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This study explores the symbolic value attributed by Indigenous inhabitants to their dwellings and how the physical structure of the home serves to align domestic activities with meanings related to their ancestral culture. To achieve this objective, we focused on the Peruvian Andes, specifically on Coporaque, an Indigenous village founded in the 16th century during colonial times. In this locality, qualitative research was carried out using the phenomenological approach, prioritizing the lived experience of the native inhabitants in their daily "life world" through in-depth interviews and direct observations. Our results broaden understanding of the Andean vernacular dwelling, making visible the ways in which the "Wasi" becomes a stage for the symbolic occurrence of domesticity. The results reveal several significant narratives on domesticity that support and give coherence to the life of these Indigenous communities, coinciding with the symbolic value that other cultures have attributed to dwellings. The study was able to conclude on the Indigenous house's function in sustaining regional identities and how its physical structure is embodied in the inhabitants until it becomes one of the last bastions of resistance against the homogenizing pressure that the globalized world tries to exert on native peoples.
Received 30 January 2024; received in revised form 23 June 2024; accepted 9 July 2024
Abstract This study explores the symbolic value attributed by Indigenous inhabitants to their dwellings and how the physical structure of the home serves to align domestic activities with meanings related to their ancestral culture. To achieve this objective, we focused on the Peruvian Andes, specifically on Coporaque, an Indigenous village founded in the 16th century during colonial times. In this locality, qualitative research was carried out using the phenomenological approach, prioritizing the lived experience of the native inhabitants in their daily "life world" through in-depth interviews and direct observations. Our results broaden understanding of the Andean vernacular dwelling, making visible the ways in which the "Wasi" becomes a stage for the symbolic occurrence of domesticity. The results reveal several significant narratives on domesticity that support and give coherence to the life of these Indigenous communities, coinciding with the symbolic value that other cultures have attributed to dwellings. The study was able to conclude on the Indigenous house's function in sustaining regional identities and how its physical structure is embodied in the inhabitants until it becomes one of the last bastions of resistance against the homogenizing pressure that the globalized world tries to exert on native peoples.
KEYWORDS
Vernacular housing;
Inhabit;
Architectural symbolism;
Narratives of domesticity;
Peruvian Andes;
Indigenous communities
1. Introduction
Beyond its merely utilitarian function, architecture has always been a reflection of the values and symbolisms that sustain and give coherence to the lives of those who inhabit human-made spaces. In the current academic world, a debate prevails on the rare capacity of contemporary constructions to propitiate meanings and experiences that transcend their practical utility (Gieseking et al., 2014; Goldberger, 2023; Holl et al., 2006; Pallasmaa, 2014; PerezGomez, 2008). Against this background, houses built by Indigenous communities in rural contexts, included within what is called vernacular architecture, are beginning to be valued not only for their material reality but also for their ability to preserve and promote uses and dynamics with a high content of symbolism and existentialism. Although the valuation of vernacular architecture dates back to the 19th century, approaches to it have evolved from simply cataloging the structures as historical objects, originating in the bane of Western architecture (Laugier, 1755; Ruskin, 2015; Semper, 2011; Thiis-Evensen, 1987), to recognizing it as a paradigm of the correct use of local materials with ancestral techniques highly coherent with geographical context (Crysler et al., 2012; Moore, 2019; Oliver, 2006).
The Colca Valley, located in the Peruvian Andes (Fig. 1), has long been home to several native communities known as ayllu, mostly belonging to the Cabanas and Collaguas ethnic groups (Pease and Robinson, 2012). Upon the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, these origin inhabitants, spread out through the land, were concentrated in urban organizations conceived by Westerners and called "reducciones" or "pueblos de indios" (Saito and Rosas Lauro, 2017; Viñuales and Gutiérrez, 2014) (Fig. 2), generating a breakdown in the pre-Hispanic territorial model. However, despite the subjugation exercised by the Spanish during colonial times and by hegemonic layers of power during the republic, native communities have managed to preserve many of their original identity traits, especially through domesticity in their homes, which they call "Wasi".
During the last decades of the 20th century, a group of Latin American scholars warned of the need to look at local architectural production without the prejudice of feeling peripheral to Europe or the United States (Gutiérrez, 2002). This gave rise to meetings and seminars (SAL: Seminarios de Arquitectura Latinoamericana) (Pino and Carrion, 2022) with the aim of focusing on the architectural production of past centuries, so often undermined, and thinking of architecture appropriate for the future (Fernandez Cox, 1989; Malecki, 2021). This new current has decisively influenced both the academic and administrative spheres of its member countries to attempt inward-looking architectural perspectives.
We note, therefore, that although there is a growing interest in Andean vernacular architecture and academic publications on this subject are increasingly numerous, there are still few publications that take into consideration the opinion of the native inhabitants who live in them and who bestow upon them a little-known symbolic value. Looking for depth in these concepts, we concentrated on one of the most representative villages, a place that has not yet been taken over by mass tourism. We are referring to Coporaque, a village located at 3583 m above sea level and 8 km from Chivay, the capital of the province. Coporaque village is still inhabited by the descendants of those pre-Hispanic ethnic groups that were grouped together by the Spaniards. Historians agree that Coporaque is where there was the greatest fusion of Indigenous ethnic groups (Cook, 2022; Doutriaux, 2002; Gutiérrez et al., 1986; Pease and Robinson, 2012) and in the conservation of their Indigenous cultural traits today (Rios-Vizcarra et al., 2023).
We adopted a phenomenological approach, using indepth interviews and in situ observation through periods of coexistence in the residents' own homes or "Wasi". This focus allowed us to capture the richness of personal experience and how this is intertwined with the inhabited space, providing us with a comprehensive view of the interaction between vernacular architecture and everyday practices.
This article seeks first to understand the Andean house or "Wasi" from an Indigenous perspective, revealing the need to point out how it differs from a Western home or dwelling. Second, our methodology is explained and our results are presented by classifying the emerging themes, thereby fulfilling the objective of revealing how the "Wasi" acquires symbolic connotations for its inhabitants and how narratives emerge relating to the conversation of ancestral ways of life through domesticity.
2. "Wasi"and Andean domesticity
There is an undeniable semantic gap that separates the Western concept of a "house" and that of the Andean dwelling, known as a "Wasi" in Quechua. Unlike Western architecture, which focuses on physical characteristics, the Andean "Wasi" is defined by its deep meaning and by being flexible enough to adapt to the local people's annual calendar, enabling the development of domestic dynamics with a high content of symbolism and existentialism.
Stuart Alexander Rockefeller points out that a "Wasi" can be anything from a simple structure to a large complex, or even to the land that contains it (Rockefeller, 2010). Its importance lies in its capacity to provide shelter and adapt to different contexts without losing its suitability and symbolic content.
This phenomenon began to occur in the 16th century, when, by the Spanish conquerors' territorial ordinances (Saito and Rosas Lauro, 2017), groups of people linked by ethnicity and kinship known as ayllus, who were scattered throughout the different ecological levels of the Andean landscape forming "vertical archipelagos" (Murra, 1981; Murra et al., 1986), were forced to consolidate in "reducciones". In spite of these impositions, many characteristics of the Indigenous domestic spatiality were preserved inside the "Wasi", thus preserving their ancestral cosmovision.
The daily practices within the spaces of the "Wasi" have enabled the reconstruction and maintenance of preHispanic structures, integrating them into the "life world" of contemporary inhabitants (Aristizabal Hoyos, 2016; Schutz et al., 2001). Before the arrival of the Spaniards, Andean peoples were considered illiterate societies. Both Iberian and Indigenous chroniclers literate in Spanish (Guamán Poma de Ayala, 2017; Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, 1993; Garcilaso de la Vega, 2010) were the first to document ancestral ways of life, albeit in a fragmented manner due to the change in transmission medium and the forced alignment to Western thought (Fig. 3).
Researchers nowadays are calling for a revision of concepts validated from a European perspective as well as a review of what is native (Lozada and Tantaleán, 2019; Villagra, 2020). The "Wasi", as the result of long processes of settlement and symbolization of the land, becomes a relevant study space to understand social conventions anda setting where the life world of the Colca Valley inhabitants is structured.
Within the urban structure of the Colca Valley, composed of 14 traditional villages, it is still evident how the typology of the "Wasi" is maintained according to two nuclear elements: the "main room" and the "Andean kancha" (Fig. 4), endorsing the dualistic conception of the Andean cosmovision. The flexibility in the geometry and morphology of the "Wasi" emphasizes this clear notion of functions between what is open and closed, as well as the symbolic importance of the material structure and the actual dynamics of living.
The reciprocal relationships between the physical structure and the transcendental experience of domestic space are evident in the "Wasi" (Handel, 2019; Seamon, 2014). Andean domesticity, influenced by geographical constraints and agricultural practices, extends beyond the limits of a single building, creating a domestic space scattered throughout the Andean territory.
From an animist perspective, which underpins the Andean cosmovision, the "Wasi" is a living being with its own personality (Alderman, 2021), establishing reciprocal relationships (Wachtel, 1974) that are manifested both in everyday dynamics and seasonal rituals. To fully understand the "Wasi" and Andean domesticity, it is essential to consider the Coporaque dwelling as a symbol and a setting for symbolic occurrences.
3. Methodology
3.1. Focus of the investigation
In order to deepen our understanding of the meaning and domesticity of the Andean dwelling based on the experience of its native inhabitants, we propose a phenomenological approach that allows a wealth of meanings to be captured (Manen, 2023). For centuries, these meanings have emerged from the relationship between human beings and the spaces that shelter them. Following Husserl (2008), to return to the "thing itself", in this case Andean domesticity, it is necessary to suspend any kind of bias or prejudice (epoché) so that the phenomenon is revealed as it is (2011). The goal is to observe the phenomenon of domesticity based on the "natural attitude" of the participants, where the performances in their homes or "Wasi" happen in an unspoken and everyday way.
Since the second half of the twentieth century, the phenomenological approach has been included in architectural (Norberg Schulz, 2007; Norberg-Schulz and Seyler, 2017; Thiis-Evensen, 1987) and spatial discourse (Bachelard, 1993), giving a new dimension to the bodysubject (Merleau-Ponty, 1993; Schmitz et al., 2011) in its inseparable relationship with the surrounding world (Heidegger, 2015, 2016).
Based on these pioneering works, which were validated by a subsequent generation that deepened these thoughts and inserted them into the Western academic sphere (Holl et al., 2006; Pallasmaa, 2014; Perez-Gomez, 2008; Zumthor, 2019), the phenomenological approach has been being used to unveil experiences in spaces from local perspectives (Lu and Liu, 2023; Lutolli and Jashanica, 2022; Salis Reyes, 2019; Welch, 2019) and validate subjectivities and intersubjectivities as a plausible form of knowledge within academia.
Thus, we believe that the phenomenological approach is extremely useful in understanding the symbolic relationships between Andean inhabitants and their dwellings (Manen, 2023), especially when an ontological revision of local meanings is required (Lozada and Tantaleán, 2019). For years, these local meanings have been taken for granted due to semantics and a value scale coming from the Western world.
3.2. Selection of study site, participants, and data collection period
The study site is limited to the village of Coporaque, located in southern Peru's Colca Valley, one of the many inter-Andean valleys that characterize the geography of this South American region. Coporaque, located on the right-hand bank of the Colca River is at an approximate altitude of 3583 m above sea level and 8 km west of Chivay, the province's capital. It is part of a group of seventeen villages along the river (Fig. 5).
There were three criteria that led to the selection of Coporaque as a study site. First, it is a synthesis of what happens in the other villages of the valley because when the Spanish settled in the area in the sixteenth century, Coporaque was the center of evangelization and concentration of Indigenous populations of various ethnicities (Pease and Robinson, 2012). The descendants of the Collaguas (Neira Avendano et al., 1990) predominate to this day. Second, unlike other villages that have been almost radically transformed in terms of their original functions in order to satisfy the tastes of foreign tourism, Coporaque continues to preserve in a more intact way the most genuine features of the "Wasi"and patterns of domesticity. And finally, in order to carry out an investigation into the proposed characteristics, a particular openness among the participants is required. We found this in Coporaque through a strategic ally-the Casa Cultural del Colca, which has served as an intermediary between the group of researchers and the population ever since a previous study on the territory (Rios-Vizcarra et al., 2023), thus openness and enthusiasm flourished between the parties.
Participants were chosen in collaboration with this nonprofit cultural organization established in Coporaque at the beginning of the present century. This allowed us to hold focal meetings with about twenty people, where, after discussing various topics about general life in Coporaque, we recruited five participants. Extremely active and willing to offer accommodation to the researchers in their "Wasi", the participants were two married couples with children Who still live with them and an elderly man who lives alone in his "Wasi".
Given that the purpose of this research was to go deeper into essential concepts of dwelling, we opted for a small group of participants that would allow us to interact with their life world through coexistence, dialog, and direct participatory observation, rather than surface data collection, which can be collected in much larger groups. In addition, previous exploratory research corroborated the homogeneity of the population in the valley as well as the architectural typology of the "Wasi".
3.3. Data collection and analysis
Based on previous state-of-the-art research, certain approaches related to the Andean territory (Rios-Vizcarra et al., 2023), domesticity (Bollnow, 2011), and the daily life of the inhabitants in Coporaque were recognized. From there, general themes were ratified or invalidated as part of a semi-structured interview guide that could be indiscriminately addressed during the periods of coexistence with the villagers.
The research group was divided into two groups that stayed in different houses during the months of June, July, and August 2023. These months were chosen because of their high concentration of festivities that directly affect the meaning of the "Wasi" and domesticity.
Data collection took place in the form of spontaneous conversations while accompanying the participants in their daily activities, with the researchers having memorized the topics to be addressed in order to saturate the themes of symbolization and domesticity of their dwellings. The conversations were recorded with the participants" authorization, in addition to filming and photographing some spaces, while we were never allowed access to others, such as the so-called "personal room", receiving only verbal descriptions of it.
3.4. Procedure for data analysis and validation
In order to faithfully transcribe the audio files, the collaboration of a Quechua-speaking professional was necessary since the participants used certain terms in that ancestral language that they still partially use. After corroborating What was written by all the researchers in a collaborative analysis scheme (Flick, 2013), the information was coded according to the identification of substantial concepts, Which, when grouped together, made emerging themes visible. Subsequently, any repetitions or redundancies were removed.
To verify the validity of the emerging themes, information was triangulated from the sources" descriptions: "Wasi" 1 (Family 1), "Wasi" 2 (Family 2), and "Wasi" 3 (Elderly Man). Then, the embodiment in space of the described narratives was verified through on-site observations. Lastly, these themes arising from the indivisible relationship between the domestic space and its residents were revealed pictorially and photographically.
3.5. Narrative synthesis and diagrammatic proposal
After validating the emerging themes, interconnections were detected between the participants" descriptions and certain images referring to the pre-Hispanic Andean cosmovision related by one of the main Indigenous chroniclers of the 16th century (Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, 1993). This allowed us to corroborate the validity of millenary concepts in the life world of the current inhabitants of Coporaque. From there, the results show the high symbolic value that endures in the relationship between the "Wasi" and the inhabitants and that is very much reflected in the constitutive material of the houses: in the order in which this material is arranged, in the experience of the limits of domesticity, and on the stage that the "Wasi" turn into so that symbolic dynamics take place (Trías, 2006) according to the time of the year. Lastly, after the thematic reduction, narratives emerged that reported the essences of the house, which coincide with archetypal narratives from different times and latitudes.
In order to expose the results, it was necessary to create diagrams that in some way related the key words that emerged and how they were connected in order to generate units of meaning according to which conclusions could be drawn.
4. Results
The results are presented according to the sequential ordering of the emerging themes and the phenomenological approach, where the description of the interviewees is given priority, concluding in the following diagram (Fig. 6).
4.1. The symbolizing construction material of the "Wasi"
Understanding the Andean dwelling from the experience of the inhabitants, we find that the material or matter it is made of is the first condition for the symbolic occurrence of domesticity to have a place. Matter is always the physical support of any symbol created by human beings. The direct experience of matter tends to be immediate and to evoke substances rather than forms. "Material images involve us in a deeper emotion; that is why they are rooted in the deepest layers of the unconscious" (Bachelard, 2006).
Etymologically, "material" and "mater" (meaning mother) share the same root (ASALE and RAE), which is why we find it inescapable to link the material of the "Wasi" with the Andean material concept of Pachamama or Mother Earth. The traditional houses in Coporaque are built with clayey earth walls in units called adobes, as well as logs and straw (called paja brava or ichu) for the roof. Pachamama is not circumscribed to the earth material but exists in the entire natural world (Inquilla-Mamani and Apaza, 2019) which provides human beings with resources for their subsistence. Within the Andean animist approach, Pachamama possesses a soul that people must venerate and pay tribute to because she is both the protector of humans and their source of vitality (Lozada and Tantalean, 2019).
The material of each Coporaque "Wasi" is therefore not neutral. Rather, it has the intentional capacity to evoke the substantial strata with which Andean realities are constituted. We have been able to corroborate in situ the emotions which the materials that comprise the traditional dwellings continue to awaken; however, the inhabitants are no strangers to the invasion of the globalized world in construction, which is beginning to impose its laws of practicality and economy. This is what one of our interviewees, who has found an additional source of subsistence by renting out rooms for experience-based tourism, told us:
"I love my little adobe house, but here there are always earthquakes, so the rooms for tourists have to be safer and we have now replaced them with noble material. MINCETUR (the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism) is always monitoring us." (Sebastián)
These structural changes in the production of architecture also bring about an alteration in the inhabitants' scale of values and affections. Many of them continue to align their lives according to the principles of the millenary Andean cosmovision amalgamated with the Catholic faith imposed upon them by the Spaniards since the 16th century. These continuations that structure the people's life world are still very much alive, as we corroborated in interviews where routines, such as the one below, were described:
"When dawn comes, we look out from my house and see the sun rising from where the holy cross is nailed to the Apu Conefinaya. Then, I make the sign of the cross, both for the cross and for the Conefinaya mountain, and I ask that the day goes well for us and that it gives us strength to last the whole working day."
The material of the Coporaque dwellings, perceived as part of Pachamama, implies a relationship of reciprocity that goes far beyond the activities involved in the maintenance of a house. More than just maintaining, Andean inhabitants "take care" of their houses (Crousse, 2016), and this care is linked to routines and rituals embedded in the Andean calendar. Ancestral activities of reciprocity between humans and non-humans, known as Ayni, Ayllu, Yanantin, or Chanincha (Walshe and Argumedo, 2016), are also linked to domesticity, which is why altering the material nature of the house also modifies routines that are highly significant for the lives of the inhabitants.
The typical roof of the traditional "Wasi", made of straw (ichu), is linked to annual cycles of re-roofing in which community work strengthens the bonds that will later be indispensable for times of sowing and harvesting in the fields. As Peter Gose points out, the work also creates an entire imagery (Gose, 1991) that unfortunately tends to vanish with the adoption of industrialized materials. These materials make life easier for the inhabitants but also make the symbolic contents consubstantial to the Andean habitat disappear. One of the interviewees told us:
"Every year, the ichu has to be changed because it rots in the rain and sun. We have to bring up to two truckloads of ichu to change it and that is a lot of money. With pot metal [calamina], this does not happen. It lasts much longer and does not cause problems in having to be changed every year." (Yuri)
Based on the phenomenological principle of intentionality, according to which consciousness is always "consciousness of something" (Husserl, 2011), the "Wasi" material is perceived both from its geological and matrix substrate as well as from an animist approach that in the Andes recognizes a common soul in the whole material world (Fig. 7). This is therefore the symbolic matrix with Which Coporaque's "Wasi" are built.
4.2. The symbolic order of matter
Illuminated by the Heideggerian concept of "building", we understand that the order in which matter is arranged to build a "Wasi" is not limited to the technical process of raising walls and covering areas. To build a "Wasi" is to plan places where the inhabitants "are in the world" (Heidegger, 2016) and inhabit while interacting with the quaternity: earth, sky, mortals, and divinities (Heidegger, 2015).
To understand the meaning of the Andean "existence in the world", we find a drawing made by the 16th-century Indigenous chronicler Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti (1993) very useful. In an attempt to reproduce the disappeared altar of the most important Inca temple, the Corikancha, he drew the cosmovision of the pre-Hispanic Andean peoples within the contours of a house. In the depiction, it is easy to distinguish the Andean realities or pachas subdivided into: above or Hana Pacha, here or Kay Pacha, and below or Uku Pacha.
Seen from an Andean perspective, the concept of pacha is polysemic and refers not only to a physical but also a temporal reality that is interlinked and establishes factual and symbolic relationships between nature, humans, and deities. This triad is constantly reiterated in the symbolic representations of the Andean world, and, as drawn by Santa Cruz Pachacuti in the 16th century, it makes a direct allusion to the Andean house or "Wasi".
In the Andean world, as in many other cultural traditions, a metaphor emerges that links the house as a small cosmos and the cosmos as a big house (Bachelard, 1993; Bollnow, 2011; Eliade, 2014). If we make a cross-section of the walls and roof, we can understand the allusion made by the inhabitants to the Andean cosmovision's three pachas or worlds (Fig. 8). Thus, the foundations relate to the world below, the adobe walls to the world here, and the roof to the world above.
The "Wasi" foundations or subsoil" correspond to the Uku Pacha, or world below, which is why this is the favored place for offerings both at specific times of the year when burials or "payments" are made and in daily life when the first sip of drink is offered to the earth before the inhabitants drink. This is what one of the villagers, whom we lived with in her home, told us: "The first little sip of whatever we drink always goes to Pachamama. She is the first to drink; she is also thirsty, just like us. Then we drink." (Jesusa).
The Kay Pacha, or the world of here, is associated with the visible part of the earthen walls, which in addition to providing protection to its inhabitants are perforated with a very small number of openings with small niches where sacred or significant symbols for the family are placed, as confirmed by the elderly owner of one of the oldest "Wasi" in the village: "In those little holes in the walls, we used to put our little saints and light their candles every day so that they would protect us. That custom has been lost, but I still pray to them to protect us." (Apolinario).
The roof, built in wood and covered with ichu, alludes to the Hanan Pacha or world above. The gabled slope of the roof facilitates rainwater runoff and is also a diagonal vector that points to the sky where an important Andean cosmogony is to be found. Returning to Heidegger, the roof is the intermediate element between humans and deities. As we have already mentioned, given the practical need to change the rotten straw every year, community rituals of re-roofing arise where family ties of the ayllu are recomposed.
Following Santa Cruz Pachacuti's depiction, in addition to this tripartite division of Andean realities, the other strong concept of the ordering of the cosmos is given by complementary dualities (Drexler et al., 2015) expressed in parities, for instance sun and moon, summer and winter, water and earth, man and woman, etcetera. In the village of Coporaque, we corroborated that many of these parities are still in force and in some cases are used for territorial planning (Rios-Vizcarra et al., 2023) under the concept of Hurin and Hanan.
In the case of the "Wasi", a horizontal organization is evident in the existence of two spaces to which all the rest is subordinated: the patio and the main room. From the experience of its inhabitants, moving between these two spaces makes people experience the complementary dualities where one moves between: open and closed, exterior and interior, extroversion and intimacy, light and dark, etc.
In the manner of the millenary Andean open spaces (kanchas), the patio is the open space par excellence in Coporaque's "Wasi". In the patio, the inhabitants can connect with nature and therefore with their apus. It is also the space par excellence for personal interactions between members of the nuclear family and possible visitors. One inhabitant confirmed this:
"For me, the patio is the place in my house where I most like to be and it is also where I receive visitors who come to see me, but when I am alone and have nothing to do, I like to watch the day go by. Besides, from here I can see the apus and at night I like to see the moon and the stars." (Yuri)
In contrast, the "main room" is so hermetic that no matter how much apparent trust we gained with the owners of the house, we could never have access to it, neither physically nor via descriptions. It thus represents hermetic space par excellence and brings together all kinds of activities typical of domesticity.
The rest of the "Wasi" spaces", such as the bedrooms, are influenced by Western ideas: they divide the space and give it unique functions, but the original "Wasi" conserves this duality of open and closed space.
4.3. The limits of the "Wasi" and frontiers of domesticity
Also relevant to our aim of understanding the symbolic order of the "Wasi" is the concept of limits. Based on the concepts developed by Eugenio Trías, we understand the word "limit" as a possibility of both enclosure and opening (Trías, 1991), the boundaries of hermetic space and liberation (Fig. 9).
The border experience, both of the "Wasi" and of domesticity in the Colca Valley, is closely linked to a whole host of experiences passed down by ethnic groups that have adapted and settled in the rugged Andean topography for millennia. Unlike what normally happens in the Western world, where human settlements are the result of the concentration of populations in limited areas, the Andean population settles on the land by dispersing transversally in the different ecological levels, forming "vertical archipelagos" (Murra, 1981; Rios-Vizcarra et al., 2023). The ontology of the Andean limit is thus transferred to the experience of domesticity, as we were able to corroborate.
The tangible limits of the dwelling inside the village of Coporaque are conditioned primarily by the urban layout of the Hispanic "reduccional" blueprint explained above. An orthogonal grid laid out geometrically regular plots that were originally distributed in the 16th century. But in addition to the physical urban limits recognized by means of buildings or public spaces, there is still the notion of symbolic limits which, despite their material absence, continue to prevail in the villagers" daily experience. An emblematic case is the recognition of two types of population groups according to which "faction" they belong to: Hanansaya located in the upper part of the sector and Hurinsaya in the lower part.
"Here the factions are still respected. The Hanansaya lived in the upper part and the Hurinsaya in the lower part. Now, we have mixed, but by birthright we still distinguish between these two zones, and for example for the festivities or to elect our authorities we always try to alternate between the Hurin and Hanan factions." (Yuri)
Originally, during the colonial period, the limits of the Andean dwelling were demarcated by a boundary facing the street, two side boundaries, and a back area. However, with the passing of the years and the replacement, sale, and inheritance of properties, these original plots were transformed, losing their original areas, deforming their initial regularity, and in some cases becoming fragmented in different sectors of the village, all without losing their essence of domestic spatiality. In this research, we noticed a crucial difference between the physical boundaries of the "Wasi" and the conceptual confines of Andean domesticity (Fig. 10).
As Trías points out in his various essays (Trías, 1991, 1999, 2006), a limit can be seen as the end of something but also the beginning of something else, that is to say, it has the double condition of enclosure and possibility. In the case of the "Wasi", only the front boundary is hermetic; the other borders have such low vertical enclosures that it is possible to see the surrounding patios or surrounding landscape. Therefore, the bordering experience of the inhabitants of a Coporaque "Wasi" derives from this double aspect. The facade is experienced as a symbolic element of security and refuge, and the other borders as an interconnection with the surrounding neighborhood.
But in addition to this definition of the border experience in the "Wasi", as in the Andean territorial conception, domesticity is scattered in at least three settings other than the aforementioned "Wasi". Firstly, the public spaces of the village surrounding the house are in many cases used for domestic functions, such as, for example, the use of the street for the preparation of certain food items, as a homemaker with whom we spent significant days of coexistence told us:
"I use the street to clean my quinoa. In my house, there is not enough wind to blow the waste away until the quinoa is clean. I go out into the street and throw it upwards. When it falls to the ground, the wind has blown the waste away and I do it again several times. People don't say anything; we all use the street for the same thing." (Roxana)
Secondly, the chacra, or cultivated field, which is located on the outskirts of the village, is also home to domestic activities such as food preparation and eating. This is the story of a rural woman who alternates her domestic activities with farming:
"I like to cook on the farm. Sometimes, when I can, I take my pots, make my concha [stone firepit], light a fire, and make lunch. That way, I save gas and save time because while the food is cooking, I can continue to do my activities on the chacra." (Jesusa)
The third setting where the limits of domesticity are expanded is in the estancias (ranches). These places are located at more than 4000 m.a.s.l., the natural habitat of South American camelids. At certain times of the year, some villagers move to these altitudes to take care of the animals and live in small rooms called refugios, as one farmer states:
"In the ranches, we have our livestock. Sometimes we have to sleep there to look after them, brand them, shear the alpacas. When we spend time up there, we eat chuño, charqui, and mashca that is taken up from here for energy because it is very cold up there." (Sebastián)
We see then that Andean domesticity is composed of dynamics associated with a shelter, such as the "Wasi"; however, the complete structure has the capacity to fragment and to be partially replicated in other environments, partly reconstructing its essence and nourishing dissimilar spaces of that domesticity. We can therefore be sure that there is no correlation between the limits of a dwelling and the frontiers of domesticity in the Andes.
4.4. The "Wasi" as a stage for symbolic events
Now that we have understood the meaning that the Andean inhabitants give to the material of which their house is made and have corroborated how this material is ordered vertically and horizontally in the space, becoming "cosmos", we are ready to understand the way in which the "Wasi" becomes a scenario for the symbolic occurrence of domesticity to take place.
First of all, we notice that, just as a symbolized spatial order is necessary, the Andean world also divides time into a calendar which, roughly speaking, the inhabitant experiences as ordinary time and festive time. There are three main vectors from which festive time is parceled out: agricultural cycles, the Catholic festive calendar, and ancient Andean rituals.
Through the villagers" descriptions, we have been able to construct a calendar specific to Coporaque in which the main festivities that alter the dynamics of their ordinary time are recorded (Fig. 11).
Although the spatiality and morphology of the "Wasi" are not substantially modified, or in any case some objects or ephemeral decoration are added, the perception of the "Wasi" based on the structures of the life world (Schutz and Luckman, 2001) is drastically transformed and the everyday space becomes a festive space (Correa, 1990), as one inhabitant describes her perception of the festivities.
"For us, festivities are very important. Most of them are celebrated in the village, in the central square, on the chacra, on the ranch; but the festivities also enter the houses. Here, when people come to your house, you have to have chicha and food ready to offer everyone, and when you go to their houses, they share what they have with you. Here, the doors are always open." (Roxana)
The everyday role of the inhabitants is placed in parenthesis during the festivities or ritual, and an acting role is assumed within a previously established mythical narrative. Just as we have noted the double conditioning of the physical boundary between closing and opening so the festivities are the boundary between the end and the beginning of temporal cycles (Ríos Vizcarra and Zeballos Velarde, 2018).
It is very interesting to have corroborated how a physical structure, such as the Andean house, is associated with another significant structure related to everyday life and festivities. In the first case, i.e., the living space (Bollnow, 2011), the inhabitants move around different areas of the house to carry out vital activities. Those areas, according to Bollnow, are activated by means of people's bodily movements through a system of axes in accordance with their physical nature. In this sense, despite the state of preconsciousness in which many actions structured by monotony take place, there are no neutral regions, but rather they are associated with individual cultural and emotional meanings, as one woman tells us about the relationship she has with her kitchen: "I love my kitchen very much because when I prepare food, I feel that I am taking care of my family." (Roxana).
This whole series of acts linked to domesticity, which have an indisputable utilitarian sense, tend to belong to a higher sphere of meanings linked to a group cosmovision and to an alignment with the cosmic ordering of the aforementioned construction material. In this regard, ritual emerges as a means of proposing a more profound and articulated interpretation of domesticity from dynamics circumscribed to specific times of the year that are wellspecified in the village calendar. This is how a domestic ritual is described in one of the houses that formed part of this study:
"The whole family gathers in the main room and the door is padlocked so that no one can leave. We spend the whole night resting (samando) and making wishes at the holy table. We also use stone figurines that we have inherited from our parents and put them in the glasses. We pass them around and everyone blows their breath onto them and drinks the beverage, concentrating on their wishes so that they will be fulfilled." (Yuri)
As can be seen, everyday spaces such as "the main room" become a ritual stage and the different family members are protagonists in the ceremony. Through these mystical protocols, ancestral visions of the world are recalled and actions that go unnoticed during ordinary times are nourished with new meanings.
4.5. Narratives concerning the essence of domesticity
Finally, the symbolic occurrence of the "Wasi" is accomplished when a collective body, such as the Coporaque villagers, is able to verbalize the relevant domestic events, convert them into emblems, and preserve them through rites that are repeated cyclically throughout the year.
This symbolic revelation, Trias illustrates, takes place by means of certain "hermeneutic keys" (Trias, 2006), capable of preserving the meaning of what is intended to be expressed. It is there where we can find the usefulness of a poetic language, whose best resource is metaphoric language for relating abstract concepts with concrete references specific to culturized time and space. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur delves into the capacity of metaphor to construct a semantic base elastic enough to adapt to different realities without losing the essence of the intended meaning (Ricoeur, 2001, 2006).
In Coporaque, therefore, we find narratives on domesticity which, clothed in local elements and forms, refer to essential issues of both the house and the domestic space, reiterated at any time and place. This can be corroborated when we review the various metaphors collected by renowned Western authors (Bachelard, 1993; Bollnow, 2011; Eliade, 2014; Heidegger, 2015; Mujica, 2013; Seamon, 2015) contrasted with Andean authors (Guamán Poma de Ayala, 2017; Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, 1993) and find homologous references that are brought together in this study.
4.5.1. The house as the center of the world
From an existential approach, the center of the world should be understood as the place where human beings find themselves-in the present time, living in the space, and marking out the coordinates to unveil their existence (Bollnow, 2011). However, every person also possesses a symbolic center from which they depart and to which they return with affection, normally associated with the natal home.
Bachelard clarifies that the natal home is a reference that accompanies humanity's existence at any time and place (Bachelard, 2006), as it has the power to reconstruct the deepest images of security and shelter. Yet, in the Andean world, this domestic center does not always have a fixed point in space because as aforementioned, Andean domesticity is itinerant and the "Wasi" is not the only place where structures of domesticity unfold-fragments of this domestic structure are also reconstituted in the adjoining spaces of the village, the chacras, and the camelid ranches. The Andean experience of domesticity as an itinerant center gives birth to narratives such as the following:
"I like to cook and eat on the chacra. When I have to work there, I take my food, my pots, I make a concha [firepit] with stones, and there I set up my kitchen. It even tastes better there. When Yuri has to go up to the estancia to look after the animals, I prepare his jerky, his mashca, his toasted corn, his cheese for him to take so that he can live there for a while." (Roxana)
The narratives about home in the village of Coporaque center around the "Wasi", but the experiences of domesticity expand and contract according to a temporal order.
4.5.2. The house as a microcosm
The house is the first place of learning. In the domestic space, the norms of coexistence within a given culture are learned tacitly and experienced through immersion in a safe atmosphere. Seen from this approach, the constituent elements of the house can be understood as a miniaturized cosmos that refers to and prepares its inhabitants for harmonious living with larger structures. Thus, utilitarian forms and spaces are capable of containing symbolic references, which represent macrocosmic structures when articulated together.
However, as aforementioned, it is not only the Andean house that is composed of its symbolically ordered constructive elements. There is a whole set of objects attached to domesticity that intertwines the physical structures with the meanings attached to them. Bachelard says that miniaturization is consubstantial to the human being. Regarding the Coporaque research, in addition to utilitarian objects to which some kind of emotional or symbolic value has been ascribed, many utilitarian objects hold a symbolism linked to narratives of domesticity, for example the granary or troja, which has a much deeper meaning than that of a storehouse. As one interviewee explained:
"We believe that the earth is alive and that we have to thank her for watching over us. In August, we open the troja where we have stored our food: corn, barley, broad beans. But we don't open it just like that, we do a payment ceremony (offerings), and only then do we start to take out the food." (Sebastián)
But in the Andean world, in addition to utilitarian objects for domestic chores, there are miniatures explicitly created to symbolize the land on a small scale, such as the lithic models that are scattered throughout the Colca Valley (Berquist and Wernke, 2022) or small objects that represent to scale the livestock or the inhabitants" other desires for prosperity. These are jealously guarded by the inhabitants of the "Wasi" and are only brought out for domestic rituals where they sama (blow on) the small pieces to explicitly express the wishes of each family member.
4.5.3. The house as a living being
Another of the narratives that by its global reiteration reveals one of the essences of domesticity is that of granting the house attributes that exceed its inanimate condition. Since the architecture of classical times, there are plenty of examples where allusions to the human body and its tripartite division of legs-torso-head are repeatedly associated with base-body-top (Vitruvio, 2013). Furthermore, in many cultures, metaphors of anthropomorphic characteristics emerge regarding architectural buildings. These organicist currents advocate that architecture should become another element of the natural world (Han, 2020). More recent approaches have attempted to merge architecture with branches of biotechnology (Morrow et al., 2023).
However, in the Andean world, there is a strong belief not only in the vitality of the house but also that it possesses a soul with which it can interact in a relationship of reciprocity. According to the Andean cosmovision, the different substances that make up Pachamama, and which are a constituent part of a "Wasi", possess a soul, i.e., earth, stones, straw, etc., and create something whole that acquires connotations of a counterpart for the inhabitants.
While in the Western world the house must be maintained, in the Andean world, the house and the land are more associated with words such as "care", "domestication", and "nurture" (Crousse, 2016; Grillo et al., 1994; Rengifo, 2003). Several testimonies collected in interviews show that the treatment of the "Wasi" is based on the notion of vitality and the need for nourishment:
"We take care of our little house because she is the one that gives us shelter and protects us. That is why we always respect her, and we cannot misbehave here. Rather, we always give her a little drink of chicha or give her buried offerings." (Jesusa)
Starting with the recognition of the "Wasi's soul and personality" (Alderman, 2021), it is possible to establish ties of affection at a much higher level than can be achieved with any other type of object, this circumstance being essential to understanding one of the essences of domesticity in the Andes.
4.5.4. The house as a connector with sacredness
In his attempt to clarify the essence of dwelling, Heidegger warned that one of the main misfortunes of post-war buildings was the loss of their capacity to foster relationships between the inhabitants and the different levels of reality that structured those inhabitants" existence (Heidegger, 2015). In this sense, the German philosopher warned about the loss of one of the essences of dwelling in general and domesticity in particular: its link with sacredness.
The spatial simplicity of the Andean house does not exempt it from being a propitious setting for a series of rituals that connect its inhabitants with a transcendent reality. What is more, it may be this asceticism that makes it possible to break the structures of ordinary time and, With slight modifications, convert the "Wasi" into a platform that drives transcendence. This human need mentioned by Eliade to seek sacredness (Eliade, 2014) is more evident in the villages that preserve their millenary traditions, such as those of the Peruvian Andes, without having yet been contaminated by global culture and the market economy that is already installed in the country's largest cities.
The houses in the traditional village of Coporaque are at certain times of the year mediators between secular and sacred realities. A villager tells us about one of the domestic rituals practiced each August:
"In the month of August, we do ceremonies in two parts of the house: first, in the corral with the animals, we do the tinkachi, and then at night, in the main room of the house, we do the aytir where we set up the holy table. Both ceremonies have to be done well so that you can do well with your animals or with the things you want. If you don't take it seriously you can get punished. This has happened to several people." (Jesusa)
The Andean house can thus appear as a sanctuary at certain times of the year, which favors narratives of domesticity associated with the sacred and with its capacity to be a platform from which the inhabitants connect with transcendental realities.
5. Discussion
In the face of the advance of globalization, which brings with it the homogenization of social production, such as buildings, this paper subscribes to investigations that highlight the necessity of revaluing and deepening the study of vernacular architecture in terms of its capacity to propose specific and efficient solutions in response to a given geographical and cultural environment (Bouchair and Dupagne, 2003) while fitting in with the ways of life of a significant number of native inhabitants who continue to live according to their particular ways of being in the world.
Nowadays, the land through which the Andean mountain range runs is divided into seven countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. To a greater or lesser extent, all of them have an Indigenous or Mestizo population who continue to build their homes according to ancestral traditions. This research adds to previous investigations that have paid attention to aspects such as: uses of local materials and validity of construction techniques (Canivell and Pastor, 2018; Greco and Lourenco, 2021), efficiency and sustainability with the environment (Ormaza et al., 2022; Zambrano et al., 2023), and the need to highlight the vernacular as part of the national heritage and identity (Marchante and Vidal, 2022; Martins et al., 2013; Saez and Canziani, 2020). However, this work adds to the discussion concerning the need to see Andean residential architecture from a local perspective, usually ignored by the academic world based on Western foundations.
Consequently, this research communicates the need for an ontological revision of the concepts with which people have attempted to understand the Andean world from a Western perspective (Lozada and Tantalean, 2019; Voto et al., 2022). One must try to restore the ancestral meaning of certain terms that are part of the life world of Indigenous communities. Thus, one of our main findings has been to unveil the multiplicity of meanings that the "Wasi" can have based on the experience of its inhabitants, which exceeds the simplified concept with which the Andean vernacular house is valued.
One of the main challenges when tackling the study of architecture from a qualitative approach is the visual representation of data that give an account of an existential space. In this regard, our research proposes a way of exposing the results that combines diagrams where the main words are interconnected to reveal units of meaning that address issues such as: the experience of matter, the symbolic meaning of ordered matter, and the house as a stage of symbolic becoming.
From a practical approach, this work alerts architects and authorities intervening in the region to the existence of immaterial structures linked to the visible forms and spaces of housing. Therefore, the alteration of a "Wasi" or the proposal of new buildings for these inhabitants must take into account the interdependence between the measurable object and the network that links the inhabitant with symbolic patterns of domesticity that make life coherent within a millenary cosmovision.
Although the methods and depth intended in this research have focused on small participatory groups, the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of the population dispersed throughout the different villages of the Colca Valley has allowed us to glimpse patterns and trends that future research should expand upon throughout the rest of the Andean panorama in order to have a cartography of the Andean home that is understood through local people's experience.
6. Conclusions
This research highlights the enduring significance of Andean housing in Coporaque, as understood through the daily experiences of its inhabitants. It underscores how the concept of "Wasi" fosters domestic practices linked to millennial worldviews associated with an agricultural and festive calendar that remains relevant. The study emphasizes the importance of addressing the inseparable relationship between domestic dynamics and the physical structure of the houses, viewing the material not only from a technological perspective but also in terms of its symbolism and its capacity to organize domestic ritual spaces.
This study contributes to the literature and research being carried out on contemporary vernacular housing, supporting the use of the phenomenological approach to achieve a rich understanding of the meaning of lived spaces by hearing the voices of Indigenous groups, who often remained overlooked by the academic world.
Working with small groups of participants enabled us to understand the domestic space that structures the Andean inhabitants' lives through recurrent words and narratives that emerge from in-depth interviews. In this way, it was evident that units of meaning articulated in space structure the Indigenous groups' life world.
The results were represented and exposed by developing diagrams that make visible the interconnections that exist between key words that emerged from the fieldwork and the units of meaning capable of demonstrating the existence of patterns of domesticity that constitute narratives capable of structuring the inhabitants' lives.
In the academic world, a relevant topic of current discussion is the loss of meaning in buildings that meet the requirements derived from a globalized market economy. Having noticed this, our study supports the argument that it is necessary to look again at the essence of domesticity found in the narratives embodied in the inhabitants who allow them to structure their life world.
On the basis of this work, we can recommend that both planning and architectural design practices in sensitive environments, such as Andean areas inhabited by Indigenous populations, consider the symbolic dimensions associated with the physical elements before any intervention that may destroy highly significant symbolic structures that form part of the residents' lives. Likewise, the institutions responsible for overseeing the conservation of vernacular heritage should consider both the buildings and the uses associated with them as an indivisible whole that can be preserved.
We believe it is essential that future research in the Andean region expands upon the survey of meanings and narratives associated with architecture in order to build a general cartography in the Andean world that does or does not corroborate the survival of millenary patterns of domesticity.
To summarize, the Andean "Wasi" transcends the notion of a house based on Western semantics because, in addition to being a vital space for domestic practices, it is Indigenous Andean communities preserve their cultural practices and thus sustain their identity. The phenomenological approach allowed an in-depth study of the inhabitants' direct experiences, revealing both physical and intangible structures that create an indivisible unity between the inhabitants and their "Wasi", which is why preserving these significant spaces not only protects buildings and urban landscapes but also defends communities' authentic ways of life.
This research aligns with the increasing academic interest in elucidating the intangible structures that connect humans with the architecture they inhabit. Adopting a holistic approach to architecture, this study challenges perspectives that seek to homogenize and simplify the values of local architectural phenomena, such as Andean housing. We propose continuing research that regards the inhabitants' experiences as an essential resource for future studies.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (A.B. Duche-Pérez).
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