Carnival In Q’eros: Where The Mountains Meet The Jungle
Q’eros’ inhabitants live in isolated areas of the Andes Mountains of Peru. John Cohen, the film’s narrator and producer, is responsible for Carnival in Q’eros. Juan Nunez del Prado contributed to the film’s direction. Carnival in Q’eros is a film that follows Q’eros during Carnival season. This paper will examine Titon’s four components of a music culture and apply them to the Q’eros’ music culture in Carnival in Q’eros. The film opens with the Q’eros sending a “message of the gods”, a despacho. Many smaller offerings are included in the despacho, which is directed at the Earth or evil spirits. One of the offerings has a red-colored and a whitish thread. These colors represent Peru’s flag.
The Q’eros then take a few coca leaves and complete the ritual by waving the coca leaves at their spirit. The Q’eros consider alpacas sacred. Palcha is a Q’eros celebration of alpacas that takes place each year during Carnival. Palcha also refers to a flower that is native to the Andes. It is an important part in this ritual. The Q’eros perform a ritual where they put chicha, corn beer, and animals statues on a piece of cloth. The ritual song, “compeungph,” is then performed. The Q’eros then head to the corral for a celebration of the alpacas. The Q’eros use a flute to play songs and then throw palcha flowers at alpacas. These acts are an appeal to the Gods for fertility and health of the alpacas. The film shows us a ritual dedicated solely to women. We watch the Q’eros women lament over the events of the past year and scatter palcha flowers. One mother claims she is responsible for her child’s death and says “I couldn’t save him.” While one woman laments Q’eros’ financial woes, “we’re poor”, another says she couldn’t save her child. The women can now eat their poverty. This allows them to move on with their lives.
The film then goes on to the most important Carnival event: the gathering the ayllus around the ceremonial central. Each ayllu can be described as a segment of Q’eros’s population. Families that have ayllus own their homes at the ceremonial heart, which are only available during Carnival season. The arrival of Q’eros authorities on horses is marked by the playing conch shells, which is an indication of their power. Q’eros individuals gather with their counterparts to share songs and other activities on the night they arrive. The Q’eros end their celebration with dancing, chica and coca leaves. Cohen told us that the Q’eros were struggling financially when we first saw them. The Q’eros bought a number of alpacas, but they were unable to produce offspring. This meant that their investment was ineffective and did not yield any returns. Cohen offers Cohen alpacas for Q’eros people as a way of repaying them for their cooperation. Each ayllu agreed, after a while, to transfer the alpacas from one ayllu to the next. The film ends when Q’eros picks up the alpacas at Ocongate, near their village, and takes them back. Titon defines music culture as “a group’s total participation with music: ideas and actions, institutions, physical objects, and material objects”. These four types of involvement are connected to Titon’s definition of a music culture, which consists of ideas, activities, institutions, material objects, and music repertoires.
“Ideas on music” refers primarily to how music is related to religious practices. Any music-related activity is one that involves music. “Repertoires music” encompasses not only specific genres or musical texts but also the music style and how it is transmitted. The material culture is any object that is part of a musical event.
Music culture’s first component, Titon, is the idea of music. You can see this in the Q’eros’ participation in rituals and the unique nature of their music. Q’eros rituals frequently include the pinculu. This flute is also known as the pinculu. The pinculu can only produce four notes. Its religious significance for Q’eros can be seen through its frequent use in rituals. It appears in the film as the Q’eros women speak about their past year’s problems and throw alpaca flowers in the pen. The aesthetics and values of Q’ero cultures are evident by the flat sound produced by the pinculu flutists as well as the singers. The melody of Q’ero music is not nearly as well-known as Western music. Instead, Q’eros sing and repeat close-knit notes, which creates a spiritual vibe for rituals. It allows them to connect with Earth and spirits. The film shows the “throbbing sound” when the ayllus meet up on the first night. The music is not meant to be listened too, since there are no listeners. However, it is intended to help all those present connect spiritually. Q’ero society music contexts almost always have a ritual basis.
Palcha, which is an annual ritual for the alpacas (Cohen 6, 10:10, 15;25) are the two most memorable rituals in the film. Q’ero music has a long history. Most of it is traditional ritual music passed down from generations. It is unlikely that the Q’ero people have changed their musical traditions significantly in isolation. The ritual aspects of Q’ero society’s activities that involve music have similar contexts to Q’ero music. These activities are designed to help people connect with the Earth and ask for guidance from the spirits living around them. The film features the ritual for alpacas as well the lamenting of the past year by the women and the carnival dance and gathering.
Cohen calls style “everything that has to do with the organization of musical sounds”. This is the first characteristic of a component in a music culture. Q’ero’s music is distinctive because it uses ambient sounds to create an atmosphere and not just music that can be used for entertainment. Cohen said that Q’ero music creates an ambient sound that “resembles celebrations in a jungle”. This music belongs to an ambiguous genre called “ambient music”. Q’eros’s music is not kept in written form. Instead, they compose and distribute it orally. The film’s music has little to no beginning, end, or name. Except for Serena, a Carnival song. The rhythmic, spiritual nature Q’ero music has its performers moving in a similar way to the physical movements of Q’ero musicians. Participants are rocking back-and-forth almost as if in a trance. It is evident when the women complain and when the carnival celebrates its first night.
The Q’eros’s culture is just like their music. Their colorful clothing is a reflection of their culture. Palcha flowers are native to their region. They use them extensively in Q’ero rituals. The film’s drone sounds are created by the pinkulu flute.
Carnival in Q’eros – where the mountains meet the jungle explores the Q’eros Carnival and its ritual practices. The film shows the four components of Titon’s music culture. They include ideas about music and activities that involve music. Q’eros are religious people who incorporate rituals into every day life. They have rituals for their alpacas and their women during Carnival. These rituals are meant to help them connect with nature, mountain spirits and one another. The pinculu flute plays a major musical role in almost all music-related contexts in Q’ero society. When the flute produces flat tones, it creates an ambient sound that is accompanied by nearby pitches of other flutes or vocalists. This style is an indication that Q’ero music does not have to be listened too often, but rather is used to help Q’ero’s connect with one another.
Q’eros’ Carnival costumes and rituals include colorful, detailed patterns. Q’ero music has a unique music culture that is unorthodox and beautiful.
Works cited
Cohen, John. 1998. “Q’ero” in The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Vol. 2, South America. Mexico. Central America. And the Caribbean. Edited and penned by Dale A. Olsen & Daniel E. Sheehy.
Garland Publishing, New York. Del Prado, J., & Cohen, J. (Directors), & Cohen, J. (Producer). (1991).
Carnival in Q’eros – Where Mountains Meet Jungle [Videofile]. Berkeley Media. Retrieved via Ethnographic video Online: Volume III database.
Random House Inc. (2019) is a major publisher. Ambient music. Retrieved February 25, 2019, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ambient-music. Titon is John Todd. 2009.
“Four components of a music-culture” In Worlds of Music: An introduction to the music of the world’s peoples (5th edition). pp. 18-32. Belmont: Schirmer, a Centage Learning company. John Todd Titon is an individual who is well-known. 2009.
“Music-Culture”. In Worlds of Music. An introduction to the music of the world’s peoples (5th ed.). pp. 1-8, 14-18. Belmont: Schirmer Centage Learning provides resources for educational growth.
