<em>Pishtacos</em>. Human fat murderers, structural inequalities, and resistances in Peru
10.13125/americacritica/3378
Political, economic, and institutional inequalities have enormous impacts on human problems and people’s everyday lives.&nbsp; They create collective experiences of social suffering that may frequently find release through the production of collective imaginaries. Among Peru’s marginalized populations, ongoing exposure to both historical memories of colonization and oppression, as well as contemporary encounters with injustice, impoverishment, and inequalities, constitute the scenario for the emergence of an evil character: the&nbsp;pishtaco,&nbsp;almost always a powerful stranger who steals the body fat of indigenous and impoverished individuals. The pishtaco, an ambiguous, fluid, and complex figure, represents various aspects of power and violence that are familiar to people in the Andean region of Peru and Bolivia. This paper examines the myth of pishtaco in Peru, arising from experiences of colonial rule up to the present media news reports and discussions in on-line Peruvian newspaper sites.Palabras clave: Pishtaco; Desigualdades estructurales; Resistencia; Perú
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Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila
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<em>Pishtacos</em>. Human fat murderers, structural inequalities, and resistances in Peru
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Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila
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Georgetown University, Washington, United States
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<em>Pishtacos</em>. Human fat murderers, structural inequalities, and resistances in Peru
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                                                       2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018




         PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND
                                                 RESISTANCES IN PERU
                                                                      ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA
                                                              Georgetown University, Washington, DC




PISHTACOS: PREDADORES DE GRASA HUMANA, DESIGUALDADES ESTRUCTURALES
Y RESISTENCIA EN EL PERÚ
RESUMEN:

Las desigualdades políticas, económicas e insti-       co, que, por lo general, suele ser un extranjero
tucionales tienen un enorme impacto en lo coti-        poderoso que roba la grasa humana de los indí-
diano de las personas y en sus problemas dia-          genas y de los indigentes. El pishtaco, una figu-
rios. Se producen experiencias colectivas de su-       ra ambigua, cambiante y compleja, representa
frimiento social que a menudo encuentran ali-          diversos aspectos del poder y de la violencia
vio a través de la producción de imaginarios           que son muy familiares para los habitantes de
compartidos.      Entre      las    poblaciones        las regiones andinas del Perú y de Bolivia. Este
marginadas/marginales del Perú, la continua            artículo analiza el mito del pishtaco en el Perú,
exposición a experiencias de colonización y            desde su surgimiento en la época de la Colonia
opresión, así como el enfrentamiento a las injus-      hasta su representaciones en los medios actua-
ticias, el empobrecimiento y las desigualdades         les y los comentarios que aparecen en los perió-
actuales, han constituido el escenario para el         dicos digitales peruanos.
surgimiento de un personaje maligno: el pishta-

PALABRAS CLAVE: PISHTACO; DESIGUALDADES ESTRUCTURALES; RESISTENCIA; PERÚ.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Ernesto Vasquez el Aguila
Pishtacos: Human Fat Murderers, Structural Inequalities, and Resistances in Peru
2018 ⎸América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018: 139-162. ISSN: 2532-6724
DOI: 10.13125/américacrítica/3378
140                                                                  ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA




1. Introduction                                   has heard about them, even if only a few
                                                  people have ever claimed to have seen
   Reality and magic are social and cultural      them. The victims of pishtacos report the
constructions. In settings such as the Per-       crimes of pishtacos as not necessarily being
uvian Andes, these two domains are deeply         from their own experiences, but they nar-
rooted in the outlook of people who integ-        rate events that circulate within their social
rate a world of saints, devils, deities, and      world and, in this sense, these stories have
enchanted beings with whom they interact          the most validity. The evidence is construc-
(Taussig 1977). These narratives are in-          ted in social interactions among the group
scribed in the daily lives of indigenous          and in concrete experiences of vulnerability
people; they are woven into their individu-       and unequal relationships with Peru’s hege-
al and social stories. Rumour, gossip, and        monic groups. These human fat murderers
even narratives about situations that never       went from being a myth presented in rural
happened are important tools to understand        and marginalized urban areas to being
these historical processes. Several scholars      characters presented in social media, the
have documented stories of witchcraft, can-       news and popular culture. For some Per-
nibalism, rumour, and supernatural narrat-        uvians, pishtacos are part of their everyday
ives around the world that appear as re-          lives, an evil that threatens the lives of mar-
sponses of oppressed individuals to situ-         ginalized individuals. For others, pishtacos
ations of instability, violence, and structural   are only rumours presented among “ignor-
inequalities (Masquelier 2000; White 2000;        ant” people. Pishtaco stories are rooted in a
Butt 2005). These narratives provide mar-         system of moral accountability that sustains
ginalized people with cultural resources to       the truth of their narratives. Pishtacos are
articulate their experiences of suffering and     not simply fears, anxieties, and supersti-
make sense of their individual and collect-       tions of “pre-modern” people. Magic nar-
ive situations. As noted by White (2000), the     ratives and even rumours have the power
study of the origin of social phenomena, or       to shape everyday experiences, and despite
the “truth” about people’s narratives, is less    their uncertainty, they offer invaluable
important than the study of the production        sources to understand the world, the way
of collective ways to negotiate contradic-        the victims — the storytellers — do.
tions, tensions, and ways of coping with
structural vulnerabilities.                       2. Race and Class Hierarchies in Peru
   The myth of pishtacos is part of the col-
lective narratives of Peruvians. They circu-         As a consequence of almost three centur-
late from time to time, and when they re-         ies of Spanish colonization, Andean coun-
turn to commit their murders, everybody           tries such as Peru produced a hierarchy of


                        2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU            141


bodies based on a very marked racial and          gue that the “imagined construction” of
social symbolic classification, and although      ethnic and racial differences in Peru has its
Peru has a large indigenous population,           roots in the debates and projects of nation
these racial and ethnic minorities remain         building during the nineteenth and twenti-
structurally and symbolically subordinated.       eth centuries. These debates and projects
The process of mestizaje (mixing of races) in     produced a social structure of ethnic and
Peru continued throughout the colonial            racial boundaries and an “ethnoracial
period while during the era of the Republic,      grammar” that continues to be used by so-
Chinese and Japanese migrant labourers, as        cial actors in contemporary Peruvian soci-
well as new waves of Europeans, integrated        ety to describe and interpret their differ-
into the Peruvian society. Peruvian inde-         ences and inequalities (Sulmont and Callir-
pendence from Spanish colonization during         gos 2014).
the mid-nineteenth century did not elimin-           Since the 1930s, growing internal migra-
ate the subordination of racial minorities,       tion has transformed Peruvian cities into
but rather implied the continuation of the        centres of attraction for all Peruvians from
blanco (white) or criollo (mixed) elites (Beth-   different social and economic backgrounds.
ell 1984). For someone unfamiliar with Per-       Lima, the Peruvian capital, was the main
uvian society, most Peruvians might seem          destination for internal migrants. It cur-
racially homogenous, but the vast majority        rently accounts for almost thirty percent of
of the population in metropolitan areas in        the total Peruvian population (INEI 2015).
Peru is actually highly heterogeneous, with       Many of the neighbourhoods in Lima were
mixed backgrounds, complex racial and             known as pueblos jóvenes (young towns), a
ethnic identities and ways of differenti-         euphemistic name that conceals class and
ation.                                            racial discriminations. In recent times, some
   Peru has one of the largest indigenous         of these neighbourhoods exhibit high levels
populations in the Americas. The latest           of economic development and the areas
2017 National Census, showed an indigen-          were renamed as Conos or outskirts. How-
ous population in Peru of more than 5.9           ever, the stigma of being part of the Conos
million, comprising approximately 25.7 per-       of the city continues to create a spatial se-
cent of the total population (INEI 2018).         gregation between white and mestizo/indi-
Despite this large number, only a small           genous districts of the city. These Conos are
minority of Peruvians identify themselves         the settings where migrants and their chil-
as indigenous, almost half of the population      dren have to reconcile their cultural beliefs
acknowledges having indigenous ancestors,         with those presented in the city, where nar-
but most recognize themselves as “mes-            ratives, such as the pishtaco, are considered
tizos” (Telles and Flores 2014), an ambigu-       by racial and class elites to be the result of
ous and fluid category that could be closer       the “ignorance” of marginalized people.
to whites or indigenous, depending on                The body can be seen as a metaphor of
factors such as social class, rural vs urban,     the social order and the indigenous body
and even gender. Sulmont and Callirgos ar-        continues to be in a subordinate position in


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142                                                                  ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


contrast to the white body. The economic,        2016, which now leads Peru to be categor-
social, and symbolic capital of the Blanco       ised as an “upper middle income” country
(white) populations in Peruvian society is       (The World Bank 2016). However, indigen-
illustrated through the production of mass       ous people from the Andes or Amazonian
media images and discourses in which non-        region consistently have higher rates of
white people are absent. Weismantel ques-        poverty and lower scores in Human Devel-
tions the notion of racial democracy in Latin    opment Index (HDI) than other groups in
America, a widespread assumption even            Peruvian society (Sulmont 2011). This situ-
among scholars that overemphasizes class         ation is even more dramatic for individuals
as the main issue in Andean cultures and         who live in extreme poverty – 26 percent of
makes race almost an invisible structural        the population with an indigenous mater-
factor. However, the colloquial use of com-      nal language in contrast with only 7.7 per-
mon epithets shows the racialized nature of      cent of native Spanish speakers (Sulmont
Andean societies: indigenous people are          and Callirgos 2014).
portrayed as “dirty”, “sheep”, and “mules”;          The lack of social mobility, defined as in-
while blancos (whites) are “decent”, “edu-       dividuals’ or groups’ ability to move from
cated”, “cultivated”, “good” people (Weis-       one status or class position to another with-
mantel 2001). In a compelling study about        in the social hierarchy, shows the profound
race in Peru, Drzewieniecki (2004) finds         structural inequalities still present in Peru.
positive and negative stereotypes about          Even though Peru has a high level of basic
four racial categories among urban stu-          formal education, quality education is fre-
dents. Blancos (whites) oscillate between        quently shown to be a central factor in lim-
being the “luckiest” and the “most attract-      iting social mobility. Salazar, Quispe, and
ive” within the Peruvian racial hierarchy, to    Choque (2015) reveal that only 6 percent of
being the “liars, exploiters, overbearing,       Peruvians living in poverty can access to
and arrogant”. Cholos (indigenous heirs)         higher education, and of those, only 5 per-
are considered “sentimental, strong, ignor-      cent manage to graduate. Additionally, so-
ant, hard workers, and lazy”. Ardito (2004)      cial mobility in Peruvian society is not only
found that up to 90 percent of Peruvian          a process of accumulating more economic,
television commercials promote people            educational or social capital, but it also
with white physical features, excluding the      provides the opportunity to break with and
faces of the vast majority of the population.    shift ethnic and racial identities as well
Within this structure, the larger part of Per-   (Sulmont and Callirgos 2014). Political mar-
uvians still consider whites as the “best        ginalization is another issue in contempor-
race”.                                           ary Peru. There are a series of social con-
    Peru has been experiencing extraordin-       flicts due to the Government’s lack of con-
ary and sustained economic development           sultation with indigenous communities
over the last decades. The country has seen      about the access and the use of their lands
a dramatic decrease in the levels of poverty,    and natural resources for mining, which
from 60 percent in 2004 to 20.7 percent in       has led to irresolvable social conflicts.


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   Drawing upon Bourdieu’s (1990) concept        al. 1997) that frequently produces symbolic
of “symbolic violence”, by which complex         resistances, such as the myth of the
forms of social and cultural domination op-      pishtaco.
erate without the presence of physical viol-        What follows is a historical account of
ence, the imposition and perpetuation of         pishtaco stories, from colonial times, to the
power and subordination through forces           early Peruvian Republic and up to the
that are unnoticed seem “invisible” in every     present. This genealogy of narratives shows
day social interactions. Symbolic violence       the fluidity and adaptation of this cultural
against non-white people in Peru has an          symbol at different times of crisis and social
enormous impact in the production of             and political mobilizations in Peru.
“structural violence”. As many scholars
have described, structural violence has the      3. From Spanish Colonization (1532-
power to become part of people’s social re-      1821) to the Early Peruvian Republic
lations, institutional practices, economy,       (1821-1930)
and so forth, which creates forms of suffer-
ing and injustice that are deeply embedded          In 1532, Francisco Pizarro led a group of
in people’s everyday lives (Farmer 2001; Pa-     Spanish soldiers who captured the Inca
dilla et al. 2007). Structural violence places   Atahualpa, which marks the beginning of
specific people or groups in situations of       the Spanish colonization and a long period
heightened vulnerability and legitimizes         of resistance and indigenous conflicts with
their subordinated position. A vivid ex-         the new regime. In 1542, the Viceroyalty of
ample of structural violence in Peru is the      Peru was established and lasted until 1821
case of more than three hundred thousand         (consolidated in 1824), when the war of in-
women who were sterilized during the             dependence led to the creation of the Re-
Fujimori government (1990-2000), the vast        public of Peru (Bethell 1984).
majority without their consent (Defensoria          The word pishtaco comes from the
del Pueblo 2002). A complex mixture of a         Quechua word “pishtac”, which means “to
dictatorial regime, historic discrimination,     behead”, cut the throat, or cut into slices.
and structural inequalities legitimized gov-     The first meaning of the pishtaco was to be
ernment policies to violate the reproductive     a degollador (slaughterer). There is a contro-
and human rights of women and indigen-           versy about the origin of the pishtaco
ous people (Blaisdell and Vindal Ødegaard        (Kapsoli 1991). Some people find evidence
2014; Vasquez del Aguila 2006). Both sym-        in pre-Incan cultures, particularly among
bolic violence and structural violence are       the Moche society (100 AD to 800 AD),
implanted in ubiquitous structures and nor-      which celebrated human sacrifices. Most
malized by institutions, culture, and daily      scholars situate the origin of the pishtaco
experiences in Peruvian society. They create     with the arrival of Spanish conquerors,
devastating consequences of social suffer-       linking this figure to medieval European
ing in a dynamic process of institutional-       folklore and indigenous expression of suf-
ized and routinized violence (Kleinman et        fering and resistance to the colonizers (de



                        2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
144                                                                  ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


Prybil 2010). Before the Spanish conquest,       colonial pishtacos had the protection of the
human sacrifices happened in the context of      Catholic Church and the colonial authorit-
religious ceremonies, but this is not the set-   ies (Kapsoli 1991; Sifuentes 1989). Here we
ting for the pishtaco murders (Oliver-Smith      find a central element that remains constant
1969; Kapsoli 1991). The core elements of        through time: pishtacos are “untouchable”.
these stories are associated with European       They have the defence of important institu-
colonizers, and so the first pishtacos           tions, so their victims are vulnerable with
seemed to be a representation of Spanish         no access to justice or protection (De Pribyl
conquerors (de Pribyl 2010). Spanish sol-        2010). Another constant aspect of pishtacos
diers and Catholic missionaries were the         was that they are nocturnal murderers
first Europeans to arrive in the Americas        whose main objective is the extraction of fat
and both were considered the first pishta-       from the body of their victims. The killing
cos who killed indigenous people in the          of indigenous people in the mines to sup-
Viceroyalty of Peru. Missionaries were said      port the Spanish Crown explains the fear
to have searched for the indigenous unto         and terror in these populations, who inter-
(fat) to improve the sounds of their bells,      preted the disappearance of their people as
and to shine the faces of Catholic saints.       a sign of oppression by the Spaniards
They were said to have evangelized during        (Molinié Fioravanti 1991; Oliver Smith
the day and killed their victims at night        1969).
(Molinié Fioravanti 1991).                          During the nineteenth century, in the
   One of the first testimonies about the in-    early years of the Peruvian Republic (1821-
digenous fear of pishtacos is provided by        1930), pishtacos are portrayed as prosper-
Cristobal de Molina, a Spanish chronicler        ous miners or merchants who wanted the
during the sixteenth century. The indigen-       fat of the indigenous body to make soaps,
ous unto is valued and sold to prepare           medicine, and for combustion to support
medicine, to cure the wounds of colonizers       factories during the incipient era of Peruvi-
and different types of diseases brought          an industrialization (de Pribyl 2010). State
from Europe (Oliver-Smith 1969). The fat of      authorities were also interested in the indi-
the indigenous body, therefore, serves as        genous fat to pay the Peruvian foreign debt.
raw material for the introduction of West-       The indigenous body became the basic ele-
ern medicine to the indigenous world.            ment in the production of commodities –the
   During the colonial period, pishtacos         raw material for the new economic system
were found among the colonial authorities;       (de Pribyl 2010). In the second half of the
they were descended from the Spanish col-        19th century, pishtacos mutated from coloni-
onizers or powerful local authorities who        al authorities to members of the new eco-
killed indigenous people to extract their fat    nomic and political elites. They were
(Degregory 1989). For the rest of the coloni-    powerful mestizo local male authority fig-
al period, in the indigenous world, any          ures and hacendados (landowners). Pishtacos
stranger was seen as a pishtaco, and he was      are scary, to be feared, dreadful, successful,
considered dangerous and deadly. These           and powerful men (Oliver Smith 1969; Si-


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PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU                         145


fuentes 1989).                                   history remains as a means of maintaining
   Some of the testimonies illustrate pishta-    social identity and group solidarity1.
cos as powerful landlords who, as canni-
bals, eat the flesh of their victims (Kapsoli    4. Internal Migration and Political Viol-
1991, 62; Weismantel 2000). An interesting       ence in the 1980s and 1990s
feature of these pishtacos is that they spend
so much time sleeping during the day and            From the 1930s to the 1970s, Peru
kill their victims at night. Wachtel (1994)      transitioned from being predominantly rur-
relates tales from the highlands of Bolivia,     al to a largely urban configuration, with
in regions where the intrusion of modernity      more than 76 percent of the population liv-
creates crises among more “traditional”          ing in cities by 2015 (INEI 2015). The
communities, about vampire-like pishtacos        growth of internal migration to the cities
who drink the blood of their victims. The        brought pishtacos to the urban centres,
assumption is that powerful and “modern”         with internal variations of the narratives be-
individuals who are seen as a threat to the      coming less clear. Second generation mi-
social order are most likely to fall under       grants remember the stories that their par-
suspicion of being pishtacos.                    ents told them about pishtacos, but city
   These pishtacos acquired their wealth         dwellers have not yet completely incorpor-
trough their business ventures along with        ated these stories as part of an urban social
the indigenous fat they sold in Lima, the        imaginary (Ansion and Sifuentes 1989; Por-
national capital and symbol of power and         tocarreo et al. 1991).
status over rural communities and smaller           During relatively stable and peaceful
provincial cities. During these years, the       times, pishtacos appeared sporadically and
scene of pishtacos’ crimes takes place al-       seemed almost part of a distant past.
most exclusively in rural villages and           Throughout the years of political violence
neighbouring urban enclaves. Regional dif-       in Peru, between 1980 and 2000, indigenous
ferences between pishtacos from the Per-         and marginalized people were caught in
uvian highlands and from the Amazon re-          the crossfire of the war between the Maoist
gion are very marked. The stories of             guerrillas, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path),
murders appear and disappear throughout          and the Peruvian Army. The fear of pishta-
the provinces, in places such as Puno,           cos was reborn and crossed regional bound-
Huancayo or Ayacucho. Lima and other             aries. These were the years of forced intern-
urban centres remain almost absent from          1 The kharisiri is a mythical character among the Aymaras
these stories (de Pribyl 2010; Kapsoli 1991;     in the South of Peru and Bolivia with close characteristics
Sifuentes 1989). The stories of the pishtacos’   to the Pishtaco such as being powerful individuals like
                                                 politicians, Catholic priests, medical doctors, engineers.
victims have the power to be orally repro-       They can be local or foreign people. In contrast to the Pish-
duced from memory and they circulate by          taco myth, kharisiri not only steal human fat and organs,
word of mouth. In rural and impoverished         but also blood from their victims, something that pishta-
                                                 cos never do. For further discussion about kharisiris
societies where quality formal education         among the Aymara population in Peru and Bolivia, see:
continues to be a privilege of the elite, oral   Blaisdell and Vindal Ødegaard 2014; Canessa 2012; and
                                                 Rivière 1991.


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146                                                                  ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


al migration. Displaced people, due to the       committed crimes against them. The Truth
devastation of their rural communities,          and Reconciliation Commission (2003) es-
sought refuge in the already marginalized        timates almost 70,000 fatalities happened
areas of Lima (Morote 1998; Portocarrero et      during these years, of which 75 percent
al. 1991; Degregory 1989). During these          were poor and of indigenous ancestry. The
years, thousands of people were moved            report’s strong evidence did not change the
from the zones of violence to the cities, par-   mind of many Peruvians in positions of
ticularly in Lima. Pishtacos also migrated to    power who, until now, continue to deny the
the cities, accompanying their victims in        mass murders of these populations. This
their pilgrimage to escape the cruelty of the    was also the time of communal organiza-
war between Sendero Luminoso and the             tions fighting against Sendero Luminoso.
Peruvian Army. Displaced populations             Rondas Campesinas, an autonomous peasant
settled in isolated areas and shantytowns in     patrol in rural areas of Peru, was very active
Lima, excluded from the rest of society,         during the years of political violence. Its
which saw these migrants as possible “ter-       original function was to protect villagers
rorists” (Moline Fioravanti 1991; Portocar-      from theft, but soon evolved to become a
rero et al. 1991).                               parallel system of policing and exercising
   Here, we find the recreation of pishtacos     justice. Throughout the years of political vi-
figure as representative of the Peruvian         olence, some of these patrols had the mis-
State. Pishtacos became government offi-         sion of capturing pishtacos, but there are
cials with “credentials from the Govern-         serious allegations of transgression crimes
ment” holding power over neglected               committed by these rounds against people
people. Pishtacos are also professionals (es-    they were supposed to be protecting (TRC
pecially anthropologists, sociologists, and      2003).
NGO workers), medical doctors and, in               Another important aspect at that time
general, anyone who can pass as “friendly”       was the association of the pishtaco murders
but has the secret agenda of stealing the vi-    with the need to solve the economic crisis.
tal organs of marginalized populations. As       The Peruvian economy was experiencing a
during colonial times, these modern pishta-      dramatic economic contraction, produced
cos were seen as being protected by the          by the first term of Alan Garcia’s govern-
State. Their crimes could not be denounced;      ment (1985-1990). The repayments of Peru’s
while the rest of the impoverished popula-       foreign debt were interrupted, and hyperin-
tion was vulnerable to the pishtacos’ viola-     flation rose to record levels. Ansion and Si-
tion (Morote 1998; Rojas 1989; Sifuentes         fuentes (1989), Morote (1998), and Portocar-
1989). Marginalized communities were             rero et al. (1991) recounted stories in which
once again helpless and desperately ex-          the government was accused of choosing
posed to indiscriminate violence.                the indigenous body as a commodity to
   The Peruvian Army and Sendero Lu-             solve the economic crisis, taking indigenous
minoso suspected indigenous people were          fat to pay the external debt because these
supporters of the “enemy”, so both forces        people’s fat was believed to be more ex-


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PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU             147


pensive and appreciated on the internation-        (1989) and Portocarrero et al. (1991) explain
al market. Fear was stoked by rumours cir-         the association of these pishtacos with eye-
culating about pishtacos who were killing          -thieves as being due to the fact that for mi-
indigenous and marginalized people in or-          grants, the eyes are the means through
der to help pay off the foreign debt.              which their children gain education and ac-
   At this point, pishtacos also became hu-        cess to “official” Peru. Children without
man organ traffickers, particularly sacao-         eyes are children without a future or the
jos/robaojos (eye-thieves). Pishtacos were         possibility of progress. By losing their chil-
embodied in white, middle or upper class           dren’s eyes, parents face the fear of being
doctors who were looking for human or-             deprived of their only hope for their chil-
gans to transplant to rich patients. The stor-     dren of social mobility and of being integ-
ies differ in detail, but the essence is the       rated into the dominant society.
same: there are powerful white men who                There are several stories of white local
hunt for human organs and for life force of        doctors who came to the marginalized com-
indigenous and marginalized populations            munities accompanied by mestiza female
(Portocarrero et al. 1991; Sifuentes 1989; Za-     nurses and mestizo and black male guards
pata 1989). While the indigenous male body         looking for the children in schools, clinics
is portrayed as short in stature, hairless,        and streets (Portocarrero et al. 1991; Si-
small in size and belonging to an oppressed        fuentes 1989; Zapata 1989). As in colonial
race, the pishtaco is conceived of as a white      times, these white pishtacos were not alone,
foreign man, a “gringo”, a tall, white man,        but they were helped by urbanized local
not necessarily from the USA (Gow 2001).           people who betrayed their communities.
At that time, pishtaco stories incorporate         These urban pishtacos threatened teachers
urban elements, adding new fears and anxi-         who protected the children and took the
eties. Over time, people’s uncertainties be-       children’s eyes and kidneys in order to sell
came more complex and the narratives had           these healthy organs to sick patients in rich
to adapt to these changes. Pishtacos were          countries (Morote 1998; Portocarrero et al.
described as not only stealing fat but also        1991; Rojas 1989). The presence of female
other human organs such as kidneys and             nurses in these stories can be explained as a
particularly the eyes of children:                 representation of the quite common percep-
                                                   tion that these health practitioners discrim-
  They take children to steal their eyes … [T]he
  vast majority of children are between four and   inate against the poor and indigenous
  fourteen years, from large families but poor.    people. In rural communities and public
  [M]y cousin’s neighbour’s son was left sitting   hospitals, patients usually complain about
  in the door of his house with fifty dollars in   the bad treatment that female nurses give
  his pockets. The organ traffickers are part of
                                                   them, as a means of exhibiting their social
  an international mafia (Sifuentes 1989: 151-
  53).                                             position as mestizos over indigenous
                                                   people; hence, these women are associated
Education is a valued source of progress           with the hegemonic power of medical doc-
and social mobility in Peruvian society. Sev-      tors. Black people in the indigenous ima-
eral scholars such as Ansion and Sifuentes

                          2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
148                                                                       ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


ginary evoke colonial times when African        dirty, returnable bottles of Inca Kola, Peru’s
slaves performed the role of liaisons           national soda. The police explained in de-
between the white colonizers and indigen-       tail the procedures used by the pishtaco
ous people in the mines and factories where     gang to extract human fat. With the skills of
they were exploited. In this sense, the black   modern forensic technology, pishtacos dis-
accomplice of the Spaniard conqueror            membered the bodies of their victims, cut
emerges helping the white doctor in the         off their victims’ heads, arms and legs, re-
same enterprise: to oppress indigenous          moved the organs, suspended the torsos
people. During colonial times in an indi-       from hooks while candles, put above
genous rebellion in the Peruvian Andes in       warmed the flesh and the human fat
1742, black people, Spanish conquerors,         dripped into empty bottles. The Peruvian
and Catholic missionaries were condemned        media, including the most respected news-
to death and accused of being “Indian ex-       papers such as El Comercio and La República
ploiters” (Ansion and Sifuentes 1989;           and the national broadcaster RPP, covered
Morote 1998). In this scenario, pishtacos are   the breath-taking news2. The pishtacos now
not always white; the colour of their skin is   had names and faces and unresolved
a less important sign of racial alterity than   crimes and disappearances in the area were
other features such as clothes, hairiness,      expected to be resolved. Important mem-
material belongings, and economic and so-       bers of the Alan Garcia’s Government (2006-
cial capital that place pishtacos in a priv-    2011) supported the police investigation, in-
ileged position of authority and wealth. In     quiring as to why international traffickers
other words, the “whiteness” of the             are interested in the fat of Peruvians from
pishtaco resides in his appearance and per-     rural communities.
formance and not always in his race or eth-        The impact of the police operation hit the
nicity.                                         international media. The evil crimes of ma-
                                                gic creatures were revealed to be a reality.
5. Pishtacos Go Global: The Myth Be-            Pishtacos were a band of regular thieves
comes Reality                                   and human murderers connected to an in-
                                                ternational mafia of cosmetics produced
   In November 2009, the head of the Per-
uvian police criminal investigation unit ap-    2 El Comercio: “‘Me dedico a ‘pishtaquear’ hace dos
peared on prime time national television re-    meses’, confesó a la policía Marcos Veramendi”.
porting the discovery of a band of pishtacos    Available at: http://archivo.elcomercio.pe/sociedad/lima/me-
                                                dedicopishtaquear-hace-dos-meses-confeso-policia-marcos-vera-
in the highlands of Huánuco and Pasco
                                                mendi-noticia-382814.
which had murdered more than sixty              - La República: “‘Pishtacos’ tenían 17 litros de grasa
people over the past three decades in order     humana”. Available at:
to extract their body fat and sell to           https://larepublica.pe/sociedad/433539-pishtacos-tenian-17-litros-
European cosmetic manufacturers at              de-grasa-humana.
                                                - RPP: “‘Pishtacos’ vendían grasa humana a merca-
US$15,000 per litter. The police presented
                                                dos de cosméticos europeos”. Available at: https://rp-
four members of the pishtaco band with          p.pe/peru/actualidad/pishtacos-vendian-grasa-humana-a-merca-
seventeen liters of human fat stored in         dos-de-cosmeticos-europeos-noticia-223666.


                       2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU                     149


from human fat. It seemed that the victims                    http://g1.globo.com/noticias/mundo/0,,mul1
of pishtacos would finally find justice. The                  385808-5602,00-
                                                              quadrilha+peruana+e+acusada+de+vender+
detailed description of pishtacos’ tech-                      gordura+humana+para+fazer+cosmeticos.ht
niques provided by the Peruvian police                        ml
captured international attention. Some local
and international journalists compared the                Over the following days the truth began
pishtacos’ method of processing the human              to be unveiled. The independent media
fat of their victims with the procedures               linked this case with a previous one which
used by Jean-Baptiste Crenouille, the fic-             appeared in 1989, during the debacle of the
tional character of Patrick Süskind novel,             first term of President Garcia when a band
The Perfume. The following is a sample of              of pishtacos was also “discovered” killing
some of the reputable international media              indigenous people in the provinces to sell
that covered the capture of the pishtacos in           their fat to cosmetic industries in rich
November 2009:                                         neighbourhoods in Lima. By the end of the
                                                       month, the possibility of a smokescreen cre-
      AFP, from France: “Police arrest gang ac-       ated by the Interior Ministry to steer atten-
       cused of killing victims for human fat”
                                                       tion away from a death squad in the north
       https://www.france24.com/en/20091121-
       police-arrest-gang-accused-killing-victims-     of the country gained credibility. The al-
       human-fat                                       leged pishtaco crimes again remained unre-
                                                       solved.
      BBC News, from the UK: “’Fat for cosmetics’        It is not my intention in this article to ex-
       murder suspects arrested in Peru”               amine the veracity or the production of
       http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8369674
                                                       smokescreens by governments in crisis or
       .stm
                                                       corrupt members of the government, but in-
      CNN, from the US: “Arrests made in ring         stead to focus on the narratives and stories
       that sold human fat, Peru says”                 that readers of online newspapers attached
       http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americ        to these news stories during the weeks fol-
       as/11/20/fat.dead.humans.peru/index.html        lowing the police investigation in 2009.
                                                       These narratives constitute an invaluable
      El País, from Spain: “Los ‘sacamantecas’ de
                                                       source of information from people all
       Huánuco mataban para vernder grasa hu-
       mana”
                                                       around Peru and abroad who shared their
       https://elpais.com/diario/2009/11/21/internac   stories about pishtacos. They constitute
       ional/1258758011_850215.html                    evidence of the fluidity of pishtaco stories
                                                       and their evolution in current times in the
      El Mundo, from Spain: “La caza de los ‘Pish-    Peruvian social imaginary. Pishtacos contin-
       tacos’”                                         ue to evolve and incorporate elements from
       https://www.elmundo.es/america/2009/11/20
                                                       modernity and globalization.
       /noticias/1258679886.html
                                                          The forthcoming sections analyse testi-
      Globo, from Brazil: “Quadrilha peruana é        monies of readers of the online version of
       acusada de vender gordura humana para fa-
       zer                           cosméticos”


                          2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
150                                                                               ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


the Peruvian newspaper, Peru213, a very                         ment, Peru21).
popular news outlet with printed and digit-
al distribution that extensively covered the                    Nobody gave it any importance and in fact, all
                                                                of us who came from humble families know
event in 2009. These online readers left their
                                                                about this mafia of doctors who extract the
stories, comments, and beliefs about the                        liquid from the vertebral column of the pa-
long presence of the pishtacos in the Per-                      tients, of all ages. I was in the hospital; my
uvian social imaginary. Evidence was col-                       mum saw how doctors took the liquid from a
lected in November 2009 and translated                          child while his mother was away; my mother
                                                                took me home despite doctors insisting I
from Spanish into English by the author.
                                                                should have stayed. They threatened my
These online readers can be classified as                       mother and blamed her for taking me home,
“unbelievers/sceptical” and “believers”                         but thank God she did and saved me from
about the veracity of pishtacos. They all en-                   this mafia of doctors (Online reader comment,
gaged in an intense debate about the truth                      Peru21).

or falseness of the pishtaco.                                    Narratives about pishtacos also recreate
   An important aspect of the witnesses of                    a very common story from the early years
readers who believe the veracity of pishtaco                  of the colonial past: the use of the indige-
was the claim for justice for marginalized                    nous body as a raw material for the con-
people. Male and female readers told their                    struction of an infrastructure necessary for
stories and the stories of their parents that                 progress and modernization:
were never heard or believed because the
                                                                Sometimes they buried the whole bodies of
victims were poor or because they lived in
                                                                people in civil engineering projects, bridges,
isolated areas, and considering that the                        mines... These bodies were the basis of the col-
murderers always have the protection of                         umns of these constructions, so they are
powerful institutions such as the police or                     stronger and more firm (Online reader com-
the judicial system, which provides impun-                      ment, Peru21).
ity for perpetrators and makes the suffering                     There were open tensions between
of marginalized people invisible:                             “modern” and “pre-modern” people; dis-
   This should open the eyes of those Peruvians               courses from people who identified them-
   who live in the cities and ignore what hap-                selves as white and well educated Limeños
   pens in the provinces. This case is just one of            (people from Lima) as opposed to people
   thousands that demonstrate that these stories
                                                              from the provinces and those of indigenous
   are real, that they are not “rumours”… These
   cases were never taken into account because                ancestry. The no believers emphasize “ratio-
   they were peasants… If the press had an inter-             nal” arguments about a smokescreen creat-
   est and investigated these cases, they could               ed by police and government officials, lack
   find the bodies of the victims and the truth               of education of marginalized individuals,
   could be demonstrated (Online reader com-
                                                              and racial and class issues:
3 The full coverage of the so-called “capture” of the pish-
taco in November 2019 by Peru21 can be traced at:               What ignorance for God! They don’t see this is
http://archivo.peru21.pe/noticia/370821/caen-cuatro-            just a strategy to cover the police crimes and
miembros-banda-que-comercializaba-grasa-humana. Pe-             the corruption of [the Garcia’s] government!
ru21 updated its website since the 2009 events, hence, the      (Online reader comment, Peru21).
links to the readers’ comments are not available anymore.


                               2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU                       151

  This is just an invention of ignorant people        the crimes of pishtacos maintained that fat
  from the Sierra (mountains). It is sad the lack     coming from white and wealthy individu-
  of education in our country (Online reader
                                                      als was not valuable, the local and global
  comment, Peru21).
                                                      market was interested in “quality fat” that
   The following testimony illustrates a              only comes from the indigenous body:
common reply to comments such as the
                                                        They don’t like the fat of obese people; they
above mentioned which questioned the ex-                prefer quality fat, the fat of slim people, like
istence of pishtacos, arguing in return about           regular people from (rural) communities (On-
the “ignorance” of people from Lima who                 line reader comment, Peru21).
ignore the reality of the rest of the country:
                                                         One of the readers associated pishtacos
  God what ignorance, poor devil… You should          with vampires. According to this testimony,
  have lived in the Sierra (mountains) to live the    to protect oneself from pishtacos, as with
  horror of this. People disappeared overnight.
                                                      vampires, it is said that pishtacos hate and
  One couldn’t stay until late because you could
  get cut. This is not a legend, “Limeñito”. How      fear garlic, so eating garlic was seen to be a
  dare you think this has political motivations?      prevention against attacks by pishtacos:
  Pishtacos have been with us for more than
                                                        Put a lot of garlic to your food, garlic spoils
  fifty years, it’s only now that the cases are be-
                                                        human fat, so it becomes useless for pishtacos
  ing exposed (Online reader comment,
                                                        (Online reader comment, Peru21).
  Peru21).

   Non-believers in pishtacos quoted medi-               Some pishtacos it is believed do not kill
cal and cosmetic reports that argue that the          their victims instantly, but they survive for
current use of human fat for cosmetic appli-          a short period of time and then die. These
cations is easily accessible and free. Some of        pishtacos steal the fat with great mastery,
these readers assert that people around the           using syringes, so that their work is unno-
globe were willing to donate fat, so the              ticeable; their victims awaken without any
need for murderers to steal the human fat             symptoms or pain, but they get sick, be-
made no sense:                                        come gradually weaker and after a few
                                                      days they die without knowing the causes
  My wife works in a hospital, there is no way        of their deaths. This theft of the life force
  that [human] fat can be useful for anything,
                                                      leads some national and international me-
  please read, be informed about medical proce-
  dures (Online reader comment, Peru21).              dia previously cited, to compare pishtacos
                                                      with vampires. However, contrary to tales
  Any medical student would tell you that to          of vampires in which blood is the core ele-
  transplant human organs is such a complicat-        ment of their identity that assures the puri-
  ed medical procedure, it can’t be done in the       ty of lineage and articulates vampires’ rela-
  back of a truck, and killing people for their
                                                      tions with their ancestors, pishtacos are not
  fat? This is ridiculous! Just think of all the
  obese people who will become millionaires           interested in blood, but in fat or vital or-
  selling their fat, no need to kill anyone           gans such as the eyes. In rural Andean com-
  PLEASE!! (Online reader comment, Peru21).           munities of Peru and Bolivia, fat and blood
                                                      are not equivalent; blood is not the life force
  As in colonial times, those who believe in


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152                                                                   ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


nor the vital fluid, but fat is (Canessa 2000).   (Kapsoli 1991). Pishtacos were competing
In contrast to vampire-victims, victims of        with powerful local men here in seducing
pishtacos do not become pishtacos them-           and impregnating local women. In more re-
selves. Pishtacos do not transmit and share       cent testimonies, online readers mentioned
their power, which is based on structural         the case of the children of pishtacos and
inequalities that are very difficult to over-     local women. These children (all men) in-
come in Peruvian society.                         herited the vices and evil of their fathers
    From a gender perspective, the pishtaco       and they themselves became pishtaquitos
represents the “hegemonic” male in patri-         (young pishtacos). There was no witness of
archal societies. Connell (2000) conceptual-      daughters of pishtacos:
izes “hegemonic masculinity” as the ver-
                                                    My mother told me the story of a rich pishtaco
sion of being a man that prevails in a specif-      who kidnapped the most beautiful woman in
ic historical and cultural context. These he-       town, and kept her for himself. They were al-
gemonic men exercise power and domin-               ways traveling, the pishtaco didn’t have a
ance over women, children and less power-           house in one place, and for this reason the
                                                    family of the woman could never rescue her
ful men. The pishtaco embodies race, class,
                                                    (…) they have a son who also became pishtaco
and gender inequalities through a spiral of         like his father (Online reader comment, Pe-
violence and authority against marginal-            ru21).
ized individuals. Weismantel (2000) ana-
lyses pishtaco narratives as an expression of       These pishtaquitos with the passage of time
gender and race performances. The “white-           accompany their fathers (pishtaco) on their
                                                    travels (Online reader comment, Peru21).
ness” of the pishtaco does not rely on the
colour of his skin, but in the control and vi-       The male gender of the pishtaco is a core
olence he displays as part of the white elite     element that has remained largely intact
that has been ruling Peru for centuries.          over time. There is no reference to female
Weismantel recounts stories of pishtaco           pishtacas in the early versions of the stories.
rapes of both men and women. Pishtacos            Since the political violence of the 1980s,
seduce their male and female victims with         there have been testimonies of female pish-
refined manners and demonstrations of             tacas who murdered people with the same
their hegemonic position in the Peruvian          cruelty as male pishtacos (Délétroz Favre
hierarchical society. The pishtaco rapist in-     1993). A valid explanation for the recreation
corporates narratives of the dominant, viol-      of gender is the presence of important
ent, aggressive, and hyper-phallic insatiable     women leaders among the members of
man. Information gathered during the              Sendero Luminoso. These women were
1950s talked about pishtacos who kid-             feared by indigenous people for their cruel-
napped young women and transformed                ty, and because in many cases they were
them into their lovers and domestic ser-          chosen to execute the “enemy” (Payne
vants. Some pishtacos allegedly amputated         2013). I found among online readers several
women’s legs and sometimes also their             witnesses of female pishtacas, some of them
arms to prevent them from escaping                captured and killed by terrified popula-


                        2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU               153


tions:                                              nerable ones. Arguedas’ recompilation of
                                                    indigenous tales and stories are a testament
  A distant aunt, whom fortunately I never met,
  was a (female) Pishtaca. One day several men      of the structural inequalities in Peru and the
  ambushed her, captured, raped and killed her,     Andean region (Arguedas and Izquierdo
  which I think was just... It stopped the disap-   Rios 1970). Castro (1992) and Vargas Llosa
  pearance of people, which was very common         (1993) are among the many writers who
  at that time (Online reader comment, Peru21).
                                                    show the universe of the pishtaco in urban
   As for pishtacos, their victims also             settings, where myth and reality overlap.
change over time. There is a wide spectrum          The compelling Vargas Llosa’s novel tells
of subjects among the marginalized people           the story of police officers trying to solve
who are the targets of pishtacos. In some           the disappearance of indigenous people
cases, the potential victims have broken the        during the time of political violence and
rules of social cohesion (e.g., a drunken           massive internal migration from towns to
man who does not heed the group’s advice            the cities. The author illustrates the cultural
of not traveling alone on a dark or isolated        clashes between urban and rural Peru and
road). This kind of “irresponsible” victim          pishtacos are at the centre of this universe.
differs substantially from “innocent” vic-          In concert with these narratives, Ulfe (2011)
tims such as children. There are some sto-          analyses representations of pishtacos
ries about stolen and raped women, and              through retablos, a form of Peruvian artistic
also some stories about women who fell in           artefact from the Andean region that shows
love with pishtacos. In all these cases, wom-       religious imaginaries, festivities, and every-
en were bewitched by the devil, hence the           day experiences. After the political viol-
mischievous “magic” provoked female love            ence, local artisans incorporated pishtaco
for the stranger. Another common element            stories into their work. These retablos have
among the victims is that they were isolated        become not only an artistic expression, but
and thus outside the protection of their            a channel to construct cultural identity, as
group or community. The moral here seems            well as to confront oppression, and build
to be: in order to survive you have to main-        resistance against the oppressor.
tain social cohesion and always be part of             In more recent times, journalist Fowks
the group. Values such as solidarity and in-        (2015) recounts the emergence of a new
tense social interaction used to unify the          movie genre in the Andes of Peru, Andean
community as the only way to ensure pro-            horror films where pishtacos are the central
tection from the enemies’ attacks.                  characters of the stories. Fowks (2015) ana-
   Pishtacos stories have also been part of         lyses more than 20 films since the end of the
the Peruvian literature, popular media, and         political violence in Peru. The movies have
popular art. From novelist and anthropolo-          become very popular in the provinces and
gist José María Arguedas who emphasized             are increasingly approved in the cities of
in his novels the human nature of pishtacos.        Peru. Audiences seem to appreciate local
They were not evil or super natural beings,         faces and places, and stories that resonate
but powerful people who exploited the vul-          with their personal and community experi-


                           2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
154                                                                                ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


ences. In these modern representations,                        believers about pishtacos.
pishtacos kill their victims, steal their vital                   As previously analysed, middle and up-
organs, and eat their brains and other or-                     per class Peruvians from cities like Lima,
gans in a genre that fuses the pishtaco myth                   viewed pishtacos as a product of the ima-
with other global characters of the horror                     gination of people from the Andes and mar-
movie genre. In 2017, an American Peruvi-                      ginalized shantytowns in Lima. For these
an co-production started filming Yuraq. A                      wealthy Peruvians, pishtacos are only ru-
young Peruvian immigrant in New York                           mours created by “ignorant” people who
comes back to the rural areas of Peru. The                     have no access to formal education. Derog-
film asserts that it is based in the “true                     atory references about the background of
events” of the pishtaco band from 2009 and                     those who believe in the crimes of pishtacos
will tell the “cruellest and most violent                      were very common among these immig-
events” about pishtacos’ crimes 4. From pop-                   rants. Phrases such as “Serranos [from the
ular tales, novels, retablos and movies,                       Andes] believe in irrational things”; “these
pishtaco stories illustrate how marginalized                   ignorant people can’t think like normal
people have reorganized their universe and                     people”; “people from the conos [working
have broken the silence and violence of                        class areas of Lima] bring their magic and
their oppressors through a cultural text that                  witchcraft from their little towns to the cit-
allows them to tell their stories from within                  ies”, were very usual among them. Jerry, a
their cultural context.                                        white Peruvian born in Lima illustrates
    Pishtacos also cross national borders and                  these narratives:
accompany Peruvian immigrants when
                                                                 I think we all Peruvians, including people liv-
they relocate abroad. During four years of                       ing in Lima, have heard about pishtacos, but
fieldwork with Peruvian immigrants in                            we don’t believe in them, for us these are crazy
New York and New Jersey (2004-2007) for a                        stories [but] Serranitos really believe in these
study on transnational migration, masculin-                      monsters, they would tell you that a pishtaco
                                                                 killed their grandmother… Or another relat-
ities and sexualities5, I found that the myth
                                                                 ive… I think their ignorance comes from lack
of the pishtaco was part of the collective                       of education and poor exposure to news and
memory from these migrants’ time in Peru.                        information (Jerry, 38).
As in Peru, race and social class as well as
                                                                  For other Peruvian immigrants in New
the division between rural vs. urban place
                                                               York and New Jersey, mostly from the prov-
of residence, were pivotal factors to under-
                                                               inces, pishtacos are real murderers ignored
stand the narratives of “believers” and non-
                                                               by “the official Peru” and by people from
                                                               the cities. They would tell stories that res-
4 A trailer of the movie and details about the pro-
                                                               onate with the ones described in the Peru-
duction can be found at: https://www.facebook.-
com/yuraqthemovie/posts/the-true-storythe-pishta-
                                                               vian contexts. They emphasize the fear and
cosin-2009-the-peruvian-newspapers-reported-sto-               anxiety in which indigenous and working
ries-of-a/1694394570859054/                                    class people live in disadvantaged areas of
5 Vasquez del Aguila, Ernesto. 2014. Being a Man in a          Peru due to their structural vulnerabilities
Transnational World. The Masculinity and Sexuality of Migra-
tion. New York: Routledge.                                     and lack of protection from the state and


                               2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU                      155


the government. A recurrent narrative was             sider their cities at home to be inflicted by
the lack of information of people from                different types of violences, from the politi-
wealthy neighbourhoods in Lima about the              cal violence during the 1908s and 1990s that
lives of their country fellows from the prov-         forced individuals from rural communities
inces. Julian shows a common response to              to move to the cities, to gang and delin-
my question about pishtacos:                          quent violence. Better economic conditions
                                                      were another factor that prevent the pres-
  Limeños have no idea about what happens in
  the rest of the country, particularly in isolated   ence of pishtacos in the USA. Javier pro-
  regions where pishtacos are part of the lives of    vides a less idealistic vision of the lives of
  poor people. Anyone from the Sierra would           immigrants in the USA. For him, despite
  tell you stories about pishtacos. They attack       the relatively good economic conditions
  their victims when one thinks one is safe.
                                                      that immigrants achieve in the USA, their
  They are always there, waiting for the right
  moment to attack their victims… Children,           lives are shaped by isolation and lack of so-
  men, women, anyone can be chosen by pishta-         cial cohesion, which for him is the way peo-
  cos…. But limeños don’t want to believe these       ple in Peru fight against pishtacos, staying
  stories (Julian, 48).                               together:
   I did not find references of pishtaco                Living here is not a paradise. We [immigrants]
crimes in the USA context. I asked my in-               can buy a car, a house, have a decent job, save
formants, particularly the ones who believe             money, but everything is artificial here. In
                                                        Peru the mountains are alive! [in the USA]
in the crimes of pishtacos, about stories that
                                                        people are isolated, alone, nobody cares or
they may hear about pishtacos in the USA. I             trust their neighbours. In Peru, people are or-
always got the same response: they never                ganized, they protect each other, that is how
heard about pishtaco crimes in the USA. I               they fight against pishtacos, staying together
challenged their certainty, mentioned the               (Javier, 34).
example of stories of pishtacos moving                   To confront the collective silence that en-
from the provinces to the cities and that             ables the elites to maintain oppression,
that could be the case with the Peruvian im-          marginalized people have also created con-
migration to the USA. However, their an-              tested narratives that offer a symbolic solu-
swers were always the same. Their narra-              tion to their subjugation: killing the pishta-
tives focused on the different context of the         co. There are several stories across time of
Peruvian and USA societies. The most com-             humble people, regular, anonymous men
mon narrative eluded the fact that institu-           and women, children and elderly people,
tions such as the police, the judiciary sys-          who claim to have resisted the attacks of
tem, and the government, actually work in             pishtacos and to have even killed them
the USA, which is one of the most powerful            (Kapsoli 1991; Sifuentes 1989). Through
factors to describe the vulnerability of the          narratives of social cohesion, solidarity, and
pishtaco victims: the absence of actors and           collaboration, indigenous people overcome
institutions that protect their rights. Anoth-        the oppressor, with many stories featuring
er typical answer was the presence of secu-           the “happy ending” of the pishtaco’s
rity in the USA. Peruvian immigrants con-             demise.


                            2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
156                                                                                ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


   However, the resolution of the oppres-                   shantytown of Lima, suspected of being
sion of excluded populations carries some-                  pishtacos seeking their children. The viol-
times acts of violence against innocent peo-                ent mob attempted to lynch the pollsters.
ple treated as modern pishtacos. In times of                More than thirty villagers were detained by
economic crisis, political violence, social                 the police and one was killed?????7. Porto-
upheaval, and insecurity, outsiders in rural                carrero (2016) analyses the profile of the de-
communities and marginalized urban areas                    tained villagers. More than 70 percent were
have been suspected of being pishtacos and                  men 30 years old and younger. A popula-
being the source of violence and even                       tion hit by unemployment or precarious
death.                                                      working conditions and social exclusions in
   During the political violence in the 1980s               a country that is officially growing and re-
and 1990s, a young migrant man from the                     ducing its levels of poverty. These young
city of Huancayo was killed by a group of                   men saw the police as accomplice and pro-
villagers in the southern city of Huamanga,                 tectors of the alleged pishtacos who were
because he was suspected of being a pishta-                 stealing their most precious asset, the lives
co. The man tried to prove his innocence,                   of their children. These men were claiming
but failed when the villagers asked him to                  justice. As in previous times, pishtacos are
speak in Quechua. His position as an out-                   back in the everyday lives of impoverished
sider was the evidence of his crime (Degre-                 and socially excluded Peruvians and the
gory 1989).                                                 rest of the country sees the myth as part of
   In 2016, more than 500 people in a rural                 the ignorance of marginalized individuals.
community of Huancayo, attempted to take                    The myth continues to live.
the police station, protesting against the lib-
eration of two men suspected of being                       6. Conclusion
pishtacos. Villagers denounced several
                                                               Pishtaco stories are a form of cultural
cases of disappearances of their neighbours
                                                            text that indigenous and marginalized pop-
but the police said no cases were previously
                                                            ulations use as a cultural representation to
reported. As described above, the clash
                                                            tell their stories of suffering, oppression,
between the official version of the police
                                                            and resistance. Modernization asserts that
and the “rumours” created by rural people
                                                            the past must be replaced by the new, that
was at the centre of the controversy in the
                                                            the rational must supersede the irrational.
Peruvian media6.
                                                            With the advent of colonialism in Latin
   Two months later, in November of 2016,
                                                            America in the sixteenth century, the Span-
the rumours about pishtacos circulated on a
                                                            ish empire introduced new machineries of
facebook page. A recorded message alerted
                                                            technology and ideology that oppressed
about the presence of pishtacos in some
                                                            and sought to erase the indigenous world.
parts of Lima. Days later, two male pollsters
were attacked by villagers in Huaycan, a
                                                            7 Available at:     https://elcomercio.pe/lima/huaycan-34-
                                                            detenidos-llevados-penal-lurigancho-152085            and
6 Available at: https://elcomercio.pe/peru/junin/vecinos-   https://perureports.com/lima-mob-chasing-child-
toman-comisaria-acusar-sujetos-pishtacos-259699             kidnappers-leaves-one-dead-police-injured/4970/


                              2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
PISHTACOS: HUMAN FAT MURDERERS, STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES, AND RESISTANCES IN PERU           157


Independence and the new Peruvian Re-            wear Western clothes, speak Spanish, and
public from the early nineteenth century         are in closer contact with other Span-
did not change the structural oppression of      ish-speaking urban areas. Men are identi-
indigenous people.                               fied as mestizos, while their sisters, mothers
   The Peruvian racial hierarchy is a con-       and wives remain indigenous. Race and
tinuum of discrimination and social exclu-       ethnicity are written on the females’ bodies
sion. Categories such as indio/a, mestizo/a,     rather on the males’ bodies. De la Cadena
campesino/a, serrano/a, and cholo/a express      (1996) summarizes this situation in an illu-
the complexity of race, class, and ethnicity     minating cultural idiom: “women are more
in Peru. For instance, the children of indi-     indigenous than men”, which shows that
genous people who go to school and learn         even among marginalized populations, wo-
Spanish become mestizos, a higher position       men are more subordinated in structural
in the race and class systems. These chil-       and symbolic ways.
dren are taught at schools that indigenous          The indigenous suffering is not an inevit-
oral stories are nothing but magic and su-       able tragedy. Indigenous people share these
perstition, and that they need to forget this    horrific stories as a way to cope with their
supernatural world. As Portocarrero et al.       suffering and exploitation. These stories be-
(1991) note, for these children it seems that    come expressions of resistance to the
there is only opposition between home and        erosion of traditional social values based on
school, between rural and urban, between         reciprocity, sharing, and family and com-
modernity and tradition. However, indi-          munity loyalty in the context of global and
genous people learn how to negotiate their       local capitalism (Scheper-Hughes 2001).
identities and integrate the “magic” and the     Pishtaco stories show what counts and mat-
“real” that coexist on different levels and in   ters in the hierarchical Peruvian society,
different instances. As Johnson (2013) ar-       which body, which suffering is or is not im-
gues, modernity, progress, and the uncanny       portant. During the political violence of the
are connected to the realm of the everyday       1980s and the early 1990s, the media por-
lives of marginalized individuals. They do       trayed terror as experienced by urban,
not see contradictions between magical           white, middle class people, and the stories
stories and rational thinking or progress.       of men and women in indigenous com-
For them, pishtacos provide a rational ex-       munities were ignored and almost erased
planation for what the hierarchical Peruvi-      from the media. The poor and the indigen-
an society cannot account, and only become       ous did not have voices to express their suf-
irrational or superstition for those outside     fering. As Weismantel (2000) argues,
the context of pishtacos’ potential victims.     pishtaco stories show one-by-one, that no
   Race and ethnicity become more com-           matter how often murders occur, each indi-
plex if we consider the gender dimension.        vidual tragedy is novel, appalling, and un-
While indigenous women wear traditional          necessary. However, pishtaco narratives do
clothes, speak Quechua or Aymara, and are        not unify indigenous suffering, because
usually less in contact with the cities; men     even in this apparently homogenous group


                        2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
158                                                                    ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA


there are differences among the victims, dif-      states, marginalized populations continue
ferences between men and women, between            to see evil exploiters as constantly recreat-
children and adults, and between “inno-            ing suffering and even death. The historic
cent” victims and “irresponsible” ones. The        persistence of pishtaco narratives is a re-
nature of the victim is embedded in a com-         sponse to the symbolic and structural viol-
plex system of moral values. What all vic-         ence that indigenous and poor people have
tims have in common are stories that illus-        been suffering in the Andean region since
trate the multiple forms of oppression and         colonial times. Pishtacos represent the
exclusion that vast number of Peruvians            known and the unknown; they combine the
still experience.                                  familiar with the unfamiliar.
   Older representations of pishtacos por-             Marginalized people know pishtacos
tray them as having the power to enchant           even if they have never seen one. This ap-
their victims, and even as ferocious canni-        parent contradiction explains the fears,
bals. More recent versions of the stories rep-     anxieties, and terrors that these stories en-
resent them as human individuals. An im-           capsulate. For believers in the pishtaco, the
portant element of continuity in these stor-       fear is real. The fluidity and ambiguity of
ies is that pishtacos are bolstered by the         pishtaco stories also expresses the complex-
protection of institutions such as the State,      ities of indigenous and marginalized
Church, and medical profession. Despite            people’s identities in rural and urban con-
historical changes, the core elements of           texts. Pishtaco narratives provide a means
pishtacos stories remain the same: pishtacos       of propagation and consolidation, which as-
are powerful (almost exclusively) men              sures social cohesion in this context of vul-
killing impoverished, marginalized and             nerability, social exclusion, structural in-
vulnerable individuals. The identity of the        equalities, but also resistances.
oppressors changes, but, as Taussig (1977)



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                          2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018
                                                       2018 América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018




ERNESTO VASQUEZ DEL AGUILA
Dr. Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila is an Affiliate Researcher in the Anthropology Department at
Georgetown University, Washington, DC. He earned his PhD in medical anthropology from Co-
lumbia University. His latest book is entitled Being a Man in a Transnational World: The Masculinity
and Sexuality of Migration (Routledge 2014).


                                                                              Ernesto Vasquez del Aguila


                                                               Georgetown University, Washington, DC


                                                                                   ev181@georgetown.edu




                                                                                       Received: 14/06/2018
                                                                                      Approved: 26/11/2018




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Ernesto Vasquez el Aguila
Pishtacos: Human Fat Murderers, Structural Inequalities, and Resistances in Peru
2018 ⎸América Crítica. Vol. 2, n° 2, dicembre 2018: 139-162. ISSN: 2532-6724
DOI: 10.13125/américacrítica/3378
