The Corpus Christi of Peru

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Cultural Artefact

What is a cultural artefact? In sociology and anthropology, a cultural artefact is any human created material, object, subject, practice or tradition that says something about the culture and practice of its makers. This then also includes archaeological artefacts for by studying said remnants of former cultures and peoples, we learn about them and their way of life. A cultural artefact then provides a wealth of information including social elements (politics, belief systems, language, etc.), environmental state,
economic capacities and technologies of the people that has created said artefact.

We can easily point to faith and belief systems as cultural artefacts. But as cultural artefacts of practice they are broad and encompass so much more from material artefacts to artefacts related to literature and social practices. Just as the practice of Crucifixion, for example, is a cultural artefact in the Christian faith, the Shroud of Turin and the annual pilgrimage to religious sites including Fatima, Lourdes, Rome and Jerusalem are also cultural artefacts.

It is undeniable that Latin America has an intensely Christian and Religious pan-continental practice of Catholicism and Folk Christianity. This is in itself a religious artefact of colonial faith conversion, when natives were converted by force by friars from Spain and Portugal as one of the main missions of Colonial expansion, a mission entrusted to both countries by the Pope himself, hence the then Pope's division of the world between the Iberian Powers. Colonial Expansion did not only meant new territories and sources of natural and exotic resources; it also meant Missionary work where both God and country figured in the Native People's subjugation. For every city, town and village established in Latin America, a friar/priest dominated the spiritual life of the people. At one point, the orders of the Augustinians and the Jesuits controlled much of the territories, informing politics and economics. The center of Colonial Latin American Life was the church, in a Pueblo, ...