CHOQUEYAPU. THE DENIAL OF A RIVER AS A SYMBOL OF MODERNITY

Abstract

The Choqueyapu River has been forming, over millions of years, the topography of the Chuquiago1 Valley. Exploited as a gold mine during the Inca period (Bedregal Villanueva, 2013, pp. 23-24), it was the economic foundation of the pre-Hispanic urbanization processes that took place here. The river began to have another meaning, both physical and symbolic, with the transfer of the newly founded colonial city of La Paz to the eastern side of the valley in 1573. From that moment on, the Choqueyapu began to represent the physical barrier that separated the “Indian” from the “Spanish” space. This segregation of the central space of the city was maintained, in broad terms, until the vaulting in the central part of the city was completed in the middle of the 20th century (Bustillos Vega et al., 2017, p. 142).