El Cargo De Las Animas: Mortuary Rituals and the Cargo System in Highland Peru

Mortuary rituals practiced in the Cuzco region of Peru on Alls Souls Day are memorial cults. In the market town of San Jerónimo the expensive cargos for the patron saints are assumed by the mestizo elite, but the cargo de las ánimas does not convey much prestige. Its central feature involves ritual disinterment and reinterment of one or more of the relatives of its mayordomo. The practice appears to be unique to this town and this cargo does not clearly fulfill any of the usual functions associated with classic cargo systems elsewhere (prestige, solidarity, redistribution of wealth, egalitarian counterpoise). In general, the obligation to accept cargos in San Jerónimo is weak and ineffective, such that some of the financial responsibilities are delegated among the social network of the mayordomo. The cargo system of a class-stratified market town like San Jerónimo serves very different functions from that of an internally unstratified peasant community.