A couple of years ago, Gustavo Solotano, now somewhere around Italy, gave me a photo taken in Toledo, Spain. In the picture you could see a band of peruvian musicians playing in the streets. The problem is they were wearing apache indiam costumes, with those large tuft of feathers on their heads, just like in old cowboy movies. It seems to be that this is not an isolated fact, since at Cada Chango a su Mecate a similar story is told, and a photo of one of these bands is published.

Issues related to identity and authenticity are far from simple. In order to appear “authenticâ€?, many social groups, particularly those related to ethnic tourism, tend to represent a role that makes them look “realâ€? to the tourists eyes. Almost a year ago, I wrote this: “It’s obvious that even this can be put in scene: diverse small towns in Latin America know perfectly how present themselves as authentic to an auditorium of tourists, anthropologysts and government officers. This implies the strategic use of costumes, ornaments and environments, prepared or preserved for those visitors, that understand as authentic, precisely only what they consider authenticâ€?.

In the case of the peruvian musicians in Europe, there’s a particular strategy: presenting themselves as “indiansâ€?. Someone will wonder: is this necessary? Isn’t it true that even in Peru, as well as in the rest of Latin America, “mestizosâ€? are usually stigmatized as “indiansâ€?? Apparently, according to their own evaluation, in Europe this is not enough. To be recognized as such, they have to present themselves as indians, but in the U.S. version. That is, to make your music look like “authentic indian musicâ€?, it’s best to present ourselves as something we’re not. In this case, an “apache indianâ€?. Which takes for granted that they consider their public unable of distinguishing, either by ignorance or by imaginary, among a latin american indian and a U.S. Indian. It’s a way in which the relations of domination are clear: I’m “authenticâ€? as long as everyone else assign me that category; in this case, “indianâ€?. In many cases, “authenticâ€? is not, at all, an objective category of description of reality, but the product of a long historic process in which politics participate as much as the movies.

Since I’ve written a lot about the topic of authenticity in this blog, you can check these links if you want to know a little more about this concept:

Authenticity as an explanatory concept