Andean cosmogony

In the Andean mountains, various communities continue to celebrate the rites inherited from their Inca ancestors, and passed down from generation to generation. Beyond Quechua, the language they continue to practice, each family pays homage to “mother earth” around August 15 : it is the Pachamama celebration.

We dig a hole in the ground to offer to Earth what it we cultivated all year as a thank you, and thus hope to have a good harvest for the year to come. All kinds of things are stored there, such as beans, coca leaves, corn, but also sparkling drinks or wine.
This ancestral ceremony mixes today with the Catholic and popular practices, making Pachamama a particularly syncretic celebration. That is one of the rites well anchored in the Andean cosmogony and more widely in Latin America in other forms.