Over a gorge, a bridge to the Incan past
An annual ceremony involves smoke, rope, prayer, guinea pigs – and lots of company.
from the July 25, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Some cords are more demanding than others: the bridge will be about 200 feet long, but the support cables run longer, leaving ample length to secure them to rock abutments on either side of the gorge.
The bridge is really a series of 25 cords braided into six-inch-thick cables that serve as the base and railings. These are run across the gorge and secured to stone posts. Once these are in place, the bridge builders – always men – inch their way along the cables from each side, weaving what will be the bottom edge of the bridge to the railings they hold. Last, flooring is added, made of more grass, twigs and other natural materials gathered in Huinchiri and neighboring areas. The floor must be six inches thick to keep people and animals from stumbling as the Apurimac roars by below.
The whole process takes three days – and at each stage, tributes are made to the gods. The final ceremony, performed before the first person crosses the new bridge, is the most elaborate: the sacrificial burning of two sheep and offerings of guinea pigs, a delicacy in today's Peru; coca leaves, an age-old antidote to hunger in these hills; and local produce.
Even the elaborate bridge celebration may not be enough to keep a 21st-century village connected to its ancient Incan roots.
The young people of Huinchiri are leaving for better opportunities, breaking their ties with the past. The regional government recently banned the consumption of a sugar-cane brew popular in the highlands and with volunteers at the reconstruction ceremony ("It makes people stupid," the regional president says), and the Peruvian government wants to wipe out all but a small amount of coca leaves that are used for chewing, in teas, and in ceremonies like the one here in Huinchiri.
Organizers lament that people are more interested in the party than in helping with the bridge. Ccanahuiri says that villages at lower altitudes in charge of bringing twigs for the bridge floor simply overlooked the task this year, making the flooring a bit more precarious.
The local government hopes the ceremony will bring in tourists – so much so that the district mayor frowned on the ritual tributes, saying they are archaic and could scare away people.
And then there is the bridge itself, all ceremony and little function, difficult to see as a symbol of a culture's vitality. As it slips out of use, its stories are disappearing.
"What we know about the bridge does not come from books or school, but from what our parents and grandparents told us," says Ccanahuiri. "The stories come from the time of the Incas, but we are not transmitting them anymore."
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