South America
Andean Traditions
paqo · altomisayoq · yatiri · apu · pachamama
Quechua and Aymara communities of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador
EthnographyHistoryModern
Andean ritual specialists work through reciprocity with mountain powers and the earth, using coca divination, offering bundles and a ritual calendar bound to agriculture and herding.
Ritual specialists
- Diviners reading coca leaves
- Specialists graded by which powers speak through them
Cosmology
- Apus: mountain persons with rank and territory
- Pachamama and the ethic of reciprocal feeding
Ritual practice
- despacho offering bundles
- Coca divination
- Pilgrimage to high sanctuaries
History and pressure
- Colonial extirpation-of-idolatry campaigns
- Catholic-Andean ritual synthesis
- Modern spiritual tourism in Cusco
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