The historicity of South Peruvian Quechua dream images

Abstract

Semiotic images are bound to their culture-specific mode of interpretation. Drawing on Pérez Bocanegra's 1631 discussion of dream interpretation in his Ritual formulario and on contemporary field research in the same parish in which Pérez Bocanegra worked, I show that the semiotic mode of interpretation of Southern Peruvian Quechua dream signs is distinct from that of narrative signs and ritual signs, even when the same signs are deployed across these media. Narrative signs are anchored syntactically, and ritual signs syntactically and pragmatically they have great historical stability than do dream signs, which are relatively fluid. This represents a step toward a theory of semiotic anchors and replicators.