The Instituto Indigenista Peruano

A New Place in the State for the Indigenous Debate

by
Osmar Gonzales
Translated by Mariana Ortega Breña

The creation of the Instituto Indigenista Peruano (Peruvian Indigenist Institute—

IIP) in 1946 was the result of several decades of discussion regarding the role of
indigenous people in the Peruvian nation-state. The debate led to at least two main
stances: that the indigenous presence constituted an obstacle to the constitution of the
Peruvian nationality and that the nation had indigenous foundations. The IIP took a
middle path by proposing a gradual, state-led process of assimilation that focused on
cultural and pedagogical factors. Its creation involved the defeat of radical proposals and
the conversion of those intellectuals who at some point took revolutionary stances.

La creación del Instituto Indigenista Peruano en 1946 fue el resultado de varias

décadas de discusiones en torno al papel de los pueblos indígenas en el estado peruano.
El debate conllevó a por lo menos dos posturas fundamentales: que le presencia indígena
constituido un obstáculo a la constitución nacional del Perú y que la nación tenia
fundaciones indígenas. El IIP tomó el camino intermedio, proponiendo un proceso
gradual de asimilación que priorizaba factores culturales y pedagógicos. Su creación
involucró la derrota de propuestas radicales y la conversión de esos intelectuales quienes
habían tomado, en un momento dado, posturas revolucionarias.

Keywords:  Peru, Indigenismo, Assimilation, Intellectuals

The creation of the Instituto Indigenista Peruano (Peruvian Indigenist Insti-

tute —IIP) in 1946 took place during a period when the demographic composi-
tion of the country was beginning to change dramatically because of massive
migration from the countryside to urban centers. Peru stopped being predomi-
nantly Andean, and mestizaje (racial mixing) became increasingly common.
Thus, ironically, the IIP appeared at a time when the population it addressed had
begun to dwindle. Indeed, the 1940s inaugurated a population move toward the
coast that would eventually transform the nation’s demography: for the first
time in history, most Peruvians would be mestizo rather than indigenous. A
quick review of three censuses confirms this change: in 1791, 62 percent of the
population was indigenous; in 1876 this figure was 58 percent, and in 1940, for
the first time, the indigenous population had become a minority at 46 percent.
This population change renewed the debate on indigenous groups and
their role in the formation of Peruvian nationality. The country once had an

Osmar Gonzales is a Peruvian sociologist. He has been deputy director of the National Library
of Peru and director of the Casa Museo José Carlos Mariátegui, among others, and has written
numerous books and articles on the role of intellectuals in Peru. Mariana Ortega Breña is a free-
lance translator based in Canberra, Australia.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 186, Vol. 39 No. 5, September 2012 33-44
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X12447276
© 2012 Latin American Perspectives

33
Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016
34    LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

indigenous majority that suffered under the most inhumane exploitation, and
this produced a heightened awareness and the denunciation of those respon-
sible. Literature, particularly Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Aves sin nido (1994
[1880]), played an important role. After Peru’s defeat in the so-called Pacific
War with Chile (1879–1883), Manuel González Prada claimed to be against the
segregation of Andean people, whom the national elite considered soldiers or
peasants but not full citizens. This radical message took on a political and
ideological character in the 1920s with José Carlos Mariátegui, the founder of
Peruvian socialism, and Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, the creator of the
Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American Popular Revolution-
ary Alliance—APRA), who sought to build political organizations that
included the indigenous population. While Mariátegui argued that the social-
ism of the future should be based on the communal forms of organization of
the Inca state, Haya de la Torre argued that the new society would be sus-
tained by the middle class and a broad alliance of classes oriented toward
opposing oligarchic and imperialist power.1 The two proposals were based on
the same idea: that the Peruvian nation should acknowledge the indigenous
population because it represented Peru’s original culture. A number of intel-
lectual stances emerged around this issue, and various indigenista discourses—
denunciatory, legal and ethical, scientific, pedagogical or literary, historical,
and radical or revolutionary—were born. Radical proposals were defeated in
the 1930s by the authoritarian and dictatorial governments of Luis M. Sánchez
Cerro (1931–1933) and Oscar R. Benavides (1933–1939). The next decade and
World War II (1940–1945) meant the return of constitutional and even reform-
ist governments such as that of José Luis Bustamante y Rivero (1945–1948),
whose administration created the IIP and put indigenous issues back on the
table.
This article seeks to examine the process that led to the creation of the IIP,
in particular the ideological and institutional background and the relation-
ships among its main supporters and actors. The IIP was, in a sense, a mix of
several types of indigenismo, some of which had been irreconcilable in the
1920s but two decades later would merge in this institution as competing dis-
courses became focused on integration.

TWO INDIGENISMOS

According to Mirko Lauer (1997), there were at least two main types of
indigenismo at the beginning of the twentieth century, the first offering
glimpses of a different nation and the second seeking solutions to an existing
problem. For proponents of the first type, the state had to be thoroughly trans-
formed, and the indigenous problem was a problem of power. Advocates of
the second, which might be called reformist, sought a cultural and institu-
tional solution in which the state would play a direct role in political integra-
tion from the top down. This type depended on racial ideas that prevailed
among early twentieth-century thinkers and sought to maintain the existing
power structure. Víctor Peralta (1995) asserts that the indigenismo proposed
by the creole intellectuals of Lima, Cuzco, and Puno sought to create an iden-
tity based on “an imagined indigenous community” and had nationalist and

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

 Gonzales / THE INSTITUTO INDIGENISTA PERUANO     35

modernist variants. The first looked at indigenous people as a self-sufficient

entity that could avoid contact with the rest of the world, while the second
advocated an international environment and a cosmopolitan solution.2
González Prada’s denunciation of the Republic and the ruling classes for
exploiting the Andean peoples was an indigenismo of the first kind, and at the
time it had no impact. The generation of intellectuals that immediately fol-
lowed him was one of the most fecund in Peruvian history. The Novecentistas
(for “twentieth-century”) or Arielistas (whose name derived from a book by
the Uruguayan writer José Enrique Rodó that exalted the idealism of Latin
American nations as opposed to U.S. pragmatism) included José la Riva
Agüero, Víctor Andrés Belaunde, Francisco and Ventura García Calderón, and
José Gálvez (Gonzales, 1996). They claimed that a fundamental Peruvian
nationality already existed but had to be “regenerated.” In the future they
envisioned, indigenous groups would occupy a secondary place, assigned to
them by the educated elite, in a hierarchical order. Thus, while González
Prada challenged the existing order, the Novecentistas proposed a type of
indigenismo oriented toward solving an existing national problem.
In the 1920s the work of González Prada became a major influence for the
so-called Centenaristas (after the centenary of independence), and their most
conspicuous members proposed radical and revolutionary approaches.
González Prada’s followers thought that the freedom of indigenous groups
was in their own hands. The intellectual and political importance of this gen-
eration is suggested by the presence of José Carlos Mariátegui, Víctor Raúl
Haya de la Torre, Luis Alberto Sánchez, and Jorge Basadre. In contrast to the
Novecentistas and, again, with González Prada, the Centenaristas were con-
vinced of the need for a new nation—one that was, ideally, already under
construction. They wanted to reestablish Peruvian nationality and the Repub-
lic not as a project of the educated elites but through the revolutionary action
of the working classes.
Some of the Novecentista intellectuals directly addressed indigenous real-
ity. The youngest and most provincial of them made up the generation’s left
wing. José Ángel Escalante (1882–1965) and José Uriel García (1894–1965)
studied in Cuzco; Luis E. Valcárcel (1891–1987) was originally from Moquegua,
while José Antonio Encinas (1888–1958) was from Puno. They were all, in one
way or another, involved in the First Inter-American Indian Conference in
1940 and in the creation of the IPP.
Encinas, who taught at Central Men’s School No. 881 in Puno, revolution-
ized instruction and contributed to the cultural blossoming of the region. He
invoked a type of education tied to social reality (1932), and early on his stu-
dents became aware of the indigenous problem. He criticized the landowner
class, the Catholic Church, and the state for neglecting indigenous education.
His teaching activities were based on a clear political judgment of the existing
order. He was elected to Congress in 1919, exiled by Leguía in 1923, and, after
his return to Peru in 1930, elected dean of the University of San Marcos.
Valcárcel adopted the most extreme stance among this group of intellectu-
als, foreseeing an Andean movement that would do away with all foreign
influences. His early book Tempestad en los Andes (1927) had a foreword by
Mariátegui and closing commentary by Sánchez. He would eventually change
his mind and become one of the leading proponents of an indigenismo that

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

36    LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

could heal the nation (Valcárcel, 1945). He worked in a number of museums

in Cuzco and Lima and through them introduced the urban public to Andean
culture. The IIP was an institutional project that he would have opposed in his
younger days.
Escalante became minister of justice, education, religion, and welfare under
the Leguía administration and in 1930 declared June 24 the Day of the Indian.
He created schools for peasants, founded the Office of Technical Education,
and chaired a commission charged with proposing alphabets for indigenous
languages that had been officially recognized (Valcárcel would later approve
this project during his tenure as education minister under Bustamante y
Rivero.) García had a distinguished career at the university, and his El nuevo
indio (1973 [1931]) offered a fine analysis of the indigenous situation.
Cuzco in the early twentieth century was the hub of important intellectual
activity. Its Scientific Center, created in 1897, was composed of notable local
intellectuals interested in promoting development in their region. In 1909,
students at the University of San Antonio Abad (the second-largest in the
country) formed an association and began a successful movement for the
modernization of higher education and improved interaction with the social
environment—mainly indigenous culture. The student movement threatened
institutional continuity and exposed inept authorities, and the university was
closed for a year. Eventually, the government brought in a new dean, the U.S.
engineer Albert Giesecke, who invigorated academic research through applied
studies. In line with the terminology employed by Mannheim (1952), this self-
proclaimed “1909 generation” was within the tradition of the Novecentistas
and approached the national reality with transparent social concern.
All of the intellectual and political stances on the indigenous problem and
the institutions created to address it constructed indigenous peoples as pas-
sive. Excluded from the benefits of modernity (education, politics, full citizen-
ship), indigenous people were supposedly unable to express their demands
and needed others to speak for them. However, indigenous people, while they
did not participate in the intellectual debate, were quite capable of making
themselves heard in other areas.

INSTITUTIONS AND DEBATES

In 1921, shortly after he became president, Augusto B. Leguía (1919–1930)

established a department of indigenous affairs in the Ministry of Buildings
and Public Works. In May 1922 he created the Patronato de la Raza Indígena
(Indigenous Race Foundation), which was chaired by Archbishop Emilio
Lisson and sought to protect and defend the indigenous population while
supporting its cultural and economic development. The charitable nature of
the foundation attracted the support of the Catholic Church. It was a govern-
mental expression of a populist administration (e.g., the president called
himself “Wiracocha”) catering to the concerns of certain sectors of Peruvian
society (especially the better-educated and avant-garde) and focusing on the
peasant uprisings over land ownership and the abuses of landowners and the
state. Whatever the intentions of its creators, the foundation did not bring about

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

 Gonzales / THE INSTITUTO INDIGENISTA PERUANO     37

any significant changes in the living conditions or rights of indigenous peas-

ants, but it did show that the state was capable of creating institutions to
address indigenous issues.
With regard to the protection of indigenous people, the foundation was
perhaps an unintended consequence of the social concern that also underlay
the Asociación Pro-Indígena (Pro-Indigenous Association, 1909–1917) founded
by the philosopher Pedro Zulen, the sociologist Joaquín Capelo, and the
writer Dora Mayer.3 Mariátegui described this association’s work well when
he said that, while humanitarian, altruistic, and moral, it was unable to solve
the problem of indigenous exploitation. The foundation’s “indigenous utili-
tarianism” differed radically from the association’s “humanist vocation,”
as Lauer (1997) points out, and while the former was a state institution the
latter was a private initiative of a group of intellectuals. The sympathy and
influence garnered by the association were in part due to the prestige of its
creators, among them Belaunde and Riva Agüero, who expressed concern
about the mistreatment of Andean peoples.
Meanwhile, in Lima, Mariátegui’s newspaper articles and the journal
Amauta (1926–1930) were asserting that Peru’s fundamental problem was the
relationship with indigenous groups. He envisioned a project carried out by
the Socialist Party that would transform the existing power structure and put
an end to the oppression of the indigenous. He even argued that Peruvian
socialism was rooted in a pre-Hispanic form of social organization, the ayllu,
the cell of Andean social life. However, far from seeking a return to the past or
a rejection of the foreign, he advocated interaction between the local and the
universal, between nationalism and cosmopolitanism.
While Haya de la Torre considered the indigenous population a platform
for revolutionary change, he assigned it a secondary role even as he argued in
favor of the struggle against landowners and exploiters. His party, the APRA,
was never popular among the Andean people and did not then have the
degree of political influence it was later to attain on the North Coast. Perhaps,
as Peralta (1995: 275) suggests, this is explained by the fact that “APRA indi-
genismo was characterized by a call for moderate state assistance and creole
and mestizo paternalism toward indigenous peoples.”
The importance of the indigenous problem crystallized in 1927 during the
so-called great debate of the twentieth century. It began as a sharp intellectual
exchange between Mariátegui and Sánchez but was later joined by intellectu-
als, journalists, and politicians from all sides, with Escalante (who was tall and
blond) contributing his famous article “Nosotros los indios” (We Indians)
(1927). The debate, focused on the indigenous issue and Peruvian nationality,
was covered widely in the press (Aquézolo, 1976).
Thus, despite its authoritarian character, the Leguía administration offered
an opportunity for multiple perspectives on national issues to contest each
other. These discussions would dwindle after 1930 with the repressive, fascist
regimes of Sánchez Cerro and Benavides. Sánchez Cerro’s military coup threw
the country into a dark age of political repression. The following year the
APRA confronted the army and was defeated in one of the bloodiest and most
influential clashes in Peruvian politics, and its militants were forced under-
ground or into exile.

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

38    LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

After 1932, a new chapter began in Peruvian history. By then our thinkers
had matured and enjoyed prominent public positions, and their beliefs and
convictions had taken on a new character. The ideas fostered in the 1920s suf-
fered a major transformation because, among other things, the subjects on
whom these expectations had been placed (the people, the working class,
indigenous groups, peasants) and their political expressions had been defeated.
During the Benavides administration Escalante was technical adviser to the
Superior Council for Indigenous Affairs (1935–1936), adviser to the Superior
Council on Waters (1937–1939), and a member of Congress (1939). In the latter
position he was appointed chair of the Peruvian delegation to the First Inter-
American Indian Conference, held in Pátzcuaro, Mexico, in 1940, where he
was appointed chair of the section on indigenous education and a member of
the committee organizing the Inter-American Indian Institute. In 1943, at a
time of close official relations between Peru and the United States, the U.S.
secretary of state invited him for a visit oriented toward strengthening cul-
tural bonds. Encinas was also present in Pátzcuaro and in 1949 became head
of the IIP. García was a senator from Cuzco in 1939 and also became part of
the Peruvian delegation to the Pátzcuaro conference. Valcárcel presented a
paper on indigenismo there that outlined the main issues of the time. In 1945
he organized the Museum of Peruvian Culture and served as minister of pub-
lic education, and in 1946 he was named head of the IIP.
The 1940s saw substantial political change. After the dictatorship of
Benavides, the country was led by democratically elected governments that
addressed cultural transformations related to the same problems that had
concerned academics two decades earlier. After the dark decade of the 1930s,
our intellectuals headed ministries and public institutions linked to educa-
tional, cultural, and research activities. World War II led to a radical transfor-
mation of the international political scene and a period of relative peace,
coexistence, and democratic cooperation. This resulted in a closer relationship
between Peruvian and U.S. academics under the Good Neighbor Policy of
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Anti-imperialism was replaced by Pan-Americanism
and became the new policy of rapprochement between the two Americas.
Academic exchange and scholarships increased, as did rapport with the U.S.
academy. According to Ricardo D. Salvatore (2008: 369), “Interestingly, anti-
U.S. cultural nationalism had transformed into cooperation with U.S. scien-
tists in favor of economic development and the understanding of indigenous
cultures.”

THE CREATION OF THE IIP

José Luis Rénique (1991) points out that, after the 1930s, concern regarding
the indigenous condition was stripped of the political content given it by Cen-
tenaristas and survived only as an intellectual pursuit. This is the period of
what he calls “luxuriant protective legislation that [did not] threaten the lati-
fundia.” Indigenous issues had become predominantly a governmental con-
cern. Leguía’s Department of Indigenous Affairs became, in 1938, the Direc-
torate of Indigenous Affairs in the Ministry of Public Health and, in 1942, part
of the Ministry of Justice and Labor. The Superior Council for Indian Affairs,

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

 Gonzales / THE INSTITUTO INDIGENISTA PERUANO     39

in the Ministry of Development, was charged with producing protectionist

policies “for the Aboriginal race.”4 All of these initiatives were linked to the
role played by Valcárcel during his tenure as minister of education, resulting
in a combination of Peruvian and Mexican governmental indigenismo and
U.S. anthropology that provided the basis for the IIP. Ricardo Melgar Bao
(2002: 180) has described this as a late “state-based institutionalization of indi-
genismo” that involved a “failed ‘translation’” of autochthonous culture by
indigenista officials seeking cultural integration.”
Valcárcel’s new vision, which no longer saw Andean culture as a force for
radical political and social transformation, was influenced by his discovery of
ethnology in the work of Franz Boas, Wendell Bennett, and Bronislaw
Malinowski during his 1937–1941 visits to the United States. From his ministe-
rial office, Valcárcel sought to integrate indigenous people into the nation,
promoting rural education and a cultural policy of indigenous character. One
result of this was the adoption of the official Quechua and Aymara alphabets
mentioned above. He created the Museum of Peruvian Culture and declared
a Day of the Tahuantinsuyo (Rénique, 1991: 131–135) to pay tribute to the
social organization established by the Inca throughout the Andes. Thus the
state’s acknowledgment of the indigenous element became associated with a
particular historical moment, made indigenous presence visible on a national
level, and recognized the Inca state as part of the historic foundation of the
Republic.
The origin of the IIP can be traced to the Eighth Pan-American Conference
in Lima in 1938, where the creation of an inter-American Indian institute was
first proposed. At the conference in Pátzcuaro that was a product of this initia-
tive, the April 17, 1940, plenary session agreed to the creation of the Inter-
American Indian Institute (III) (Alzamora, 1948: 21–23), and a managing com-
mittee was established. This committee was chaired by Guillermo Loyo
(Mexico) and John Collier (United States) and included Moisés Sáenz (Mexico)
and José Ángel Escalante (Peru) (Giraudo, 2006). According to Sáenz, who was
Mexican ambassador to Peru, Escalante’s account of the importance of the
Peruvian presence at this conference was decisive in bringing about Peru’s
ratification of the international convention establishing the III (Giraudo, 2006).
The Peruvian Congress ratified the convention on December 31, 1942, during
Manuel Prado’s presidency. President Bustamante y Rivero issued a resolu-
tion on May 15, 1946, establishing the IIP, and it began operating on February 21,
1947. A commission chaired by Encinas was in charge of drafting the IIP’s
bylaws, which were approved on August 20, 1947. The goals of the IIP were
established in Article 5.5, and Valcárcel summarized them in his memoirs: to
carry out research, “advise the Government on administrative arrangements
that affect indigenous peoples, and propose measures that contribute to their
well-being” (Valcárcel, 1981: 369).

THE IDEOLOGY OF THE IIP

Valcárcel, as director of the IIP, wrote the editorial for the first issue of Perú
Indígena and entitled it “Por el indio” (For the Indian). It said, “In truth, the
so-called ‘indigenous problem’ is made up of a complex and diverse series of

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

40    LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

conflicts that affect population groups located in the lower social strata and
subjected to economic struggle aggravated by racial and cultural prejudice”
(Valcárcel, 1948a: 2). The journal also reproduced Valcárcel’s speech on the
guidelines for the institute, in which he pointed out that the IIP was “born in
a democratic climate, the only context appropriate to its development.” Then,
in what can be understood as self-criticism, he questioned previous stances:
“This is not characterized by inconsistent lyricism, which did more damage
than good, and eschews the racist theories that condemned the Indian to
hopeless servitude” (Valcárcel, 1948b: 23). He announced that rural teachers
were being trained as a first and necessary step toward achieving the insti-
tute’s goals and continued, “We cannot speak of effective progressive peasant
change if we do not address and solve the land problem. There are thousands
of indigenous and mestizo families that do not own a plot.” He then talked of
the new science that had dazzled him in the United States, ethnology, and
alluded to the cooperation of U.S. academic institutions: “1945 and 1946 have
seen the beginning of ethnological research in our country, with the valuable
assistance of institutions as respectable as the Smithsonian and the Viking
Fund. Our ethnological institutes at the university and the national museum
are working fruitfully” (Valcárcel, 1948b: 31). He reaffirmed his commitment
to scientific knowledge, which, in his view, was the only thing that could
ensure the adequacy and sustainability of the proposed measures: accurate
knowledge of reality was the first step toward change. He attacked the Indig-
enous Race Foundation, which the IIP had replaced, for failing to recognize
“our Indian compatriots” as citizens: “Let us not forget that the cause of the
indigenous Peruvian is the same as that of all oppressed peoples in the world
who are thirsty for justice” (Valcárcel, 1948b: 31). After two years without any
effective activity, the government had decided to reorganize the IIP because
Cuzco had been designated to host the Second Inter-American Conference on
Indian Life, planned for 1948 but actually held in 1949. Preparations began
under Bustamante y Rivero, and the conference was held during the adminis-
tration of General Manuel A. Odría. It was a good vehicle for the dictatorship
to present its version of indigenismo—a policy of integration and moderniza-
tion that relied on setting aside politics with regard to the (racial) characteris-
tics of the indigenous population. Incorporating the indigenous into national
progress meant stripping them of attributes such as their alleged natural
character for dirtiness (through “hygiene”) and low self-esteem (through a
new educational policy).5
The government appointed Encinas as the next director of the IIP (Valcárcel,
1981: 369); he had already asked Congress for permission to join the institute.6
In the editorial “Nuestra misión” (Our Mission), published in the second issue
of Perú Indígena, he said something similar to what Valcárcel had said after the
Pátzcuaro conference: “This ended the romantic period and made way for a
scientific approach; the academic direction of the institute will provide the
necessary elements for the prompt and effective redemption of the Indian”
(Encinas, 1949a: 4).7 The institute’s dual mission was, therefore, to “study and
to create,” and this called for “the unconditional support of the state and the
collaboration of the nation’s cultural and economic entities.” He went on to
describe the historically unprecedented migration from the countryside to the

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

 Gonzales / THE INSTITUTO INDIGENISTA PERUANO     41

city (especially Lima) and depopulation of the Andes. Beyond the external
progress, he said, the inner life of indigenous people was disturbed by an
inferiority complex that led them to despise their own and not want to speak
their native languages; they “read little and understood less”; ideas were
“painfully assimilated and diverted” and money squandered on vicious hab-
its; they preferred to work as stewards in luxurious homes rather than to till
their ancestral lands. Even the weather worked against Andean migrants, and
they contracted diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and dysentery (Encinas,
1949b: 62). Encinas ended with a fittingly pedagogical proposal: the establish-
ment of rural schools as the source of indigenous material and spiritual well-
being. “The teacher will be the social leader of a vast process, not simply an
instructor agonizing amidst poverty and disdain” (Encinas, 1949a: 5). Valcárcel’s
and Encinas’s approaches reflected their efforts to harmonize the social
aspects of the 1920s with the IIP’s governmental role. Both rejected the radical
views of the past and emphasized the realistic approach proffered by scientific
knowledge.

CONCLUSION

There is no better way to summarize the process of indigenista thought in

Peru than the words of one of its main protagonists, Valcárcel (1981: 325):
“After being a stream of complaints and criticism and having announced the
‘indigenization’ of Peru, indigenismo became a school of thought.” Indeed,
indigenismo as embodied by the IIP was a journey from rebellion to participa-
tion in the establishment. Discussions of power relations or the need to carry
out a thorough land reform gave way to scientific thinking, technology, and
rationalism. This new stage invoked science (especially anthropology) and
realism, leaving romantic ideas behind. IIP members were experts who
advised the state and expected not drastic change but orderly development.
Given this new stance, the IIP was representative not only of the type of indi-
genismo that sought to solve national problems but also something that
aspired to be an instrument of redemption; from this perspective, the indige-
nous issue legitimized the state, which had always remained distant from
Peruvian social and cultural diversity. In addition, the IIP embodied the
defeat, at least for the moment, of an important group of Centenaristas (e.g.,
Mariátegui and Haya de la Torre) who had been at the forefront of discussions
of the indigenous issue and given it a clear ideological and political content. It
fell to the Novecentistas (Encinas and Escalante and, less significantly, García)
or intellectuals who had adopted their ideas by the 1940s (e.g., Valcárcel) to
give the institute momentum. Social initiatives that sought to preserve indig-
enous autonomy or were mainly opposed to the state (e.g., the Pro-Indigenous
Association and the Tahuantinsuyo Indigenous Rights Committee) were sub-
sumed or superseded by the IIP. The state no longer had significant oppo-
nents, having defeated communism and aprismo and their cultural and ideo-
logical proposals, and therefore it reabsorbed groups that had once shown
dissatisfaction with the status quo and supported institutions such as the IIP.
This legitimized a type of discourse that addressed the indigenous problem

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

42    LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

“from above.” The Peruvian state that encouraged and built the IIP had
strengthened its ties with the United States in the context of “democratic Pan-
Americanism,” and in the process indigenismo had gone from denunciation
to institutionalization guided by the goals of the Pátzcuaro conference. Its
Peruvian representatives (and others) were transformed from dissidents into
instruments of legitimation. The problem of power and the latifundia ceased
to be a central concern as the pro-indigenistas became experts. After the 1940s,
the indigenous issue would not be taken up again by society, at least not in a
significant way. It came up again in the 1970s under the military government
of Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–1975), who once again addressed, through
state policy, the fight against landowners and the oligarchy. In short, it was
once again the state that brought up the indigenous problem and its solution.
It was not until the 1980s, a decade of political violence and the appearance of
the Shining Path Maoist guerrilla movement, that some intellectuals became
concerned about indigenous issues (this time involving the coastal cities
rather than the Andes) once again. This quickly became a struggle for human
rights, opening another path for denunciation and reflection.

NOTES

1. In contrast to Mariátegui, Haya de la Torre had time to build an efficient and disciplined
political organization that became the most important party in Peru and one of the most impor-
tant political actors in the country, given its popularity among the lower classes and its strongly
religious identity.
2. The nationalists were represented by Valcárcel (1891–1987), Gamaliel Churata (1897–1969),
and Ezequiel Urviola (1895–1925), the modernists by Mariátegui, Haya de la Torre, Abelardo
Solís, and others (Peralta, 1995: 274). It could be said that Churata was closer to Mariátegui in
advocating a universal rather than a nationalist indigenismo. Urviola was a mestizo from Puno
who had adopted an indigenous lifestyle and worked intensely on behalf of the Comité Pro-
Derecho Indígena Tahuantinsuyo (Tahuantinsuyo Indigenous Rights Committee) in terms of an
anarchist, messianic, and revolutionary discourse.
3. Another important, later group was the above-mentioned Tahuantinsuyo Indigenous Rights
Committee (1919–1925), whose supporters were Dora Mayer, Pedro S. Zulen, Francisco Chuqui-
huanca Ayulo, and Manuel Antonio Quiroga (of the Indigenous Race Foundation), as well as the
leftists José Antonio Encinas, Hildebrando Castro Pozo, and Erasmo Roca (Arroyo, 2005).
4. This process was propelled by the 1939 Twenty-seventh International Congress of
Americanists, held in Lima and attended by anthropology luminaries such as Max Uhle, Alex
Hřdlic’ka, Paul Rivet, and Louis Baudin. The organizing committee was chaired by Riva Agüero
and, in his absence, Basadre. Other participants included Julio Tello, Valcárcel, Pedro Dulanto,
and Rubén Vargas Ugarte. The congress was chaired by the dictator Benavides in his capacity as
president of Peru, and its board of directors included the dean of the University of San Marcos,
Alfredo Solf y Muro (chair), Ricardo Rojas of Argentina and Ricardo Latchman of Chile (vice
presidents), Louis Baudin of France, and Mariano Ignacio Prado and the historian Horacio
Urteaga of Peru.
5. Enrique Manuel Gamio’s 1949 report as head of the Department of Housing in the Ministry
of Public Health expressed this “ethnocentric hygiene code, condemning indigenous housing,
their properties, their unclean and repulsive ‘huts.’ . . . The excremental and the putrid finished
off this picture of nearly inherent filth” (Melgar Bao, 2002: 184).
6. The Legislatura Ordinaria for 1946 reads, “Senator José Antonio Encinas is authorized to
accept his appointment as a member of the Peruvian Indigenist Institute, offered by the govern-
ment” (CILSE, 1991: 557). He subsequently resigned from this post in order to devote himself to
his political work and participate in the 1950 election. Carlos Monge Medrano (1884–1970) was then
appointed to the IIP. According to Valcárcel (1981: 369), he had a distinguished administration.

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

 Gonzales / THE INSTITUTO INDIGENISTA PERUANO     43

Monge Medrano was a doctor who specialized in high-altitude inhabitants, a topic he pioneered.
He also played an important role in the Institute of Andean Biology at the University of San
Marcos. His research combined medicine and anthropology for a comprehensive approach to the
Andean inhabitant.
7. Encinas himself would later say in a radio interview, “This is not mere theory; [the indig-
enous problem must be seen in the context of] the economic scope of agriculture, livestock, min-
ing, etc., growing increase in migration from the mountains to the coast, biological and social
conditions, and other problems that must be adapted to the contemporary economic system”
(Encinas, 1949b: 62).

REFERENCES

Alzamora, José R.
1948 “Discurso del Contralmirante don José R. Alzamora, Presidente del Gabinete y Ministro
de Justicia y Trabajo.” Perú Indígena 1 (September): 21–23.
Aquézolo, Manuel
1976 La polémica del indigenismo: José Carlos Mariátegui/Luis Alberto Sánchez. Lima: Mosca Azul
Editores.
Arroyo, Carlos
2005 Nuestros años diez: La Asociación Pro-Indígena, el levantamiento de Rumi Maqui y el incaísmo
modernista. Buenos Aires: Libros en Red.
CILSE (Centro de Investigaciones Legislativas del Senado)
1991 Diseñando el Perú: José Antonio Encinas/Alberto Ulloa Sotomayor, pensamiento político 1945–47.
Lima: CILSE.
Encinas, José Antonio
1932 Ensayo de escuela nueva en el Perú. Lima: Imprenta Minerva.
1949a “Nuestra misión.” Perú Indígena 2 (September): 3–6.
1949b “Actividades de la Comisión Organizadora del II Congreso Indigenista Interamericano
del Cusco: informaciones de la Secretaría General.” Perú Indígena 2 (September): 62–65.
Escalante, José
1927 “Nosotros los indios.” La Prensa, February 3.
García, José Uriel
1973 (1931) El nuevo indio. Lima: Editorial Universo.
Giraudo, Laura
2006 “‘No hay propiamente todavía Instituto’: los inicios del Instituto Indigenista Intera-
mericano (abril 1940–marzo 1942).” América Indígena 62 (2): 6–32.
Gonzales, Osmar
1996 Sanchos fracasados: Los arielistas y el pensamiento político peruano. Lima: Ediciones Preal.
Lauer, Mirko
1997 Andes imaginarios: Discursos del indigenismo 2. Cuzco and Lima: Centro de Estudios
Regionales Andinos Bartolomé de Las Casas/Sur.
Mannheim, Karl
1952 “The problem of generations,” pp. 276–320 in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge.
New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Matto de Turner, Clorinda
1994 (1880) Aves sin nido. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho.
Melgar Bao, Ricardo
2002 “Nacionalismo autoritario y proyecto etnocida en Perú, 1948–1956.” Cuadernos Americanos
91: 180–200.
Peralta, Víctor
1995 “Indigenismo, nacionalismo y modernidad en el Perú,” pp. 273–292 in Fermín del Pino
and Carlos Lázaro (eds.), Visión de los otros y visión de sí mismos: ¿Descubrimiento o invención
entre el Nuevo Mundo y el Viejo? Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
Rénique, José Luis
1991 Los sueños de la sierra: Cusco en el siglo XX. Lima: CEPES.

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016

44    LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Salvatore, Ricardo D.
2008 “Tres intelectuales peruanos: conexiones imperiales en la construcción de una cultura
nacional,” pp. 17–20 in Carlos Aguirre and Carmen Mc Evoy (eds.), Intelectuales y poder en el
Perú e Hispanoamérica. Lima: IFEA-IRA.
Valcárcel, Luis E.
1928 Tempestad en los Andes. Lima: Minerva.
1945 Ruta cultural del Perú. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
1948a “Por el Indio.” Perú Indígena 1 (September): 3–4.
1948b “Discurso del Director del Instituto Dr. Luis E. Valcárcel.” Perú Indígena 1 (September):
23–31.
1981 Memorias. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

Downloaded from lap.sagepub.com at JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY on January 9, 2016