The Church of Incahuasi. Notes on Symmetrical Anthropology, Architecture, and History in Northern Peruvian Andes (Ferreñafe, Lambayeque)

Abstract

Lambayeque saw retains a colonial temple with a unique architecture and history in the Peruvian Andes: the church of Incahuasi. This paper begins its detailed description in dialogue with ethnography and historiography of this region so little studied in the Andes, and examines the possibilities to consider two main issues: the context of developing, building and historical role of the temple as device particularly in the struggle for control over land, and its character –as the people of Incahuasi express– as ontological subject into the world. So, we rely on those elements that suggest their anthropomorphic character and its role «tamer» of the misadventures of the environment. Thus, as a preliminary proposal, we present the schemes of synchronic and diachronic processes through both temple and men are mutually.