Neyza Hurtado was three years old when she was struck by lightning. Forty years later, sitting next to a bonfire on a 4,175m mountain, her scarred forehead makes her proud.
“I am the lightning,” she said. “When it hit me, I became wise and a seer. That’s what we masters are.”
Hundreds of people in Bolivia hire Andean spiritual guides like Hurtado to perform rituals every August, the month of “Pachamama,” or Mother Earth, according to the worldview of the Aymara, an indigenous people of the region.
Photo: EPA
Pachamama’s devotees believe that she awakens hungry and thirsty after the dry season. To honor her and express gratitude for her blessings, they make offerings at home, in their crop fields and on the peaks of Bolivian mountains.
“We come here every August to follow in the footsteps of our elders,” said Santos Monasterios, who hired Hurtado for a Pachamama ritual on a site called La Cumbre, about 13km from the capital, La Paz.
“We ask for good health and work,” Monasterios said.
Offerings made to Pachamama are known as mesitas (“little tables”). Depending on each family’s wishes, masters like Hurtado prepare one mesita per family or per person.
Mesitas are made of wooden logs. On top of them, each master places sweets, grains, coca leaves, as well as small objects representing wealth, protection and good health. Occasionally, llama or piglet fetuses are also offered.
Once the mesita is ready, the spiritual guide sets it on fire and devotees douse their offerings with wine or beer to quench Pachamama’s thirst.
“When you make this ritual, you feel relieved,” Monasterios said. “I believe in this, so I will keep sharing a drink with Pachamama.”
It can take up to three hours for a mesita to burn. Once the offerings have turned to ash, the devotees gather and solemnly bury the remains to become one with Mother Earth.
Carla Chumacero, who traveled to La Cumbre last week with her parents and a sister, requested four mesitas from her longtime spiritual guide.
“Mother Earth demands this from us, so we provide,” the 28-year-old said.
How they become aware of Pachamama’s needs is hard to explain, Chumacero said.
“We just know it; it’s a feeling,” she said. “Many people go through a lot — accidents, trouble within families — and that’s when we realize that we need to present her with something, because she has given us so much and she can take it back.”
Maria Ceballos, 34, did not inherit her devotion from her family, but from coworkers at the gold mine where she earns a living.
“We make offerings because our work is risky,” Ceballos said. “We use heavy machinery and we travel often, so we entrust ourselves to Pachamama.”
The exact origin of the Pachamama rituals is difficult to determine, but according to Bolivian anthropologist Milton Eyzaguirre, they are an ancestral tradition dating back to 6,000 BC.
As the first South American settlers came into the region, they faced soil and climate conditions that differed from those in the northernmost parts of the planet, where winter begins in December.
“Here, the cold weather is rather dry,” Eyzaguirre said. “Based on that, there is a particular behavior in relation to Pachamama.”
Mother Earth is believed to be asleep throughout August. Her devotees wish for her to regain her strength and bolster their sowing, which usually begins in October and November. A few months later, when the crops are harvested in February, further rituals are performed.
“These dates are key because it’s when the relationship between humans and Pachamama is reactivated,” Eyzaguirre said.
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