Cultivar con los ancestros

Una exploración de los conceptos chullpa, mallqui y huanca para la interpretación del paisaje agrario de Cusi Cusi (Puna de Jujuy, Argentina)

Abstract

In the Andean world, there is a diversity of bodies, forms, and materials that embody generative principles. One of these principles is ancestral agency, which can materialize in the landscape through mountains, structures, and specific stones (among other possibilities), playing an active role in the practices associated with the agrarian-ritual calendar. This article invites a reconsideration of the productivist paradigm (sensu Kazic) that underpins modern agronomy, in order to explore the agency potentially exercised by chullpa structures (or chullpas), burial sites beneath large rocks (linked to bodies or mallquis), and carved stones (interpreted as possible huancas) found in agricultural fields and associated residential areas in the micro-region of Cusi Cusi (Puna of Jujuy, Argentina), dating to at least the 14th century. Special emphasis is placed on their archaeological context, their connection to precedents in neighboring areas, and their potential association with the fertility of local chakras.