Talk:Pacha (Inca mythology)

Uku pacha

Uku pacha or ukhu pacha does not mean underworld, it means inner world, if it was underworld it would be either urin pacha or ura pacha and I can tell you that as quechua speaker. Qhapaqkanqi (talk) 14:17, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Factual accuracy disputed

Information about so-called Inca cosmological realms is pretty much discarded in contemporary Andean studies. For starters, translations of the word pacha as 'spacetime' are plainly anachronistic and exoticizing. On top of that, every early Quechua written source about hanan pacha/ hanaq pacha and uku pacha is a Christian catechetical text or dictionary, in which the former means '(Christian) heaven' and the latter '(Christian) hell'. I would annotate the realms intepretation as a XXth century theory. Nawabaonbake (talk) 00:05, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi. I don’t know what exactly was wrong with my wikification, I just wanted to clarify the wording. Could you care to explain? Thanks. Cheers. Encyclopédisme (talk) 15:33, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the revert, but you have not provided a source that this is just an "interpretation". It’s largely consensual. I’m going to add something to the criticism section, as the three realms theory criticism is linked to the criticism, absent currently, of the eras theory. Encyclopédisme (talk) 15:36, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

@Nawabaonbake: Provide sources for its non-consensuality Encyclopédisme (talk) 15:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello? Did you see this post? I would appreciate an answer. Encyclopédisme (talk) 15:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks. No edit no war here. I think we both have been editing at the same time. Hope you're OK. Greetings!

The general problem is equating words with concepts. That is pretty common practice among publication on "exotic" cultures. Consensual or not (it is not) interpreting a multiple meanings word as just one concept will always be an interpretation, a hypothesis. In this specific case, the only serious Quechua scholar that does that is, to my knowledge, Gérald Taylor. That should be enough to consider such concept attribution non-consensual. But I get it, I will add references about that aforementioned principle (polysemy ≠ complex concepts).

About written style, you have erased asterisks from reconstructed Proto-Quechua words that are simply mandatory. When a word is reconstructed, not attested, it should never go without an asterisk. You have also turned angular quoting marks ⟨⟩ used for exact orthographic forms into simple ones. I don't know whether this latter change affects readability.sted, Nawabaonbake (talk) 15:53, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

César Itier? I cited him. Yes. I literally cited him… Encyclopédisme (talk) 15:56, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

And these aren’t works of vulgarisation. On the contrary, these concepts aren’t described in works of vulgarization, who historize most of Andean though. Encyclopédisme (talk) 15:57, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I sincerely do not understand your last two comments about Itier or vulgarization. I hope you could get more explicit. Nawabaonbake (talk) 16:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

The first sentence of the article currently cites Itier, and works of vulgarisation for the "common people" often dismiss these concepts, instead of promoting them. The historical and cyclic nature of pacha is mainly studied by "serious" historians, linguists and anthropologists, often from a structuralist point of view. Encyclopédisme (talk) 16:06, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

There, now it’s done. Encyclopédisme (talk) 16:35, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

@Nawabaonbake: I researched the subject, and I really don’t know why this "three realms theory" wouldn’t be consensuel. I know that the way it was presented in the past was very Christian, but research still exists on the matter. A prolific and very reliable editor on fr.wiki wrote about it in a non-Christian kind of way (and sourced it), and I would like to translate that content if it doesn’t cause problems. Currently, it is believed that there are no spiritual realities in Andean thought (essentially most of the things described as "divine" are huacas), and an accurate description of the notion would, with a criticism section at the end to show the skepticism towards the idea of "ages" or "realms" would be great. To my knowledge, no scholar dismisses the idea of space-time entirely (what does professor Cerrón Palomino, which I haven’t read, write about this specifically?). If it doesn’t cause problems, I’ll start the translation today. Encyclopédisme (talk) 16:35, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi. I hope I may be adding information and editing this noon.

To my reading it is pretty clear Juan Carlos Estenssoro and César Itier (in the review you have erased for some reason) pretty clearly dismiss the three realms theory. Itier explicitly critices Jemiñski for his assumption of such theory, ponitng to a bad reading of Guamán Poma and to a lack of contemproary ethnographic evidence. It may be helpful to point that I think they are right there in doing that: there's virtually no textual evidence.

In any case, however non-consensual, both the interpretation of pacha as indicating a peculiar concept and the three realms theory are much well-known and even mayoritarian. They must be explained here in Wiki. In both cases, an accurate exposition of them has to explain they're reconstructions and interpretations as much as no single colonial textual evidence unequivocally says none of them. Nawabaonbake (talk) 17:09, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I deleted that ref? I alrady thought something was missing there, didn’t realize, sorry. Well, at least the spatial-temporal concept is consensuel (I dont quite understand your phrase. by mayoritarian, you mean "majoritarian"? In that case I agree, at least concerning the concept). By consensual, I mean that a consensus of scholars agrees with the concept, which seems to be the case. Encyclopédisme (talk) 17:16, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Nawabaonbake: I didn’t delete anything… Turns out the two are cited separately, Estenssoro is as unclear as you can be (I don’t know if it even counts as criticism), and doesn’t engage with the subject in detail. Perhaps another source was cited previously, though it’s unlikely. I’ll look at the history. Encyclopédisme (talk) 17:43, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Nawabaonbake: Having read the review, while he’s certainly not favorable towards it, I don’t see how Itier "clearly dismisses" it, either. Itier doesn’t talk about it at length, he just generally talks about a bad method for coming to assumption (no analysis of sources), and gives, among many others, this example. He could be referring to anything, like the names of the realms, the etymology, anything, when he writes it is "questionable" (and the general statements concern the work in general. The source isn’t centered around this concept, which is only criticized in its "three realms" variant, since the author himself supports other philosophical meanings of the concept. This doesn’t necessarily mean in any case that one interpretation is fundamentally contradicting another [here, it isn’t the case], we’re talking about a concept, not necessarily about a word). Encyclopédisme (talk) 18:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Nawabaonbake: It seems César Itier (in the same historical work I’ve been citing) supports the realms "theory".. Sooo, make of that what you will. And he serves as a perfect source for representing it in a non-Christian way. He however, linking it, like the article currently does, to the idea of duality, doesn’t mention "This Pacha", which seems to mean what it literally means, and doesn’t seem to have a specific cosmological meaning, aside from being "this world" between the dualism continued by the "upper Pacha" and the "lower Pacha" (as the article currently suggests this, with the sourced statement that "This Pacha" often found itself caught between the upper and lower Pachas). We shouldn’t be jumping on conclusions based on works not clearly stating "this is false"(and the use of modern (non-historical. The works explicitly referring to history are valuable sources, of course) dictionaries can cause these types of problems, among other things), especially since the author in this case supports the theory.Encyclopédisme (talk) 18:35, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Just in case, I deleted that part of the criticism now, (since Itier supports the theory) as you can see in the page history, previously it wasn’t deleted. Estenssero can stay of course. Encyclopédisme (talk) 18:49, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi. It is beeing rather difficult to understand your points maybe because of the way you add interventions. Something that gets pretty clear though is you understand neutral words such as "theory" or "interpretation" as negative. They are not. Science is much about theories and interpretation of evidence. Nawabaonbake (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Nawabaonbake: I don’t see them as negative, however you need sources for saying this is just a theory. I, like you, don’t have a clear opinion on the subject (otherwise that would be called "pov-pushing", and nobody likes that). It’s just that your (initial) intervention has also introduced a lot of unclear materiel. Itier, for example, is in favor of the theory. Estenssero isn’t discussing it in detail. Encyclopédisme (talk) 19:09, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

On the theory part, that is what’s your personal interpretation (the use of "theory" or "interpretation"). It’s consensual, and so much so that scholars don’t casually say "this theory" or "hypothesis", when talking about it, but simply claim these statements as true. So far, the only detailed criticism seems to come from Cerrón Palomino. And so I ask you again, since I don’t have the work at hand, what does he say specifically on the matter? Encyclopédisme (talk) 19:14, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for leaving a citation, so essentially he too isn’t clearly stating that this is a "theory", and that any pre-Columbian origin is unprovable (he surely isn’t stating there are no sources. Even if that’s true, no criticism seems to be stating this). Or am I missing context here for Palomino? Is the chapter explicitly about this, does he talk at length about it? Or is it just that paragraph you cited? Encyclopédisme (talk) 19:42, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Nawabaonbake: I’m sorry if this is becoming a mess to read, but this is important. Does anyone, aside from you, directly claim this is just an interpretation? You cite old sources once again, but this time this isn’t acceptable, because of cultural differences. Is Cerrón-Palomino the only real (and explicit) critic of this concept? If some of what’s written here is your personal interpretation, that’s called Wp:Original Research, and isn’t allowed. So far, most the criticism you’ve mentioned came from Itier, and he is clearly in favor of the "theory". Encyclopédisme (talk) 19:52, 2 May 2024 (UTC)