Ancestral Life & Daily Rituals In Peru
Walking The Inca Lands

Edge of Humanity Magazine

2 months ago

Photographer Javi Parejo is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘Chasquis: Following in the Footsteps of the Inca’. To see Javi’s body of work, click on any photograph.

I knew I was going to like Peru. But I never imagined that I would fall in love with it at a level I had only felt before in places like Egypt, Jordan, Chile, Colombia or Argentina. And yet, this is something different. It is much more.

Here, authenticity is unquestionable. People live their lives without performing for anyone. They do not wear traditional clothing to be observed: it is simply the way they exist in the world. They are not seeking attention or approval. This is who they are, this is how they live, this is how they communicate. And if it does not resonate with you, perhaps this is not the right place for you.

Their devotion to traditions and customs is not a reenactment or a staged performance. They have not invented anything new: they have simply preserved a way of life that comes from immemorial times. On these lands there once existed a civilization that left a profound mark on the world and that, in barely four hundred years, built an extraordinary empire. Had it not been interrupted by conquerors arriving from other worlds, it is impossible to imagine how far it might have gone.

This is a documentary project. I did not want to create the usual images of spectacular landscapes, selfies or easy photographs supported by color. That is why I chose black and white: to reach the essence, to avoid being distracted by exuberant chromaticism, to stay away from the obvious. Faces shaped by climate, brightly colored clothing, mountains, flowers and façades in impossible tones have all been translated into a scale of greys, into the language of the zone system.

I understand that not everyone will agree with this decision. I might even question it myself in very specific moments of the project. But I did not want to give color the leading role, nor fall into the rainbow — so revered by the Incas — as an easy visual resource.

I walked alongside my partner through the mountains of the Inca, along the paths of the chasqui, through the lands of the puma, the serpent and the condor, the three sacred animals. I drank chicha, slept under the stars, walked to exhaustion, tasted the strangest potatoes, and climbed on foot up to 4,200 meters above sea level. I suffered altitude sickness, I saw volcanoes, llamas, alpacas and vicuñas.

Then came the conquerors, with their horses, their weapons, their ships and their diseases.

But that is another story.

I choose to stay with “Chasquis. Following in the Footsteps of the Inca