HISTORY

While currently perceived by scholars as extinct, Culle, quite surprisingly, was spoken at least until the first half of the 20th century. It is assumed to have been the vernacular language of a large multi-ethnic pre-Columbian population settled in a wide area of the northern Peruvian Andes, encompassing today’s southern Cajamarca, the highlands of La Libertad, and northern Ancash (see Image 2). Colonial-era chronicles and administrative authorities described Culle as “the language of Huamachuco”. Huamachuco was a curacazgo or chiefdom in the northern Peruvian Andes, distinctive in its architecture, religion, and ancestor worship (Lau 2010; Topic & Topic 2000). Sources for the language include two lexical lists, scattered mentions throughout colonial documents, and a wide array of toponyms.

The oldest extant source for Culle is a document prepared around 1560 by an Augustinian missionary, a member of the first group of Christian evangelizes in the region. Friar Juan de San Pedro, probably seeking to convince a Spain-based superior in his religious order to send more preachers to the area (González 1992), emphasized the persistence of ancient myths and religious beliefs among the indigenous population, and the fragile anchoring of Christianity. To that end, he described in some detail the characteristics and locations of sacred places in the region. Contemporary archeological explorations, in particular those directed by John Topic (Topic 1992; Topic et al. 2002), have been able to map that ancient network of sacred spaces thanks to the information provided by this document, known as the Relación agustina.

At the center of this sacred network was Catequil, a deity associated with thunder and lightning. The Relación Agustina records the myth of Catequil’s founding of old Huamachuco. Early Spanish witnesses understood Catequil to be among the principal indigenous deities, and the Relación describes him as “the most feared and honored idol in all of Peru, adored and revered from Quito to Cuzco” (San Pedro 1992 [1560]: 173-174). Catequil was believed to possess oracular powers; according to some traditions, this idol prophesized Atahualpa’s defeat by Huascar, which prompted the decapitation of its effigy and the burning of its temple before the Spanish invasion (Gareis 1992).

The oldest mention of Culle as a distinct language, however, is found in another document connected to the repression of indigenous religions. It is a Church visit written in 1618, which prescribes a penalty of fifty lashes for anyone using the indigenous language (Andrade 2016, 2019). At that point in the process of Spanish colonization, “minor” indigenous languages (those not as extended as Quechua and Aymara) were seen by Church authorities as vehicles for the survival of ancient beliefs, and, as such, as obstacles for indigenous acceptance of Christian precepts.

The most significant lexical records of Culle are also due to Church actions. First, in the late eighteenth century, during the Enlightenment era, the Bishop of Trujillo, Baltazar Jaime Martínez Compañón, had a glossary made with a number of Spanish terms rendered in the indigenous languages spoken in his jurisdiction (see Figure 1). Despite the obvious cultural biases that prompted the inclusion of such words as “God”, “soul”, and “body” (Torero 2002: 208), the Culle column provides a total of 39 indigenous words, most of which can be assigned to this language while others are actually Quechua.

The second Culle word list was compiled in 1915 by the parish priest of Cabana, in the southern part of the region. We know these words to be Culle because of the list’s coincidences with the late-eighteenth-century document. Along with some twenty words, this record includes a sentence and a conjugated verb. At the time the list was collected, Culle was still in use, but confined to the southern portions of its former territory (see Map 1).

The language is assumed to have remained in use at the southernmost end of this region at least through the mid-twentieth century. In the 1980s, linguist Willem Adelaar (1990) carried out fieldwork intended to identify possible speakers but was unsuccessful. In his publications, however, he was able to identify areas of interest for further investigation. Alfredo Torero (2002: 234, 240) describes his own unsuccessful attempts. Researchers who have continued working on the subject have so far been equally unable to achieve positive results.

The possible existence of a Culle catechism has been hypothesized (Castro de Trelles 1992: XL), but archival research has so far failed to uncover it. What is clear from this brief account, at any rate, is the ambiguous role played by the Catholic Church with regard to Culle: in the seventeenth century, some of its agents suppressed the use of this language in order to better implant the religion of the conquerors; others, however, compiled whatever limited evidence we have of Culle words. It is thanks to the latter—along with other valuable sources, such as toponymy—that we are able to deduce a few characteristic features of the language, which will be presented in the section that follows.