Osvaldo

Quechua Salta, Argentina

Quechua was the language of the Inca Empire and is still spoken by millions of people primarily across Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. Quechua is probably best described as a small language family with up to ten varieties that can be considered separate languages. After centuries of severe discrimination, Quechua has been made an official language in Bolivia and Peru. In Bolivia it has been promoted in the school system and is enjoying a rediscovered prestige which it still lacks in Peru and Ecuador. There are hundreds of Quechua speakers in New York City, some of whom are actively trying to keep their language alive in their new home.

Born on the Altiplano (the Andean highlands) of Argentina, the eldest of four children, was sent away to school in the city of Jujuy. The product of a mixed Andean marriage, his father was Aymara, the older and more aggressive Inca culture, and his mother was Quechua, a younger, happier, funnier Inca culture. His grandparents were bilingual and his parents spoke mostly Spanish. His mother was a teacher in a school whose purpose it was to wipe out regional languages and leave Spanish dominant. Osvaldo finished school and was then sent back into the Altiplano to teach. There he met a Catholic priest and was convinced to go and teach in a Catholic school in the city of Salta. After a year he was also convinced to enter the seminary. He remained there for three years studying with rigorous discipline to enter the priesthood, learning Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, struggling with the difficulties of these ancient languages. Finally he realized that instead of gaining something he was losing his own culture, he left the seminary and has devoted the rest of his life to the study of Andean language and mysticism, mainly Quechua; dedicating himself to the understanding of his own 10,000 year old culture. He says, Europeans see themselves as created in the image of God--they are the "I", they long to "get" in order to gain power.

Andeans see themselves as one part of the cosmos in which a person is no more important than a tree or a rock. They see themselves as the "we" in which you "give" to gain power. Europeans see life as a linear progression which ends in eternity. Andeans see life as a two-headed serpent which meets in a circle, each head representing the commingling of birth and death. And so the arrival of the Europeans was a catastrophe for the Andeans who believed in giving to the Europeans who believed in taking. It was not an encounter but a "disencounter", neither side understanding the other, they were not sharing but working at opposite purposes. The quote is about the three parts of the soul: the head, the chest and the stomach which must be maintained in unity in order for a person to live and act truthfully. A note on photography: Andeans believe that a photograph takes a piece of the soul but that is not intrinsically bad, you just have to be careful about who you permit to photograph you, for it creates a powerful image that can be used for good or evil. His grandmother's life was saved in a healing ceremony that was done using a photograph of her.