San Miguel de Ibarra, ancient Caranqui (Ecuador), appropriation of the sacred center and destruction of the symbolic path

Abstract

In the North Andean region, headquarters of the ancient Cayambi, Caranqui, Pasto, and Quillacinga nations, modern (historiographic, ethnohistoric, archaeological, anthropological) studies verified that their civilization process appears decontextualized, not only from the cultures in its adjacent areas, but also from those of the central and southern Andes regions that were present during the millenary process of autarkic evolution of the Andean civilization. The review of the studies carried out in this region is based on the use of parceled approaches and imported categories of analysis that emphasize empires, ethnic dominions or chiefdoms, and cities, which in our opinion, blur their legacy of knowledge, in addition to distorting the understanding of the symbolic space, showing them divorced from the Andean civilizing process. In this context, the study of the ancient Caranqui, today San Miguel de Ibarra, proposes new interpretations, or the “deconstruction” of the chronicles of conquest, in accordance with the principles of the original nations that contradict the official accounts. In fact, an insightful reading of the chronicles themselves, along with the search for cultural traces impregnated in the ordering and symbolism of the space, expressed in a series of clues, which added to the archaeological remains (architectural constructions: pyramids and pucarakuna; ceramic, lithic metallurgical objects, and others), ritual manifestations at solstices and equinoxes, and artistic or handicrafts, which are made today, intertwined from a way of seeing and understanding the world, make it possible to demonstrate the wisdom of their creators, and give meaning to its cultural legacy.