31-03-2023

Cristóbal de Choquecaxa negotiates with Centromin S. A.

Gloria Alvitres
Three heads of cattle are offered in exchange for one mallqui. In the Huarochirí Valley, stones grow where the puma once lived. In the Mantaro Valley, the new huaca is a tractor that receives offerings of fruits and crosses. The horizon has been turned upside down. 

A building of polarized windows for Cristóbal de Choquecaxa, where he meets with three communities to pray to the Virgin Del Carmen and arrange marriages among sheep. The sacred animal is skinned in the marketplace and the retama bushes adorn the new graveyards, the mamitas weep beneath carnival garlands. 

The lands of San Mateo are auctioned off and the lagoon fades away drop by drop, perishing inside a bottle. Cristóbal has sired many children in the Sierra, others call him father only because he roams, being transformed into a hawk who bears their sorrows. 

Contracts are signed every year. The land has other owners, other fences, other faces. Stored in its breast are hues of mercury and rust. 

Cristóbal plucks his own feathers, cuts off his own beak.
Gloria Alvitres is a Peruvian journalist, writer, and poet. She studied journalism in Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University (Lima) and follows a master in Hispanic-American Literature in the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Her book of poems Canción y vuelo de Santosa appeared in 2021. Her poetry has been included in international anthologies of women poets. She has coordinated the ANTIFIL Alternative Book Fair in Lima. Her journalistic work addresses themes such as memory, environment, and feminism. 

English version by Tanya Huntington.

Cristobal Choquecaxa: historical character of the Chanca ethnic group, possibly one of the authors of the Quechua manuscript Gods and Men from Huarochirí.
huaca: sacred or ritual burial ground or hiding place for valuable objects.
mallqui: Quechua voice for mummified remains of important ancestors.
mamita: colloquial way of addressing the Andean woman.
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