Tahuashando: Enigma Culle in Vallejo´s Poetry

Abstract

Cesar Vallejo used different linguistic resources in his poetic work, among them neologisms, which were a challenge for the normativity of that time. The purpose of the present study was to discover the origin and meaning of the term ta-huashando that was used in the poem “Hojas de Ébano” (Ebony Leaves). The procedure used was the analysis from the perspective of phonetics, morphology and semantics in order to give greater credibility to the explanation of this enigmatic term. As a result, it has been concluded that tahuashando does not derive from Quechua, but originates as a neologism product of the contact between Spanish and the Culle language.