Wifalas from the Community of Ccoyllorpuquio, in the Province of Cusco, Peru: A Journey on the Translation of Liminality

Abstract

A Wifala is a traditional character in the festivals of Ccoyllorpuquio’s peasant community. This is an
ambiguous character, since it is played by men dressed in women’s clothings. The notion of the liminal allows to define the ambiguity of wifalas a priori, as opposites overlapping in the character’s meaning. Thus, the liminal in culture is defined by something that is not found in one place nor in another. In the ritual sphere, this is enacted by symbols representing passages like death, bisexuality or sunrise and sunset periods. However, this article is focused in help understanding the wifala —and their seemingly liminal status— from the perspective of its main actors themselves and the community they represent. In this line, a corpus was built based on a bibliographic and ethnographic research on the
meaning of the wifala. From Ccoyllorpuquio community members’ view, wifala is “el costumbre or the [male] tradition” of their ancestors. Thus, other scholarly terms and concepts are not sufficient to explain this phenomenon, since it needs to be understood under the light of el costumbre, that is, an
ontological rationale that is understood only by performing it. Thus, the main phenomenon in those view differences will be translation, since the issue at hand is due to the coloniality of power, as it does not allow to create a culturally pertinent setting. Therefore, this research helps dismiss a scholary single-way constructivism and allows for some opening to scholarly community re-creation.