The South Central Highlands and the Q’ero Cultural Region: An Ethnic Enclave

This first part of my 1972 dissertation on Q’ero briefly examines the geography of the area and the precontact situation; the colonial era and hacienda dominion; and the position of what I called “accommodated tribal communities” and “ethnic enclaves” in contemporary highland Peruvian society. The ethnic enclave of several Q’ero communities (now called the Q’ero Nation) is situated east of Cuzco high on the eastern-most range of the Central Andes overlooking the subtropical jungle of the upper Amazon. Since the 1950s they have claimed to be the authentic descendants of the Incas, and they were certainly among the many colonies of the Inca and pre-Inca empires. In the 1500s they were colonized by Spain along with the rest of Middle and South America, and at least since the mid-1800s their lands were owned under hacienda dominion centered in the pueblo of Paucartambo. In the last section of this chapter, I argued that regardless of a millennium of colonization they have maintained considerable autonomy and, like several other ethnic enclaves in southern Peru and northern Bolivia, remained culturally distinguishable as indigenous runa (“people”) from the surrounding mestizo and cholo ethnic groups of these Andean highlands.