Warmi Pacha Kuti: Wañuchiy Machismo! (Down with Sexism)

When I first arrived in Cochabamba, I met members of a singing group called Warmi Pacha Kuti and later travelled with them to commemorate Andean new year. The group has 18 members, all of whom are female and they sing traditional Andean music (Música Autóctona). There are only 6 traditional Andean music groups in Cochabamba and theirs is the only all womyn group. So I decided to interview one of the members Alejandra, an indigenous womyn born outside of Cochabamba.

According to her, the presence of an all womyn's group in the city is important because other traditional music groups are notorious for their exclusion of indigenous womyn. A few of the groups prohibit female members from playing instruments and only allow them to participate as dancers. Other groups seek to "compromise" by allowing womyn to play instruments provided they wear male clothing in their performance. Here womyn must pass as men to be legitimate performance artists. Alejandra claims that some womyn have been publicly insulted by their male counterparts during performances and it is very hard for indigenous womyn to partcipate in much of Andean performance art. She argues however, that is not the indigenous male elders who discrimnate against female artists but it is mostly the young, newly-arrived sons of migrants who currently run the music groups. Hence, the Warmis as a performance group signify an intervention in predominantly masculinist performance practices and has created a space for womyn to participate equally and fully in preserving Andean traditional music and culture in Cochabamba.

The groups political stance on gender politics is most apparent in its Quechua name Warmi Pacha Kuti. Warmi means woman, Pacha means [mother] earth and Kuti means return. Pacha Kuti literally means the return of the earth but it can also be interpreted in other ways. Pacha Kuti is the name of the 9th Incan King often referred to as the "Napoleon of the Andes". Under his rule, the Incas expanded and conquered all across Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile forming the Great Incan Empire called Tawantinsuyu (the four provinces). It is believed that Machu Pichu was built as an estate for him and he was the father of the great Incan warrier Tupac Yupanqui. He is a pivitol figure in Andean mythology which claims that many of the ancient Inca leaders will return to help indigenous peoples fight against and overcome their oppressors. The group named itself Warmi Pacha Kuti to engage not only the forthcoming return of ancient leaders but also to ultimately engage Andean liberation practices themselves from a womyn's perspective. While some of the members do not necessarily identify as feminists, they all share the group's fundamental philosophy that each of its members is an individual with equal rights to participate and share in Andean cultural practices as women. There are no leaders in the group and 2 of its members are foreigners from Spain and the U.S. Alejandra says that they allow non-Bolivians to participate because they believe that all womyn are children of the Pacha Mama (mother earth). Therefore, it is crucial to create alliances across race and nationality, and to act in solidarity with womyn from different backgrounds. This encourages them to find commonalities in their experiences as women emerging from different historical and contemporary contexts and ultimately ensures that their political vision against oppression arises out of a diversity of perspectives and opinions.

Of particular interest is the fact that within the group, some womyn do not identify as indigenous even if they have indigenous physiological features and speak Quechua. According to Alejandra, there is a split among many people living in the Andes as to whether to identify as indigenous or not. For some, if you live in the countryside (el campo), and speak Quechua then only then you can identify as indigenous. For others, if you are Quechua-speaking but live in the city then you identify as an "indígena urbanizado/a" (Urbanised indigenous people). This distinction is important and forms part of a debate surrounding the definition of indigeneity in a school of thought called "indianitud". Indianitud thinks through indigeneity by engaging in questions such as "how do we name ourselves--are we indios or indígenas?", "what does our liberation entail or look like?", "what is our relationship to Pacha Mama (the earth) and modernisation?" etc. Amidst this ongoing debate, I therefore cannot say that all the Bolivian members of Warmi Pacha Kuti are indigenous even though, my initial reaction upon seeing them perform was to assume that they would all identify as such.

Labels and definitions aside, the group performs at several cultural events and local bars and I've posted a brief video of their performance at Andean New Year below. After three years of existence, they are fairly well-known and respected by other Andean music groups. So cheers to their shout in Quechua to audience members during their performances "Wañuchiy Machismo!" (Down with Sexism) to which we all respond "JALLALLA!"