By CAMILLE C. CARR
La memoria de mis ancestras camina conmigo y me acompaña a todas partes.
[The memory of my female ancestors walks by my side and accompanies me everywhere I go.]
—Mayra Arboleda Mina
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH VICHE began on a chilly September night in Colombia’s capital city, Bogotá. I was in the beginning months of my Fulbright grant at the Universidad Nacional when I attended a concert by a group of musicians from the Pacific region of the country called Agrupación Tambacum. A banner at the front of the concert space displayed their guiding purpose: We are a group of musicians from Nuquí [Chocó, Colombia] and a collective who works to rescue cultural and artistic traditions; we are a bridge between generations. We believe in our land, in our people, and in our identity. Through their singing, the group enacted an expressive storytelling that enveloped and transported the audience to the Pacific Coast.
During the performance, one of my companions passed me a bottle of a liquor with a rich brown color and aromatic notes of cinnamon and herbs. As I tasted its all-encompassing flavors of earth and warmth, I learned that it was called viche (VEE-chay) and that it was a drink of great importance to Black Pacific communities. More than a sugarcane liquor, viche has spiritual and medicinal properties and is an inseparable component of life in the Black Colombian Pacific.
Weeks later, I attended a talk at the National Museum in Bogotá that featured female producers of viche, known as vicheras. There, I learned that viche is an ancestral distillate of sugarcane that enslaved African women cultivated using the florae of their environment, passing down this knowledge to their descendants. The vicheras shared how Black women had evaded a generations-long state-imposed prohibition on the production of viche to ensure its survival. In this site of Black women’s fellowship, I learned of viche’s matrilineal origin and felt an overwhelming sense of connection to both the drink and the vicheras before me.
After learning about viche and the determination of the Black Pacific women who ensured its survival, I was inspired to develop a research project that centers the women who evoke the production of viche as an embodied praxis. An embodied praxis is one that involves the storage of knowledge within the body itself. For example, vicheras learned how to make viche from their foremothers through oral traditions and they retained that knowledge in their memory. Furthermore, the process of making viche incorporates the whole body: from the cutting of the sugarcane to the grinding of the stalks, the physical labor of vicheras is crucial to the survival and continuation of the praxis of viche.
In thinking of the wealth of matrilineal knowledge that a singular bottle holds, I read viche as an archival repository for which Black women are the principal archivists. As such, they protect and preserve the histories and ancestral traditions of their communities.
As a master’s student in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, I conducted three months of ethnographic fieldwork in Cali, Colombia, chronicling the lived experiences and oral histories of vicheras and vicheros (male producers of viche) who devote themselves to the survival of their ancestral craft.1 During my research, I delved into the following inquiries: What does the ancestral tradition of cultivating viche entail? How do Black Colombian Pacific women enact knowledge production and memory work to protect and conserve their culture? How may the traditional producers of viche achieve political, economic, and cultural empowerment? What do vicheras and vicheros want the greater public, both domestically and internationally, to know about viche?
Over the duration of my field research, I met many vicheras, vicheros, and members of the broader viche community who graciously taught me about the tradition of viche. To them, I extend my sincerest gratitude: Mayra Arboleda Mina, Onésimo González Biojó, Lucía Solis, Teresa de Jesus Hurtado Meza, Elena Hinestroza Vente, and Alexander Almeri Portal.
Origin of Viche
Viche is an ancestral drink, native to the Colombian Pacific, that is made from the juice of sugarcane stalks, or guarapo. Its production is matriarchal and dates back to the time of slavery (in Colombia, sixteenth century until 1851), when enslaved African women began the practice of making viche. Vicheras harvested sugarcane along the rivers of the Pacific territory, which encompasses the departments of Chocó, Valle de Cauca, Cauca, and Nariño. They then transported their stalks of sugarcane in canoes, navigating the riverways of the Colombian Pacific.
The next step in the production of viche involved the manual grinding of the sugarcane stalks in a mill called a trapiche, which released the guarapo. The liquid was then left to ferment and distill over a period of up to three months. The distillation process involved cooking the guarapo over an open flame until it became transparent, resulting in the first form of viche, called viche puro. From the viche puro, women then infused the drink with herbs, fruits, and spices native to Pacific region to create the traditional derivates of viche, known as viche curado and tomaseca. Viche is medicinal and a poignant example of Black ancestral healing practices. Today, Black Pacific communities use viche curado to heal general ailments, with each family keeping a bottle in their household. Tomaseca is utilized to aid women with menstruation, reproduction, and childbirth. It was made by Black Pacific women for the benefit, health, and care of Black Pacific women.
Viche Production as Resistance
In 1923, the Colombian Congress passed a law that prohibited the production of artisanal fermented drinks and limited the production of liquor to government agencies. For generations, the Colombian government persecuted communities that made artisanal liquor, such as Indigenous communities that produced chicha (fermented from corn) and Black Pacific communities that made viche. The government employed police forces, called tenencias or celadores, throughout the Pacific to confiscate viche and arrest its producers. Out of necessity, vicheras had to develop clandestine practices to ensure the survival of their ancestral tradition. They began to distill viche at night, so that the smoke from the fires wouldn’t alert the police. They would then bottle the distillate and bury the bottles in the dirt to keep them hidden. In communities throughout the Colombian Pacific, vicheras invented new names for the drink, like charuco, bejuco, and balsámico, so that they could talk about viche openly, without fear of retaliation.
The illuminating article “Monopolio de licores y proscripción de destilados ilegales en Colombia,” by historian Carlos Andrés Meza Ramírez (2014), elaborates on the twentieth-century state prohibition of viche and other artisanal liquors in Colombia and the lengths that Black Pacific women and their communities pursued to protect their ancestral tradition. One of my interlocutors, a sixth-generation vichera named Lucía Solís, owner of the viche brand Semillas de Vida (Seeds of Life), related to me how her family traveled deep into the mountains of their home village, enduring long, laborious nights and challenging weather, to produce viche. Vicheras throughout the Pacific region utilized oral traditions, like songs, and holistic learning practices to impart the embodied knowledge of viche—known as the tradición vichera. Within their bottles of viche, they deposited the lessons of their foremothers. Viche itself constitutes a clandestine, matrilineal archive, one that has only survived due to the determination and endurance of Black women who cared deeply for their communities.
The Legalization of Viche and Its Consequences
It was not until November 8, 2021, that the production of viche became legal, with the passage of the Ley del Viche (Law of Viche). The law is a political project spearheaded by Black Pacific vicheros, vicheras, and legal advocates, who formed a group called Destilado Patrimonio (Distilled Heritage). The Law of Viche recognizes viche as the patrimonial heritage of Black Colombian Pacific coastal communities, and extends legal and intellectual protections to vicheras who wish to establish their own brands. It gives legitimacy to viche as a cultural product of intangible significance to Black Pacific people, and decrees that only those who are members of viche-producing communities may adopt the title of vichero/vichera. Succinctly, only vicheros and vicheras from the four departments of the Pacific, who have learned the vichera tradition from their family members, can commercialize the production and consumption of viche.
Although the Law of Viche represents a collective politicized expression of Black Pacific communities, and thus merits recognition and respect, its application by the Colombian government has ultimately failed the communities it aimed to protect. The stipulation that limits the practice of viche-making to Black people from the Colombian Pacific has not been enforced. White Colombian entrepreneurs have been allowed to establish their own brands of viche. This is problematic and harmful for a number of reasons.
First, the emergence of viche brands owned by white Colombians signifies the appropriation and gentrification of a commercialized practice that has only been legal for three years—a phenomenon that one of my cherished interlocutors calls commercial colonization. As a creation of Black women from the Colombian Pacific, viche represents an exclusive ancestral tradition that deserves protection against those outside of the community who wish to profit from its recent legalization. Second, when white entrepreneurs experience success with their brands of viche, they obscure, eclipse, and directly harm the efforts of Black vichera-owned businesses. In the wake of viche’s legalization, Black Pacific vicheras deserve the opportunity to support their families economically.
With viche’s heightened visibility and availability throughout Colombia, consumers and allies can choose to only purchase products from Black Pacific vichera communities. One such brand is Mano de Büey, owned by Onésimo González Biojó, a fifth-generation vichero from the community of Soledad Curay (Tumaco, Nariño). The stories of Don Onésimo and his family were published in a booklet called Sentir el Viche, now part of the University of Texas Libraries’ Black Diaspora Archive, housed at the Benson Latin American Collection.2
Another Black-owned brand of viche is La Siempre Viva, owned by vichera and performance artist Mayra Arboleda Mina, also known as La Maja Mina. A poet and writer, Mina published a collection of her poetry about viche, Poéticas Espirituosas (also available digitally via the Black Diaspora Archive). In it, she writes, “Viche is Black, is prieto, it is resoundingly dark. At its core, it preserves processes of memory, identity, and resistance, communal exercises that speak of freedom, encounter, and a deep connection with the ancestors and the territory” (Mina 2023; author’s translation).3
Mayra holds educational workshops, or Encuentros Vicheros, in which she constructs an altar, presents the viche that she cures with love and care, and communes with her ancestors and the Pacific territory. As vicheras contend with the varied consequences of the Law of Viche, they implement their own pedagogical interventions and activisms to protect their ancestral craft—activisms that promote the matrilineal heritage and spirituality of their embodied tradition.
Spirit of Viche Exhibition
In my current work, I turn to viche as a site for the matrilineal knowledge production, intellectual history, and archival praxis of Black Colombian Pacific women. In the summer of 2023, I conducted ethnographic field research in Cali, Colombia, chronicling the oral histories and lived experiences of vicheros/vicheras and immersing myself in the cultural and arts scene of Cali. I attended community talks and events to learn more about the history of viche and the contemporary efforts of vicheras to gain recognition and appreciation for their ancestral craft.
As I developed my fieldwork, I acquired archival materials that were featured in an exhibition at the Benson Latin American Collection, Spirit of Viche: Black Ancestral Tradition in the Colombian Pacific. As curator, it was of the utmost importance to me not only to articulate my respect for viche as a Black Pacific creation and technology, but also to document and affirm the voices and lived experiences of Black women from the Colombian Pacific. In archiving the production and praxis of viche, I illuminate the vicheras who ensured that their clandestine archive survived for posterity.
My master’s thesis, “El viche lo cura todo: Black Women and the Archival-Political Production of Matrilineal Tradition in the Colombian Pacific,” explores the archival praxis of viche production and elaborates the official political project behind the legalization of viche and the subsequent response of vicheras to its nuanced consequences, which I term the politics of viche. The politics of viche is a collective undertaking of various activisms and principles that advocate for the cultural autonomy and dignification of Black Pacific vicheras and vicheros. The phrase el viche lo cura todo—“viche heals everything”—derives from a slogan made popular by graphic designer and artist Nathy Cortés.4
The lived experiences of Black men and women from the Colombian Pacific are a testament to the healing properties of viche, and during my field research I witnessed this power. A communal drink, viche is meant to be consumed in fellowship with others. Its healing endures across generations in the very heart of Black Pacific communities. ✹
Camille C. Carr is an educator and writer from Wake Forest, North Carolina. She holds a BA in Spanish and Political Science from the University of Alabama (2019) and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2024). She is dedicated to uplifting the narratives of Black women throughout the African diaspora in Latin America and hopes to continue this work as she pursues her PhD in Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2024.
Notes
- My research was supported in part by a grant from the LLILAS Benson Archiving Black América–Black Diaspora Archive Acquisitions Fund.
- A full inventory of the viche archive is available via Texas Archival Resources Online, under the title “Scenes of Black Life and Cultural Expression in the Colombian Pacific.” See txarchives.org/utlac/finding_aids/00575.xml.
- To view Mina’s poetry collection, visit lacuida.procomum.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Poeticas-Espirituosas-La-Maja-Mina.pdf. Mina’s work on viche can be viewed on her Instagram accounts at @vichelasiempreviva and @encuentrosvicheros.
- Visit natyva.co.
References
Almeri Portal, A., and O. González Biojó. 2023. Sentir el Viche. Casa Futura.
Arboleda Mina, M. 2023. Poéticas Espirituosas. Casa Futura.
Meza Ramírez, C.A. 2014. “Monopolio de licores y proscripción de destilados ilegales en Colombia.” Antípoda. Revista de Antropología y Arqueología 1(19): 69–91. doi.org/10.7440/antipoda19.2014.04.
