Recreating Andean Identity
02.07.2010
Quechua is the language of the people and integral to their identity and culture.
Columban Fr Paul Prendergast’s pastoral vision for parishes in the southern Andes of Peru is one among many initiatives that are like building blocks in the recovery and re-creation of an Andean culture that was mostly destroyed by the Spanish invasion and colonisation of the Andean region nearly 500 years ago.
Quechua is the first language of most of Paul’s 25,000 parishioners who live in about 100 villages and hamlets scattered over this mountainous region (ranging between 3,500 and 4,500 metres above sea level) in the south of Peru.
He has been doing his best to promote Quechua in the liturgy and catechetical programs in the parishes in which he has worked for over the past 25 years. Even though he has received little support, he believes he is swimming with the current. At one time, he may have been a voice crying in the wilderness, but no longer.
When Jesus of Nazareth saw the need to ensure the continuity of his vision he chose 12 men and spent time preparing them for the mission they would eventually assume. Thousands of institutions around the world have emerged from the vision of one person or a few people.
In recent decades in the predominantly Andean countries of Latin America (Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia) a recovery of Andean identity has been having an increasing impact. Ever more politicians of Andean background have been coming to the fore; Evo Morales, an indigenous politician identified especially with indigenous interests won the presidential election in Bolivia in 2005.
Rural Andeans swarmed to the cities, and did their best to educate their children, many of whom have moved into positions in business and the professions achieving a place in society that they would never have dreamed of 100 years ago, or even less.
Non-government organisations, representatives of indigenous groups, people within the Catholic and other Churches, sectors within national and local government have been promoting the importance of indigenous languages as a significant means to retain and enrich cultural identity.
Teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers and judges who work in this part of the country are expected to master the rudiments of Quechua in order to speak to, or at least understand the locals when they speak their own language. Many local professionals grew up speaking Quechua and don’t forget their roots.
In another region of Peru, civil servants are expected to be able to attend citizens in either Spanish or Quechua. The State Education Department is developing new initiatives for teaching Quechua in schools. Even so, teachers often meet resistance from parents who want their children to learn Spanish in order to get on and have choices in life beyond the back-breaking labour in the fields.
In the parishes of Peru's southern Andes each village has a catechist who is in charge of what happens in the local Catholic community. The catechists co-ordinate with the parish priest and attend monthly meetings to prepare themselves to run the catechetical programs in their home communities.
Over the years Paul has developed a number of texts to help the catechists but he insists that there is still so much to do, in particular for youth and children. I was at his 73rd birthday celebrations and he was telling me how he is looking at new ways of continuing the project he initiated years ago through the development of the Quechua Centre.
Like others with a vision, he wants to form an institute to promote the use of the Quechua language in the Catholic Church of this part of Peru, but his vision is not restricted to the Church. He does not spell out all the details but hopes to become aware of new possibilities as he goes about his missionary work with the people of his parish.
One thing he does want to do is to recover the personal history of the older generation whose way of life is quickly disappearing; better roads, television, the internet and mobile phones have brought the world in all its variety to the hills of the southern Andes. At the same time, he wants to record the myths and legends of the local people.
If young people are cut off from the memory of the way of life of their ancestors, if they have no chance to appreciate the myths and stories that describe the life-meaning framework of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, they will not be able to recover and recreate their cultural heritage in the rapidly changing circumstances of the modern world.
Paul wants to do his best to ensure that the youth of today have the means to live in cultural continuity with their ancestors. At this stage of his life he feels that the best he might be able to do is provide the initial impetus in the hope that others will carry on the task.
Fr Peter Woodruff resides at St Columban's, Essendon.
