Una aproximación al sincretismo católico andino en Los ríos profundos de José María Arguedas

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze Andean Catholic syncretism in the novel Los ríos profundos (1958) by José María Arguedas. In order to do so, I use the anthropological categories of religious syncretism and Andean cosmovision, based on studies by Federico García and Pilar Roca, Manuel Marzal, Franklin Pease, and Josef Estermann, among others. The study suggests that the Catholic religious practice of the indigenous and mestizos has the substratum of Andean religion. In this sense, I propose the confrontation of two forms of religious practice in the context of the novel: the Western Catholic religion and the syncretic Andean Catholic religion. The former was imposed by the hegemonic power and the latter was practiced by the Andean population. I conclude that the indigenous population from colonial times practiced a syncretic Andean Catholic religion, in which the cult of the apus, rivers and nature in general is present in the various rites of the Catholic religion.