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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 



heritage from the Mochicas. who, for their time and 

 place, produced excellent work in the medium of 

 painting on vases and other ceramic objects. Moche 

 has produced one painter whose work has been 

 nationally recognized artistically and in the form of 

 financial awards. This is Pedro Azabache. 26 years 

 of age in 1944, whose one-man show at the "Insula" 

 in Lima in June of that year earned him critical 

 acclaim and the sale of 14 of his canvases. It is rare 

 that an ethnologist finds a competent artistic in- 

 terpreter of the culture of the people he is studymg 

 among the people themselves. Therefore, by special 

 permission of Senor Azabache, a number of his 

 paintings are reproduced herein (pis. 19-21). Aza- 

 bache was a pupil of the internationally renowned 

 Peruvian painter, Jose Sabogal, who has done so 

 much to turn artistic interest in Peru toward the 

 interpretation of the native scene, and who has led 

 somewhat of a revolt against the colonial tradition 

 of servile copying of classical themes and composi- 

 tions. Azabache paints his own people almost ex- 

 clusively, and, although influence of Sabogal is readily 

 discernible in his style and technique, he is gradually 

 developing a manner of his own. He is unmarried 

 and, when in Moche, lives with his parents in the 

 campina. where one room of the adobe house has 

 been arranged as a studio. He received his technical 

 training in the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Lima. 

 Although I do not attempt to predict his future 

 course, it is worth remarking that his present suc- 

 cess is doubly remarkable because of the cultural 

 climate of Peru. An artist who paints "Indian" 

 subjects and themes has a difficult time getting a 

 showing and a hearing in Peru because intellectual 

 and artistic circles are still dominated in large part 

 by the spirit of hlspanismo which sees everything 

 that is good as coming from Spain and the "glorious 

 Spanish tradition" of colonial times, and disparages 

 crioUismo and mdigenlsiuo (interest in Peruvian 

 native and aboriginal subjects). Insofar as there 

 is no active prejudice against native subjects and 

 Indians themselves, the attitude is often that they 

 are best ignored. Therefore, an "Indian" painter 

 who paints "Indian" subject matter has a doubly diffi- 

 cult task, if he is to achieve any sort of recognition. 

 In addition to Azabache, Moche has three other 

 Mochero professional painters, namely, Teofilo Ro- 

 sales, Nicolas Asmat, and Juan Manuel Rodriguez. 

 None of these men have had Azabache's training, 

 nor do they apparently possess his talent. However, 

 they each sell a few paintings within the community 



and the region and do some professional work in the 

 decoration of churches and the like. 



Many persons who do not pretend to be profes- 

 sional artists seem to have an impulse to paint or 

 draw. I have no statistical measure of the extent 

 of this tendency, but a considerable number of houses 

 possess inside walls decorated, often rather crudelv- 

 to be sure, with painted scenes and designs. Although 

 many of these efforts are crude from the point of 

 view of the higher art criticism, nevertheless they 

 are not childish scratchings, but show respectable 

 technical competence in the use of perspective, shad- 

 ing, foreshortening, and so on. 



Among the jorastcros mention has already been 

 made of Senor Manuel L. Briceiao y Vazquez, who 

 is an accomplished water-colorist, whose works are 

 even now collectors' items among those who know 

 them. Sefior Bricefio, however, has painted for his 

 own pleasure and his work has been turned out for 

 his own amusement. Senor Jose Eulogio Garrido, 

 who is the Government-appointed mayor {alcalde) 

 of the town, maintains a permanent art collection in 

 his private house in Moche. For years he has been 

 closely associated with many national artists who, 

 from time to time, have presented him with samples 

 of their works. Seiior Garrido is also a writer in 

 his own right and has recently been appointed Na- 

 tional Curator of Folklore of the North. Among his 

 other posts he is editor in chief of the Trujillo daily, 

 "La Industria." Up to the present his considerable 

 corpus of writings has been published only as articles 

 in provincial and Lima newspapers, but he is under- 

 stood to be collecting and preparing for publication 

 a goodly part of this material in more permanent 

 form. He is said to have three volumes of material 

 on Moche itself which, when published, should make 

 a valuable contribution to our knowledge. I have 

 not had the opportunity of seeing the latter material. 



Two organizations of younger Mocheros of both 

 sexes have appeared recently, having among their 

 stated purposes the stimulation of artistic and cul- 

 tural interests. They are Moche en Marcha and La 

 Asociacion Mochcra Cultural. The membership of 

 each is exclusively, or almost exclusively, composed 

 of true Mocheros, most of them under the age of 25. 

 Moche en Marcha has begun, as previously men- 

 tioned, the publication of a biweekly newspaper, 

 "Inti," which affords an outlet for a certain amount 

 of writing in the form of poems and essays, while 

 both organizations hold regular meetings in which 



