Música, fronteras y etnogénesis sikuri. El ascenso musical al Abra de Punta Corral, Tilcara (Jujuy, Argentina)

Abstract

Between 2003 and 2015 we developed ethnographic case studies with sikuri musicians who play their instruments while ascending to the Abra of Punta Corral from Tilcara, Quebrada of Humahuaca, Jujuy, in the north of Argentina and on the border with Bolivia. Through participant observation in our role as sikuris, we analyze the relevance of this celebration for the local community, the significance of music in the dynamics of identity, and the mechanisms of ethnogenesis that its protagonists experience. We suggest that the emergence, consolidation, and reproduction of the siku and its practice in this festival during the twentieth century, and even more in the twenty-first, has allowed the participants’ devotion to crystallize through this art. In addition, we argue that its practice has been accompanied by a questioning of the local identities of the Argentine, indigenous descendants of Bolivians, living on the border. Drawing on audiovisual anthropology and analyses of ethnicity and boundaries in Latin America, we reflect on the reach and relevance of music, identity, and devotion in the Abra of Punta Corral and the Quebrada of Humahuaca, exploring contrasting imaginaries of the Bolivian and the kolla and their historical construction by elites in Jujuy, Argentina.

Keywords

• sikuri music
• boundary
• ethnogenesis
• visual ethnography
• abra of punta corral