On the cover of Inventing Indigenism by Natalia Majluf is a painting of a figure by Francisco Laso, a nineteenth-century Peruvian artist. David Lehmann (In Brief, September 2) talks of the painting’s depiction of the “dark symmetry of the ‘Inhabitant’” and the figurine held by it that “references the ‘violent stifling’ of Inca society”. This stifling was still taking place in the 1980s, when Pope John Paul II visited Peru. Around the turn of the century, my wife and I visited Cusco and had the services of an “Inca” guide (he claimed direct descent) to take us around the Inca sites. One of these was Sacsayhuamán, their most sacred site, high in the hills overlooking Cusco. Our guide told us that when the Pope visited, he held a Mass here, as though to confirm that the Inca beliefs were dead and the Catholic church still reigned supreme. A very large cross was erected in commemoration. Shortly after, the cross disappeared, taken down one night by persons unknown. Another cross was erected. That too disappeared. Perhaps this was a manifestation of the “sense of loss that Laso believed to be imprinted in Indian memory”. This time the cross was never replaced.On the cover of Inventing Indigenism by Natalia Majluf is a painting of a figure by Francisco Laso, a nineteenth-century Peruvian artist. David Lehmann (In Brief, September 2) talks of the painting’s depiction of the “dark symmetry of the ‘Inhabitant’” and the figurine held by it that “references the ‘violent stifling’ of Inca society”. This stifling was still taking place in the 1980s, when Pope John Paul II visited Peru. Around the turn of the century, my wife and I visited Cusco and had the services of an “Inca” guide (he claimed direct descent) to take us around the Inca sites. One of these was Sacsayhuamán, their most sacred site, high in the hills overlooking Cusco. Our guide told us that when the Pope visited, he held a Mass here, as though to confirm that the Inca beliefs were dead and the Catholic church still reigned supreme. A very large cross was erected in commemoration. Shortly after, the cross disappeared, taken down one night by persons unknown. Another cross was erected. That too disappeared. Perhaps this was a manifestation of the “sense of loss that Laso believed to be imprinted in Indian memory”. This time the cross was never replaced.

F. W. Nunneley
Beckley
East Sussex