First, however, a little background. The indigenismo movement paralleled a period in Cuscoās history, when the city was undergoing a transformation of its own. Cusco was late to join the modern age, in large part because it was such a challenge to get anything to a city that sits at 3,400 meters in the middle of the rugged Andes. But eventually, during the early years of the 20th century, electricity, a central telephone system, the Ferrocarril del Sur (Peruās major southern railroad), the cityās first Model-T Fords, and the Tejidos de Alod—n Hu‡scar (the first urban textile factory) came to Cusco. These developments also effected shifts in its political, social, and economic policies. But however modern Cusco may have appeared, the prevailing attitude towards Indians remained parochial, a fact apparent in the nationās political, religious, and economic structure. According to Cusque–o and historian JosŽ Tamayo Herrera, the Indian ćwas considered a residue of a race that had degenerated and for whom there was no expectation for redemption or improvement.ä Indians consistently held the worst jobs in highly stratified and class-conscious Peruvian society. They were the farm laborers, the factory workers, and the conscripts who÷at considerable peril÷built the railway to Cusco. Like indentured servants, they often were paid in coca and alcohol rather than wages, so they never could get ahead.

Yet within this generally negative climate, there grew a national reform movement, launched by individuals who understood the exploitation of Indians and genuinely wanted to make a difference. Embraced by university professors, lawyers, writers, artists, and others, the movementās supporters were largely Spanish-speaking, educated, white or Peruvian professionals and mestizos, those of mixed blood. Indigenismo reached its zenith in the 1920s and 1930s with a wealth of journals and magazines, often illustrated with representations of working Indians and other iconic, indigenous motifs. Certainly, part of the attraction was the fascination with another, very different culture. Photography played a graphic role in this movement, both as a form of documentation and of social statement. I have relied exclusively on Miguel Chaniās work here, but his work is representative of that of numerous other Cusco photographers.

The indigenismo movement may have had the best of intentions, but its expression reveals a fundamental schizophrenia toward Cuscoās large Indian population. This conflict becomes clearer if one considers that a large segment of the intelligentsia wanted better lives for the Indians. In their minds, however, that meant becoming middle class and assuming a useful role in the merchant sector. It also meant hanging on to those Indian customs that the elite deemed acceptable and getting rid of those that did not, primarily the coca habit, whose ceremonial component was lost on the upper class. The famous Indian photographer Mart’n Chambi was such a great success because indigenistas, as they were called, felt that he was the new Indian. Chambi had escaped the tough life of the average Indian, in part by honing his talents as a photographer, in part by marrying a mestizo woman and thus entering a higher class. The problem was that no one could really accept the Indian as he was; everyone kept on wanting to change him, and there were few models like Chambi for other Indians to follow.

There were many ways the indigenistas demonstrated their support for the cause: Philosophers published treatises on Indian rights, writers wrote fiction and poetry about Indian lives, and artists depicted Indian scenes and historical events. Professors learned to speak and introduced university courses in the native language of Quechua, alongside classes in archaeology and ethnology. The famous Peruvian writer Luis Valc‡rcael labeled Indian music as ćthe most profound expression of the national soul,ä and the three-act Quechua tragedy Ollantay was revived. Many intellectuals frequented Indian taverns called chicher’as. For the most part, however, it was women who adopted the trappings of Indian dress, again ostensibly as a show of support for the movement.

When you compare the two photographs here, what becomes immediately apparent is the simplicity of the womenās dress in the market scene and the fact that they are not posed. They are just going about their business, with a glance at the photographer. In typical Indian fashion, they wear their hair in tight braids, unlike the loose, unfinished braids of the three mestizo women seated on the stairs÷who probably had their hair done just for the photograph. These women customarily wore their hair swept up off their necks. The distaffs, wool, and the flowerpot the mestizo women hold prominently are props added for authenticity, and the modelsā unfamiliarity with spinning is plain. Even today on Cuscoās ancient, narrow streets, Indian women usually work a distaff continuously, spinning wool as they walk, manage their children, or sell handmade articles to tourists. The mestizo womenās focus on the photographer signals that this was a commissioned portrait, for their benefit, not simply a Cusco street scene, as the other photo.

We see the woman with the flowerpot again, striking a languid and pensive pose, in another of Chaniās carefully constructed and self-conscious indigenista images, this time in a studio setting (right). What is unusual about this photograph and immediately identifies it with the indigenismo movement, is the subject of the backdrop, the ruins of the great Inka site of Sacsaywaman just above Cusco. Backdrops were common for Cusco photographers like Chani, who maintained studios and worked for the middle and upper classes, but they were more likely to be faux Victorian room interiors or marine scenes. This backdrop likely was produced locally, precisely for such indigenista portraits. This portrait stands in stark contrast to the picture of the Indian woman crouching by a giant monolith at Tiahuancao near La Paz, Bolivia (left). We know the woman to be Indian by her appearance and modest dress. Added props are scarcely necessary to make the point. Aware of the growing tourist market, especially since the rediscovery of Machu Picchu in 1911, Chani and other photographers made specific images as postcards, as mementos. Here, both the Indian woman and the monolith are the real subjects, each accentuating the other. This postcard is quite the opposite of the previous image, where the Inka ruins serve merely as a backdrop for a middle-class portrait.

At the same time that newly Indian-conscious upper and middle classes were trying to transform Indian life, they were also trying to assuage their white guilt and, more importantly, to secure their place in this deeply stratified society. So, rather like modern socialites, that meant being seen÷and photographed÷in appropriate dress or in the right company. On the one hand, indigenistas commissioned photographs of themselves in Western clothing in the Indiansā chicher’as with giant glasses of chicha (fermented corn liquor). They were making a statement that they were in the ćrightä place. On the other hand, it was chic having your portrait commissioned in Indian costume. Showing solidarity with the Indians went both ways, but may not have gone much beyond such a gesture for many middle- or upper-class Peruvians.

For mestizos, this new trend in social respectability must have seemed especially ironic. After all, they had spent a lifetime distancing themselves from their Indian roots: speaking Spanish, not their native Quechua; wearing Western clothes; and using white makeup to lighten their dark skin. The whole orientation in climbing the social ladder was to eliminate all that Indian-ness. Now the message was to adopt it÷up to a point÷to increase their status.

In the final image (left), a woman stands next to a large clay pot known as an arballoid jar, probably used to store chicha, with two additional pots and, on the stone pavement next to her bare feet, a distaff. The ćIndianä elements are all there. But this very excess of Inka artifacts, coupled with the womanās fair skin and unbraided hair, make the image contrived. The womanās awkward gesture and the small tag pinned to the bottom of her skirt reveal this fiction. Still, the fact that she appears to be doing something other than simply posing suggests that this is more than just another indigenista portrait.

Edward Ranney, who led the pioneering Earthwatch expedition in 1977 that recovered Mart’n Chambiās photographic archive, offers us another interpretation, one that is equally germane to indigenismo. He explains that the picture looks so artificial because the entire scene was constructed for anthropological reasons to illustrate Indian reality. The clothing and pottery are genuine and belong to the archaeological museum in Cusco. The tag on the bottom of the skirt could be a museum identification number. Since the setting is identifiable as the museumās courtyard, Chani was most likely hired by the museum to document this scene and occasion. However contrived, the museum deserves credit for its attempts to preserve Quechua culture on film.

The best supporting evidence for the indigenismo movement is in the images that recorded it. They stand apart from other portraits of Indians. These photographic records confirm how important it was to the indigenistas not only to dress up as Indians but to be photographed as having done so. The images were probably personal keepsakes shared between family and friends to demonstrate support and solidarity for the indigenous culture. Yet they also reveal the mutable attitudes of a society in transition. Peruvians were rightly excited about the rediscovery of such Inka treasures as Machu Picchu and the realization that the Indians were the descendants of that empire. The indigenistas were also right to be excited about an Indian culture they were at last just beginning to appreciate. The range of images here shows the confusion about how to regard this neglected culture. Were the Indians a culture to be preserved untouched, quaint ćodditiesä to be exploited by tourist, or a population to make over in their own, European mold? It seems that the indigenistas never got it straight, in part, because they viewed the Indiansā ćproblemsä and sought their solutions based on their own Western European cultural bias.