Book Review: Cuando éramos dioses. Historia de la última guerra asháninka en el Palcazu, by Natalí Durand

Abstract

This review examines Natalí Durand’s book Cuando éramos dioses, highlighting its contribution to understanding Peru’s internal armed conflict (IAC) in the Peruvian Amazon, particularly among the Asháninka people of Palcazu. In contrast to the predominance of studies focused on the Andes, the book sheds light on the Amazonian experience through an anthropological approach to collective memory, showing how the Asháninka reinterpret political violence by weaving together history, myth, and oral narratives. The figure of the leader Alejandro Calderón emerges as a central axis in the construction of a communal memory that transcends the dichotomy between the historical and the mythical, becoming both a political and a mythical reference. The review also underscores the processes of organization, resistance, and armed response developed by the Asháninka in the face of the MRTA’s incursion, emphasizing their political agency in contrast to narratives that reduce them to the status of “victims.” Overall, the book contributes to rethinking interpretations of Peru’s internal armed conflict by highlighting the active, historical, and transformative dimensions of Indigenous Amazonian memories in contexts of political violence.