Peruvian Traditions
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39. Epistolario, 392.
40. Epistolario, 395. For a detailed account of Palma’s views on the dictionary, see his “Neologismos y americanismos” (1895), a linguistic inquiry included in his Tradiciones peruanas completas, 1377–83. Around the turn of the century, and until his death, he continued to complain bitterly about Spanish intransigence toward Latin America. In 1897, he declared himself in open rebellion against the academy and its dictionary: “When I need to ... create a verb, I create it without the slightest scruple,” Epistolario, 370. For his harshest critique of Spain over these linguistic issues, also see 449–50.
41. In his letter to Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo dated March 17, 1912, Palma details how he came to resign from the library, Epistolario, 100–101.
42. Manuel González Prada, Free Pages and Other Essays (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 50
43. González Prada, 32. Palma, always protective of his reputation, was deeply hurt by these veiled attacks and authored an anonymous self–defense by suggesting that Ricardo Rosell, one of his disciples in the genre of the tradition, had been the target of González Prada’s attack. For more on González Prada, see David Sobrevilla’s “Introduction” to González Prada’s Free Pages and Other Essays, xxiii–lvii.
44. In the years that followed, González Prada was fired and rehired, and Palma accepted a honorary directorship and resigned in protest over González Prada’s second tenure.
45. Oviedo, 146.
46. Oviedo, 170.
47. Compton, 26.
48. The costumbrista sketch is a romantic genre of prose in which national types, landscapes, and settings are evoked.
49. Oviedo, 147.
50. Aníbal González, “Las tradiciones entre la historia y el periodismo,” in Julio Ortega’s anthology of Palma, Tradiciones peruanas (Madrid: Colección Archivos, 1993), 460–61.
51. For a full discussion of “The Magistrate’s Ears” and its original documentary source, see Noel Salomon’s “Comentario” to this tradition in Orígenes del cuento hispanoamericano (Ricardo Palma y sus tradiciones), edited by Angel Flores (Mexico: Premia Editoria, 1982), 107–19.
52. Julio Ortega, “Las Tradiciones peruanas y el proceso cultural del siglo XIX hispanoamericano,” Tradiciones peruanas, 429.
53. For a foundational discussion of how Palma’s writing distances itself from “writerly” techniques and constructs his traditions through an adoption of the trappings of orality, see “Tensión, lenguaje y estructura: las Tradiciones peruanas” by Alberto Escobar, Tradiciones peruanas, 550–51. In the same volume, also see “Las Tradiciones y el proceso de su recepción” by Flor María Rodríguez–Arenas, 490–502.
54. González, 467.
55. For a discussion of Palma’s use of humor, see Roy Tanner’s The Humor of Irony and Satire in the Tradiciones peruanas (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986).
56. González, 464.
57. In “Cháchara,” Palma writes that his traditions are “little stones” that he offers to the nation, Tradiciones peruanas completas, 3; in “Preludio obligado,” he writes: “I gather stones so that another may raise a triumphant arch ... will national history disdain my stones?”, 1457.
58. González Prada, 32.
59. Manuel Gonzalez Prada, Pájinas Libres (Lima: Ediciones PEISIA), 23.
60. Salazar Bondy, 13–14.
61. Jean Descola, Daily Life in Colonial Peru, 1710–1820, trans. Michael Heron (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 254. Also see Palma’s own account of La Perricholi, “Genialidades de la ‘Perricholi,’” Tradiciones peruanas completas, 61621.
62. Mariátegui, 34.
63. Mariátegui, 198.
64. A facsimile of Palma’s letter to Gálvez appears in José Gálvez’s Una Lima que se va (Lima: PTCM, 1947), ix.
65. Gálvez, 133–34; 164.
66. Gálvez, 22.
67. Palma, “Cháchara,” Tradiciones peruanas completas, 3. For other examples of Palma’s critique of romanticism, also see “Carta tónico–biliosa a una amiga” (1874), 1453.
68. For a discussion of the division of nineteenth–century Latin American discourse into separate domains (literature, science, law, etc.) at the end of the century, see Julio Ramos’s Divergent Modernities. Culture and Politics in Nineteenth–Century Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 4178.
69. Tradiciones peruanas completas, 3.
70. Epistolario, 55.
71. Epistolario, 55.
72. “Carta tónico–biliosa a una amiga,” Tradiciones peruanas completas, 1453.
73. Epistolario, 55. For similar allusions to the dead and their revival in his traditions, see Palma’s Tradiciones peruanas completas, specifically “Cháchara,” 3; “Carta tónico–biliosa a una amiga,” 1453; “Preludio obligado,” 1457. Moreover, Palma underlines the idea of the tradition as a transaction with the absent dead when he published some of his final traditions under the titles of Ropa vieja (old clothes) and Ropa apolillada (moth–eaten clothes).
74. “Preludio obligado,” 1457.
75. See Palma’s “Cháchara” and “Preludio obligado,” 3, 1457.
76. Ortega, “Las Tradiciones peruanas y el proceso...,” 430.
77. Epistolario, 334.
78. Ricardo Palma, Tradiciones peruanas (Madrid: Calpe, 1923).
PERUVIAN TRADITIONS
First Series
Palla–Huarcuna
Whither marches the son of the Sun with so great a cortege? Tupac–Yupanqui,1 he who is rich in all the virtues, as the baravicus2 of Cuzco call him, is proceeding in triumph through his vast empire, and wherever he passes unanimous cries of benediction are raised. The people are applauding their sovereign, because he brings them prosperity and good fortune.
Victory has accompanied his valiant army, and the unruly tribe of the Pachis has fallen before him.
Warrior of the red llautu!3 Your body has been bathed in the blood of the enemy, and the people come forth to admire your courage as you pass.
Woman! Abandon your spinning wheel and lead your little ones by the hand so that they may learn from the soldiers of the Inca how to fight for the homeland.
The condor with giant wings, treacherously wounded and no longer possessed of the strength to cross the blue of the sky, has fallen on the highest peak of the Andes, tingeing the snow with its blood. The grand priest, seeing it dying, has said that the ruin of the empire of Manco4 is approaching, and that others will come in pirogues with high sides to impose their religion and their laws upon it.
In vain do you raise your voice in prayer and offer sacrifices, O daughters of the Sun, for the omen will be fulfilled.
You are fortunate, old man, for only the dust of your bones will be trodden underfoot by the stranger, and your eyes will not see the day of humiliation for your kin! Until then, O daughter of Mama–Ocllo,5 bring your sons, that they not forget the bravery of their fathers when the hour of conquest sounds in the life of the homeland.
Beautiful are your hymns, girl of the rosy lips; but in your accent there is the bitterness of the captive.
Perhaps you have left the idol of your heart behind in your native valleys; and today, as you march with your sisters in procession before the golden litter that the curacas6 bear on their shoulders; you must hold back your tears and sing the praises of the conqueror. No, little wood–dove!... Your beloved is near you; for he too is one of the prisoners of the Inca.
Night is beginning to fall upon the mountains, and the royal cortege is stopping in Izcuchaca. Suddenly the alarm is sounded in the camp.
The beautiful captive, the young girl with the necklace of guairuros,7 chosen for the monarch’s seraglio, has been surprised as she fled with her lover, who has died defending her.
Tupac–Yupanqui orders the unfaithful slave girl put to death.
And she listens to the sentence joyfully, because she longs to be reunited with the master of her heart, and because she knows that the earth is not the abode of eternal lo
ve.
And therefore, O traveler! If you wish to know the place where the captive was sacrificed, the place that the inhabitants of Huancayo call Palla–Huarcuna, focus your eyes on the chain of hills, and between Izcuchaca and Huaynanpuquio you will see a rock in the form of an Indian maiden with a necklace at her throat and a turban of feathers on her head. The rock seems to have been sculpted by an artist, and the natives of the region, in their naive superstition, take it to be the evil spirit of their district, and believe that no one who dares pass by Palla–Huarcuna at night will escape being devoured by the phantom of the rock.
1 Tupac-Yupanqui, the eleventh Inca ruler, whose ambitious and successful military campaigns helped consolidate the empire in the fifteenth century.—Ed.
2 Bards.
3 Headband worn by Incas.
4 Manco–Capac founded the Inca dynasty in the twelfth century. According to popular tradition, Manco–Capac was a divine entity that emerged from a sacred cave to disseminate the cult of the sun.—Ed.
5Mama–Ocllo Huaco was the sister of Manco–Capac and the mother of his son, Sinchi Roca, who succeeded him as Inca.—Ed.
6Great nobles.
7Indian currants.
The Christ in Agony
(To Dr. Alcides Destruge)
I
San Francisco de Quito, founded in August, 1534, on the ruins of the ancient capital of the Scyris, is located on the western slope of Mount Pichincha or “mountain that boils,” and today has a population of 70,000.
Mount Pichincha reveals to the curious gaze of the traveler two large craters, which are doubtless the result of its many eruptions. Three notable cones or vents can be seen, known as Rucu–Pichincha or Old Pichincha, Guagua–Pichincha or Young Pichincha, and CundorGuachana or Condors’ Nest. After Sangay, the most active active volcano in the world, which is also in what was once the land of the Scyris, near Riobamba, Rucu–Pichincha is undoubtedly the most terrible volcano in South America. History has passed on to us only the record of its eruptions in 1534, 1539, 1577, 1588, 1660, and 1662. Almost two centuries had gone by without its torrents of lava and violent tremors giving rise to mourning and desolation, and there were many geologists who believed that it was an extinct volcano. But then March 22, 1859, came to give the lie to the high priests of science, for the picturesque city of Quito was very nearly destroyed at that time. Nonetheless, since the principal crater lies to the east, its lava pours forth in the direction of the Emerald deserts, a circumstance that saved the city that was the victim only of the tremors of the giant that serves it as a watch tower. It would be desirable, however, for the greater peace of mind of its habitants, to determine what basis there is in fact for Baron Humboldt’s1 opinion that an area of 6,300 square miles around Quito provides enough inflammable material for a single volcano.
For the sons of the America of new republics, Pichincha stands as a symbol of one of the most heroic pages of the great epic of the revolution. On the slopes of the volcano there took place, on May 24, 1822, the bloody battle that forever assured the independence of Colombia.
May you be blessed, land of the brave, and may the tutelary spirit of the future have in store for you happier hours than those of your present! You offered me hospitable refuge on the shores of the picturesque Guayas in days of exile and misfortune.2A grateful pilgrim ought never to forget the spring that quenched his thirst, the palm tree that afforded him cool shelter and shade, and the welcome oasis where he saw a horizon for his hope open before him.
For that reason I once again take up my pen of a chronicler to save from the dust of oblivion one of your most beautiful traditions, the memory of one of your most illustrious sons, who with the inspired revelations of his paintbrush won the laurels of genius, as Olmedo, another of your sons, won the immortal crown of the poet with his Homeric verses.3
II
I have already said as much: I am about to tell you of a painter, Miguel de Santiago.
The art of painting, which in colonial days was made illustrious by Antonio Salas, Gorívar, Morales, and Rodríguez, is embodied in the magnificent works of our protagonist, who must be considered to be the true master of the Quito school. Like the creations of Rembrandt and the Flemish school, they are distinguished by their attention to light and shadow, by a certain mysterious chiaroscuro, and by the felicitous disposition of groups of figures, just as the Quito school is noted for its vivid color and its naturalness. Do not look to it for artistic refinement, or expect to find accurate draftsmanship in the lines of its Madonnas, but if you are fond of the poetic quality of the blue sky of our valleys, the gentle melancholy of the yaraví4that our Indians sing, accompanied by the sentimental harmonies of the quena,5then look to the works of Rafael Sanas, Cadenas, or Carrillo in our day.
The church of La Merced, in Lima, today displays with pride a painting by Anselmo Yáñez. The Quito style is not seen in all its details, but from the whole it is evident that the artist was strongly motivated by national sentiment.
The people of Quito have a feeling for art. One fact will suffice to prove this. The cloisters of the convent of San Agustín are hung with 14 paintings by Miguel de Santiago, outstanding among which is one of large dimensions entitled La genealogía del santo Obispo de Hipona.6One morning in 1857, a portion of the painting showing a beautiful grouping of figures was stolen. The city was alerted and the entire populace turned out to search. The painting was found and restored to its place. The thief was a foreign art dealer.
But now that we have spoken in passing of the 14 paintings by Santiago preserved in the convent of San Agustín, which are notable for their use of lifelike color and their majestic composition, in particular the one entitled Bautismo,7we shall acquaint the reader with the cause that motivated them. Like most of the biographical information that we are setting down about this great artist, we have taken this episode in his life from a notable article written by the Ecuadorian poet don Juan León Mera.8
A Spanish magistrate commissioned Santiago to paint his portrait. When it was finished, the artist left for a village called Guápulo, setting the painting in the sun to dry and leaving his wife to look after it. The hapless woman could not keep from letting the portrait get dirty, and called on the famous painter Gorívar, a disciple and nephew of Miguel, to repair the damage. On his return Santiago discovered from the joint of one finger that another brush had painted it over. The two culprits confessed.
Our artist was of a temperament more easily roiled than the sea when it is suffering from a stomach ache and cramps. He was enraged at what he believed to be a profanation, set upon Gorívar with the blade of his sword, and sliced off one of his poor wife’s ears. The magistrate appeared and upbraided him for his violent behavior. Without respect for the magistrate’s eminence, Santiago beat him too. He fled and brought charges against the enraged painter, who took refuge in the cell of a friar, and in the 14 months he was in hiding painted the 14 pictures that adorn the cloisters of San Agustín. One of these, the one entitled Milagro del peso de las ceras,9deserves special mention. It is said that one of the figures in it is a self–portrait of Miguel de Santiago.
III
By the time that Miguel de Santiago could freely breathe once again the air of his native city, the asceticism of his century had taken hold of him. One idea obsessed him: to translate to canvas Christ’s supreme agony.
He set about to do this many times, but dissatisfied with his work, he would throw his palate down and destroy the canvas. But not for all this did he lose sight of his idea.
The fever of his inspiration consumed him, and yet his brush refused to obey his powerful intelligence and his stubborn will. But genius finds a way to emerge victorious.
Among the disciples who frequented his study was a young man of striking beauty. Miguel thought he saw in him the model he needed to fully carry out his idea.
He had him undress and placed him on a wooden cross. The position was not at all pleasant or comfortable. Nonetheless, a faint smi
le appeared on the young man’s face.
But the artist was not seeking an expression of satisfaction or indifference, but one of pain and anguish.
“Are you suffering?” he kept asking his disciple.
“No, master,” the young man answered, smiling calmly.
Suddenly Miguel de Santiago, his eyes out of their sockets, his hair standing on end, let out a horrible oath and pierced the young man’s side with a lance.
The youth groaned, and the convulsions of the death agony began to be reflected in his face.
And Miguel de Santiago, in a state of inspired madness and in the delirium of his art, set about copying the mortal anguish and his brush, as swift as thought itself, flew over the smooth canvas.
The dying man strained, cried out, and writhed on the cross, and as the painter copied each one of his convulsions, he exclaimed with mounting enthusiasm:
“Good! Good, master Miguel! Good, very good, master Miguel!”
Finally the great artist untied his victim, saw him lying bloody and lifeless, passed his hand over his forehead as if trying to remember what had happened, and like someone waking from an exhausting nightmare, realized the enormity of his crime, threw down his palette and brushes, and ran out of the studio.
Art had caused him to commit murder!
But his Cristo de la Agonía was finished.
IV
This was Miguel de Santiago’s last painting. His extraordinary merit served as his defense, and after a long trial he was absolved.
The painting was taken to Spain. Does it still exist, or can it have been lost because of the well–known carelessness of that country? We do not know.
Miguel de Santiago, who from the day of his crime for the sake of art suffered from frequent hallucinations, died in November of 1673. His last resting place is at the foot of the altar of San Miguel in the chapel of El Sagrario.