Flavor to Land: Supply and Indigenous Identity in El mundo es ancho y ajeno

Abstract

The narrative traditional indigenist constructs a degraded, beastly "Indian" and without culture at the moment of "devouring" his "food": maize, dads seasoned with tallow and intestines of beast and, in some cases, carrion. These textual ambiguities enter conflict with the social aims of this genre on having prolonged the vision of a low "Indian" and, therefore, lacking in rights and object of exploitation and "natural" extermination on the part of the oligarchy owner of a large estate. El mundo es ancho y ajeno he does not share these prejudices. On the contrary, the novel celebrates the food of the aborigens, his forms of consumption, and his economic and symbolic importance for the indigenous community. The text, therefore, is a progress in the most critical construction of an identity and credible of the Andean man.