sick and a supaya is implicated, sorcerers attempt to appease
him by killing and substituting the life of a llama for that
of the sick person. They also offer pig fat and rat fetuses at
mesas de contra (“misfortune tables”), so called because the
ritual items are contrary to those employed by diviners in a
mesa de suerte (“good-luck table”) or mesa de salud (“health
table”). Pig fat is inferior to llama fat because Andeans con-
sider the pig a tropical animal that lives on fecal matter and
garbage. Rat fetuses, symbolizing destructive rodents, are in-
ferior to llama fetuses, which symbolize an animal very bene-
ficial to Andean society.
Andeans select sorcerers by their reputation for either
removing or inflicting misfortunes. Some sorcerers claim re-
sponsibility for as many as seven deaths, but others are secre-
tive about their reputation because sorcerers are occasionally
killed in revenge by victims of unsuccessful sorcery. Sorcery
takes many forms in the Andes, but one way sorcerers curse
people is by placing nail filings or hair of the victim inside
the skulls of a cat and a dog, whose teeth are locked as if in
battle, which symbolizes that husband and wife are fighting.
(The breakdown of the household is a major tragedy in the
Andes because it is the unit of production and subsistence.)
The sorcerer hides the skulls inside the thatched roof of the
victim. If the victim is aware of this, he can remove the curse
by having another sorcerer perform a mesa de contra. Some-
times the victim has the sorcerer brought before the magis-
trate, who fines her and makes her take an oath not to do
it again. Sorcery is taken seriously and is often the attributed
cause for loss of livestock, crops, money, health, and even
life.
THE AYLLU AND ITS EARTH SHRINES. The ayllu is basic to
Andean social organization. Although ayllus are often based
on kinship ties, they are also formed by religious, territorial,
and metaphorical ties. One contemporary example is Ayllu
Kaata of the Qollahuaya Indians, who live in midwestern Bo-
livia. Ayllu Kaata is a mountain with three major communi-
ties: Niñokorin, Kaata, and Apacheta. The people of Niño-
korin are Quechua speakers who farm corn, wheat, barley,
peas, and beans on the lower slopes of the mountain
(10,500–11,500 ft.). The people of Kaata, who also speak
Quechua, cultivate oca and potatoes on rotative fields of the
central slopes (11,500–14,000 ft.). In the highlands
(14,000–17,000 ft.), the Aymara-speaking people of Apa-
cheta herd llamas and sheep. The three communities use the
metaphor of the human body to understand their ayllu: Apa-
cheta corresponds to the head, Kaata to the trunk, and Niño-
korin to the legs. Just as the parts of the human body are or-
ganically united, so are the three levels of Ayllu Kaata.
The thirteen earth shrines of Ayllu Kaata are understood
in relation to the body metaphor and to ecological stratifica-
tions. The three community shrines are Chaqamita, Pacha-
qota, and Jatun JunchDa. Chaqamita, a lake located to the
east near the legs, is related to the sun’s birth, fertility, and
corn, making it a suitable shrine for Niñokorin, whose Corn
Planting rite reverences this site. This lower lake is also a
shrine for Curva and Chullina, neighboring ayllus. Earth
shrines, when shared by several ayllus, religiously unite sepa-
rate mountains, and so Qollahuaya Andeans claim that they
are one people because they worship the same shrines. Pacha-
qota, a large lake at the head of the mountain, is the “eye”
into which the sun sinks; it symbolizes death, fertilization,
and llamas. On the shores of the lake, the herders of the high-
land community of Apacheta celebrate the All Colors rite for
the increase of llamas. Pachaqota is also associated with the
lakes of uma pacha (at the top of a mountain), from which
animals and humans derive their existence and to which they
return after death.
The Great Shrine (Jatun JunchDa), associated with the
liver and the central community of Kaata, is a major shrine
of Ayllu Kaata because of its central location and physiogra-
phy. The Great Shrine rests on a spur, which rises from the
slopes and resembles a small mountain. The Great Shrine is
nourished at the rite of Chosen Field, in the middle of the
rainy season, and it is also the site of a mock battle (tinku)
between the elders and clowns during Carnival. The clowns,
who sprinkle people with water, are symbolically put to
death by the elders slinging ripe fruit at them.
Similar ritual battles are fought throughout the Andes:
The Aymara of the Bolivian Altiplano, for example, wage
theatrical warfare between the upper and lower divisions of
the community. Tinku emphasizes the importance of con-
trasting pairs, and in the Andes almost everything is under-
stood in juxtaposition to its opposite. Earth shrines, also,
have meanings corresponding to binary opposition. Cha-
qamita and Pachaqota, for example, correspond to life and
death, as well as to the rising and setting of the sun, and each
term explains the other; moreover, each leads to the other.
The highlands, central altitudes, and lowlands of
Mount Kaata have community shrines reflecting their eco-
logical zones, but from the viewpoint of the ayllu, the com-
munity shrine is only one part of the body of the mountain.
In some way every level must feed all the mountain’s shrines
during the allyu rites, such as the New Earth rite. The people
of Apacheta, Kaata, and Niñokorin come together during
New Earth to recreate the mountain’s body. The upper and
lower communities send leaders to Kaata for this rite, each
bringing his zone’s characteristic product: a llama or some
chicha (corn beer). The llama’s heart and bowels are buried
in the center fields, and blood and fat are sent by emissaries
to feed the earth shrines of the mountain. The body awakes
to become the new earth.
The New Earth rite is one illustration, of which there
are many others throughout the Andes, of how Pachamama,
the achachilas, and earth shrines are holistically understood
in terms of metaphor, ecology, and ayllu. The New Earth rite
expresses how levels of land are understood in terms of a
body with a head, heart, bowels, and legs, through which
blood and fat circulate when ritualists feed the earth shrines.
Specific earth shrines not only refer to specific ecologial
zones but also symbolize parts of the body that holisticallySOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS: INDIANS OF THE MODERN ANDES 8617