Unveiling Secrets of War in the Peruvian Andes
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Illustrations: Maps, Table, Figures
1 Introduction
Secret or Forgotten Memories?
The Making of the Ethnography
2 The Village and the Impact of Political Violence
Sarhua Llaqta: The Village of Sarhua and Its People
The Times of Danger
3 The Said and the Unsaid
An Unusual Visit
Intended Forgetfulness
Gossip
The Missing Image of the Disappeared Man
Envy
Ressentiment
Confession
The Power to Silence
4 The Production of “Truth”
Old and New Sarhuino Painting Traditions
Events, Blamed Actors and Time Sequence in the “Piraq Causa”
Absent Themes
Unexpected Viewers and the Question of “Truth”
The Role of Imagination
Traces of the Real
Relationship between the Image and the Text
Condensation, Exaggeration, and Accentuation
Symbolism
5 Social Disruption
The Threat of Individualism: An Inside Enemy
The Threat of Outside Enemies: A Call for Unity
A Threat to Abolish the “Varayoqkuna” System: A Sign of Disunity
6 A Familiar Secret
A Crucial Alliance
A Deferred Response
The Final Push
The Uprising
Capricho
The Expulsion
Sarhua Charged with Terrorism
Narciso Seeks Revenge
The Community’s Reaction
A Secretly Deserved Death
7 Ambiguous Realities
Narciso Appears in Dreams
Between the Visible and the Invisible
Qarqachas
Defiant Qarqachas
Condenados
The Condenado of Ranranizio
The Condenado of Aywiri
8 Behind the Visible
Another “Disappearance”
Secret 1: The Invisible Presence of the State
Secret 2: Communal Justice or Private Revenge?
Secret 3: The Community’s Endorsement of Justiniano andSendero
Secret 4: The Surrender and Pardon of Sarhuino Senderistas
9 Conclusions
Afterword Coda to an Investigation: New Findings and Old
Appendixes
Appendix A: The Piraq Causa Paintings
Appendix B: The General Law of Peasant Communities
Appendix C: Communal Meeting of November 30, 1996
Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
Notes
References
“Olga González’s ethnographic meditation on identity, history, violence, inequality, and cultural transformation is a joy to read. She skillfully uses community art as an entry point to explore and theorize community experiences of survival and memories of political violence. While providing a thorough political history of the Peruvian conflict, González takes on the ever thorny challenge of analyzing local political culture and memory in relation to local and national power structures over time. In writing that is sharp and insightful, she offers a cutting-edge analysis of local remembering and forgetting juxtaposed with recorded historic events. This is anthropology at its best and a real treat to read.”
“Olga González belongs to a new generation of scholars concerned with the politics of truth and memory in the wake of Peru’s bloody civil war. In Unveiling Secrets of War in the Peruvian Andes,she uses her extensive, deeply sensitive fieldwork in Sarhua, a Quechua-speaking village, and a remarkable cycle of paintings by local artists to explore matters of secrecy, the said and unsaid, and hatred and reconciliation. The result is a theoretically savvy, absorbing, and very moving piece of work that gives us a whole new way of understanding both the war in Peru and the long shadow it casts upon Andean life even today.”--Orin Starn, Duke University
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
History: Latin American History
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