“Where Dead People Walk”

Abstract

The Quechua community of Q’eros, Peru, is known internationally for their lifestyle steeped in an “Inca” past. While many documentaries, exhibitions, theses, and articles have been published about them, their direct complaint is that they never see these works. In 2010, the ethnomusicologist Holly Wissler digitized and handed over fifty years of audiovisual archives about the Q’eros directly to their communities. This chapter discusses the collection and presentation of the archives via an “ambulatory movie theater”; the triggering of memory and discussion about past customs and deceased community members; one woman’s multiple viewings of footage of her long-deceased mother as integral process in healing; the impact of archive return directly to the community of origin, versus deposit in a public institution; and a stimulation of consciousness about the place of Q’eros in Andean history, and the uniqueness of their customs that is connected to both Inca and current identity.