Cumanana VI - ENG

SEPTEMBER 2021

NUMBER 6

Cumanana PERUVIAN CULTURE VIRTUAL BULLETIN FOR AFRICA MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

AFROPERUVIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE Afrodescendant legacy

MARÍA ELENA MOYANO

RECIPE

Policital life in the sand

Peruvian flavours with African influence

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INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE AND AFRO-PERUVIAN POPULATIONS: AN APPROXIMATION RODRIGO CHOCANO PAREDES ANTHROPOLIGIST

The Afro-descendant presence in Peru dates back to the arrival of the Spanish conquerors and the founding of the Colony during the first half of the 14th century. The first ancestors of the current Afro-Peruvian populations arrived in the national territory as subjects of slavery, taken to the colonies by the Spanish conquerors to carry out forced labour. This first migration arrived enslaved directly from Africa (bozales) and from Spain or other colonies (ladinos).

Africans and Afro-descendants were a minority and they inserted themselves in the territory, mixing with the Spanish and indigenous population.

In this context, contemporary Afro-Peruvian intangible cultural heritage (ICH) consists of a complex fusion of elements adopted from the different African cultures from which the enslaved subjects came, in addition to the expressions of enslaved and free Africans and Afrodescendants who came from Spain and of the Spaniards themselves, together with local cultural elements of the New World, and with new elements that the AfroPeruvian populations created over nearly five hundred years of presence in the national territory.

This panorama becomes even more complex once the historical-cultural context in which this fusion took place is taken into account.

This includes, the condition of slavery of Africans and Afro-descendants during the Colony and the first years of the Republic; the broad identification of AfroPeruvians with popular and worker sectors; the large Nicomedes Santa Cruz Peruvian poet and decimist Detail of the cover of LP Cumanana

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Teresa Izquierdo Chef y Afro-Peruvian cuisine patron

urban presence of Afro-Peruvians in Lima and other cities on the one hand, and of rural concentrations along the coast on the other; and the great diffusion of AfroPeruvian cultural expressions —mainly music and food, and to a lesser extent oral tradition— through industry and the media.

Obviously, the understanding of the Afro-descendant Intangible Cultural Heritage would be incomplete if the social context of poverty, exclusion and discrimination that Afro-Peruvian populations have faced since their arrival in the current national territory, which is still present and even replicates throughout the entire continent, is not taken into account. According to the

Specialized Study on the Afro-Peruvian Population published by the Ministry of Culture in 2015, 37% of the Afro-Peruvian population receives wages below the minimum, the rate of access to higher education is much lower than the national average (33, 1% versus 43.4%), and 43.3% Afro-Peruvian citizens have stated that they have been victims of discrimination. The challenge in terms of promoting the AfroPeruvian populations Intangible Cultural Heritage consists in promoting the safeguarding of traditional knowledge and practices not only because of their intrinsic cultural value, but also as elements that carry the historical memory of AfroPeruvian populations and which carry a value as tools to combat problems that directly affect Afro-descendant populations, such as poverty and racial discrimination.

Originally published at: Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial Afroperuano, Ministerio de Cultura, 2016, páginas 13-14

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MARÍA ELENA MOYANO BICENTENARIO SPECIAL PROYECT María Elena cannot be remembered only because of her tragedy. That would mean forgetting her trajectory, whose relevance lies in its faithful portrait of dozens of young people who, at the beginning of the 1990s, strived to change their circumstances, as well as the future of their families, in Puno, in Tumbes, in Villa El Salvador.

María Elena was born in Barranco on November 29, 1958.

The daughter of Eugenia Delgado Cabrera and Hermógenes Moyano Lescado, she had seven siblings: Rodolfo, Raúl, Carlos, Narda, Eduardo and Martha. Although her early years took place in Barranco, she later moved to Surco, where she lived until she was twelve. Then, the Moyano Delgado family moved to the desert of Villa El Salvador, in what is now Sector 3 of that district. There, her family lived on rented land. “There were four mats like walls and another one on top as a roof. I remember it was very windy and at night the mat roof almost came off, "she said in her autobiography.

She studied elementary school at Jorge Chávez School, a few meters away from Surco Main Square. There, she was part of the volleyball team. According to her testimony, arriving in school implied waking up at five in the morning, crossing the city to Higuereta and then walking for half an hour.

Those were difficult times, without a father and with her mother being unemployed.

Admission to university After finishing school, her family asked her, along with Martha, to apply to university, especially to San Marcos. But María Elena feared that the money would not be enough for the two sisters, so she decided instead to take a course as an office technician, and then asked her siblings to support Martha in her application, which was unsuccessful.

As soon as Garcilaso de la Vega University entrance exams

were coming up, her older brother, Carlos, asked them both to apply, as he would see a way to pay for their education. Our leader accepted on the condition of choosing her career, since her mother demanded that she study Law. María Elena then had to lie and thus began to study Sociology, despite the fact that, as she used to say, she did not prepare in any academy.

Gustavo, her partner, supported her in applying for sociology, and then going to see the results of the exam.

Malena said that she not only lied to her mother when applying, but to the university as well. She stated in her personal data sheet that she lived in Barranco, and that her father was a very wealthy merchant.

She was active at the local parish, where she and hundreds of young people from the desert met in the communal halls. There, they formed a cultural and support group for the communal council of Villa El Salvador. Meanwhile, Maria Elena entered into discussions at the university about class struggle, and questioned her poverty and that of her surroundings.

Political life in the arenal At that time, she found about the first Maoist political training schools that appeared in the south of Lima, one of which caught her interest. Moyano said that the lessons used to be boring and disconnected from the interests of the young people in her community, which led many of them to abandon community activity. That experience, as a member of the Unified Mariateguist Party, led her to participate in the takeover of public schools in Lima. In parallel, she helped establish a school for young children, where entertained the children for four years.

After the Magisterial Strike, in which she was the leader of the staff from the Pachacutec School in José Carlos Mariátegui Avenue, she had problems at home, for failing her studies, supporting an unsuccessful strike and getting pregnant with Gustavo’s baby, after five years of relationship. A new stage began in her life.

Her first child was born, but hers and Gustavo’s families were unemployed and in absolute poverty, forcing the couple to move to the roof of a building in Miraflores, where they could live in exchange for taking care of and cleaning the rest of the condominium. One afternoon,

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clothes were stolen from a resident, who blamed María Elena and her family, sparking an altercation that accelerated her firing. The family returned to Villa El Salvador. It was 1983.

Moyano had another son, whom she cared for while she taught the children in the area. This led her to establish Micaela Bastidas Mothers Club, and consequently being elected as organisational undersecretary for the Popular Federation of Women of Villa El Salvador. The position allowed her to become president of the Federation, a position she took up again in 1988.

The Armed Strike and the March for Peace On February 14, 1992, Shining Path decreed an armed strike, for which María Elena and her group organised a countermarch called "March for Peace." In addition to the low attendance, fearing reprisals, the terrorists left a package of dynamite at Mayor Azcueta’s home.

On February 15, 1992, after spending a day at the beach, Moyano and her family went to a pollada in the first sector of

Clashes with the Shining Path During this period, María Elena took a critical position in regards with Shining Path and its participation in the political processes of Villa El Salvador. She was already a member of the Socialist Affirmation Movement, after her departure from the Mariateguist Party. Shining Path considered María Elena a counterrevolutionary and a reactionary. Between 1989 and 1991, the confrontation between Moyano and the terrorist organization grew, especially because María Elena had begun an expansion of the public image of her Federation, and because she directly accused the senderistas (Shining Path adepts) of the attacks that occurred in her district and her sector. In 1991, Shining Path exploded a bomb in a Federation warehouse and accused Moyano of the act.

The situation worsened when Moyano was elected deputy mayor of Villa El Salvador in 1989, under Mayor Michel Azcueta This coincided with the assassination of labour leader Enrique Castillo by Shining Path, in October that same year. This made Malena announce her repudiation of the terrorist group with much more energy.

Villa El Salvador. At the scene, a terrorist managed to wound the police guarding María Elena, and then went for her while she was talking. Malena was shot twice, in her chest and head, and then dynamited with five kilos of explosives attached to her body.

On February 16, 1992, the front page of La República newspaper's headline said: "They will shoot her, they will dynamite her ... AND THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO KILL HER!" At the end of 1992, the Federation of Women of Villa El Salvador grouped 112 meal centres, fed 30 thousand diners daily and managed 507 Milk Committees that served approximately 60 thousand children, according to data from the Commission of Truth and National Reconciliation.

On June 13, 2017, the Ministry of Culture posthumously awarded the Meritorious Personality of Culture Award to the young mother and sociology student from Villa El Salvador “… in recognition of her active and courageous defense of human rights in favour of women, as a neighborhood leader and social fighter. She revalued the cultural contribution of Afro-Peruvian women to the construction of the country.”

No, they couldn't kill her.

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RECETA: RANFAÑOTE Ranfañote is a sweet made from bread and chancaca honey that was born in the capital of Peru. It is one of the oldest desserts in Peru, developed in the viceregal era.

Pamela Cartagena, granddaughter of Agustina Reyes Ballumbrosio, the Queen of Ranfañote in Chincha, tells two theories about its origin: the first reckons that the dessert was born from the hands of the Afro-descendant slaves of Chincha.

The second theory established its birth in times of the Pacific War

INGREDIENTS 4 loaves of bread from the day before Butter to taste 2 chancaca balls 3 cloves ½ teaspoon of whole anise 1 piece of orange peel 1 cup of water 125 grams of nuts 100 grams of raisins (white and black) 100 grams of fresh cheese chopped into pieces Coconut to taste, grated and toasted

PREPARATION

Cut the bread into cubes and toast them in a frying pan coated with butter. Reserve Place the water, chancaca balls, cloves, anise and orange peel in a pot. Boil until the mixture takes a point of honey.

In a bowl, place the bread, nuts, coconut, raisins and cheese. Mix everything, add the honey and mix again.

Serve in portions.