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.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS