“Altiplano”: the pangs of Pachamama and the Anima Mundi

Brosens and Woodworth's film is much more than a heartfelt appeal to the conservation of our planet's natural resources: in the drama of Saturnina, symbolisms and sacred conceptions of the New and Old World converge, which allow us to address the question on multiple levels intimately connected between They.


di Marco Maculotti

Released in cinemas ten years ago, Altiplano of the two Belgian directors Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, although guilty rather ignored internationally, it can be indicated without hesitation as one of the most meaningful films of recent decades on a symbolic and esoteric level concerning the dramatic issue of the poisoning of the earth and its natural resources - thematic, as we all know, al center of global attention at the time of writing.

Based on real events that occurred in 2008 in the Andean village of Choropampa (also the fate of the two central characters, Saturnina and Ignacio, was derived from anecdotes and testimonies of the farmers locals and the doctors who dealt with the case), Altiplano fully succeeds in proposing, combining symbolisms of the Andean tradition (the concept of huaca, the veneration of the Pachamama "disguised" as the Virgin Mary, the millennial eschatology of the "Land Without Evil") and the western one (Maya as anima mundi, the ambivalent but transformative function of Mercury), a broader and "subtle" vision of the problem, which is not limited to the merely material and empirical aspect of the question.

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The main character is Saturnin, a native girl from the Peruvian village of Turubamba: in his figure exemplary the inevitable fate converges with all its violence, elevating it at the same time to the role of victim and executioner, of holy need damned - protagonist partly reminiscent of those of two other films set in the Andes: La teta asustada (Paloma's song, 2009) and above all madeinusa (2006), both by Peruvian director Claudia Llosa.

Central, as has been said, is the theme of the Sacred. It could be said that the whole life of the Peruvian community is based on it, although adapted as far as possible to the cult of the colonizers. The Virgin, whose statue is ritually immersed in the sagrada lagoon at the end of the film, it is nothing more than a post-colonial effigy of Pacha Mama or Santa Tierra, the personification of the earth itself in its maternal aspect, and therefore both benevolent and terrifying [1]: Mother Earth gives us birth and sustenance, but is always capable of bringing us back into her womb at the time she has established [2]:

“While it is invoked for its fertility powers, it is feared on the other, because it can become so dangerous as to cause disease by capturing the soul of its victims or by producing emanations that affect the heart. "

On the other hand, as the great Mexican writer and poet remarked very well Octavio Paz ne The labyrinth of solitude, in present-day Latin America (in Peru as in Mexico) the veneration of the Virgin-Mother Earth is not reduced, from an anthropological point of view, to the "traditional" sphere only [3]:

"The situation has changed: it is no longer a question of securing the crops, but of finding a womb. The Virgin is the consolation of the poor, the shield of the weak, the shelter of the oppressed. […] The cult of the Virgin not only reflects the general condition of men, but also a concrete historical situation, both spiritual and material. "

In the film being analyzed here, to this womb ambivalent are attracted first Ignacio and then Saturnina, poisoned by a mysterious "supernatural" fluid (huaca, as we shall see) that emerges from the limbs of the Pachamama, obviously thanks to the deplorable intervention of the “white man” extractive companies. But the poison is the same here as the pharmakon of the ancient Greeks: poisonous substance and at the same time, at a higher and "subtle" level, healing.

And it is no coincidence that such drug is materially to be identified in mercury, which the Alchemists considered the primordial element with which every other metal was formed, because it contains within itself all the different aspects and qualities of matter: vehicle of connection between heaven and earth, also assimilated to the philosophical ether, that is the substance with which the Soul of the world was believed to be interwoven, permeating the entire universe. There is much more than just plain ignorance on the part of Saturnina and Ignacio in considering mercury a sacred substance or, better said, using the correct Quechua terminology, huaca: their vision of the world, still deeply centered, despite the collective trauma suffered by the Spanish conquest onwards, on animistic worship of natural forces, in all its non-dual and non-dichotomous aspects, is at the very basis of their lack of tact in handling such a notoriously lethal substance unprotected. On the other hand, several Amerindian populations have historically resorted to the intake of pure mercury (asogue) for cathartic and purifying purposes [4], as well as sacrifice them.

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The conception of huacain fact, it goes well beyond the vision of the divine as "good and merciful", assuming rather an element of extraordinariness for better or for worse: exactly what the ancient Romans defined monster, in the triple meaning of "prodigy, portent, miracle", "extraordinary event, incredible thing" and "wickedness, atrocity, monstrous act". Huaca they are in fact natural places, such as mountains, springs and lakes, which are believed to be inhabited by the spirits of  natural world and the Ancestors; huaca they are the temples and idols they contain and the remains of deceased ancestors; but huaca they are also and above all all the unusual or monstrous forms with which the cosmic order was manifested: boulders characterized by particular shapes or animals that do not conform to the usual standards. Ultimately, it is considered huaca anything that conveys an extra-ordinary, forbidden connotation (taboo), in a way that we Westerners might remember the conception of the Sacred as Mysterium Tremendum and “totally Other” by the German philosopher Rudolf Otto.

The ancient Peruvians believed that these aberrations indicated the will, of the superior force that governed creation, to reveal through the monstrosity of such forms a truth not visible with only physical eyes (and that in fact the ophthalmologists Westerners, including Max, they cannot cure), inherent in the spiritual world, in theanima mundi itself, beyond the charade chronic of the events of daily life (the very name of the protagonist, Saturnina, is archetypically connected with the character fatal of Saturn / Kronos intended as Chronos, time, considered in its ruthless and ineluctable meaning).

In this sense, the release of mercury from the depths of Pacha Mama's womb can only reveal a widespread disease on a soul and collective level, and not only on a purely material level (pollution of the earth): and this disease spreads seamlessly around the world, regardless of geopolitical borders, from the Middle East to the Peruvian Andes. It is not just, we have said, the pollution of natural resources, which if anything the real Evil behind it is a hierophany in palpable terms. («The surface is defined from within», Says Orlando, the blind restorer): behind the changes in material reality that can be experienced with the five senses there is a much more terrifying evil, an evil that afflicts the whole of humanity like a cancer, in the illusory game of the dichotomy "victim / executioner", and perhaps the entire cosmic consciousness considered in its deepest structure.

This ambivalence of the Sacred, perceived at the same time as a source monstrous of decay and destruction and as a renewing and purifying agent, is typical of all pre-Columbian South America. Paradigmatic and, in our opinion, illuminating in the analysis of Altiplano è the conception of the Chamacoco or Ishir Indians, settled between Paraguay and Brazil, which tend to homologate the sacred with the impure (it is referred to as wozosh, "Unusual power"), because they believe that power almost always causes misfortune and impurity. More: as Edgardo Cordeu explains, the Ishir they compare the experience of the sacred to the action of a poison, as well as highlighting its unusual, unknown and dangerous character (ioniak) [5]:

«Its empirical and lexical correlate is poison; like this, its manifestation is unpredictable, its effects dazzling, the consequences usually harmful. The lightning, the burning, the putrefaction, the sensations of intolerable intensity and, in general, the unusual, are some of the immediate images of him. Therefore, the revelation of the wozosh it dynamically splits reality into two empirically and conceptually distinct spheres, framed without too many distortions in the categories of "profane" and "sacred". Therefore, all the phenomena pertaining to the normal sphere of experience remain aside, which do not cause fear or disquiet and which generally qualify as ie wotish ("Without power"). At the opposite extreme, however, are the beings and events that share the trait of ioniak; that is, a particular type of numinous danger linked to the unknown, which triggers a feeling of djejrro, or fear. […] And therefore, the possible answers in the face of one of its manifestations are either interdiction or purification »

The conceptual ambiguity of "unusual power" wozosh it is well understood taking into account the fact that it is enough to affix a om (wozósh óm) to obtain the idea of ​​"unusual attractive and beneficial power", "associated with coolness, good smell, humidity and, in general, Life": reversing the nefarious aspect of the term taken individually, it rises to indicate "the efficient cause that manifests in fecundity and in the processes of renewal, be they animal, vegetable, astronomical, sociological or ritual ". This is because "just as decomposition [...] leads to the disappearance of identity and form [...], the practical correlative of wozósh óm è a rebirth or renewal of being» [6].

Nor should it be forgotten that Mercury, mythologically speaking, was considered the son of the goddess Maia, ancient Greco-Roman goddess of fertility and the awakening of nature in spring: here is therefore the "son" emerging from Santa Tierra / Maia / Maria, bringing the upheaval within the native community (and not only), but also leading the consciences (especially that of Grace, a veteran of her husband's mourning, and of Nilo, Saturnina's brother) to a higher level of understanding. Just as it is significant to remember that Maia was ritually offered a pig (which takes its name from the goddess): and in one of the first scenes of the film the custom / need to sacrifice a pig is mentioned, in view of the imminent marriage between Saturnina and Ignacio.

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But Mercury was also the psychopomp god, who accompanies the soul in the Other World, which is not only the world of the dead but also that of spirits: theanima mundi, precisely. The far from unconscious ascent of Ignacio, who climbs the sacred mountain in order to obtain the mythical “water of Life”, is a magnificent example in this regard of cinematic re-adaptation of very ancient mythologems. His death, caused precisely by the ingestion of the mercurial substance, will be the cause of a real revolution within his village, thus setting in motion a process fatal and inevitable that will lead to the death (and "deification") of Saturnina, "virginal" epiphany of the same anima mundi, as well as that of Max.

"Deification" of Saturnina, we have said, and this is to be understood for better or for worse, coherently with the concept of huaca explained by us: Saturnina becomes huaca both in the guise of martyr and, at the same time, in that of executioner almost involuntary, having been his hand guided by a higher willpower, we could say "soul-collective". Extremely significant, in this regard, is the sequence of his funeral, during which his fellow villagers, disguised as angels and devils, compete for his soul in the Other World.

We also believe that we must analyze the apocalyptic poetics of Altiplano taking into account the so-called South American eschatological movements which (although existing even before the Hispanic-Christian conquest and colonization) especially from 1500 made inroads into many communities of natives, both Andean and Amazonian. These religious movements were based on the perception of an imminent apocalypse: the "prophets" invited their followers to abandon the daily occupations and cults of the colonizers, and join them on a pilgrimage in search of the mythical "Land Without Evil" within which, by means of the ecstatic dance, they would be reborn purified, in a heavenly world equally purged of evils and injustices. It was believed that, during the journey, "the bodies of the devotees would be transformed into immortal substances" [7].

It could be said that, through such eschatological movements, the "prophets" proved to their followers that "The meaning of history can only be understood by grasping the ultimate and catastrophic nature of the human condition" [8]. Almost all of these movements, "however hopeful, inevitably pass through the chaos of fire, darkness, deluge, noise, moral disorder or some other deconstructive experience of form destruction» [9]. "Limits and boundaries, experienced precisely in the moment of their overcoming, clarify the purpose of space and time as well as of the existences that take place in them", which is why "the symbolic experience, in all its expressions, is directed towards the end. The end of being imaginable becomes the definitive expression of human destiny " [10]. In this sense, South American eschatologies of this type (Andean as well as Amazonian), writes Lawrence Sullivan [11]:

«[…] They help us to understand better the proximity of heaven and the apocalypse. Both are visions of the same reality, that is, the final condition of the cosmos. […] It could be said that in heaven and in the apocalypse the religious life achieves its end and its integrity, reaching the sense of wholeness required to evaluate the meaning of the symbolic life itself. [...] the religious protagonists grasp the meaning of life in this world by grasping it from both ends: creation and final destruction. […] The inevitability of the end of the world does not eliminate the uncertainty about its meaning and its consequences. Rather, the eschatological view provides a fulcrum for religious ambivalence and allows the community to reflect on the finite nature of existence and its own relationships with it. "

In this sense (Sullivan's observation is perfectly connected, here, with the fate of Saturnina and Ignacio) [12]:

« The ordeals suffered by those who survive the end of the world give them a heroic fate. The end of the world becomes a test, an initiatory experience that leads to a new type of existence. Humans who survive the end of time are transformed by experience and live as supernatural, immortal, and primal ancestors. They are freed from cycles of impoverishment, from the constraints of body weight and from the cycles of daily activity. "

In this regard, one cannot fail to note how, both in the scene of the "Passage over" of Ignacio that in the mirror of Saturnina, the spirits of the Ancestors literally come out of the terrain of the Santa Tierra, to lead the souls of the two deceased in the Other World, which as mentioned is not only that of the dead but also that of the immortal spirits. And the souls of the Ancestors sacrificed over the centuries for the love of Pacha Mama are significantly seen flowing, in the form of images, in the flows of the river that descends from the summit of the sacred mountain: it is in the water element, traditionally connected to theanima mundi, that they eventually flow without any tangible worries, within an eternal circle of timeless bliss. 

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A death that is therefore more a rebirth than a death, on an ontologically superior level and immune to the dichotomies of the world of matter: a catabasis that is also an ascension. Thus, in the end, with the transformation of liquid mercury into igneous mercury, the alchemical marriage between the Sun and the Moon (Ignacio and Saturnina) takes place not on the plane chronic and material, but on the superior and "thin" one of theanima mundi: the one and only hierogamy capable of giving life to philosopher's gold (as opposed to the “petty” material gold extracted on the plateau by Western companies), and thus to heal the corruption of matter and of the ever-tightening coils of Kronos. As the blind restorer states in one of the film's topical sequences, the image is restored, and with it hope.


Note:

[1] Some scholars report a further distinction, existing in the Inca tradition, between the cultivated land where people lived, called Camac Pacha ("he / she / those who animate / animate the earth") and the uncultivated land, outside the villages, called Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) [ZUIDEMA, R. Tom: "The Inca religion and its roots in the CentralAdin context", in AAVV: Indigenous cultures and religions in Central and South America, edited by SULLIVAN, Lawrence E., Jaca Book - Massimo, Treatise on Anthropology of the Sacred vol. 6, Milan 1997, p. 226]

[2] OSSIO, Juan M .: "Religious life of contemporary Peruvian indigenous people", in AAVV: Indigenous cultures and religions in Central and South America, op. cit., p. 192

[3] PAZ, Octavio: The labyrinth of solitude, SE, Milan 2013, p. 68

[4] SIMMONS, Mark: Bad medicine. Black magic in the American Southwest, Xenia, Milan 1998, p. 177

[5] CORDEU, Edgardo Jorge: "The religion of the Chamacoco or Ishir Indians", in AAVV: Indigenous cultures and religions in Central and South America, op. cit. P. 234

[6] Ibid, p. 235

[7] SULLIVAN, Lawrence E .: "The world and its end: cosmologies and eschatologies of South American indigenous people", in AAVV: Indigenous cultures and religions in Central and South America, op. cit., p. 176

[8] Ibid, p. 172

[9] Ibid, p. 182

[10] Ibidem

[11] Ibid, p. 178

[12] Ibid, p. 183