Over time, memories fade Peru. The sounds and smells of the street, national pride, especially if the focus, moving away a little, while other images or other symbols to represent take over this country and its history.
Something that, for me, is deeply Peru, more than Lake Titicaca, llamas or Pisco are the archangels. Relatively little presence in Western art, archangels have been, instead, a real fascination in the Viceroyalty of Peru, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
Among the different types, the archangel carrying musket is the ultimate . The musket was a firearm used by very conquistadors. Its representation in painting (while in Europe represented archangels are usually a sword) is an American creation. It probably inspired prints infantry military treaties that circulated in the new world.
The feast of St. Michael , boss of the archangels, was the only day when the Indians were allowed to carry weapons: they marched, dressed as angels as soldiers. A failed attempt uprising in 1750, also planned to take advantage of this holiday, since the Indians had access to arsenals from the previous day.
Enthusiasm for the archangels is mainly due to conditions of evangelization of the New World. Archangels lead the heavenly host, which is based on the outcome of the final battle between good and evil. They also represent the natural phenomena, stars and planets, and probably were grafted on indigenous beliefs by this personification. Another explanation is that the Society of Jesus, founded in 1540 and active in Peru from 1568, an order was too new to have already its own saints: the Jesuits they dedicated their churches so St. Peter, St. Paul, Our Lady of Loreto and Saint Michel. Brotherhoods natives were involved in the management of churches so there was a brotherhood under the protection of the Archangel Michael in Lima, which was able to play.
In Peru today, you can still find reproductions of paintings of archangels in many homes. And for the costume parade tests Interfacultades 2008 at PUCP, entitled "Angels and Demons", the procession was led by the Humanities ... a musket to archangel.
-All these tables are those of the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru -
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