en el "cole'.
El pueblo no necesita reloj,
le vale el gallo despertador.

[el gallo despertador, gloria fuertes]

under.cover

Little legs explore the leathery texture of the log's sprouting disguise: the encamped polypores.  (villa tunari, el chapare)

The close.fitting, rounded.crown hat of London's mid.1800s was designed for the heads of mounted gamekeepers.  Low.lying branches and poachers' sticks often damaged the delicate top hats previously worn.  Commissioned by Lock & Co., Thomas and William Bowler presented a durable, felt worker's hat that became the business uniform not only for the working class, but for professionals as well.  The bowler hat’s popularity continued in England until the 1960s when the general hat.wearing culture declined.  Its presence shifted to an alternative fashion, highlighting its symbolism and/or nostalgia.  From machine politicians in the US to Magritte’s surrealist images, the bowler has been worn in movies, comics, and on stage.  Charlie Chaplin, Malcolm McDowell, Liza Minnelli, and John Bonham have all sported the headpiece.

An unlikely culture that continues to revere the daily use of this felt hat can be found in the altiplano regions of Bolivia and Peru.  After the pan-Andean rebellion in the 18th century, the colonial repression of indigenous culture prohibited native adornment.  European styles replaced the local traditions.  The established dress of Aymara women now includes a cardigan, shawl, and full skirt.  It is completed with a “bombin,” a bowler hat that appears too small for the women’s heads.  Arriving to the region in the 1920s, the contemporary derby went on to become the prevalent headpiece for these women.  Rumor states that a shipment error by a Bolivian outfitter (either surplus or size miscalculation) triggered its marketing to women’s wear.  Within ten years, the Italian millinery firm Borsalino was exclusively exporting the adopted style to the region.  Ultimately a factory opened domestic production in La Paz.  The local belief is that the hats increase fertility.

samaranana del jaqui

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night...

[hallowe'en, robert burns]


The migration of two million Celts during the Irish Potato Famine also transmitted the pagan ritual of Samhain to North America.  Originally demarcating the end of the harvest season, the celebration intended to placate the deceased spirits that would return on the 31st of October.  The ancient ritual involved lighting of bonfires, burning bones of slaughtered livestock, and adorning masks.  A skeleton.carved vegetable (usually a turnip or rutabaga) would sit on the windowsill, candlelit, to welcome the deceased and ward off superstitions.  Protection away from the home consisted of costumes as otherworldly creatures to blend in with the roaming spirits.  Children, sprinkled with salt, would venture about, collecting fruit, nuts, and sweets from neighbors for the festival.  These traditions have been adapted and commercialized in the United States to include trick.or.treating, elaborate decorations, costumes, and parties.

The Catholic faith follows the pagan celebration with two religious holidays: All Saints Day and Day of All Souls (Dia de Todos Santos and Dia de Los Santos Difuntos).  Bolivia's festival includes the mixing of indigenous and religious beliefs, with the overlapping of Todos Santos and Jullupacha (rain season).  The feminine cycle of the Aymara calendar coincides with the returning rains and the reflowering of the earth.  The souls also return to reaffirm life and receive food and celebration.  Offerings of bread, pastries, flowers, sugar cane, and chicha are placed on tables as families stand vigil, eating, drinking, chewing coca, and praying.  Bread figurines symbolize the resources in the afterlife including t’antawawas (physical representations of the spirits), biscochuelos, escaleras (stairs), aguilas (eagles), and ajayus (satchels).  Cruces (crosses), coronas (crowns), and pillus embellish tables of prestige.  Guests visit the altars with clean hands, partaking in the deceased’s favorite traditional dishes and saying “alma purakaparux sirptasinani” (we eat in the stomach of the ajayu).  The cultural regard of death, samaranana del jaqui, as a natural phenomenon signifying “rest” allocates a joyous gathering in the Andean world.