Olivia Harris Memorial Event (2010)

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MONDAY NIGHT OF CARNIVAL

A group of sirinu musicians and dancers from Cayanguera (Kalankira), Northern Potosi, Bolivia, early evening on the Monday night of Carnival, March 1996. The group travelled many miles across the countryside through the course of the night, visiting homesteads which had suffered deaths of adult men over the previous year. At each house the dancers were offered food and drink and then ritually despatched the deceased's soul with wayñu music and dance.

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OLIVIA SACACA

Olivia, her hat decked in Dahlias and Gladioli, during the Feast of Candelaria in Sacaca, Northern Potosí, Bolivia (February 1987). We bumped into one another by chance during this feast, and both enjoyed a good deal of chicha (maize beer) and dancing. Olivia had been researching older men's reminiscences of the disastrous Chaco War (1932).

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PINKILLUS

A group of pinkillu flute players performing in Sacani community cemetery, near Toracari, Northern Potosi, on the eve of the Feast of All Saints (31 October) 1986. In her article 'The Dead and the Devils among the Bolivian Laymi' Olivia wrote: "The initiation of the agricultural cycle is … marked by the 'socialisation' of the graveyard, which at other times is a place avoided with fear and repugnance. … Above all, All Saints initiates the time of wayñus, melodies played on wooden flutes, whose explicitly mournful tones pervade the whole season and attract rain".

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WAYNU

A wayñu song sung by Antonia Quispia to the qunquta guitar accompaniment of Antonio Quispia in Sacani cemetery, near Toracari, Northern Potosi, on the eve of the Feast of All Saints (31 October) 1986. The song, in the Quechua language, humorously compares a youthful girl to the beautiful yellow sunchu flower and then the girl in later married life to firewood (for which sunchu is used in the winter months). "I used to know you, I used to love you, what has happened to you now!?" It was performed with immense energy and humour, filling the graveyard with laughter.

With many thanks to Henry Stobart for providing these photos and captions, as well as his contribution to the memorial event.