White, grey and black Kallawaya healing rituals 9783964566393
The central characteristics of the Kallawaya culture are the rich traditional "white", "black" and &
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Table of contents :
Contents
Preface, gratitude and dedication
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The banishment of grief
Chapter 3: The white healing
Chapter 4: Defence and perdition: the black healing
Chapter 5: Closing the circle. From the black healing to the grey, to the white
Cited literature
Index of sketches and illustrations
Glossary
About the author
Further publications of Ina Rösing
Citation preview
Ina Rösing
White, grey and black Kallawaya healing rituals
Ina Rösing
White, grey and black Kallawaya healing rituals
Translation: Jane Miller
Iberoamericana • Vervuert 2010
© Ina Rösing © of this edition: Iberoamericana, Madrid / Vervuert, Frankfurt Iberoamericana, 2010 c/ Amor de Dios, 1 E-28014 Madrid Vervuert, 2010 Elisabethenstr. 3-9 D-60594 Frankfurt [email protected] www .ibero-americana .net Layout: Silvia Gray Cover design: Ina Rösing Cover image: © Ina Rösing ISBN 978-84-8489-512-1 ISBN 978-3-86527-543-1 Depósito legal: M. 1395-2010 The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of ISO 9706 Printed in Spain Closas-Orcoyen, S. L. Polígono Igarsa, Paracuellos de Jarama (Madrid)
CONTENTS
Preface, gratitude and dedication
11
Chapter 1: Introduction
13
1. Andean Kallawaya region, Peru, Lake Titicaca, Himalaya region
14
2. The Kallawaya region: geography and population
15
3. The Andean religion, the Kallawaya culture
18
4. Change of the Kallawaya culture: "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity"
24
Chapter 2: The banishment of grief
37
1. Grief therapy for a family losing its mother
39
1.1 The family of Apolinar
39
1.2 Pastora's death
44
1.3 Preparation for and context of the healing
ritual
46
1.4 Structure of the healing ritual overview and phases one to three
51
1.5 Purification ritual at the river in the gorge phases four and five
68
2. Mariano's death. Grief therapy for a family that has lost its father
75
2.1 The medicine man Mariano
75
2.2 Mariano's sudden death - what happened?
76
5
2.3 Healers, context of healing and preparation for healing
80
2.4 The procedure of the healing ritual: overview and phase one and two
86
2.5 Purification ritual for the animals and for the hut (Phase three and four)
101
2.6 Purification ritual at the crossings of the ways (Phase five) 2.7 Peculiarities of the healing
108 ritual
3. Further contributions towards the database
110 112
3.1 The teachings of the medicine men
112
3.2 Todos Santos
125
4. Contributions towards an analysis
130
4.1 Intracultural analysis. The llaki wijch'una in time and space: Inca roots and Andean culture
130
4.2 Transcultural notes: the llaki wijch'una in the light of mourning rituals in other cultures
137
4.3 Questions and results of western research into mourning
139
4.4 The llaki wijch'una and western research on mourning
Chapter 3: The white healing
1. What is white healing?
144
151
153
2. The twelve q'into mesa of the Kallawaya Victor Bustillos from Curva
6
156
2.1 The Kallawaya Victor Bustillos
156
2.2 Time, place and ingredients of the healing
158
2.3 Doña Rosenda's healing request 2.4 Victor Bustillos' white healing 3. Healing ritual of the "priest" Marcos Apaza
161 161 175
3.1 The "priest" Marcos Apaza and the way he sees himself 3.2 The healing
175 ritual
180
3.3 Special features of this healing
201
4. Healing of the farm labourer Satuco
203
4.1 Satuco's tale of woe
203
4.2 The Kallawaya Enrique Ticona
204
4.3 The healing
207
ritual
5. Further contributions to the database
213
5.1 The special white healing: rituals for calling the soul
213
5.2 Affright, loss of the soul and sacrificial debt as everyday experiences in life
216
5.3 Nocturnal rituals for calling the soul: examples of special white healings
219
5.4 The key to the Kallawaya teachings on loss of the soul and calling the soul 6. The white Kallawaya healing in time and space 6.1 Establishing the question
228 230 230
6.2 The unknown Ankari and his egg: notes on the Kallawaya research to date
231
6.3 Reciprocity and the erosion of tradition
233
6.4 Andean-wide substratum and pre-Columbian roots of the Kallawaya culture
236
6.5 Special features of the Kallawaya healing and the conundrum surrounding Ankari
237
7
Chapter 4: Defence and perdition: the black healing
1. Black in daily life 1.1 The first encounter with a black healing
241
243 243
1.2 Black reality as a medium of the black healing 1 : conflict and jealousy, theft and deception: from the sub-prefecture's files
249
1.3 Black reality as a medium of the black healing 2: puzzling, violent, premature, tragic deaths
253
1.4 The activities and beliefs in witchcraft: authentic documents from the Kallawaya region
263
1.5 The quagmire in which Nuri is standing
266
1.6 Synopsis and outlook
269
2. Back reference and justice: the kutichina. Arieta, the patron and the cow
270
2.1 Previous history and events giving rise to the healing: ancestral bones and Arieta's cow
270
2.2 Reason for the healing and description of Arieta's problem
271
2.3 Healing ingredients for the kutichina-healing performed by the Kallawaya Enrique Ticona 2.4 Proceedings of the kutichina-healing
272 276
2.5 Black follow-up and comparing healings for Arieta's problem with the cow
292
3. Destruction and perdition: Daniel Lizarraga's mesa with the skull
295
3.1 Events leading up to the healing and the way of posing the problems by those involved 3.2 The black ingredients and requisites
299
3.3 Procedure of the healing ritual
300
4. Intracultural analysis of the black healing
8
295
315
4.1 Black healing in the dimension of time: Inca tradition or colonial witchcraft import? 4.2 Black healing in the dimension of space: critical analysis of Andean ethnology to date
315 318 0
4.3 The silence in the research on witchcraft in the Andes 4.4 The status and structure of black healing
326 327
5. Transcultural notes: healing value of the black Kallawaya healing and the question of the position of black magic in western culture
331
5.1 Scope of the question
331
5.2 From the "underworld" of our civilisation: magic, witchcraft and black reality - in our culture?
332
5.3 Healing value of the black Kallawaya healing
335
5.4 The theory behind symbolic healing
337
5.5 Further concepts of psychotherapy research and their application to black healing 5.6 The position of the "black" in our society
340 345
Chapter 5: Closing the circle. From the black healing to the grey, to the white
351
1. Grey healing, breaking the spell, purification and back reference
353
1.1 Introduction
353
1.2 The kuti mesa of the Kallawaya Luciano Apaza
353
1.3 Comparative grey healings
368
1.4 A comparative healing from Peru
374
1.5 Summary and outlook
379
2. Closing the circle: the return to white
380
9
2.1 Introduction
380
2.2 Black and white: the strict division
382
2.3 Black and white: the transitions
384
2.4 Ankari between black and white
389
2.5 Black and white: closing the circle
392
2.6 Summary and outlook
393
3. Analysis of the black healing and comparison with the white
394
3.1 Introduction
394
3.2 Black healing: reasons for it, aims and variations .... 394 3.3 Comparison of white and black: the "magic core" of the black healing
399
3.4 Black healing: forms of intensification, mistakes and parameters
401
3.5 White and black: social context, visibility
403
3.6 Black healing, ethics, cognition
404
4. Connection and meaning: notes on effective healing in the Kallawaya healing
rituals
409
Cited literature
418
Index of sketches and illustrations
433
Glossary
435
About the author
445
Further publications of Ina Rosing
447
10
PREFACE, GRATITUDE AND DEDICATION More than 25 years ago I arrived in the Kallawaya region - in between 3800 and 4400 m altitude of the Andean mountains - in the province Bautista Saavedra in Bolivia. My first arrival was in the main village Charazani in March 1983. At this time I started my research of the Kallawaya culture. Up until now I travelled almost thirty times to the Kallawaya region and spent more than five years - alone - in the Kallawaya villages. All these years my field research had been continuously supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Association), the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Robert Bosch Foundation), the Volkswagen-Stiftung (Volkswagen Foundation) and the Deutsche Altamerika-Stiftung (German Pre-Columbian America Foundation). My Kallawaya research - with comparative research in southern Peru and at the Titicaca Lake - concentrates on the ritual healing of the Kallawaya culture. I investigated and documented more than 200 "white", "black" and "grey" healing rituals and almost 100 collective rituals lasting at least one and up to five days. I went through long and detailed apprenticeships from Kallawaya medicine men, ritualist and medicine women and I documented almost 900 informative discussions and interviews with the Kallawaya ritualists. All research subjects are completely documented on tape and with photos. The tape recordings are completely transcribed in the Quechua language. The most basic results of this research are published in six volumes of the series of "Mundo Ankari". In addition I also published several other books on the Kallawaya culture and wrote several books on transcultural comparisons of my Andean research, my additional Himalayan research and the Western culture (see my literature list). For the present book I would like to express my deep gratitude to Prof. Dr. Use Schwidetzky. She suggested and discussed with me the studies of the grey, the white and the black Kallawaya healing rituals 11
for the present book. I am also deeply thankful for the excellent translation of the manuscript into English by Jane Miller in London. My deepest thanks go to my present friends among the Kallawaya healers and ritualists, first of all to my ahijado Aurelio Ortiz from Hanaq Wayk'u and to my ahijado Ubaldo Kuno from Amarete - and also to Feliciano Patty, to my compadre Valentín Kuno Flores and to my ahijado Mario Zapana. I also thank most cordially my teacher Ramón Alvarez of Chajaya. And I remember deeply my deceased profound teacher, the Kallawaya Valentin Quispe from Hanaq Wayk'u, and my also deceased teachers Marcos Apaza from Charazani, Manuela Mamani from Huata Huata, Pascual Tapia from Amarete, Vicente Kallampa and Silvestre Blanco from Apacheta, Daniel Lizárraga from Curva and Luciano Apaza from Chari. Among my main collaborators I give my cordial thanks to Gloria Tamayo from Cusco for her Quechua transcriptions of all present recordings. My greatest and deepest gratitude goes to my Editorial Assistant, Silvia Gray, for her excellent collaborative work and to her "assistant" Jeff Gray.
This book is dedicated to my continuously indescribable friend Pohée.
12
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.
Andean Kallawaya region, Peru, Lake Titicaca, Himalaya region
14
2.
The Kallawaya region: geography and population
15
3.
The Andean religion, the Kallawaya culture
18
4.
Change of the Kallawaya culture: "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity"
24
13
1.
ANDEAN KALLAWAYA REGION, PERU, LAKE TITICACA, HIMALAYA-REGION
More than 25 years ago - after travelling for 16 hours on an open truck - I arrived on the 13th of March 1983 for the first time in the Kallawaya region, the Apolobamba-cordilleras in the Province of Bautista Saavedra in Bolivia. Since my first arrival I travelled almost thirty times to the Kallawaya region, lived there more than five years in total, and learned their language, Quechua, perfectly. I am closely connected to many campesinos (the word for the Indians of Bolivia) through ritual family relationships. Even today I am in close contact with several campesinos that send me every week cassettes telling me in Quechua all about their children, their families, their friends, their field work, their livestock, their rituals, their village, their political observations, their crises, their problems, their conflicts... in short: everything about their everydaylife. So I am able to take intensively part in the life of that region, my ritual families, my friends (RÖSING 2008b). Throughout these 25 years I experienced many deaths among my ritual family members and friends - the deaths of my tatay (daddy) and medicine man Valentin Quispe, of my compadres Marcos Apaza, Silvestre Blanco, Vicente Yanahuaya, Pascual Tapia, Vicente Kallampa, and recently Daniel Lizärraga... And many young women I had known so well lost their life in childbed - Pastora, Guillerma, Isidora, Maria, Luisa... All the experiences of deaths of my family members and friends are deeply engraved in my heart and soul. In the Kallawaya region, I investigated and documented more than one hundred - mainly several days lasting - collective rituals of all villages in the Kallawaya region
(RÖSING
2006d and 2008a) and more
than two hundred healing rituals of the Kallawaya medicine men and women
(RÖSING
1992, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). I underwent twelve ap-
prenticeships of medicine men and women which lasted several years. 14
And I held almost one thousand informational interviews. All this research - collective rituals, healing rituals, apprenticeships, informational interviews - has been documented through detailed written protocols and complete tape recordings. All cassettes are transcribed in Quechua, which means totally written on paper. The written texts are bound in books that make up a length of about 50 metres. Additional, I have taken over 35,000 dias of the region, of the people I have worked with, of the medicine men and women, of the patients, and of the ritual participants. Next to my research in the Kallawaya region I realised comparative research in the South of Peru, especially in the region of Cusco, and in the region of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Besides the Andean research I started in 1993 my Himalayan research on the shamans of Ladakh and of the Changthang plateau at 5,000 metres altitude
2.
(RÖSING
2006e).
THE KALLAWAYA REGION: GEOGRAPHY AND POPULATION
The province Bautista Saavedra is named after an Bolivian president who lived from 1870-1939. It is 2525 square km of size and has 12,437 inhabitants - according to the population census in 2005. The most important Kallawaya villages are Charazani (capital of the province with 1604 inhabitants) Amarete (2151), Curva (646), Chari (770), Chullina (682), Chajaya (510), Khaata (613). It is an extraordinarily rugged region with settlements at heights ranging from 3,000 to 4,800 metres. The majority of accessible valleys run north-south - the valley of the Charazani River with its full network of tributaries, is one of the few that cuts through the Andes enabling access in an east-west direction. To the east lies the humid, subtropical region of the Yungas to which the inhabitants of the Kal15
lawaya region therefore have relatively easy access. In the Yungas not only do fruit and all sorts of medicinal herbs grow which cannot be found in the High Andes. Most importantly the coca plant grows there. Since the coca leaf is not only a matter of daily chewing by the Indians, but is also, without exception, the most important ingredient of all Kallawaya rituals, it is much sought after.
Sketch 1.1: The province Bautista Saavedra in Bolivia (red) The climate at these altitudes is very harsh. The average annual temperature at 2,700 m is around 17°C, and at 4,000 m just 9°C. There are only two seasons, - the dry season (from May to October) and the rainy season. The daily temperature fluctuation is greater than the seasonal fluctuation, varying between 12 and 20°C (SEIBERT 1982). In the
dry season the temperature can drop quite drastically to below zero. The Indians live predominantly in windowless huts constructed of clay bricks they make themselves. Normally the whole family sleeps together in the 10-16 sq. metre hut, the dying embers in the fireplace keeping the occupants, huddled together, warm at night. 16
Kuchu Caftuma AKhamani 5,391 m
T.iypt C a A u m a
Medallaru T'iKinhuaya
PaehaqoH'SN
Kaaiaya
Ucwnhuaya Tilmhuaya
Apacha (Cbrtchata) Niñofcorin
Chulhna
Huata Huata Chajaya AUchaman ca 4 500 m; Kaniaya Pumasani 4.791 m
At:que
TfltSCOO • Ama-ete ' Chakabaya
Hachwwarv
TaktchitaiH
UrpihuayaLSo'opata
nach Escoma z u m Titicaca S e e und l a P a n * Tolqaqocna-Se«1
Sketch 1.2: The Kallawaya region The capital of the province is the village Charazani which today has about 1,600 inhabitants. The layout of Charazani originates from colonial times. Around a large, square plaza (the main village square)
17
are the churches, the sub-prefecture, the shops and the homes of the (relatively) affluent. The rest of the village consists of small buildings scattered about. The town has a secondary school as well as a college and a small hospital. The inhabitants of the Kallawaya region live predominantly by farming land or rearing livestock. Both involve strenuous work. The small terraced fields lie mainly on steep slopes, the pastures for the livestock (sheep, some cattle, higher up llamas, alpacas) are often a great distance away and sparse. The agrarian structure of the Kallawaya region is first and foremost determined by the topographical situation. The close proximity of such varying levels of altitude - with its different vegetation (SEIBERT 1982) and different conditions for agricultural production - enables plenty of bartering for commodities produced at the various altitudes. One factor that adversely affects living conditions in the Kallawaya region that has arisen more recently (since the agrarian revolution of 1952) is the shortage of land. All workable land has long been taken over and arranged into well-tended terraces. The changes in the inheritance laws in 1952 and the accompanying steady division of land have made the problem more acute.
3.
THE ANDEAN RELIGION, THE KALLAWAYA CULTURE
There are two major expressions of the Kallawaya culture: the Andean religion and its rich and complex ritualism. Most inhabitants of the Province Bautista Saavedra are Catholics. But they do practice Catholicism very superficially. In all comparisons of the Andean and the Catholic religion the Andean religion is much more profound, alive and practically daily. 18
In the Kallawaya region one knows himself encompassed by deities: there is the mountain Akhamani, the Pumasani, the Sillaka, the Esqani, the Qowila, the Tiliskón, the Atichamán - and everyone of these peaks is the domicile of a deity. The earth, Pachamama, Mother Earth, is the supreme deity of the Andes. The people there are in contact with the utmost deity of the Andes wherever they walk, stand, or move. And wherever their gaze moves, they will see the summits which are inhabited by the deities. The second highest deity of the Andes is the lightning. The lightning is circumscribed with the name Santiago, Saint Jacob. It really is a circumscription - actually meaning the former deity of the lightning, Illapa. Illapa is the supreme of the uncountable lightning-deities. Wherever lightning strikes a lightning-deity takes its domicile. There exists a loose hierarchy within the plurality of the Andean deities. After Mother Earth and the deities of the lightning one might want to name the deities which live on the holy mountains. They are called lugarniyoq, "owner of the places", master over the holy place. They are also called machula or achachila - the first being the Quechua-word, the other the Aymara-word for "grandfather". The deities who are the inhabitants of the mountains are said to be the ancestors of the people. The majority of the Andean deities as well as the inhabitants of the lakes and the rivers are benevolent. They are not primarily angry or evil but potentially dangerous. People have to be especially attentive, above all with the sacrificial offerings for the deities. Some of the deities that live on the holy mountains are specifically responsible for the protection of the food, others for the weather conditions - rain, hail, and lightning. The deities of the lakes and springs are responsible for the rain. The diversity of the Andean deities is literally unlimited since new deities are coming into existence at all times - through weather conditions and through the hands of the people. 19
As mentioned before there is not only one deity of the lightning, Santiago or Illapa, but as many deities of the lightning as there are places where lightning had struck. Wherever lightning strikes a new holy place comes into existence, a deity of the lightning takes its domicile. Furthermore deities are made through the hands of the people. Every hut in the Andes has a ch'an, also called cabildo. Ch'an is the offering place of the hut. In such distant Andean regions as the Apolobamba-cordillera there is no hut without a ch'an. It wouldn't be possible to protect the hut or to perform any religious or ritual act without this place where the sacrificial offering preparations are burnt. Many huts have even more than one cabildo - one for the ancestors (awila, machula) and one for the lightning (kaqya). The main ch 'an is established if possible on the right hand side of the hut and in direction of the sunrise (east), because these are the good sides, and if possible in a corner so that animals and humans do not trample on it. The ch'an is a place in the earth that is covered with a big stone. To burn the sacrificial offerings one lifts up the stone und burns the offerings on the place under it. This ch'an is the "nest of the condor" and is inhabited by the "deity of the domicile". If a new hut gets built one has to establish a ch'an, an offering place. Establishing such a ch'an — which can only be done through an experienced healer or ritualist - a place has been made where a deity lives from now on, a deity specifically responsible for the well-being of the hut. Most of the Andean deities are tied to a certain place: deities on the mountains, deities at rocks or places of the lightning, deities at springs, deities on passes, and deities at lakes. There are male and female lakes. The lightning is male. The mountains are female if they are responsible for food, all others are male. The offering places in the huts can be male or female. Only Mother Earth is not tied to a certain place. Mother Earth is everywhere and she is female. 20
The relation between deities and human beings as well as between people is affected by reciprocity. This is a general value in the Andes. Reciprocity is an unwritten, self-evident and binding law of the social relations in the Andes. The deities have control over everything that is important to humans: health and disease, the harvest, the well-being of the animals, the success of a journey - everything good that one can think of lays in the hands of the deities. But the gods don't just give without receiving something. That is meant with reciprocity. They will give good if the humans give them something they like. They expect two things: respect and reverence as well as food and drink. Respect and reverence imply that you don't pass by a domicile of a deity without a greeting gesture. It is unthinkable to just pass by such a place or to sit down and rest or even begin to unwrap your provisions - without first giving your reverence to the deity of this place. The other thing that all deities - without exception - expect from the humans is food and drink, the offerings which the human beings prepare for them. The ingredients, the single components of a sacrificial offering, are seen as different dishes or as the spices of the food for the deity. The gods also want to drink. So the humans offer them pure alcohol or wine or the blood of a sacrificial animal. It is sprinkled through libations (ch'alla). If human beings refuse to give to the gods what they are entitled to and what they expect from them, they build up an offering debt. Offering debt is neither sin nor guilt. Offering debt is in the context of the value of reciprocity a deficit in giving. A ritual in the Andes and especially a Kallawaya healing ritual (cf. the healing rituals in this book) is accompanied by literally hours-long prayer. The prayers are a kind of dialog between the healer and the deities. He addresses the deities by saying something like this: "You have control over this, you have control over that. Here I stand, your son, who always served you, and I want to bring forward to you this 21
and that plea, for that I provide you with these offerings", etc. Offerings are usually prepared in small woollen or cotton nests. They are called "offering plates" analogous to the "meals" - that is the ingredients which are laid into these single offering nests. The most important ingredient is the holy coca leave. The next important ones are crumbs of llama tallow - the llama is a holy animal - , crumbs of incense, the blossoms of carnations, and many more ingredients. Every one of these offering nests has its specific assignment or appointment. It is assigned either to a specific deity, for example the deity that lives at the main-ch'an, the offering place of a hut. There must always be a offering nest for the ch'an. One cannot prepare a offering in the own hut without paying reverence to the deity of the ch'an in the hut. Furthermore there always has to be an offering nest prepared for Mother Earth, the most important deity, and others for the holy mountains that surround the village. Than there is an offering nest for the deity Ankari. Ankari is the "servant" of the holy places. Ankari is the messenger. Ankari will bring the offerings to the deities that possibly live far away, through the medium of the smoke of the offering fire. Ankari is the messenger that will bring our offerings to the deities. With the Andean religion one is at the core of the Andean understanding of illness. There is no disease where offering debt does not play an important role. According to Andean understanding the most important causes for disease are the following: offering debt, loss of the soul, beings of the dark world, (chullpa: graves of the ancestors, awila...) and black actions of the people. There are black rituals with the aim to harm other people, maybe even their health. If somebody becomes sick, the reason can therefore be that someone who hates this person or is in conflict with him, has aimed a black healing ritual against him and has directed this disease towards him. Prayers of such a black healing ritual are evil, hostile words and curses against the enemy. 22
Illustration I A: Akhamani, the highest mountain in the
Kallawaya
region 23
The complex Kallawaya ritualistic comprises white, grey and black rituals. Their multifaceted symbolic ingredients and processes are described in detail in this book. Their aims are: for, away, back, against.
Y1JRAJ MESA while healing
YANA MESA black healing
Sketch 1.3: Healing for, away, back, against
4.
CHANGE OF THE KALLAWAYA CULTURE: "MASTERPIECE OF THE ORAL AND INTANGIBLE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY"
In 2003 the UNESCO nominated the Kallawaya culture as the "Masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity". It took several years until this nomination settled in the region. The effects of this
nomination on the culture are partially questionable part 2;
RÖSING
(RÖSING
2008b,
2005). But let us look back to 2003, the year of the
nomination of the Kallawaya culture: We have information for the factual nomination process of the Kallawaya culture. The name given to the nomination subject was "Cosmo vision of the Kallawaya culture" - an all-embracing name. Cosmovision means in this case the vision and the values of the cultural world, of the encompassing Andean religion, of the religious practice, of the ritual tradition, of the social structures, and of the everyday coping of the carrier of the Kallawaya culture. The assessment through the UNESCO took over one year. It was assigned to several international cultural institutions that have been elected by a committee. Dr. Carmen Beatriz Loza and Dr. Walter Alvarez Quispe signed responsible for the volume of the nomination proposal considering the Kallawaya cosmovision. Dr. Loza was appointed for the part about "the history of the Kallawaya culture" and she supervised the coordination of the contributions considering this part of the book. Dr. Alvarez covered mainly the part named "Medicine and Pharmacy". He is the president of the SOBOMETRA, the Sociedad Boliviana de la Medicina Tradicional ("Bolivian Society of the Traditional Medicine"). These two are named as being the main editors of the texts. Not known authors - such as a Kallawaya from La Paz - were mentioned as authors for the part "Religion and Magic", an elementary school teacher for the part "Ethnography and Ethno-musicology", and others for the parts "Geography" and "Anthropology". For the two main editors the nominated Kallawaya culture meant in the first place the traditional Kallawaya medicine. They totally neglected the richness of the rituals. Only eight of all the Kallawaya villages were mentioned as being exclusively devoted to the Kallawaya medicine: the villages Curva, Kanlaya, Chajaya, Tilinhuaya, Chari, Huata Huata, Inca Roca and Saganacön. The large village Amarete, the large village Khaata, the villages Kaalaya, Upinhuaya, Chullina 26
etc are mentioned as non-relevant considering the Kallawaya medicine. Medicine women who are well recognized in the Kallawaya region are not mentioned at all in the nomination volume. Weaving is stated in this volume as being a main duty of the women. The music of the Kallawaya region is not named at all. The cultural anthropology, the ethnology, is not included. But this volume has a very special annex: twenty close typed pages about the "Bolivian Society of the Traditional Medicine". One of the main duties of this organisation is the allocation of medicinal passes for practising traditional healers who are also called "Kallawaya" and heal mainly with plants. We remember that the cosmovision of the Kallawaya culture was nominated. This means first and foremost the everyday religion and ritualistic of the Kallawaya region. The everyday reports that I receive from the region still reflect this cosmovision. Again and again questions of belief and rituals are mentioned. But in the "masterpiece" they are not considered. Under the everyday reality only part of the Kallawaya culture, the Kallawaya medicine, is mentioned. Exclusively the male healers and only those who mainly heal with medicinal herbs and practise in the cities of Bolivia find entry in this volume. The result is a significant shrinkage of the subject of the Kallawaya nomination. An expression of the Bolivian pride in the capital of the Kallawaya region, Charazani, is the installation of a memorial. But this memorial consolidates the shrinkage of the nomination subject: On the village square now stands a three metres high bronze-statue of a medicine man with his typical equipment - the kapachu, the bag for the healing herbs, and two amulets which are produced by the Kallawayas. In the meantime one of the two big amulets of the statue has been stolen. Since the nomination more and more tourists come to the Kallawaya region and they like to get photographed next to the bronze Kallawaya - who lets this happen stoically. The "real" Kallawayas meanwhile start to ask for money for such photos of their appearances - a totally new phenomenon in this region. 27
In the six years since the nomination two Kallawaya congresses were organised in the Kallawaya region. The first congress took place three years after the nomination. All participants came from cities in Bolivia. With the presence of people of film and press they prepared a wonderful rich Kallawaya ritual on the mountain Kalla Kalian. During the congress strong conflicts broke out between the Kallawayas from the cities and the local inhabitants of the Kallawaya region. And the medicine men from the village Curva left the congress. The president of the "Bolivian Society for Traditional Medicine" was verbally excluded from the congress. On the 7th and 8th of November 2007, four years after the nomination a second large Kallawaya congress was organised. This one took place in Curva, this distant small village in the Kallawaya region. All guests came on their own expense from the Bolivian cities: La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosi, Oruro - important Bolivian cities where "Kallawayas" live. Kallawayas from villages in the region also participated, even though some villages were hardly represented. Chajaya, a Kallawaya village, for instance wasn't present at all. The alcalde municipal, the mayor of Curva, greeted the participants but than withdrew himself almost completely. No informational material was prepared or distributed for this congress except a pamphlet prepared by the representatives of the Kallawayas from Cochabamba. On the evening of the 7th of November the different committees started to work and demonstrated their results in the morning of November the 8 th . For lunch they had a large common meal. Many planned events didn't take place. There were no music groups. Not one single ritual was prepared - neither in the beginning of the congress nor in the end. Many participants from the villages regretted and lamented the missing of the ritual acts, of the offerings for Mother Earth, for the holy places, for Ankari. No aims of the congress were explicitly and beforehand published or named. No Consejo de 28
Machulas - advisory council of the wise Kallawayas - was appointed. In the different committees they produced a few texts. They were contradictory discussed and not further followed up as a judicial paper. Between the different Kallawaya associations from the cities and the union-initiatives from the villages participating in the congress existed manifold differences and contradictions. There was no concordance between the different parties. Concerning the intensions of the UNESCO nomination, the institutionalization activities on behalf of the villages are especially delicate. How is a traditional village organised? It is a elaborate, functional, principally informal (not cast in paragraphs) organisation: •
collective leadership
•
offices according to a rotation system
•
unanimity of all decisions
•
communal jurisdiction (which differs considerably from the western one)
But paragraphs, bylaws, concrete rules, sanctions according to western jurisdiction, elected representatives, majority decision etc are the necessities for a public society foundation. Through the UNESCO nomination, the UNESCO money and the resulting necessity to organise themselves and elect legal representatives - totally extrinsic forms of organisation and rules of jurisdiction of their own culture reach thus the Kallawaya region. These are culture extrinsic instruments that only serve the canalisation of the potentially incoming money and the individual profit maximization. No value is more extrinsic to the Andean soul than the individual profit maximization. Reciprocity, mutuality, us-thinking, common welfare, the collective - these are the values that take the centre stage in the Kallawaya region considering the organisation of the family, the administration of the village, the organisation of the 29
fieldwork, the arrangement of the festivities, the communal Indian jurisdiction and the religion. On the second congress four work committees were installed. They each composed one to two pages in which they expressed just common aims as preparation of seminars for a exhibition of the Kallawaya medicine, weaving, music and ceramics, and the preparation of festivities of the Kallawayas. More tourists should be invited to boost the consciousness for the masterpiece of the UNESCO. Committee 4 developed in just over two pages "the normative standards" that are supposed to serve the Kallawayas. In paragraph 3 they named the disempowerment of the "Bolivian Society for Traditional Medicine" (SOBOMETRA). This was centred already in the first congress on Dr. Walter Alvarez. This committee expressed many intensions: the prohibition to execute rituals at public places, to give medical herbs to strangers or not-natives of the region, to give away medical knowledge to strangers, and to handle catholic crosses and prayers. They demanded further societies and groupings representing urban and regional Kallawayas and the support of a perpetual stream of tourists. All these aims, intentions, rules, standards were developed but not realised. After these six years of the nomination of the Kallawaya culture to the world cultural heritage, to a "Masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity", the Kallawaya culture has become flattened except for some families where it still thrives. The practise of the Andean religion and the everyday practise of the Andean rituals are changed in the Kallawaya region. The depictions of the Andean everyday life in ROSING (2008b) show several commitments with the ritual but mention over and over again the loss of collective traditions in the villages. Because the whole "world cultural heritage" shrank mainly to the medicine man, bitter controversies in the whole region - who is the "real" Kallawaya medicine man - take place. "The only real Kallawayas are naturally us," the medicine men from Curva say. "No, the real ones have 30
always been us," the Kallawayas from Chajaya say. "We are the true Kallawayas," the Kallawayas from Chari answer. Also the traditional ritualists from Amarete argue offensively that they alone should have the honour of the nomination of the "world cultural heritage". There is much feud, much conflict, much envy, fierce competition. In this rivalry about the real Kallawaya medicine man one has to distinguish several levels. On one level are the villages: we alone are the real representatives of the Kallawayas. But also within the villages exists conflict and tiff - here also are different fractions and families of healers. The second level of the conflict - and this is one of the most fierce one - is the conflict between the Kallawayas from the cities and the Kallawayas from the region. The difference expresses itself in the comparison of "Kallawaya qolqe umayoq" (the Kallawayas who see only the money, that is Kallawayas who heal for money; they offer their services at the roadsides) and "Kallawaya jallp'a sonqoyoq" (literally: their heart clings to the earth; they live in the region, are farmers, have life-stock, they heal locally or travel as ambulant medicine men through the country). Naturally one can find there the kind of money-Kallawayas too, but they are - as the name implies - earthbound persons. This means also, that they always comprise Mother Earth, the highest deity of the Andean religion, in every healing. The Kallawayas from the cities see themselves as the true Kallawayas and look down on the rural Kallawayas as being "primitive" and "uncivilized". The rural Kallawayas in contrast think of the city-Kallawayas as being perverted and orientated to the money. A third level of the rivalry broke out between the city-Kallawayas of the different cities: Potosí, Cochabamba, La Paz, Oruro. What does the balance look like now, six years after the "world cultural heritage"? Up to now I am not able to see how the Kallawaya culture is getting protected and enhanced through the nomination by the UNESCO. But I do see the new shrinking definition of the Kallawaya culture, the installing of monuments of vanity, the boosting of 31
tourism with all its negative effects, the commercialisation of traditional goods and practices (healing rituals) and the washing out of the understanding of the "real" Kallawaya. This is just about the opposite of every proclamation of protection. My hitherto impression is that the global acting international organisation UNESCO does not secure fortification of the rootage in local traditional culture but rather the monetary valuation of the culture simply because it has no local competence but all the more global circulating goods - money - at its disposal. The culture degrades to a showpiece and sacrifice on the altar of the Dollar. The approach to ban the dangers of the globalisation for traditional cultures and to protect and enforce them is definitely an important and noble aim, if one considers the perpetuation of the multiplicity of cultures important and if one wants to counteract the common flattening and levelling. The UNESCO is the right instrument considering its mandate. However, I deem the nomination process considering the Kallawaya culture and the practical "execution" of the nomination fundamentally wrong. The nomination is clearly a political process. No local Kallawaya healer or within Bolivia ambulant healing jallp 'a songoyog-Kallawaya had anything to say about the nomination. They were totally ignored. Urban politically motivated factions initiated this nomination in the interests of the Bolivian national pride. Furtherance is not of their concern. You can only protect what you know. But there was no interest in knowledge. Stereotypes and myths about the Kallawayas served as arguments for this culture. It is essential to approach this whole complex of cultural change of the Kallawaya culture in a much more differentiated way. After all, external influences on the Kallawaya culture have existed even before the 2003 UNESCO nomination. There are several important developments with affects on the cultural change of the Kallawaya culture before and after the nomination - which need to be closely analysed. 32
(1) The introduction of the Participación Popular in Bolivia caused a massive and radical de-centralisation of money flow and administration. For the first time money came into the region for street projects, building projects etc. The Indians took over practically all administrative positions. Money for administration tasks came to the region where voluntariness and rotation dominated before. Political parties entered the region. (2) Parallel to this governmental aid was being given to the Indian culture. This contributed much to the emancipation of the Indian selfconfidence and to an enormous upgrading of the Indian status. (3) Higher educational schools have been built and literacy has been promoted. Overall now exists a higher interest in education and the necessity to learn reading and writing is acknowledged from more Indians today. (4) An immense number of developmental aid organisations have flooded this region. The European Economic Community was one of the first and biggest intrusions. I have seen ten years of the Kallawaya culture before this harsh interference took place. Since than there have not been such huge projects any more. But the number of NGOs scrimmaging in this region is enormous. With them many extrinsic needs and influences came into the region. (5) 25 years ago another quite extrinsic element entered this culture: a foreign researcher, in her forties, blond, tall, without knowledge of the Quechua language - me. Of course my living there has had its influences as well. Not with my hut - this was the same as the Indian huts. Not with my clothing - 1 walked around in low-key clothing such as the Indians. Not with certain food or special goods. I ate the same as the people there. I had no running water, no electricity, no refrigerator etc. But: I definitely did contribute to the upgrading of their culture, of their self-consciousness, to the breaking down the borders between the "white" and the Indians. I was always on the side of the Indians. Be34
yond this there are definitely many more influences, but in this context I can't go into this any further. With this list of influences, which is extendable, I just wanted to show: a culture is never rigid, is always changing, is always exposed to many other influences. It is not to say, that an untouched Kallawaya culture was influenced through the UNESCO-Dollar over night. But it seems to me undeniable that the UNESCO nomination is a considerable factor regarding the change of the Kallawaya culture - namely the flattening cultural changes. There is reason to fear that the factual impact of the nomination counteracts the intentions to protect and preserve the Kallawaya culture.
35
Chapter 2: The banishment of grief
1.
Grief therapy for a family losing its mother
39
1.1
The family of Apolinar
39
1.2
Pastora's death
44
1.3
Preparation for and context of the healing ritual .. 46
1.4
Structure of the healing ritual overview and phases one to three
1.5
51
Purification ritual at the river in the gorge phases four and five
2.
68
Mariano's death. Grief therapy for a family that has lost its father
75
2.1
The medicine man Mariano
75
2.2
Mariano's sudden death - what happened?
76
2.3
Healers, context of healing and preparation for healing
2.4
80
The procedure of the healing ritual: overview and phase one and two
2.5
86
Purification ritual for the animals and for the hut (phase three and four)
2.6
101
Purification ritual at the crossings of the ways (phase five)
2.7
Peculiarities of the healing
108 ritual
110
37
3.
4.
Further contributions towards the database
112
3.1
The teachings of the medicine men
112
3.2
Todos Santos
125
Contributions towards an analysis 4.1
130
Intracultural analysis. The llaki wijch'una in time and space: Inca roots and Andean culture
4.2
Transcultural notes: the llaki wijch'una in the
4.3
Questions and results of western research into
light of mourning rituals in other cultures mourning 4.4
137 139
The llaki wijch'una and western research on mourning
38
130
144
1.
GRIEF THERAPY FOR A FAMILY LOSING ITS MOTHER
1.1
The family of
Apolinar
"We've known each other for a long time now, haven't we, doctorita, comadritaT
This comment always crops up in our conversation
whenever I return to Bolivia and the Apolobamba-cordilleras and make my way westwards up the narrow path to Apolinar's hut. Yes, we've known each other for a long time; we have also experienced and been through a lot together. At the beginning Apolinar was my bricklayer. Then my friend. Then my compadre, after his little son Fidel became my godson. Then he was my teacher in matters of ritual healing. Apolinar is a skilled bricklayer, 36 years old. Apolinar installed a window into the south wall of my hut which is extremely cold at night, and also at day if the sun does not shine. I brought the frame and the glass of the window by jeep from La Paz. That is how we got to know each other. I learnt that Apolinar has five children, that his wife, Pastora, had gone, back to her father who lives in the village above his. He is on his own with the children. The youngest is a little boy, three years old. When his wife was still living with him she spent the whole time lying down, just lying down, doing nothing, and she might just as well have not been there at all. Only gradually did he realise how sick she was. Apolinar is not on good terms with Pastora's parents. They have no time for the children. Only Apolinar's mother, who remarried after the death of his father, comes once a week to see how the children are and to cook for them. Otherwise it is the oldest child, Justina, who looks after house and home. She fetches wood for the fire, she fetches water, and she makes the tea, peels the potatoes and prepares the soup for her brother and sisters. The younger ones look after the sheep. They often have to walk a long way to find pasture. 39
Since Apolinar built the window in my hut a deep friendship has blossomed between us. I learnt more about Apolinar's situation, his family and his problems when one day we visited a medicine man to seek a healing ritual to make Pastora well again, to bring about a reconciliation... It was a yuraj mesa, a white healing. After this nocturnal healing ritual Apolinar said to me: "I have some hope again. Perhaps everything will turn out well." But it was not to be. Pastora slipped further and further into total apathy, shaken only by her coughing. Apolinar and the children remained alone. The old medicine man had healed Apolinar "del Señor" - a comprehensive forgiveness healing for all ills sent "del Señor", by God. "Perhaps it wasn't the right one," Apolinar says softly, much later. "Perhaps it isn't 'del Señor'. Perhaps other powers are at play ..." What Apolinar meant was witchcraft, enchantment and evil spirits ... But at that point I had still not understood this and still had no idea that there are very different healings for that: secret rituals, black and the grey healings. I had to travel to La Paz. It was the beginning of February, 1984. Once I had arrived all sorts of problems seemed to keep me there, blockades in La Paz, political disturbances, strikes, - and it was not until the end of the month that I returned to Charazani. I learned from the Madres, the nuns of the village, that Apolinar had taken Pastora to the chest clinic; her illness had become too acute and her father had finally allowed her to be moved. So Apolinar was not there. I went to see how the children were doing. I returned in the evening. A lorry had just arrived in the village - and Apolinar! He was completely exhausted. On his back he was carrying a huge bundle. It was the straw mattress that he had taken for Pastora, but it was not needed at the hospital. There they have steel beds and other mattresses. He was sad, tearful: Pastora constantly rebukes him. She is constantly angry. She seems to be in complete despair. The doctors had told Apolinar that he should stay with his wife. "Now just tell me, how could I? What would I live on in La Paz? Who would look after 40
Illustration 2.1: Apolinar and four of his five children
4L
the children? How would I feed them?" She would have to stay in the hospital for at least six months. There's no guarantee we can help, say the doctors, we will give it a try. "I had no money left at all. I couldn't even pay for the truck ride back. I had to pay my way back by working as a loader and driver. And I don't know how I'm going to go on." And Apolinar was without hope, was desperate. "Doctorita," he says, "I must try one more healing ritual; none of my prayers helps any more ..." He wanted a healing for Pastora, for his hut and for the children. One of the best medicine men was to come, Daniel from Curva. He would come to Charazani (about a four hour trek). A compadre had a straw hut there which was empty: the healing ritual could take place there. The cabildo, the hut's sacrificial altar, was hidden away in the yard, out of sight, this is important. There the sacrificial offerings could be burnt without others looking on. What is the cabildol There is no hut without a cabildo, no village without a cabildo, no holy mountain, no holy lake without a cabildo. The cabildo is the sacrificial altar of a hut, of the village, the mountain. Most of the time, the cabildo is little more than a large, heavy stone lying on the floor. The cabildo-stone is raised in order to burn the offerings underneath it - or in special circumstances, to bury it. The belief in the holy places and the cabildo is inseparable. We entered the hut and Apolinar described his situation: "This is the situation I'm in - I am alone. I live in Lunlaya. My wife has been sick for five years or more now. She has also been to the hospital here, and sometimes it has helped a bit and sometimes not; and finally she left completely, for her parent's hut, without saying a word. They say she has tuberculosis. She coughs and is totally dehydrated and no medicine seems to help her. Now she is in the chest clinic in La Paz. And my children are suffering too; it's heart-rending. There are five of them. Four girls and a small boy. They have been deserted and neglected, their clothes and everything. Do something for us!" 42
It was a long, wonderful white healing with a seemingly endless succession of intense prayers. "This will help you," said the medicine man, "it will certainly help you, and everything will turn out well. But it would of course be better if we performed a second healing in your hut. ..." "Then we must certainly perform a healing ritual in my hut," said Apolinar. After I had witnessed these two healing rituals with Apolinar I discovered a completely different side to him. Until then I had known him as a bricklayer. I knew him as a friend. We had already planned the baptism of two of his children, Fidel and Teresa. So I knew him as a future compadre (godfather), which is tantamount to being a member of the family. And later I got to know Apolinar as a medicine man. And henceforward, completely new, broad and fascinating areas of ritual life in the Apolobamba-cordilleras opened up for me. Apolinar the medicine man: he had not mentioned this side of him for a long time. His grandfather had been a medicine man. His father had been a medicine man. His brothers, too, had gone on healing journeys. So he, too, learned to be a medicine man. "And I can even teach you the secret Kallawaya language," he once whispered to me. And he knows a great deal more, as well. But I did not entirely believe him. Here everybody knows a little bit about medicinal plants and rituals, I thought. But then I was allowed to take part in a healing ritual in Lunlaya. (H-54) The patient, Daniel Nogales, a weak old man, called "his" medicine man to him to perform a healing ritual. He called Valentin Quispe, who was about 90 years. Nobody knows his exact age, not even he himself, but he said he had been on this earth for a long, long time. And so this was the first healing ritual that I experienced with this great, wise old medicine man Valentin. This experience touched the depths of my soul: these indescribably "gentle" ritual acts, the concentration, the busy movements he carried out almost blind, the communication with almost no hearing, the trembling hands, the mut43
ter of prayer, barely comprehensible, and the certainty, the radiance and the intensity of the act, which no tape recorder, camera or other records of the proceedings could possibly capture. For a healing ritual the medicine men usually have an assistant who prepares the incense bowl, lights the twigs for the fire in the cabildo, selects coca leaves and cuts open the guinea pig. Naturally Valentin needs an assistant, too. And he has chosen Apolinar. In this healing ritual I realised that Apolinar was himself a medicine man, a fact which he eventually admitted openly to me himself. He had learnt from his father, he had travelled as a healer. But after Pastora fell ill he had been no longer able to continue and had not travelled for years. But now I had to leave for Germany. The new semester was about to start. "I have to travel back to my own country," I told Apolinar, "but I'll be back in three months" ... Before I left, however, I would visit Pastora in La Paz. Apolinar gave me messages for her. On 12th April 1984 I was at her bedside in the chest clinic.
1.2
Pastora's
death
I only saw Pastora once. Outside there was gleaming, white sunlight, inside everything was white, too. There were eight or ten beds in the room. There was complete silence. The women lay or sat on their beds - fatigue etched on their faces. Pastora was huddled on the second to last bed on the right. Her face dark with high, prominent cheek bones above sunken cheeks, bony, stained. She smiled shyly. She, too, had heard much about me. I sat down on the edge of the bed and showed her the photos of the children, her five children. Justina, 13 years old, Roxana, 12, Liliam, 8, Teresa, 7, and little Fidelito who had just turned 3. And I showed her pictures of her husband Apolinar. And of the hut, the trees and the fields. She cried. How was she? "I am improving, every day." Not long ago a woman died in the shower. The 44
two women in the beds next to her have died. The nurses and the doctors cannot speak Quechua - the only language Pastora speaks. She speaks softly, whispering. She would soon be allowed to leave. She wants to go home. "It's terrible here. I'll get well again, the doctor told me I can go home in four weeks. The medication has helped." "I have to go back to my own country," I told her. "And when I come back we'll baptise Teresa and Fidelito, ya?" Yes, she has talked about that with Apolinar, she would also like me to be godmother. And Pastora did indeed go home. The discharge summary stated that she should, however, return to the hospital after a few weeks. She was given medication and an instruction sheet telling her exactly how she was to take it. Apolinar can also read well. It must have been a terrible journey home. Pastora managed to make her way to the point where the lorries leave for Charazani. But they leave at irregular intervals - when exactly, no one can say. She was tired, weak, and huddled by the side of the road. It was one of those bitterly cold nights in La Paz, which lies at an altitude of 3800 metres. She had no blanket, nothing. The lorry did not leave till the next day. By this time Pastora was so weak that she had to be lifted on to the back. There is always a terrible scramble onto the back of the open lorry. It is always overloaded, overflowing with people as well as luggage, boxes, cloth bundles of food, and animals too. Chickens are transported. It is dreadfully cold on the back of the open lorry - I have experienced this myself - especially through the passes and when the fog and rain come down. After eighteen hours (in transit) like this the lorry reaches its destination, Pastora has arrived in Charazani. At night. No light in the village. The figures descend from the lorry and disappear into the night. And Pastora has to spend yet another night in the open air. Curled up on the street. Nobody had told Apolinar - or had been able to tell him - that his wife was coming. The next morning the madres, the nuns, took Pastora in. They carried her to a room near the church. A messenger was sent to Apolinar. 45
Pastora stayed with the nuns for the time being. Her feet were swollen. Her legs, too. And her skin was covered with open wounds. Apolinar did not want to take her home. After all, it was only a hut. They all sleep there - he and the five children. But the nuns could not keep her here either. As Pastora was incapable of walking even three steps, Apolinar organised a mule, and even seated on its back she kept collapsing. Apolinar supported her and thus they made their way up the narrow mountain path and then steeply down the valley half way, to where the gushing river can be heard, to where the hut is situated. Pastora did not get up again. The madres came by almost every day to see how she was. They gave her injections. But they could do very little more for her. On the sixth of July Pastora died. A death is considered almost like a contagious disease. The misfortune that death brings with it will spread to every corner of the hut. It attracts more bad fortune. Therefore, one must purify the hut. "We must also purify ourselves", says Apolinar, "but first of all we must banish and cast out the grief with a llaki wijch'una." Wijch'uy literally means to throw away. Llaki wijch'una means, therefore, "the throwing away of grief'. - "How do we do that, Apolinar?" - "I'll ask Valentin. He'll perform the llaki wijch'una for us."
1.3 Preparation for and context of the healing ritual Apolinar climbed up to Valentin's hut on the other side of the valley. Of course he would perform this healing ritual for Apolinar and his family. His son, Ignacio, aged about 57, would assist him. The list of items we need for the healing is long and collecting them takes several days:
46
INGREDIENTS FOR LLAKI WIJCH'UNA I 1. Black cloth to serve as a covering for the table, 2. a new earthenware jug for the brew made from thorn plants, 3. a washing bowl, 4. a change of clothes, 5. incense, 6. red carnations, 7. grey sheep's wool, 8. a ball of left-spun grey sheep's wool, 9. 10. 11. 12.
gorse (retama) and other plants, coca, cigarettes, kuti kuti and sajsa kuti,
13. pig and sheep's tallow, 14. a three-tone (white) guinea pig, 15. at least one, but preferably two, candles, 16. stone from the river.
Besides all these items, a large number of plants are used in the healing ritual. We need a ball of spun sheep's wool. No normally-spun sheep's wool, but left-spun sheep's wool. Left is the direction with which evil things, giving away, falsehoods, removal and black magic are associated. Apolinar's mother Juana wanted to collect the pig's and sheep's tallow and see to the three-tone guinea pig. The three colours symbolise: the hut and its inhabitants (white); the animals (vicuna colours), mourning (black). The guinea pig is a frequently used healing animal for diagnosis, treatment and sacrifice (and also as a roast for holidays and special occasions) - but finding a three-tone one is particularly difficult. I was to bring coca leaves with me, pure alcohol and candles, some incense, cigarettes. Getting hold of sajsa kuti and
47
kuti kuti - fruits from trees in low-lying areas of the Bolivian jungle was particularly difficult. The hardest job of all was collecting the many plants - above all thorn plants that have to be boiled to make a brew. Retama (gorse) grows everywhere and is one of the most important medicinal plants but in this healing it is a ritual plant. But the habitats of the many other plants that we need are spread over mountains and gorges. They grow near hidden springs and at the edge of holes in the rock and in crevices. Apolinar spent many days searching. Juana, his mother, and Justina, his eldest daughter, helped him. The healing ritual was planned for a Monday. And naturally the healing ritual would also take place at night. Hardly any take place during the day. And certainly not a llaki wijch'una,
- that would be out of the question. Any
onlookers would disrupt it. The dark takes the powers of darkness away with it. The door of a hut can be open day and night, in all weather. But during a llaki wijch'una it is closed. So I walked to Lunlaya at dusk. It was very dark by the time I arrived at the hut. The hut itself was thatched with straw and about twelve square metres in size. Justina was fanning the brushwood fire in the hearth. One wall of the hut was taken up completely by beds, a straw mattress on a wooden frame. On it were lots of blankets, cloth, pots, a basket, hats and three of the children, continuously playing and jumping about. Wooden poles were attached under the roof of the hut on which clothes, sheepskins and cloth were hanging. The hut had no windows. All it had was the low doorway through which you have to bend to enter (and not just me, the tallest). There was also a ventilation hole above the hearth through which the smoke raises and through which the wind sometimes whistles bitterly. The door was made of wooden planks and was warped. It creaked and did not shut properly. The cold came in through the cracks. Justina has fetched water from the river and is heating it. The medicine men, Valentin and Ignacio, come from the other side of the 48
Illustration 2.2: The Kallawaya medicine man Valentín
Quispe
gorge. There is hot tea for everyone, a herb tea, one tin mug serves several people. Where can Juana be, Apolinar's mother? She wanted to come too. She was supposed to be bringing the untus (tallow) ancf the guinea pig. We wait, sipping our tea and huddling on the wooden bed or the floor. There are nine of us in the small hut. Apolinar, the medicine men Valentin and Ignacio, the four children (one is away down in the village), Gines (my research assistant) and myself. It has grown warm. And then Juana arrives, she has been hurrying and is soaked in sweat, but she has not managed to get the three-tone guinea pig, so Justina is sent off again to find a white one. Without the guinea pig the ritual cannot proceed. We chat and chew coca, offering each other small bunches of coca leaves. What we talk about? Nothing of great importance - just everyday chat in the evening: about people, the fields, about the animals and the arrival of a new teacher, about the clouds and the weather and the price and quality of coca. Meanwhile the preparatory acts have begun. The thorn plants are stuffed into a large bulbous jug, carefully, deftly, with plenty of gorse and water added. The jug is then placed on the left hand side of the fire place which Juana is now fanning. Then she peels potatoes and puts them in the pot over the flames on the right. Justina arrives with the guinea pig. It is white, but nevertheless it is "valid", says Valentin. Three candles are lit. The draught between the smoke hole in the roof and cracks in the door continually threatens to blow them out. This is not good. Valentin is the only one allowed to blow them out - later! We look for sheltered spaces on the bare earth of the floor. The medicine men take up their positions at the place where they will prepare the mesa. They need a dark cloth to place things on. Apolinar brings an old piece of clothing. "No, that won't do at all," says Valentin, "it will all be destroyed afterwards!" So a black rag is found. Allin Valentin is satisfied. It really is very crowded with ten people in a hut of only twelve square metres. Three candles and a small fire in the stone hearth do 50
not give much light. There are bits and pieces lying around in various places. Where are the cameras? I cannot find my bag with the note pad and pencils. The sack with the tape recorder? I grope in the dark for a pouch on the floor. There is a squeak. It's our white guinea pig. I carry on probing. On the cold ground you just know that fleas are hopping, spiders crawling - you don't have to see them. Ignacio stuffs a few more thorn plants into the round pot on the stone hearth. At the same time Valentin begins to shape pretty round, carefully formed double layered platos from grey sheep's wool, the "sacrificial nests". Imperceptibly the healing ritual has begun.
1.4 Structure of the healing ritual overview and phases one to three The healing lasts for more than three hours. The course of the healing will be presented in five phases:
(1) Preparation and consecration of the platos (sacrificial nests) on the black cloth, (2) placing the platos on the bodies of the mourners, (3) purification ritual at the hut, (4) purification ritual at the river in the gorge, (5) return and "renewal"; incense and communal meal.
(1) From the raw, white-grey sheep's wool Valentin forms the sacrificial nests without which no healing can take place. He does not always look at his hands while working, perhaps he does not even see what he creates, he is almost blind - but the nests are nevertheless prepared with great care, rounded, indented, manipulated and given two layers. The result is a nest about the size of an orange. 51
Seven such nests are prepared. They are for Apolinar, the four children present, the kitchen hut (in which we are sitting) and the small food store a little further up the slope. In the meantime Ignacio has spread the coca leaves onto a small, square woven cloth (in which the women usually keep their daily supply of coca) and has selected some good leaves (without tears, creases or notches) from his supply of leaves. Placing the coca leaves in the nests is usually always the job of the senior medicine man, or at least he should begin it - as it is one of the practices of all healing rituals, accompanied by prayer. And prayer, above all else, is the duty of the senior medicine man. But on this occasion, in our healing ritual, Ignacio takes over the task Valentin simply cannot see well enough any more. And while Ignacio places twelve coca leaves in each of the seven nests, with the pale ("bad") side upwards, Valentin accompanies his actions with prayer. Valentin's prayers are like a stuttering, sighing, complaining mutter. He does not speak very clearly. He speaks as though it is draining the last of his strength. His prayers are like magic formulae - repeated again and again. But it is the very way he articulates - "the last of his strength" - that lends the magic formulae an indescribable urgency, perhaps even the sound of the words simply repeated over and over again:
VALENTIN'S PRAYER WHILE INSERTING THE COCA LEAVES 1 2
Desgracia, chikin chikin desgracia,
Misfortune, his sorrow, his sorrow, misfortune,
3
chayta kunan urakaponqa,
let all this fall from him now,
4
chay desgracia, chikin
his misfortune, his sorrow goes
5 6
waj laduman, mayunejman
over to the other side, away to
purinaq,
the river,
chikin, desgracia, chikin.
his sorrow, misfortune, his sorrow.
52
7
Hay ... hay ...,
Ay ... ay ...,
8
desgraciakuna, chikin
misfortunes, his sorrow,
9
wawakunapas llakiunman ...,
and the children are certainly
onkoynioj kanku chareqa,
grieving,... maybe they are ill,
10 chiki, chiki, chiki, chiki, chiki,
sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, sorrow,
11 hay ...hay ...hay ...
ay...ay...ay...,
12 llakikusqan, llakikusqan kunan
his grief, his grief now, now
13 chay penosonakusqan,
all these dark thoughts shall go away,
14 mayuman, maymuman,
to the river, to the river, to the
maymuman,
maymuman,
river, to the river with them,
15 maymuman,
maymuman,
away to the river, to the river,
maymuman, 16 tukuy sajrayoj, sajrayojkuna urakonqa,
away to the river, everything bad, badness, down to the river,
17 chiki, chiki, chiki,
sorrow, sorrow, sorrow,
18 hay ... hay ... hay ...!
ay...ay...ay...!
Central to the prayer's meaning is the direction "away", or the quality of "lessening". From this meaning emerges both what was before, and what should change. Before, it is: dirt, lack of restraint, excess. Just how this new state of decrease, cleanliness and protection is brought about depends on various methods of taking away, throwing away, regulating etc. - but it is always an active method. Just as the ritual for the banishment of mourning also actively carries out this process. We are still in the cooking hut, all ten of us, and the healing has only just begun. The candles flicker in the wind blowing through the smoke hole in the roof and the cracks in the doors, and Ignacio has begun to put the coca leaves, followed by herbs and thorn plants into the sacrificial nests. One of the most important plants for this healing ritual is retama (gorse). It is indispensable in a llaki wijch'una, Apoli53
nar explained to me later. And what is its significance? Apolinar could not explain this. The symbolic meaning of retama in the llaki wijch'una comes very likely from its medical usage. Retama is a strong diuretic and - as another of my teaching medicine men taught me - an important bodily purgative. It would seem to be the purging aspect - used here in the symbolic sense - that is expressed through the retama in the llaki wijch'una. This interpretation is reinforced by the role played, both by the nests into which retama is placed, and by the brew of thorns in which retama is boiled, in the purification ritual that follows. Just as retama contains within it the symbolic meaning of "away" (removal, washing away, purification) - so too does the nut kuti kuti which Ignacio places in each of the seven nests (after the nuts have been ground with a stone in a small bowl), accompanied by the singing, droning lamenting, wailing of Valentin's prayers: VALENTiN'S PRAYER WHILE INSERTING THE KUTI KUTI 1 Chikin, llakikusqan, chikin
His sorrow, his sadness his sor-
kutikaponqa kunan!
row now ebb away!
2
Urakaponqa urayman!
Fall down and away!
3
Chikin ari, chikin chikin ...
His sorrow, sorrow, sorrow ...
4
chiki chiki chiki,
sorrow, sorrow, sorrow,
5
chay desgracia, desgracian,
this misfortune, his misfortune,
6 1 8
llakikuchian,
his grief,
pensonakuchian,
his thoughts,
kunan maymuman maymuman
disappear now to the river, go
maymuman riponqa!
to the river!
After the nests have been lined with coca leaves, retama and kuti kuti, the mesa is consecrated: Valentin raises his hands and slowly makes the sign of the cross over the mesa and prays:
54
VALENTIN'S PRAYER WHILE CONSECRATING THE MESA WITH THE SIGN OF THE CROSS 1
Santa Cruz
Holy Cross,
2 kunanmanta qespichiwayku,
deliver us now,
3 Dios yay, churi, Dios espritu
God the Father, Son and Holy
4
santo.
Ghost.
Chay desgracia, chay llaki-
This misfortune, his griefs, all
kuchian, chaykuna maymuman,
this go away to the river,
5 padre espiritu santo,
Father Holy Ghost,
6
Dios espiritu santo,
God the Holy Ghost,
7
Dios espiritu santo,
God, the Holy Ghost,
8
Dios espiritu santo,
God the Holy Ghost,
9
chiki, chiki, chiki
10 maymuman, maymuman kunaqa!
sorrow, sorrow, sorrow away to the river, to the river now away!
The Christian symbol (the sign of the cross) and the invocation of the holy Trinity in the consecration of the mesa underline the aim of this healing ritual: away (the grief) - down to the river. But it is not only through the words in this prayer and the gestures, but also through shape that the cross symbolism is expressed. They make crosses out of red carnations. These crosses of flowers are prepared by Ignacio. He takes the bright red, short stemmed carnations and lays them one on top of the other to form three "spokes". This cross of spokes is then bound together with left-spun thread to form a cross of carnations. Three such crosses are made, two of which are placed above, and one below the nests. It would be wrong to think, however, that everyone looks on solemnly, keeping a solemn silence, wearing solemn expressions. A Kallawaya healing ritual - and certainly one performed by Valentin - is a relaxed, gentle, loose, free-flowing experience which means that people chat to each other occasionally, that the children play about on the 55
brushwood bed. Outside, far away, you can hear the soft tones of a zampona flute, which is also remarked upon. Apolinar remembers that someone should check on the guinea pig in the sack. Juana carries on peeling potatoes. One of the men goes out to urinate. A spider is caught. Somebody complains briefly about the fleas which seem to eat you up here. And naturally we all chew coca leaves, which is both a routine as well as a ritual action.
Sketch 2.1: Sketch of the mesa And the proceedings themselves are not bound by ritual inflexibility. Not even the ingredients. There are, of course, central, universal elements for both the prayers and the ceremonial act itself. But at the core of these a great variation is nevertheless possible. And for this reason very few "mistakes" are made. Should the untu (tallow) be put in now or later? It is really not that important. The mesa has been consecrated but the untu of the sheep and pig are only added now. And then the completed mesa is consecrated again making the sign of the cross and invoking God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This consecration and invocation of the Trinity is, however, only one of the acts which give the mesa power. The second act - at the
56
same time a symbolic gesture of the banishment of grief - is the sevenfold blowing out of a candle. The third act is the ch'alla, which is included in almost all Kallawaya healing rituals. Three candles are lit. The number has no significance. Ignacio passes Valentin one of our candles. Valentin bends down low over the candle and blows it out with a strong "puuh" and hands it back to Ignacio, who then passes him another, lighting the extinguished candle again before giving it back to Valentin. This happens seven times, seven times a candle is blown out over the mesa. There are also seven nests, one for Apolinar, for each of the four children present, and the cooking and dispense hut (the mourning huts). And the accompanying prayer fades beneath sighs to a mere "naming": VALENTÍN'S PRAYER WHILE BLOWING OUT THE CANDLES 1 Chay desgracia,
This misfortune,
2 oracionniyki,
your prayer,
3 oración, oración, hay ... hay
prayer, prayer ... ay... ay...
4 hay, desgracia, oración,
ay... misfortune, prayer, prayer,
oración, oración, 5 hay, oración, oración, oración, oración, oración,
prayer, ay...
prayer,
prayer,
prayer,
prayer, prayer,
6 desgracia, chikin,
misfortune, his sorrow,
7 hay ... kay oracionniyki
ay... ay... this your prayer,
8 chikin, hayyy ... hay ... kunan
his sorrow ayyy... ay., now go
riuinki!
away!.
What does Valentin mean with the incantation of "your prayer" - then shortened to the call "prayer, prayer, prayer"? This becomes clear when the third sign of the cross is made over the mesa by Valentin, following the sevenfold extinguishing of the candles:
57
VALENTIN'S PRAYER WHILE CONSECRATING THE MESA WITH THE SIGN OF THE CROSS FOR THE THIRD TIME 1 Santa Cruz,
Holy Cross,
2 kunanmanta qespichiwayku,
deliver us now,
3 Dios yaya, churi, espíritu
God the Father, Son and Holy
santo. 4 Kay oracionwan urakapunki maymuman, 5 maymuman chay desgracian,
Ghost. With this prayer you will go away to the river, away to the river, this misfortune,
6 Dios espíritu santo, maymuman urakapunki.
God the Holy Ghost you will go away to the river.
So the "prayer" is a Christian prayer - the plea to the Trinity for salvation, a fragment from the Lord's Prayer ; and the "you" referred to is the Holy Trinity, which will carry away grief and sorrow to the river. And the last act of consecration for the mesa performed by Valentin is the ch'alla - a central element of all Kallawaya healing rituals. There are medicine men who generally work in silence and there are "priests" who accompany every minute of their ritual act with the beat of prayer. However, if a quieter, more taciturn medicine man, more sparing in his gestures, does not pray during the ch'alla, then he is not a true medicine man. The ch'alla is the sprinkling of the mesa with pure alcohol, or in other types of healing rituals, with red wine or blood from a sacrificial animal. Ignacio fills a small tumbler with pure alcohol and passes it to Valentín. Valentin then sprinkles the three carnation crosses on the mesa and then the seven nests, and passes the tumbler back to Ignacio, who then does the same. The sprinkling is direct - without the flower or plant mostly used for the purpose otherwise. Just a few drops are taken direct from the cup and allowed to trickle onto the ritual gifts, and Valentin says:
58
VALENTIN'S PRAYER DURING THE CH'ALLA WITH PURE ALCOHOL 1 Chaywan kunan apakunki
At the best carry it away,
sumajta arí, 2 hayyy! machasqa machasqa
ay! drunken, drunken you will go to the river,
maymuman ripunki, 3 maymuman,
maymuman,
to
the
river,
to
the
river,
maymuma,n
maymuman,
to
the
river,
to
the
river,
to the river!
maymuman! 4 Chikin, desgracian, chikin,
sorrow, sorrow, sorrow,
chikin, chikin, 5 kunan apakarinkichis
His sorrow, his misfortune, his
sumajta.
away with it completely.
6 Hay! hay ... hayyyyyyyyyy!
Ay! ay ... ayyyyyyyy!
1 Tinkayki, tinkayki, tinkayki,
It is your ch'alla, your ch'alla,
tinkayki! - hayyy! 8 Dios espíritu santo. Jinata kachun, amén.
ch'alla, ch'alla - ay! God Holy Ghost. Be it like this. Amen.
And with this "amen" the first phase of the healing is closed. The central point of the act in this first phase is the preparation and the consecration of the mesa. The nests and the flower crosses have been imbued with the goal of the llaki wijch'una - "away with sorrow" - in a variety of ways. Now the aim is to bring these symbolic preparations into contact with those who are to be purged of sorrow. For this a considerable amount of preparation is necessary. The ball of left-spun sheep's wool is used, with which the flower crosses have already been bound. Ignacio hands the nests, flower crosses and left-spun thread to Valentin, who then ties them up. First the nest in which all the ingredients are safely enclosed is tied into a small, tight ball. Then three of the nests are tied to a flower cross each, and last of all the remaining four nests are tied. The left-spun thread is tied off to the left, giving double expression to 60
the idea: "Now things will turn around and will not go on as before, but take the opposite direction." (L-III) This act - as a further form of the symbolic intensification of the desired effect - is accompanied by long prayers: VALENTIN'S PRAYER WHILE TYING UP THE QTNTOS AND FLOWER CROSSES WITH LEFT-SPUN THREAD 1 Chay desgracian, chikin urakaponqa mari 2 desgracian, chikin, desgracian, chikin, 3 chiki, chiki, chiki, desgracia ...
This his misfortune, his sorrow, away with them his misfortune, his sorrow, his misfortune, his sorrow sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, misfortune ...
4 desgracia, chiki,
misfortune, sorrow,
5 chikin, chikin, chikin, chikin,
his sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, his
chikin, chikin,
suffering, sorrow, sorrow,
6 kay desgracia, chikin,
this misfortune, his sorrow,
7 llakikuchuian, chay
his grief, his thoughts, this his
pensionakuchian, chay chikin, 8 chikin, chikin, chikin, desgracian 9 llakikuchian ima chicapas, 10
pensonakuskan,
sorrow, his sorrow, his sorrow, his sorrow, his misfortune, his mourning wherever, his thoughts,
11 chaykuna llakikusqan
this grief,
12 chikin, chikin, chikin, hayy,
his sorrow, his sorrow, his sor-
hayyyy, hayyyy! ... 13 Chay pi llakikusqan, chay pensonakusqan, 14 chikin, chikin, chikin, chikin, chikin ...
row, ay! ayyy! ayyyy! ... Here
his
grief,
these
his
thoughts, his sorrow, his sorrow, his sorrow, his sorrow...
(and so on, repeated almost a hundred times)
61
Thus during the ceremonial act those elements that have also been integrated into the nests and the flower crosses with the symbolic movement of the change of direction and the symbolic ingredients of the change of direction, are endlessly evoked: his sorrow, his grief, his misfortune, his dark thoughts should go away. And finally Valentin consecrates the tied up bundles with one further ch'alla of pure alcohol - the ch'alla is an offering to the holy places which, (embracing the ultimate sense of Andean reciprocity) once having been offered something, will then do something in return. This is a gift for you and now drive out sorrow! VALENTIN'S PRAYER DURING THE CH'ALLA OF THE BUNDLES: 1 Kay tinkayki, tinkayki, tinkayki, tinkayki,
This is your libation, your libation, your libation,
2 kunanqa qan apakanki,
you will take it away now,
3 lliju wawakunamanta,
away from all children,
4 wasimanta,
away from the hut,
5 hayyy machasqa purinki,
ayyy drunk you will go,
6 ujyasqa apakanki - hayyyy!
drunk you will carry it away ay!
The bundles are ready, consecrated. A nest and flower cross bundle is first tied to Apolinar, then to each of the children, to their chest, just below their throat on their bare skin. The two smallest children are only given one nest ball; they are already sleeping soundly, they start to whimper as Ignacio tries to find his way through the muddle of blankets, clutter and small bodies, looking for a way to tie the nests to them. Two bundles remain on the floor, on the black cloth of the mesa, the two nests for the cooking and dispense huts (cf. below). While Ignacio is busy putting the bundles on the children, Valentin 62
turns to Apolinar and instructs him once more in what he now has to do for the bundles to achieve their effect: Kunanqa tata, Ili jota pensanki, q'alata pensanki, purinki, imaynatachus llakikunki, warmiykipas purinki, imaynatachus llakikunki, wamiykipas
imaynatachus imaynatachus,
imaynatachus
llkikun, kayqa q'alata kayman willanki, chaymin mayu apakasunki. Hayy Jesus, Maria y José, kayqa chikin - q'alata willanki, haber pensankichaypi!
Chayta lloke ladupi akullinki,
ari; jina nasqalla purinqeqa. Mayuman llijota maymuman, kay pensakusqay-kuna,
tokaykupunki,
hay llakikusqaykuna
nispa!
And now, tata, you will think of everything, absolutely everything: of the change you are going through, how you are suffering, and how your wife suffered, too. All this you will confide to this (bundle) and with it, carry everything to the river and away. Ayy, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this his sorrow, you will confide every-thing to the bundle and transfer everything to it. And this (coca) you will now chew on the left, yes, and thus healed, you will change. You will spit everything into the river and say: into the river with all these thoughts, all this grief. But things are not over with the tying on of the nests and the flower crosses. Ignacio ties a left-spun thread in a double knot around Apolinar's neck, as well as around both wrists and ankles. Justina, the eldest daughter, is tied likewise, whilst the three smallest children, sleeping on the brushwood bed, only have the strings tied round their neck and wrists "so that they don't wake up, so that they don't cry". Compromises have to be made for tired children during the healing ritual. What Valentin conveyed with these few words above was an instruction, assurance, and an insight into what was still to come in the healing. And we all chew coca. Offering each other small bunches of coca leaves 63
- a sign of care and sympathy. Nothing happens. We chat. Cigarettes are handed round. Juana is busy at the stone hearth. The children have quietened down and we can hear little Fidel snoring again. Everyone has lit a cigarette. Valentin bends low over the mesa and blows his smoke strongly over the two remaining bundles - for her who died in the hut, and was sick here, he murmurs. For one of the bundles is meant for this hut. Ignacio also blows over the bundles. And Apolinar bends low over them. And so three, four heads bend over the mesa simultaneously and blow smoke onto the bundles. The smoke will increase their effect. It is a situation of great intensity. Everyone comes together and acts together in the gesture of blowing. Just as the smoke is expelled, so for you the sorrow should ease. Ash from the cigarettes is scattered over the bundles and the cigarette butts placed in them. The chewed coca leaves are also stuffed into the bundles. All these leftovers which have absorbed some of the sorrow in us are collected and are later surrendered to the river. They cannot simply be left on the floor of the hut as they would otherwise be. The hut has to be clear of all sorrow; we would only be spreading sorrow everywhere anew. As we smoke, drink and chew coca leaves, an involved discussion goes on about which point of the river in the ravine we can go to. Where is there enough space, where do the boulders provide the best balance? And who will go to the ravine? Not the little children, they should be left to sleep. Apolinar and Justina would go. Juana has got her own job to do here. She must stay and prepare the incense bowls and then welcome us back with incense. The medicine men will not return with us to the hut, not for anything in the world. They have completed the purification, they have taken away sorrow. And some of that sorrow, some of that misfortune may still be attached to them and they cannot risk returning to the purified hut with it! Apolinar and Justina are looking for a second set of clothes. The clothes are then placed in a tin bowl which can also be used as a food 64
dish. And what about the brew of crushed thorns? It has already been taken off the stone hearth and is cooling down, Juana tells us. We must not forget the guinea pig, says Justina - she knows what to do. And let's take candles with us, somebody says, it is pitch-black outside, best to have two candles, the wind might blow one out. And we must not forget the pure alcohol, either. With the advice and the preparations time slips by quietly. After a while (perhaps half an hour) Valentin starts the next phase. He turns to Ignacio and gives him the following instructions: Kunantajpuhunata
t'ipiy! Altosa t'ipiy! Llijurqomunki!
Wawakunamantaraj apakamunki! Samaykuchinki ari! Chay desgracia riponqa nispa samaykurqochinki! Chicamanta palata t'ipinapaj purinki! And now you will break (the threads) by the bed. And above (in the hut, where the clothes hang) you will break (the threads). You will go everywhere. And you will take the thread from the children. Let them blow onto it. Misfortune, away with you, you should say at the same time, and you will let them blow onto it. And then you will go up (to the other hut) to break (the threads) there. Ignacio goes to the brushwood bed where the three small children are sleeping. The first child he finds under the pile of blankets is little Fidel, he feels for his neck and then rigorously snaps the left spun thread in two. And then snaps it again above the child's forehead snaps the threads around his wrists and holds them once more over his forehead. He then takes the nest from under Fidel's shirt and purifies the child. The nest is rubbed gently over the child's body like a small sponge. And then the little boy has to breathe three times over the bundle and the remains of the thread in Ignacio's hand. Ignacio fol65
lows the same procedure with the other two children, and then, with the bundles and the threads, bends over the brushwood bed, purifying its legs too. He lifts the bundles high up in the air and briefly waves them towards the wooden poles under the roof of the hut on which clothes, cloth and hides are packed. Last of all he places the bundles and threads on the black cloth of the mesa, next to the two nest balls lying there. Grief and misfortune, however, as previously mentioned, are not only to be found in people, and it is not only people who have to be purified. Grief and misfortune are embedded in every corner of the hut and so each hut has to be purified too. With the two nests tied up into balls which were on the black mesa, and with a long piece of left-spun thread, Ignacio goes out into the night, first to the upper hut - the death hut. With one of the nests the door frame is carefully purified. At each of its corners left-threads are broken accompanied by a murmur of troca-troca (change, change). And the same process is carried out with the door frame of our cooking hut, using the other nests and more left-spun thread. It is above all the door that has to be purified, it is the door where the troca must take place, as it is through the door that you pass in and out and where misfortune passes in through the door and out again. Through the purification this access is barred. After the three small children, as those who have been most directly affected by the death of their mother, have been purified along with the two huts, we prepare to depart. Valentin turns once again to Apolinar and gives him his bearings, assurance and instructions before the descent to the river. Kikinp'achapi
t'ispiqayki llijuta. Llijuta t'ipikasaj! Chay
apakaskaykiqa! Waj p'achawan churaykurikunkiqa. kaya quedaponqa. Mana chay, t'ipikayman
Mayupi
kasqap'achaykilla-
wantaj chikaqa kutimunman, mana allin kanmanchu. Chaywan, modaykuspa, jampunki, waj ladunta jampunki. 66
Pakarintaj mari tajsarqonman mamayki. Tajsarkospa chayachipunman, chayta incensiowan azarispa nakupuway. Qankunacaj jampullankakuqa. Noqaykucajlla mañana kutimusajkuchu. Ripusajkuqa. - Qan chayman simanapacha ama kayllankichu! Wajnillantaj purinki. Chiqa allin! From these your present clothes I will tear all away from you (take away through the breaking of the threads). Everything to do with grief and misfortune I will tear from you. I will take it away from you. Then you will put on these other clothes. The old ones will be left at the river. If we don't do it this way, if you go back in the same clothes in which I freed you from grief by breaking the threads, then things cannot go well! So you will return (to the hut) having changed your clothes; and you will return to the hut by a different route. And tomorrow your mother can wash (the old clothes). And she will return them to you washed. And then once they have been treated with incense you can wear your old clothes again. You will all go back (to the hut). But we will not come back. We will go straight home from the river. And you will not come near this point of the river for a week! You will take other paths. Then all will be well! And so we leave. We take with us the jug with the thorn water; candles, alcohol, coca; the guinea pig in a small dark sack; our black table cloth with the broken threads, the nests, the deposits from smoking and chewing coca leaves; the bowl with the new clothes.
67
1.5 Purification ritual at the river in the gorge phases four and five The night is very dark. We first have to climb over a low wall and feel our way along the back wall of the hut, then we start going down hill. Through thick undergrowth. The bushes give off an indescribable smell. Large boulders lie on the ground. I ask myself how Valentin can manage the descent, Ignacio lights the way for him with my torch. I can see almost nothing. Obviously we are not on a path. Progress is slow. I hold tight onto the back of the man in front of me, trying to feel my way with my feet. I am completely intoxicated by the smell of the bushes. The roar of the river gets louder and louder, drowning our voices, (and on the tape recording too.) We each try to find a suitable stone on the bank where we can stand, water rushing past us. Valentin stands on the largest and puts down the black mesa cloth tied in a bundle, opens it and lights two candles. First we exchange coca and smoke a cigarette in the night. Valentin waves his cigarette back and forth in the air - towards the holy places - blows the smoke high in the air with a gesture signifying "away with you! Away!" - and we copy him. No ash must be allowed to fall here either, nor can the cigarette butts simply be thrown away. We make our way to Valentin's boulder and collect all the rubbish on the black cloth. Everyone takes a sip of pure alcohol. I perch myself next to Valentin on the large stone. He lets a few drops from the glass fall on to the black cloth, then he takes a drink, raises the glass high and calls clearly: "May the river take away everything!" And then he pours the rest of the glass into the river. He gestures that we should do the same. Ignacio then opens the sack with the guinea pig, which he passes to Valentin. The animal is held by the neck in a special way. Apolinar is motioned to come closer. The animal's snout is pressed tight against Apolinar's throat. And so they remain, the medicine man and Apolinar. Then Apolinar has to breathe three times onto the guinea pig's snout. 68
The same is done for Justina, then the assistants, and then me. When Valentin presses the animal's snout against my throat I can feel its teeth but find that it apparently cannot bite as it is being pressed too hard against me. It can hardly breathe and gasps against my throat. It almost feels as if it were sucking on my throat. And in actual fact this is what the animal should do, it should suck out all the bad, it should suck out misfortune, grief and everything negative, this is its function in the healing ritual. But the guinea pig has one further task, a "prognostic" one. Valentin passes the guinea pig to Ignacio on the other stone. Killing the guinea pig is always the task of the assistant in a healing ritual. A finger nail is pressed against the animal's throat and with the finger nail its throat is slit open and the body torn open with both hands to reveal the heart, lungs and intestines. Ignacio shows Valentin the entrails. Apolinar and the others join him. We all bend over the guinea pig, now dripping blood, and hold up a candle. The heart is still beating. An excellent sign! And the entrails also show nothing that could be interpreted negatively. The healing will therefore be successful, the river will carry away grief, and Ignacio throws the guinea pig into the river. Could there still be any remains of the misfortune and grief in us which we share to a certain extent with Apolinar? We smoke another cigarette and expel the bad out of us over the black cloth. The ash from our cigarettes, the butts and the remains of the coca leaves chewed on the left side of our mouths are deposited on it too. Apolinar and Justina are still wearing the nest and cross of flowers on their breasts, as well as the left-spun threads around their necks, ankles and wrists. Valentin beckons Apolinar to him and with an intense expression pulls the threads from his neck and tears them apart in front of Apolinar's neck and forehead. And just as rigorously he then pulls one thread followed by the other from Apolinar's wrists and ankles, snapping them into smaller and smaller strands. While doing 70
this he prays, though the roar of the river drowns it out. All the threads are then placed on the black cloth. Now Valentin receives the nest/cross of flowers/bundle that up until now Apolinar has worn on his breast; Apolinar pulls his hat off his head; he bows before Valentin and Valentin begins a very thorough and careful bodily purification of Apolinar: his head, face, neck, shoulders, body and down both legs, then his arms, both sides of hands, and his back. And then he has Apolinar breathe three times on the bundle. I only hear once, like distant calls, the now familiar words of the magic prayer formulae: VALENTÍN'S PRAYER WHILE PURIFYING APOLINAR WITH THE Q'INTO 1 Chay desgracian, chikin,
This his misfortune, his sorrow,
2 chay desgracia, chikin riponqa,
this his misfortune, his sorrow - away with it,
3 maymumana riponqa, maymuman, maymuman,
down to the river,to the river, to the river, to the river,
maymuman, 4 chiki, chiki, chiki...
sorrow, sorrow, sorrow ...
In the same way the threads are torn from Justina's body and she is also cleansed from head to foot. And again Ginés and I are included in the ceremony. After all, couldn't we have also attracted misfortune to ourselves in the hut? Especially myself who has been in and out of the hut so often, who has visited Pastora and her grave, who has carried the children and brought food to the hut? This, as Apolinar explained to me later, is why Valentin breaks all the threads in front of me first, in front of my forehead, neck, breast, stomach, in front of both wrists and feet - and after, more quickly, only in front of Ginés' forehead. And I also breathe three times onto the broken threads in Valentin's hand - expelling the last of the badness from me - and Valentin places everything together on the black cloth. Once again we take the bad71
ness out of us and remove it: we now spit our chewed coca leaves hard onto the dark cloth. I cannot understand why Apolinar is rummaging about in his pockets of his jacket and trousers. He eventually takes out a piece of crumpled paper and looks at it, and then throws in onto the black cloth. Then a match, and throws it onto the cloth as well. Then he takes out a nail. A nail is very valuable here! You can see Apolinar hesitate visibly before he eventually throws it onto the black cloth too. Everything must remain here, everything must be given over to the river; even the nail, if brought back, might bring misfortune back to the hut. This misfortune is like a contagious disease, it sticks every-where, it has to be removed radically, any half measures would compromise the whole healing ritual. And so Apolinar even has to take off his clothes and remove everything that was in them. He undresses down to his underpants, Ignacio pours water from the earthenware pot in which the thorn plants were boiled into the bowl that we brought with us, and Apolinar washes himself with the brew of thorns. Not quickly, not "symbolically", but very thoroughly and vigorously, his face, head and hair, ears and neck, torso and arms, stomach, back and legs. And then he spits hard once more into the bowl before the water is poured into the river in a sweeping curve. In the meantime Ignacio has found a stone the size of a fist on the river bank. As if he were washing Apolinar again, in the same movement as the nest purification, or as if he were drying him, Ignacio now moves the stone lightly over his naked body. He then spits hard on the stone and throws it into the river. All of Apolinar's removed clothes lie in a pile on the ground, he takes off his final piece of clothing and then gets dressed again in the complete set of new clothes that we had brought down to the river. Meanwhile for Justina fresh thorn water is poured from the jug and into the bowl. She removes her outer clothing, under which she has a large cross of Christ on a thick chain. She washes 72
herself, spits into the water, is rubbed down with two small stones, and spits on the stones. The water and stones are thrown into the river and Justina puts on fresh new clothes. So what is the significance of all these events at the river? The guinea pig: to suck out bad. Breathing on it, spitting on it: to ease the grief. Ripping the threads: to tear out the sorrow. And the stone: to dispatch the grief to the stone so it can no longer be felt. (L-III) Valentin had already instructed us up in the hut: nothing old must return to the hut. The pot in which the thorn brew was made is thrown into the river; I watch it shatter on a rock. It must be smashed, Apolinar explains to me later, so that no-one present dies. The washing bowl is also dispatched into the river. And the black cloth is also tied up and likewise thrown into the river. Nothing remains. Only the pile of clothes. They remain at the riverside for Juan to pick up to-morrow. Apolinar may only wear these clothes again once someone else has washed them and sprinkled them with incense. Our ways part. The medicine men go down along the banks of the river. Apolinar, Justina, Gines and I climb back up to the hut - this time it has to be by another route. We must on no account look back. Again I notice the intense smell of the flowering bushes, the wild herbs. And the roar of the river in the gorge grows ever softer. Up on the edge of the gorge you can see a faint shimmer. It is the door of the hut. We enter in single file, each of us is greeted by Juana with the smoking brasera (incense bowl). She swings the bowl over each of our heads as we enter, and then under our hands. The incense is a consecration, confirmation, pacification, renewal. We all hug each other and wish each other good luck! Then we share a meal together. It is the soup which Juana and Justina prepared on the stone hearth in the hut during the healing ritual. We chat and laugh, we enjoy the hot soup. It was cold by the river, says Justina, and how dark it was, I have never seen a night so dark as it was this evening ... That is good for banishing grief, Apolinar assures her. 74
2.
MARIANO'S DEATH. GRIEF THERAPY FOR A FAMILY THAT HAS LOST ITS FATHER
2.1
The medicine man Mariano
Rather shy, very modest, and yet a little mischievous too, concerned for his patients and with an impressive gift for prayer - these were my impressions of Mariano when I first met him on 24 th of August 1984.1 was allowed to take part in a healing ritual for an old man. The old man was a mestizo. Before the Bolivian agrarian revolution he was a big landowner; he was also a civil servant for a time. Today he lives alone with his two sisters on his reduced estate in the valley by the river. Daniel, the old man, is lying in bed. He has rheumatism, headaches, circulatory problems. He is generally tired of life with no real will to live. His wife is long dead. His children have gone. His eyesight is too poor to read and his legs too weak to walk - one day just drags into the next. Mariano sits at a small table in front of Daniel's bed, listening. He turns with his whole body to the sick man, always asking questions. Then he carefully prepares a double yuraj mesa (a white sacrificial preparation) which "con el Senor" (with the Lord God) and with the sacred places (lugar, lugarniyoq) - through the intervention of the cabildo, the place of sacrifice in his hut. This should help the elderly man come to terms with his life. Mariano does not pray every moment, but he does pray intensively and at length on a personal level about his patient. And later on in the night, outside, kneeling before the place of offering in the yard, Mariano calls on the messenger Ankari, the wind, the servant of the sacred places who carries the sacrifice to the sacred places. The sacrifices may allow the patient to recover. After this healing ritual I got to know Mariano more closely. I invited him to my hut where I prepared a coca tea for him, and we talked about his village (Inca), and other subjects (1-5). Three months 75
later Mariano was dead, leaving behind a wife and six children, the cows, his fields - without an extended family in the background to help. He suddenly fell ill. And within four or five days he was dead.
2.2 Mariano's sudden death - what happened? I was away for almost four months. I brought a lovely photograph back with me which I wanted to give to Mariano, one which showed him laughing so mischievously. And I learned of his death. I had gone to Inca where quite by chance I met Carlota, Mariano's wife. I did not know her. "Give her the picture, that'll please her!" my research assistant, Gines, said. I gave Carlota the photograph of Mariano and she burst into tears. I met Severo, too. He is the eldest son, twenty-one years old. He has not followed his father on the healing path. Instead he has become a tailor and has even worked in La Paz for a while. But now he is needed here, the whole family has no other male adult. The next brothers are thirteen and ten years of age. He said it would be hard to make a living now, especially with the fields and the pastures. And then there was the feeling of mourning that returned again and again. And have you had yourselves healed of the mourning? I asked. No we haven't, it's too expensive, the alcohol and coca leaves, they all cost money - Perhaps I can help a little, get some alcohol and coca leaves? - "That would be wonderful," said Severo and he talked to his mother. She was pleased and both agreed that I could take part in the healing ritual. - But what had happened? Carlota: Kay Alvarota misachikuy, chay jawalla karqan. Sabadota ujyachiaky. Domingota ujyachiaku. Lunesta onkosqa pakarerkopunqay, costadojina. Custipasqacha karqan. Mana unancharqoykuchu ara. 76
Severo adds: Sabadotaqa ujyaspa kaynarqoyku. Domingotaqa chirijinapaqarirqon.
Manaponchoyoj,
q'ara uma
puriykachasqa, tomasqa kaypi, jinapi, arí. Paqarirquska mal arí. Tawa p'unchaynoij
jinalla!
Carlota: Noqa ponchoykuy, nini. Izkaymi ponchokunapas kan, nichiani. Ponchoykuy, chirisunki,
nispa.Mana,
q'ellicharqoyman, nin. J jinapi mauka ponchowan
churaykusqa.
Chirichá pasarqon. Severo: Kay hermanitoy primerota onqoykorqan. Kaycaj wañujina karqan! Iskay simanaa karipun ... Tatayqa chay onkochinayoj kapun, chay onkosqawan
cambiarqopun
papsitoywan. Entonces, paypaj chay inyecciówan mejorarqopun. Ultimo caloría quitarkon. Popitoycajta ultima calor ultimarkopun puni arí. Carlota: Injección pisiparqochin! Chay runa - mana valikunipaschu chay inyección churajta
pusarqomusqa.
Carlota: We had a mass prepared for Alvaro. On Saturday we drank (alcohol). And on Sunday we drank. And on Monday he woke up ill. Something to do with his lungs. He must have had something wrong with his lungs. We didn't realise it at first. Severo adds: We spent the whole Saturday drinking. Then on Sunday he woke up shivering. He had been chasing around without a poncho, so drunk, well, yes ... He woke up ill. And then he only had about four days left! Carlota: Put your poncho on, I told him. We do have two ponchos, I tell him. Cover yourself up otherwise you'll freeze, I tell 77
him. No. I might get the poncho dirty, he says. So he only put on an old poncho. The cold must have got to him. Severo: My small brother here was ill first. He almost died! It went on for two weeks... My father must have caught it from him. My father fell ill with this sickness. Anyway the injection helped the boy and his high temperature went down. The high temperature finished off my father, though. Carlota: The injection only made him worse. This person came - without my asking him to! - and gave him an injection. At this point it must be said who "this person" refers to and who Alvaro is, the man referred to at the beginning of this litany of suffering. Not far from Mariano and his family lived Alvaro R. ( old, frail and ill. Mariano had taken care of the sick man, who towards the end had neglected himself. "He wet his bed," Carlota said, "and my husband had to clean it up." Apart from the fields, which he had also neglected, he possessed nothing. Not even clothes - apart from the rags he walked around in. His only son was already dead. And then he died himself. There's no family left. Who should bury him? Mariano was approached: "You do it," they said. "You knew each other." "I'll go home and ask my wife," answered Mariano, "I'll see what she says." After all, this is not a simple decision. Burying someone involves duties that continue for three years and cost a lot of money. First of all a mass has to be read, and that costs money! The burial itself is an occasion requiring plenty to eat and drink. And Mariano, who took on the task - "After all, we can't just shove him under the ground, and of course he did live near us" - slaughtered one of his sheep, Carlota cooked for all the mourners (anyone from the village could come), and Mariano eventually came up with a tin canister of alcohol. But the dead man also had to be dressed. As all he had in life 78
were rags. Mariano had given him a new pair of trousers, "Yes, my father put a new pair of trousers on the corpse," Severo stressed. But the duties do not stop with the funeral. The three All Saints following the death are an opportunity for extensive remembrance of the dead, a table for gifts is set up with food and drink, a lot of bread has to be baked. And in the graveyard, at the dead man's grave, everything is shared amongst those who have come to pray for the deceased. The excessive drinking - "We drank all Saturday and Sunday" was because of Alvaro's burial. And then Mariano fell ill. And then there was a man in the village, and this man came - without being asked, as Carlota said - and gave the sick boy and man an injection ... Now a burial by "strangers" such as this has yet another rather delicate aspect - and this was certainly a major consideration in the decision to bury Alvaro. The old man still had fields and land. It goes without saying that anyone burying a dead man without a family, with no direct heirs, receives some of this land - after all, he would have had the high costs of the burial and all the ensuing duties. Although nobody actually wants to take on these duties, the fact that land could go to the person who does take on the task is nevertheless sufficient cause for jealousy - especially when it is someone like Mariano. For Mariano was hard-working - industrious in his fields and also successful on his healing journeys - and he had amassed a considerable amount of property - a great deal of land Carlota stressed again and again. "We've got a huge amount of land, large fields, he and I, we have got vast, vast fields, and sheep, donkeys and cows." People are jealous. Envy exists. And Carlota was convinced: "People's jealousy was a major factor in Mariano's death!" Here there is an unspoken connection which explains why jealousy can be fatal. The unspoken connection is the black healing ritual (witchcraft). But how this could kill will only be dealt with in a later study. For the present we are only concerned with this suggestion of 79
witchcraft as one of the subjective death "theories" of those affected. And yet another is added - also a theory to do with killing. Carlota had reported that this man came uninvited and had not been called, and he gave Mariano's sick son and Mariano himself an injection. And as we heard above, the boy improved and his temperature dropped - but it "finished o f f ' Mariano. In any event Mariano was ill for no more than four or five days before he died. Hardly more than two months after I had experienced his healing ritual for Daniel and had drunk coca tea with him. He died in 1984, a few days before All Saints Day. And he left behind Carlota, his wife (apart from a nephew who lives in La Paz she has no relatives), Severo, 21 years old, his eldest son; Valentin (13), who was attending the secondary school and had also accompanied his father on healing trips, together with his younger brother Oscar, who was 10. Celia, the only girl, was 9 years old. And then there were two more small boys, Elias Trino (5) and Abraham, who had just turned 3. The job of tending the fields would fall mainly to Severo now. Valentin and Oscar would be responsible for taking the animals to the distant pastures. Celia helped in the home and the kitchen.
2.3
Healers, context of healing and preparation
for
healing
In the conversations between Severo and Carlota it had been decided that the healing ritual should take place. The healing would have to be carried out by a medicine man from another village. Mariano had already explained this to me: you don't heal in your own village, never, unless it is your own children, your own family. As healers "these brothers from Chajaya" were suggested. Who are these "brothers from Chajaya" who have been brought into the conversation? There are four: Severo, Enrique, Julio and Poli80
carpio Ticona. All four brothers are medicine men. Their father and a son of Severo's, Porfideo, are also medicine men. They live in Peru and practise their craft in Trujillo. Delightful, warm and competent as Enrique might be, he also struck me as being a bit of a rogue. Carlota and Severo had decided that his brother, Severo, would perform the llaki wijch'una for Mariano's family. At the time that the llaki wijch'una was due to take place, however, Enrique claimed that Severo would be away collecting oranges from Carijana (a journey of several days). Carlota and Severo therefore agreed, apparently, that he, Enrique, should perform the healing, together with his colleague Marcelino. But it turned out that Severo had not gone to Carijana at all, leading to an initially extremely funny situation arising. As night was falling I went up to the village of Inca with the medicine men Enrique and Marcelino, who had also collected all the necessary ingredients for the healing ritual (except for coca leaves and alcohol and, of course, cigarettes which it was my job to provide) .We took a break by a cabildo (a place of sacrifice) and chewed coca. We had plenty of time - it had to be dark before we arrived in Inca at the house of Mariano's family. Such things are better left till dark, the men emphasised. And then Severo appeared, hurrying up the mountain to arrive, naturally, at the appointed time for the ceremony. And as helper, or colleague, he had brought his son, the medicine man Porfideo. Oh good Lord: four medicine men! That's impossible! But evidently the situation which resulted was only amusingly odd for me. They greeted each other politely, sat down and chewed coca. We would, it seemed, be arriving with four medicine men. And that was indeed the case. In the dark of night the four medicine men arrived at Inca. It was hard to find Mariano's hut and we had to ask for help several times, in itself a tricky business because in such a small village everyone immediately asks "What's going on there?" Directions are usually vague ("just there!", "further up!" "carry straight on until you 81
get there", and so on), so that we found ourselves wandering about along steep, narrow, stony paths between mud huts and fenced off pastures. Completely unfazed, Carlota greeted the unexpectedly large number of medicine men and led us into the large hut, saying she would soon bring us a little something to fortify ourselves. And Carlota and Severe were perfectly happy with the four medicine men. We had had a long climb and so Carlota prepared us a fortifying meal, an attentive and hospitable gesture. We were given a steaming soup full of tasty herbs, several bowls of boiled potatoes and some mugs of hot milk. The large hut we were sitting in, next to the smaller kitchen hut, was about 4-5 x 3 metres. As is usual, it had no windows. The only furniture was a bed, a table, a bench and two chairs. There was no light. Generally you just squat on the clay floor. I lit two candles and placed them on the table in the corner so we were able to see what we were eating. Severe, the son, sat down with us and one after the other Carlota and her other children came too. Carlota and the three small children squatted on the floor opposite the bench on which the four medicine men were sitting. Gines and I sat on the edge of the bed. The two eldest sons, Severe and Valentin, sat on small stools and Oscar, the third son, kept close to Valentin. They sat in such a way that the circle was closed. There were thirteen of us in the hut. We chatted first of all, chewed coca and handed it around. And the conversation gradually came round to the reason for the meeting. And taking their time and going into great detail, each adding to what the other had said, encouraged by questions from the medicine men, Carlota and her son Severe told us about Mariano's life and death. And a lot of other things were talked about. Gossip about others; who was in the village, who had come and who had gone; who was ill, had lost cattle, had married, was having an affair; who was bad or good, who knew something and who did not - all this had its place in the conversation too. 82
Every now and then short instructions and short prayers were added by the medicine men: we should chew our coca on the left side of our mouth, even the smallest child should chew at least one coca leaf. The chewed coca leaves may not then be thrown away - it must be collected on a piece of plastic cloth that Carlota has found from somewhere. The cigarette butts and ash had to be collected, too. Every now and then the two older medicine men, the brothers Severo and Enrique, raised a bundle of coca leaves in their hands and waved them in the air a little (before cramming them into their mouths) and prayed. Or they waved their cigarettes in the air and puffed out the smoke vigorously in the direction of the plastic waste sheet with all the leftovers and prayed at the same time. It was as if the prayer were a totally natural part of the flow of conversation and in no way removed from it. PRAYERS BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE PREPARATION OF THE MESA 1 (S.) Kunan tukuy desgracia, tukuy mal, jawaman! 2 (E.) Marianomanta tukuy desgracia, tukuy llaki llojsichun
(S.) All misfortune. All ill, now: leave this place! (E.) Leave Mariano's house: all misfortune, all mourning, leave!
aru 3 (S.) Tukuy chiji, tukuy
(S.) All sorrow, all problems,
problema, ni ima desgracia, ni
no misfortune, nothing (of this
ima kachun.
kind) should remain here.
4 (E.) Amaña kay wawitakunapas
(E)That sufrichunchu,
these
children
no
longer suffer,
5 llakikuna llojsipuchun arí,
go, mourning, go out,
6 apacheta pataman ripuchun,
up to the mountain passes it should go,
7 tukuy alma, tukuy nata, tukuy
all souls, all this, all misfortune
desgracia ... 83
8 (S.) Tukuy desgracia, tukuy llaki, tukuy mala gana 9 kay wawakunamanta
11
ing, all listlessness go from these children, go
llojsinnqa, 10 tukuy ovejanmanta,
(S.) All misfortune, all mourn-
away, vacamanta, from all sheep, from her cows,
wasinmanta,
12 tukuy kankuna kunan
from her hut, all mourning shall go out,
llojsipunqa 13 chunca izkaynioj apachetaman, up to the twelve passes in the camino cruz,
mountains, the crossing of the ways,
14 tukuy llaki, tukuy chiji
all mourning, all sorrow
15 llojsinqa kunan kay
ebb away from these children,
wawakunamanta, 16 kay
angelitokunamanta.
17 Kunan pichus uj gente envidioso,
from these little souls. And wherever there is a jealous person,
18 uj gente mala fé,
with ill intentions,
19 uj laduman kunanqa, waj
he should now step aside, to the
laduman,
other side,
20 kay laduman rinqa kunan
step to this side here,
21 chay chiji, kay llaki...
this sorrow, this mourning ...
22 (E.) Pichus maychus tataykita
(E.) Whoever did your father
malta ruwan 23 (S.) ajayon, espirun, chay laduman llojsinqa, kunan 24 tukuy llaki, tukuy desgracia, tukuy mala suerte 25 cambiakonqa kunanqa!
wrong, (S.) his soul is now on the other side, away with all mourning, all disaster, all misfortune now turn around!
Two things can be observed from these few lines. Firstly it can be seen that this kind of llaki wijch'una is to a certain extent a declaration 84
of property, a "public inventory": everything that belongs to the house and farm is listed, as everything that belongs to them must also be cleansed of disaster, sorrow and mourning - children and sheep and cows and huts... At the same time it is clear that prayers and incantations are not only being said for those in mourning, but also - if there are any such suspicions - against those who are jealous, against people with bad intentions; and these, like mourning, are wished far, far away - to the apachetas, the mountain passes, and to those places to which all negative things, be they mourning, misfortune, bewitchment or black magic, are traditionally assigned, to a crossroads. It is the crossing of the ways that is referred to in the prayers. - And later in the night we will leave and really take mourning to a crossing of the ways. Naturally moments of great sorrow arose, for instance when one of the medicine men said with sympathy "Mariano died too soon, he left us young, and he had left behind all the children", then Carlota spoke of her great sadness, and that of her son, of the tears, the sense of helplessness - but also of comfort. The conversation had continued until eight o'clock - we had been sitting together for an hour - and Enrique now declared the beginning of the healing ritual. Anyone wearing a hat now took it off, including Carlota. In the middle of our circle a black cloth, provided by Carlota, was placed on the floor. Everything that would be needed during the healing was spread out on this cloth:
INGREDIENTS FOR LLAKI WIJCH'UNA II 1. Black cloth as a tablecloth for the mesa, 2. a small piece of plastic sheet for rubbish, 3. two new earthenware jugs for the crushed thorn brew,
85
4. a washing bowl, 5. black alpaca wool, 6. a ball of left-spun black alpaca wool, 7. retama (gorse) and other thorny plants (not specified), 8. coca, 9. pure alcohol, 10. cigarettes, 11. kuti kuti, 12. wayruru, 13. kuti wisnancho, 14. sheep, pig and cow's tallow (untu).
2.4
The procedure of the healing ritual: overview and phase one and two
The healing begins with a long opening prayer from Severo, the eldest medicine man. The mesa - still unprepared - is blessed with the sign of the cross by hand, invoking the Trinity. Each of the mourners is included by name in the prayers, as well as the family's possessions. During the prayer Severo sprinkles the black mesa and the plants and ingredients lying on it with pure alcohol (ch'alla): SEVERO'S OPENING PRAYER, CONSECREATION AND CH'ALLA 1 Kunan Dios yaya, Dios churi, Espiritu Santo,
Now God the Father, God the Son and God The Holy Ghost
2 kunari, Josefat, Monjates,
and Josefat, Monjates,
3 kunan tukuy desgracia, kunan
all misfortune now, all mourn-
tukuy llaki, tukuy chiji kunan,
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ing, all sorrow
4 chunca izcaynioj
cabildo,
go out to the twelve cabildos
5 chunca izcaynioj
apachetaman
to the twelve passes in the
llojsinqa kunan haber
mountains
(sutiykiqa imán kasqa? -
name? - Carlota Mamani),
Carlota
(what
was
your
Mamani),
6 Carlota Mamnimita
llojsinqa
(kanpajri? - Severo
Cerdán)
from Carlota Mamani, sorrow should leave (and now, what is your name? - Severo Cerdan),
7 Severo Cerdán kunan (chay patapi maykentaj kan qanpaj
Severo Cerdan now (than: you? What's your name?)
sutiyki?) 8 Valentín Cerdán
kunanri...
and now Valentin Cerdan Oscar...
9 Oscar ... 10 Celia kunan espirituyki 11 kunan chunka
kachun, Celia, blessed be your spirit, twelve
izkaynioj
camino, chunka
paths
now,
twelve crossings of the ways,
izkaynioj
crucekuna, 12 tukuy llaki, tukuy desgracia haber (chay
next is?),
patapiri?),
13 Trino kunan espirituyki...
all sorrow, all misfortune (and
llaki, Trino, your spirit now -
the
sorrow, 14 tukuy desgracia, tukuy mala
all misfortune, all listlessness,
gana, tukuy llaki llojsinqa
all mourning leave (and after
(chikamantari?),
you?),
15 Abraham ... Espirito Santo ...
Abraham ... Holy Ghost...
The opening prayer has invoked the banishment of misfortune and sorrow (which are always named in one breath) for every single person, for every kind of animal and for every hut; the mesa is consecrated in the name of the Trinity and sprinkled with alcohol, and the aim of the healing ritual is stated once more: complete change, all misfortune should now leave, we shall banish mourning to a long way away. 87
And to ensure that mourning and misfortune can be banished to such a great distance, the brew of thorns has to be prepared. A large clay jug is filled with gorse, pieces of cactus (e.g. warakka) and other thorn plants - an act in which all the medicine men are involved and which is accompanied by short prayers. After the thorn plants have been placed in the jug, water is added and the jug is blessed by Severo making the sign of the cross. It is then taken to the fireplace in the cooking hut where the brew is left to simmer quietly. The course of the healing ritual - from the opening prayer which deals with the banishment of mourning, through to the "real" banishment of mourning in the night - can be divided up into five phases, depending on the focal point of the ritual act or the particular focus of attention and for the physical setting:
(1) Preparation of the mesa with sacrificial nests, (2) placing the nests on the bodies of the mourners, (3) purification ritual for the animals, (4) purification ritual of the hut, (5) purification ritual at the crossings of the ways.
(1) The preparation of the offering on the black cloth is carried out with full concentration, the medicine men working in close collaboration, and is accompanied by almost continuous prayer. On observing the co-operation between the medicine men a pattern begins to emerge. It is the youngest, Porfideo, the son of Severo, the eldest of the Ticona brothers, who carries out the role of assistant at the healing. He carries the clay jug with the thorn plants outside, he helps prepare the sacrificial nests, singling out good coca leaves for them, and so on, but he does not pray. Enrique is certainly the most active, giving instructions and directions ("Don't stop chewing the coca! And always
88
on the left, okay? And don't forget to put it here with the rubbish when you've finished chewing") and praying extensively - but it seems as though the blessing of the clay jug and the mesa with the sign of the cross gestured by hand are left to Severo, the eldest. (As in the previous healing Ignacio, old Valentin's son, never blessed the mesa with the sign of the cross.) Otherwise the acts are completed jointly, or at least with no obvious division, by the three elder medicine men, Severo, Enrique and Marcelino. The mesa is prepared in six steps: (1) Preparation of the nests. From the black alpaca wool seven nests the size of grapefruits are prepared, one nest for each member of the family that has lost its father or husband. All the medicine men are now involved and bend low over the black cloth and work with the black wool, pulling off strands and rolling them up, moulding them into shape. They add another layer and use their fist to form a small "bowl". The task of putting in the coca (2) falls to Marcelino, who up until now has stayed mostly in the background. Severo passes him the first bundle of selected good coca leaves; Enrique and Porfideo keeping him supplied. Marcelino places them in one by one, the wrong way up, as we have already learned, six in each nest. Whilst this is happening Marcelino prays continuously. Once in a while he asks for the names of the members of the family again. Each of the mourners will receive a nest. And as his or her name is spoken it is lined with coca leaves: MARCELINO'S PRAYER WHILE INSERTING THE COCA LEAVES INTO THE Q'INTOS 1 Carlota Mamani,
Carlota Mamani,
2 tukuy llaki kunanqa, llakiyniyki
all sorrow, all your sorrow
kunanqa, 3 tukuy rabiayki,
all your anger
4 tukuy llakiyniyki ripuchun
all your sorrow - away with it
kunanqa!
now. 89
cruceroman
To the twelve crossings - now
apachetaman
to the twelve passes in the
5 Chunca izkaynioj kunanqa,
away,
6 chunca izkaynioj
mountains, 1 ripuchun kunan,
away with it now,
8 tukuy llakiynin
may all her sorrow ebb away,
ripuchun,
all her anger,
9 tukuy rabiasqan,
all her illness,
10 tukuy onkoynin,
11 tukuy llakiynin kunan ripuchun, may all her sorrow leave her, 12 allin pensamiento kachun arí
may good thoughts enter now.
kunanqa. 13 Kunan cruceroman, atún ñanman
way,
ripuchun,
14 llaki ripuchun
To the crossing, to the great may sorrow leave now.
kunanri.
15 Severo Cerdán,
Severo Cerdan,
16 llakiykita kunanri ripuchun uj
may your mourning go away to
ñan
the crossings of the ways
cruceroman,
17 ripuchun tukuy llakiynin, chijin, away with all his mourning, his sorrow, 18 pensamieton
kunan
his
19 ima sumajta
thoughts
should
change
now,
cambiakuchun, mayllakupuchun
as if washed clean - so should it be
arí kunanri, 20 mal pensasqankukuna
payman
and whoever thinks evil - on
kutichun ... (Valentín, Oscar ...) him
should
evil
fall
(Valentin, Oscar...) 21 Celia - tukuy mala gana kunanqa 22 maypi
ripuchun, puriykachiachianku
avecen mala gan kan, 23 ñan cruceroman
ripuchun,
Celia, all despair - away with it now, where (the children) are:, sometimes there is despair, but it should go now to the crossings of the ways,
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24 mala gana kunan
perhaps
puriykachachiankuman, 25 urna nanynioj
avecenqa
kachianku,
they
sometimes
run
about in despair, sometimes with pain in their heads,
26 chay kunan ñan
cruceroman
limpiakupuchun,
all this should be washed away now, away to the crossing of the ways,
27 mayllakupuchun
arí,
28 tukuy chejniy, tukuy llakiy ripuchun kunan
yes, it shall be washed away, all sorrow, all mourning, down
chaymanta
to the depths with it.
kunanri,
And now this small one, Abra-
urayman. 29 Kay wawitapas Abraham, 30 tukuy
ham,
llakiyin,
31 tukuy maypi
all his mourning, mulljakusqanpas,
32 tukuy rabia, tukuy chiji, tukuy llaki, 33 kunanri chunca
also all his fear, all his anger, his sorrow, his mourning
izkaynioj
twelve miles away with it now,
leguaman, 34 chunca izkaynioj
apachetaman, to the twelve passes in the mountains,
35 ñan cruceroman ripuchun arí kunanri.
yes, away now to the crossings of the ways.
In these prayers the following elements keep recurring - it is mourning, sorrow, misfortune, bad thoughts; it is lack of enthusiasm and courage, it is headaches, anger and fear that are called upon to leave. And the places, too, where these negative feelings and troubles should go are continually repeated: the far off crossings of the ways, the mountain passes and urayman, down to the valley, down to the gorge where the rivers flow - or back to those who have possibly caused all the suffering. They themselves should now be afflicted with suffering 91
and their animals and possessions should be affected too. By which means are misfortune and negative feelings to be made to leave for these places of banishment? Departure from it, change, washing off, by sending it back (to those who are guilty), and washing clean - all these are mentioned. The diverse combination of "what" "where to" and "how" result in the verses of the prayer. When the untus (tallow) is placed in the nests (3) three kinds of animal tallow are used: from pig, sheep and cow. None of these animals is held in respect, as for instance the llama is. Llama tallow is used exclusively in the yuraj mesa, the white mesa. Severo and Enrique crumble the tallow in their hands and sprinkle it over each of the nests, accompanying their actions by prayer. As this proceeds the animals themselves are the main theme of the prayers; the untu stands for those who, like the people, are afflicted with mourning and misfortune. The placing in of the thorn plants and nuts (4 and 5) is completed by Severo and Marcelino. Marcelino places small pieces of thorn plants, carefully pulled into pieces (and which in the darkness of the hut I cannot identify), into the nests. At the same time Severo breaks the kuti kuti, kuti wisnacho and wayruru seeds and nuts and places them into the nests. The two men not only work at the same time, they also pray at the same time, too. This dual prayer has an impressive rhythm and an almost two-tone quality: Severo's raw, throaty whispering and Marcelino's even voice. When the coca leaves, tallow, thorns and nuts have been placed in them, the mesa is ready. Severo consecrates the seven black alpaca wool nests with his hand (6), makes the sign of the cross over them saying "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost". Pure alcohol is then poured into a small glass and the mesa sprinkled with it. And again prayers recited at the same time by both Severo and Marcelino accompany the act.
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DOUBLE PRAYER DURING THE CH'ALLA 1 Severo; A ver kunanri
Severo: Now -
2 qori chiji, qolqe chiji,
sorrow of gold, sorrow of silver
3 tukuy desgracia,
all misfortune,
4 tukuy mala suerte,
everything unlucky,
5 tukuy envidia
all jealousy
6 camino cruceroman riponqa!
away to the crossing of the ways!
7 Pichus maychus malta pensan,
Whoever may be thinking bad thoughts,
8 chay laduman kunanri,
out of the way with him now,
9 tukuy envidia,
all jealousy, all envy,
malafé,
10 kay laduman kunanri,
away from this side now,
11 kaypi kunan qori chiji, qolqe
sorrow of gold, sorrow of silver
chiji ebb away!
12 llojsinki!
13 Viernes, martes kunan llojsinqa, Friday, Tuesday, away
with
them, 14 kaymanta mejor t'ikajina
from now on it will bloom
15 t'kariponqa
like the most beautiful of flow-
kunanqa.
ers. 16 Tukuy animalkunapas
All animals, too,
17 tukuy vacapas imapas
all cattle, all livestock
18 achiata kunan mirarinqa.
may they breed fruitfully.
1 Marcelino: Llaki, chiji,...
Marcelino: Mourning, sorrow ...
2 atun maymuman ripuchun,
away with it to the great river
3 kunan chunca izkaynioj
it is changing now, to the
apachetaman
cambiakuchun,
4 tukuy chiji, tukuy llaki
twelve passes in the mountains all sorrow, all mourning leave,
ripuchun, 5 kasqallantaj kay wawakunapas
the same for the children, 93
sometimes they wander,
6 avecen mala gana,
discouraged,
puriykachichianku, 7 avecen ni
casukuchankuchu
8 imaymana urna nanaynioj,
unnoticed even, with all possible pains in their heads, bad moods,
9 mala gana,
all strength is gone, and so the
10 tukuy kallpa wañju
wander aimlessly about,
puriykachachianku, 11 chaykuna kunan
tukukapun,
and all this shall now come to an end,
12 kay martes 13 doce
tutamanta,
14 chunka izkaynioj
from this Tuesday morning on to the twelve miles,
leguaman, apachetaman,
to the twelve passes in the mountains,
15 ñan cruceroman kunanri.
ripuchun
to the crossing of the ways - go away now.
There is undoubtedly a poetic quality to these prayers. "Sorrow of gold" and "sorrow of silver" - what is meant by this? Qori/qolqe (gold/silver) is a common formula in the white mesa prayer; here, above all, we find the qori libro and qolqe libro - wafer thin, metallic gold and silver paper which is placed in the nests as an offering for the sacred places; as an adjective qori/qolqe appears frequently, above all in connection with the llama foetus which stands for a living llama sacrifice (qori kuchu, qolqe kuchu) which is one of the most "precious" offerings in the white mesa. Qori/qolqe indicates richness, splendour, a generous gift. The connection in this prayer to sorrow (sorrow of gold, sorrow of silver) possibly signals that the offerings of the black mesa (to which misfortune and sorrow belong, expressed symbolically in the ingredients) may have an equivalent meaning for the "bad" powers as the "white" offering for the "white" powers. However, this is no more than conjecture on my part. What the ingredients to which qori/qolqe is most frequently applied
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have in common are their delicateness and fragility. Perhaps it is also these characteristics that should be attributed to sorrow. Sorrow, in particular that of children, is described in these prayers in terms of apathy and dejection, of aimless wandering, being lost and unnoticed, of a bad mood and flagging strength. And these sorrows in all their manifestations should be banished. In these prayers a "magic" formula for this banishment appears: "Friday, Tuesday". This formula has a deep and important meaning - Friday and Tuesday are the "bad" days, they are the days for a black mesa, the days for a ritual used to bring damage (also called "witchcraft"). They are the days of the kuti mesa, the essence of which is not "for" something (= white mesa), not "against" something (black mesa), but rather "away/back" with something. The llaki wijch'una,
symbolically, ritually, actively, and in
prayer, realises this movement "away". Therefore it should also take place on a Friday or Tuesday. Thus the naming of these days in the prayers of the llaki wijch'una is a "magic" formula for the realisation of this movement away. But these prayers go a step further. It is not only the gesture of movement away, of banishment, of throwing off (wijch'uy can, amongst other things, mean to throw off) which are addressed - there is also another element - change. And this change is described through images of a new life: the most beautiful flowers blooming, the animals breeding successfully. The images of a changed future which the now fully prepared mesa should open up are those of thriving and flourishing. (2) After the mesa has been prepared a second phase begins, one already familiar to us from the previous healing ritual. The nests are now tied into a "ball" with the left-spun thread. The mourners have these balls tied to them just below the neck with left-spun thread. In Valentin's healing ritual they were tied to the throat and both wrists and ankles. In this ritual it is the neck and the left wrist and ankle. Whilst Severo and Marcelino now take over the preparatory acts, En-
95
rique is still the central person in the proceedings - and he has a lot of work to do. He steps in front of each of the mourners, prays with the tied nest in his hand, held over the person's head, has it placed on them or, in the case of the children, places it on them himself, and then ties twenty-one knots on the left-spun thread. With each of the family members Enrique's actions begin with the invocation of the Trinity, his hand placed on the head of the squatting persons. "En el nombre del padre, del Hijo, del Espiritu Santo", he says in Spanish (in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost) and utters a long prayer which begins with the name of the person addressed. In these prayers a remarkable parallel to the actuation of the old man Valentin becomes apparent. As Valentin blew out the candles seven times - as a symbolic gesture of extinguishing all mourning - so his already formulaic prayer became more intense. In place of the whole prayer we now only have the word "prayer", and Valentin prays: "Prayer, prayer, prayer". Enrique proceeds in a similar way here. There are a number of prayers which have been handed down by word of mouth - both for the summoning of good and for warding off misfortune - that are known to many medicine men. My teacher Don Ramon dictated them all to me. But I later found them in small, worn out old prayer books which I discovered in a flea market in La Paz, as well as in others given me by Don Albelino which had belonged to his medicine man father. Amongst others, the prayer of San Cipriano belongs to these prayers (for warding off all misfortune), as well as the prayers of Santo Lino (for summoning good). And likewise with Enrique, in place of the actual prayer it is simply named:
ENRIQUE'S PRAYER WHILE FASTENING THE Q'INTO TO CARLOTA 1 Carlota Marnarti, viuda de Cerdán, 2 chunka izkaynioj apachetaman, 96
Carlota
Mamani,
widow
of
Mariano Cerdán, to the twelve mountains passes
3 Señor San Salvador,
Herr Saint Salvador,
4 oración San Cirpiano,
prayer of Saint Ciprian,
5 kunan oración Santo Bueno,
prayer of Saint Bueno,
6 oración Santo Lino ...!
prayer of Saint Lino.
1 Kunan imanasqataj kay
Why had this been done to this
señor aman,
woman,
8 tukuy desgracia,
all disaster,
9 tukuy maldición,
all curses,
10 tukuy runaj simin,
all talk of people,
11 tukuy juezkuna,
all judges,
12 tukuy uj pichara, phiskura,
all cleansing and soiling
13 kunan tukuy uj t'ijchara,
now our offering,
14 kunan uj maldición llosipuchun, now the curses may leave, 15 oración Santo Bueno, Santo Lino, 16 llojsipuchun tukuy maldición!
prayer of Saint Bueno, prayer of Saint Lino, all curses: leave now!
This prayer is mysterious and coded. Not everybody outside the circle of medicine men can grasp its meaning, and certainly not every "patient". On the one hand the three words "cleansing", "soiling" and "offer" open up whole areas of meaning. We have the reference to what is happening here ("cleansing"); then what is to stop this process is referred to (the "dirt of mourning"); and finally we have a reference to the means by which the process should be stopped (through "offer", through exchange). On the other hand the prayers are only mentioned by the name "prayer", which not everyone will know. With one of these prayers, Ciprian's, the aspect of healing, which previously - in conversation and prayers - was described with the words "jealous" and "envy", comes even more into the foreground. "Cursing" is part of the black healing ritual and this is also the art of the black healer, through whom jealousy and envy and talk of misfortune take effect. Through this abbreviated mention of the prayer of Saint Cyprian - a 97
prayer which amongst other things is explicitly against witchcraft, the curse is mentioned by name for the first time. "Widow" you are, the prayer begins, and it ends with the word "curse". And in between a connection is made in encoded curves. In a similar way Enrique prays for the children, too - appealing to Saint Cyprian - naming the possible curses, sending sorrow and disaster up to the mountain passes and summoning good into the home: health and good, everything will now be good, happiness will return now, all mourning must be forgotten. After the nests and the threads have been placed on each of the family, a break in the proceedings follows which is peculiar to each healing. The nests and strings must be allowed to take effect, to suck everything negative - sorrow, misfortune, mourning, brooding, pain, loss of courage - out of the body. In the meantime the assembled company chew coca and smoke cigarettes. The pure alcohol is mixed with a little water and the glass is passed around. And we talk of Mariano - of how many people came to hold wake in the night after his death! We chat about the harvest, too, about the potatoes which are full of worms, and about the work in the fields, which will not be easy for the family now that they have lost their father and with so many small children too young to help. "They will grow up quickly" says Enrique consolingly, "and then they can help, and in the meantime you'll survive somehow." What is happening now, Enrique assures us once again, is essential for change to occur. And Carlota breathes a deep sigh and says, visibly moved: "Thank you, thank you very much for doing this for us!" And the glass of alcohol is passed around once more. Again and again a small ch'alla (ritual libation) is performed before drinking. A few drops are sprinkled on the black cloth. The ch'alla of the eldest of the medicine men, Severo, brings the events - for the first and last time - near to those of a black healing:
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SEVERO'S DRINK-CH'ALLA 1 Chay contrariokunaj animonta, yawarnin, espiritun ... 2 chay contrariokunaj yawarnin
These souls of their adversaries, their blood, their spirit... This the blood of their adversanes...
Not much more of this prayer can be understood. But I know these phrases well. The alcohol is the adversary's blood, then the glass is lifted and his blood is drunk and his soul and spirit are cursed. This is part of a black healing ritual, the yana mesa, an element in bringing harm and misfortune (cf. chap. 4). And Severo raises the glass to his lips and drinks the "blood of the enemy". In the meantime the clay jug with the brew of thorns has been taken from the fire and the brew is then poured into another jug. While Porfideo (with the help of the younger Severo) completes this act he is accompanied by Enrique's prayers: ENRIQUE'S PRAYER WHILE DECANTING THE BREW OF THORNS 1 Tukuy maldición,
All curses
2 tukuy uj runaj siminpas
all people's bad talk disappear,
llojsipuchun, 3 ripuy kunanqa!
go now, away!
4 Uj doce leguasman
We will send you twelve miles
despachapusun, 5 amaña kunan kayjina
away, not anymore will continue
kanqachu, 6 tukuy maldición,
all curses,
1 tukuy runaj simin cosas,
all the people's gossip,
8 kunan pichus mayhus mal fé,
wherever anyone is envious,
9
contrario,
is adversary,
enemigokuna,
enemies,
10
11 kunanqa ripuchun!
away with them now! 99
And the conversation continues. We have protracted discussions as to which crossing we should go to - the one further up? (but the path up there is so steep that at night there would be danger of falling) - or the path further down? (Or might somebody come by?) The medicine men talk about what will happen there: Rezakunkichis. Chay yuyalla Diosmanta
mahakunkichis.
Chicamanta manana kanqachu chay llakipuni! You will pray. You will ask from God what you should think. After that this mourning will no longer be here. Praying is important. When the young Severo speaks of his dark thoughts - which have plagued him recently - old Severo says that whatever it is, you must pray, and that's it. In any case it's no wonder that dark thoughts have emerged. For, not three weeks after Mariano's death, a cow stumbled and fell down: a bad sign. The cows have a soul. They sense if something is wrong. And after another cow had calved the afterbirth did not come out and they had to flush it out with oil. A bad sign, the medicine men say seriously, a bad sign. But they also assure us that things will not go on like this. The usual rigours of life will, of course, continue. So we complain at length about the foxes which, both here in Inca and in the medicine men's village, have caused a lot of damage amongst the sheep. Severo tells us how they, as medicine men, tried to heal the badly hurt sheep. But you can't eat them afterwards ... The time soon passes with these conversations. After about half an hour or an hour Enrique (who is conducting the events) gives the sign for the healing to continue. And now we will tear away all misfortune from the animals!
100
2.5 Purification ritual for the animals and for the hut (Phase three and four) That animals are just as affected by the disaster that Mariano's death brought to the family, to the huts and to all possessions, we already know. And the story of the cows - of the "bad" sign we had just been talking about - has confirmed this. The animals will be ill, they will stumble and fall, the foxes will cause more harm among the herds than usual, they will get lost or be stolen, they will plunge to their deaths, they will not give birth, they will starve despite the pastures - all this could happen when touched by misfortune. And so this misfortune must be "torn away" - it must be taken from them through breaking the left-spun threads. We go out into the night. We take a lantern with us and the remains of a candle. It will be Marcelino's task to complete the purification for the animals. Porfideo accompanies him. The son, Severo, and the second eldest, Valentin, lead us to the animals' enclosure, the corral. We open the creaking wicker gates. First we go to the corral where the cattle are. We cannot see very much with the lantern, but I can recognise the ox with his horns. Even Marcelino moves away a bit, but Valentin reassures him, "He's tame, quite tame!" So Marcelino approaches the ox and Porfideo passes him long strands of left-spun thread that he breaks from the ball he has brought with him, and Marcelino breaks this thread a number of times in front of the ox's forehead and his front hooves; the ox snorts and Marcelino prays: MARCELINO'S PRAYER WITH THE OX 1 Tukuy llaki, tukuy desgracia, tukuy mala suerte 2 ripuchun
kunanqa.
3 Tukuy desgracia, tukuy llaki, tukuy chiji,
All mourning, all misfortune, all bad luck should leave now. All misfortune, all mourning all sorrow, 101
4 mal suerte, mala fortuna, tukuy llaki 5 ñan cruceroman
misfortune and bad luck, all mourning should go
ripuchun.
away to the crossings of the ways.
6 Tukuy desgracia, tukuy llaki
All ill fate, all mourning go
7 chunca izkaynioj
twelve miles, far away!
leguaman
ripuchun. And in the same way Marcelino prays in the corrals for the donkeys and sheep. Every time Marcelino starts saying "All misfortune, all mourning" he lifts the thread up before the animal's forehead or its hooves, and when he says the lines referring to "away", he breaks a long thread into little strands. However not every animal has to be freed from misfortune in this way. The treatment is more representative in nature - an ox for the large animals, a calf for the young cows, a few sheep for the whole herd, and a donkey for the other donkeys. (I have never seen dogs, cats, or chickens being treated in this way.) With the soles of our shoes heavy with cow dung and clay, we return to the hut. Abraham, the smallest, has fallen asleep on his mother's lap. Trino, looking very tired, is leaning against his mother, who is still squatting on the floor. They can't come with us, says Carlota, she means out into the night up the steep paths to the crossing of the ways. Severo, the most senior medicine man, departs. Then we will "free" the children of the mourning, and wash them here. They should stay here and get some rest. It is just like Valentin's healing - the ritual takes second place to the needs of the children. So the four youngest children will stay in the hut. Their mourning is now "taken away" from them in three ways. Misfortune is swept, torn and washed away. It is Enrique who carries out the first two procedures: purification with the nests, which all the children have been wearing up to now under their clothes next to their skin, and the breaking of the left-spun threads.
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Illustration 2.6: Breaking the lefi-spun threads over the animals
103
Praying, he steps up to each child in turn and fishes out the nests. When he comes to the mother's smallest child, he prays over his head, wiping his whole body with the nest: ENRIQUE'S PRAYER DURING THE PURIFICATION OF THE CHILDREN WITH THE QTNTO 1 Tukuy llaki, tukuy desgracia, tukuy chiji 2 kay angelitomanta
All mourning, all misfortune, all sorrow leave this little child now,
llojsipuchun, 3 tukuy llaki ripuchun ñan cruceroman, 4 chunca izkaynioj apachetaman.
all mourning go away to the crossings of the ways, to the twelve passes in the mountains.
5 Tukuy maldición, tukuy runaj simin kunan llojsipuchun arí,
All curses, all the people's bad talk, go now, leave,
6 kunanqa oración San Cipriano
prayer of Saint Ciprian,
7 kunan oración San Salvador,
prayer of Saint Salvador,
8 kunan ima sumajta salvarqoy
now you will save them com-
arí, Cruz de Caravaca!
pletely, Cross of Caravaca!
The prayers are now familiar to us, just as the curse is not only hinted at, but also stated, and the meaning of the whole content of the longer prayers is brought in simply through their being named. Not only are the Catholic saints invoked to complete the healing, but also the Christian cross. The child must breathe three times on to the nest which was used to cleanse it and Enrique states clearly what effect this should have: Amaña kayjina, nispa, samaykunki! Ama manchaspa samaykorqoy kimzata. Tukuy llaki, tukuy desgracia llosipuchun nispa!
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Illustration 2.7: Ritual washing of the feet
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Breathe on to it and say: now things will not go on like this! Without fear you will breathe three times on it. All mourning, all misfortune, must leave, you will say. The same prayer formulae, always spoken imploringly, accompany the second step of the purification process in the hut: breaking the left-spun thread round the neck, and the left wrists and ankles of the children. The third step, however, the washing, is the job of the youngest medicine man, Porfideo, in his role as assistant in this healing. Thorn brew is poured into a clay bowl and the children are called up according to age. The two elder boys throw their ponchos back over their shoulders, roll up their sleeves, and then wash their forearms thoroughly. They then take off their shoes, roll up their trousers, and wash their lower legs and feet. The little girl washes herself, too. Carlota holds the youngest, and Porfideo washes him. The used water is then poured into the first jug, the one which contains the remains of the thorn plants. This jug with the water from the ritual washing and the remains of the boiled plants will be taken to the crossing of the ways. The other jug with the thorn brew goes too, as does the earthenware washing bowl, the black mesa cloth with the remains of chewed coca, cigarette ash and the broken threads (from the animals and from the children), as well as the nests and everything else left over from the preparation of the mesa: some alpaca wool, a few stems from the thorn plants, crumbs of tallow. Everything is taken, including the remains of the alcohol, the cloth with the coca leaves and a small lantern. Carlota throws a blanket over Abraham, the youngest, who starts to cry bitterly, and is comforted by his siblings Trino and Celia. The four children stay in the hut. And so we leave -nine of us. It is not quite midnight.
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H^
F f i » »-• machula) AHIJADO/AHUADA Godson,
goddaughter
In the Kallawaya region (and other regions) one obtains ahijados not only through baptism and through marriage but also through ritual acts. (—• comadre, —> compadre, —• madrina, —+ padrino) ALMA Soul In the Kallawaya region used for the souls of the deceased. On AllSaints'-Day they visit their old homes as "new" souls (which they are for three years after their death). ANKARI Kind of "deity " of the wind, messenger,
servant
Invocation entity in the Kallawaya region. Conceived as being the wind. On the heights of the Altiplano over 4000 m it is a rather "negative", "evil" kind of divinity. In the "valley" on heights of about 3800 m it is seen as a "good" kind of divinity, as "servant" or as the messenger of the owners of the holy places. His duty is to bring the offerings through
the
medium
of
the
wind
(also
"smoke",
"respiration") to their destination. (—> servicio) AWICHA The ancestress, being of the dark world Literally: Grandmother. Synonym of awila, inhabitant of the chullpas, the graves of the ancestors. (—» awila) 435
AWILA The ancestress, being of the dark world Literally: Grandmother. Offerings for awila have to be made in collective rituals. (—> awicha) CABILDO The cabildo is the sacrificial place of the courtyard and of the hut, of the village, of the mountain. Most of the time it is a large, heavy stone lying on the floor. The cabildo-stone is raised in order to burn the offerings underneath it - or in special circumstances, to bury it. The belief in the holy places and the cabildo is inseparable. Ch'an is the old name for it. CAMPESINO Farmer Since the Bolivian agrarian-reform in the 50th of last century the Indian population is not called "Indian" or "indio" any more but campesino, farmer. With the new growing Indian self-confidence the word "Indian" (indio) became an expression of the Indian pride though. COLLECTIVE RITUAL In contrast to the Kallawaya healing ritual in the context of the family are the collective cyclic agrarian rituals and the collective requirement rituals. All the authorities or even the whole population of a village are taking part in it. It is the aim of the ritual that makes it a collective one: it is for the good of the whole community. COMADRE Godmother Literally: co-mother. If a woman has an ahijado/ahijada (godson/goddaughter) she becomes comadre of the parents of the ahijados and —» madrina of the ahijados. (—• padrino)
436
COMPADRE Godfather Literally: Co-father. If a man has an ahijado/ahijada (godson/goddaughter) he becomes compadre of the parents of the ahijados and padrino of the ahijados. (—• madrina) CH'ALLA Libation This action belongs to every Andean offering. The ch'alla-liquid (pure alcohol, red wine, blood of the sacrificial animal, water of the springs etc) gets sprinkled on the —• mesa, on —• Pachamama or in the direction of the holy places with the fingers or with a carnation. Pars pro toto, in the Kallawaya region a whole offering ritual is often called ch'alla. CHIUCHI RICADO Ingredient of the sacrificial offering A set of minuscule (2-5mm of size) lead figures, an important ingredient of the —> mesa (sacrificial offering). They allegorise for example sun, moon, stars, a ladder, a human couple, a cross etc. CHULLPA Graves of the ancestors Holy, but dangerous place (of residence) of the ancestors. DARK WORLD Domicile of the "dark" spiritual beings In the healing and collective rituals of the Kallawaya region several sacrificial offerings (—» mesas) are prepared. They are assigned to distinguished groups of deities or owners of the holy places. There are three groups according to their characteristics, their specific responsibility or power and their preferences for specific offerings. They belong to the —> upper world, the —» earth world or the —> dark world. The beings of the dark world are supplied with grey or black 437
offerings. They are sometimes dangerous or evil. They live and act often in the dark (of the earth or the night). They are the owner of silver, gold and richness. DULCE MESA Ingredient of the sacrificial
offering
A set of multi-coloured sugar pieces, e.g. a llama, a bottle, a star etc. EARTH WORLD A sum up term for the autochthonic Andean deities —• Pachamama, —> Ankari, holy places, sacrificial places etc. In a ritual they receive specific sacrificial offerings, distinguishable from the sacrificial offerings for the deities of the upper world or the spiritual beings of the dark world. ESPÍRITU Spirit Andean ethnologist use this term for the inhabitants of the holy places ("place spirits") if their proper name is unknown. In the Kallawaya region such espíritus are called —> lugarniyoq or machula, in the Andes of Peru apu or awki and in the Aymara region —• achachila. GLORIA MESA Sacrificial offering preparation for the invocation entities of the —* upper world Gloria is the name that the Indians of the Kallawaya region give to the Holy Trinity or the catholic saints. For the later a special mesa, sacrificial offering, is often prepared in which every single offering nest is appointed to a saint by name in a prayer and in the offering destination, e.g. San Pedro (Saint Peter), San Geónimo, Santa Ana etc. Often though when calling the saints they actually mean the Andean deities of the lightning. This is especially valid in the village Amarete. There they call this preparation even Gloria khaqya mesa - Gloria lightning preparation. 438
HISTALLA Small woven cloth The Indian women keep their coca leaves in them. Also other small objects are tied up in them. In the Kallawaya region the ritual participants (male and female) always hand over their part of ingredients in a histalla. KALLAWAYA A Kallawaya is a religious specialist (healer, ritualist) who gets engaged from single persons as well as from a whole village to heal either with herbs and/or with a healing or a collective ritual. He is chosen or invoked, went through a long training and acts according to a extensive codex of religious and ethic values. LUGARNIYOQ Owner/deity of a holy place Derived from "lugar" (Spanish) = place (meaning "holy place"), -yoq is a suffix of the Quechua language spoken by the indigenous population of the Andes and it means ownership/inhabitation used especially in the Kallawaya region. Compare with —> achachila, —> machula, —> mallku, which has the same meaning. MACHU A holy place assigned to a human being Machu means old, wise and manly. In the Kallawaya region this term has an additional, special meaning. The machu is an owner of a holy place that is assigned specifically to a person (—> lugarniyoq), appointed through reading the coca leaves and accompanies/protects this person through his whole life. MACHULA Literally: Grandfather This term has two meanings in the Kallawaya region:
439
(1) Combined with —> awila ("awila/machula") it stands for the nameless ancestors who receive offerings in a collective ritual. (2) It is the denotation for a deity, the owner of a holy place, with the same meaning of —> lugarniyoq used in the Kallawaya region. MACHULA T'IKA Flower of the —> machula. Used in sacrificial offerings. MADRINA Godmother of —• ahijados/ahijadas, godsons and goddaughters. MESA Sacrificial offering preparation It is not clear whether this word is derived from the Spanish word mesa (table, and in the widest sense "underlay" for a preparation) or from misa (mass, or in a wider sense "ritual action"). It is in any case with the Bolivian Quechua- and Aymara-Indians the widest spread word for: (1) sacrificial offering preparation of single offering nests —> platos, (2) pars pro toto for all rituals with the same meaning as —• ch'alla. According to the aim of the ritual one has to distinguish between white and black mesa (cf. —> yuraq mesa, —> yana mesa). OSCOLLO Wild cat It is a holy animal which is seen as the pet of the owners of holy mountains. An encounter with this animal is a sign for a calling to become a ritualist (cf. —> titi misi) PACHAMAMA Mother earth One of the most important deities of the Andean religion, valid for the whole Andes.
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PADRINO Godfather of —• ahijados/ahijadas, godsons and goddaughters. PACHAJE Being of the —> dark world It is another word for —»paranqe. PARANQE Being of the —> dark world It is another word for —> pachaje. Possibly derived from the Aymara word pharana, to be dry. Also other beings of the dark world are associated with draught. PLATO Offering nest Literally: plate. The offerings of a —» mesa (offering preparation) are prepared in single "nests" of llama/alpaca-wool or cotton wool or in a shell etc. PRENDA Pledge It is mostly a piece of clothing. With this, in the Kallawaya region an absent person can participate in a ritual. Q'INTO is the Quechua-word for the offering nest, —• plato. QORI LIBRO, QOLQE LIBRO Ingredient of a sacrificial offering preparation Literally: gold-book, silver-book. Libro (book) stands for "paper". It is a matter of small gold and silver pieces of paper or of foil which get distributed on the offering nests.
441
SERVICIO Servant, helper Servicio has two different meanings: (1) It is the denotation for the auxiliary ritualist or helper ("servant") of the main ritualist (in Amarete). (2) Often used synonym denotation for the deity —> Ankari, who is among others seen as the "servant" of the —• lugarniyoq, the owners of the holy places.
SOJO The dead, ancestors Sojo means hollow, empty. They are the spirits of the ancestors of the —> chullpas, the graves of the ancestors, Often used in prayers in the triple-form "sojo-awila-chullpa"
TÍO, TÍA Ruler of the mines Literally: uncle, aunt. The beings of the mines such circumscribed are seen as the holders of the richness of the mines - gold, silver - and receive sacrificial offerings in a ritual.
TITI MISI Wild cat It is a holy animal which is seen as the pet of the inhabitants (deities) of holy mountains. An encounter with this animal is a sign for a calling to become a ritualist (cf. —> oscollo)
UPPER WORLD Term for certain entities of invocation which are combined in "Gloria". In the Kallawaya region multiple clearly distinguishable offerings are being prepared which are appointed to different groups of numina (cf. —* dark world, —» earth world). The —> mesa (sacrificial offering preparation made of single offering nests, —• platos) of the upper world is also named —• gloria mesa. The single 442
offering nests are appointed to saints (male and female) of the Catholic Church, which are often just a "renaming" of different kinds of lightning (deities of the lightning). Santa Ana is the lightning that hit on the day of Saint Ana. YANA MESA Black sacrificial offering
preparation
Cf. —> mesa = sacrificial offering preparation consisting of single offering nests —> platos. A mesa is yana (black) when the aim is "back" or "against". Its spectrum ranges from the defence of bad thought of other people (they shall turn "back" to themselves) till the intended cause of damage (witchcraft) "against" the enemy. The yana mesa is prepared with black ingredients which differ from the ingredients for a —>yuraq mesa, the white mesa. Often yana mesa is used pars pro toto for the whole healing ritual. YURAJ MESA White sacrificial offering
preparation
Cf. —» mesa = sacrificial offering preparation consisting of single offering nests —> platos. A mesa is yuraj (white) when the aim is "for"; "for" positive conditions - health, wealth, a good harvest etc. The yana mesa is prepared with white ingredients which differ from the ingredients for a —> yana mesa, the black mesa. Often yuraj mesa is used pars pro toto for the whole healing ritual.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ina Rösing, born in 1942, studied experimental psychology and anthropology at the Free University of Berlin, Duke University N. C., and Harvard University. She passed the German pre-diploma and diploma-examinations as well as the examinations at the American universities with "excellent". She did her PhD in experimental social psychology at Bochum University and her "habilitation" (another German degree) in sociology at the University of Konstanz, and she is a professionally trained psychotherapist (C. G. Jung and Integrative Therapy). She received a full professorship (tenure) at Ulm University in 1975 but took a seven year (unpaid) sabbatical research leave from the university in order to realise her ethno-psychotherapeutic, ethnomedical, and general ethnological research on religion and ritual of the Quechua-speaking campesinos of the Kallawaya-region in the Andes of Bolivia with comparative research in south Peru and in the Aymara-speaking region of lake Titicaca. Her Andean research started in 1983 and is still continuing. It is financed by the German Research Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation and the German Pre-Columbian America Foundation. So far 33 scientific monographs (in German, Spanish and English) and many research papers were published on her Andean research. She received three major research prizes, was elected a Full Member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences for the excellence of her research and received the honorary doctor title of the university of Luzern, Switzerland. In 1994, Ina Rösing started her comparative research on religion and ritual in Ladakh. This research was financed from research prize money, the University of Ulm and the Volkswagen Foundation and it is still in progress.
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Since 1991, Ina Rösing is Director of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Ulm and she will be the director of the Institute for Transcultural Research (ITRAFO) from 2010 on. She directs PhD studies in cultural anthropology, ethno-medicine and psychotherapy research, teaches students of all faculties and continues her field studies on two continents: South Asia and South America. Her research focus points lie on the concepts of health, illness and healing in the comparison of cultures, on the transcultural validity factors of healing effectiveness und on the basic concepts and values in the comparison of cultures.
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FURTHER PUBLICATIONS OF INA RÖSING German books on the Kallawaya culture RÖSING, Ina (2009), Sie blicken dich an, sie schauen weg. Indianische Porträts der andinen Kallawaya-Region. Gnas, Osterreich: Weishaupt. RÖSING, Ina (2008), Der Anden-Alltag. Im Schatten der UNESCOWeltkulturerbe-Ernennung der Kallawaya-Kultur. Gnas, Österreich: Weishaupt. RÖSING, Ina (2008), Religion, Ritual und Alltag in den Anden. Die zehn Geschlechter von Amarete, Bolivien. Zweiter ANKARIZyklus. MUNDO ANKARI Vol. 6. Berlin: Reimer Verlag, l st ed. 2001; 2nd ed. 2008. RÖSING, Ina (2006), Rituale zur Rufimg des Regens. Zweiter ANKARIZyklus: Kollektivrituale der Kallawaya-Region in den Anden Boliviens.
MUNDO ANKARI Vol. 5. Frankfurt: Zweitausendeins,
l st ed. 1993; Kröning: Asanger, 2 nd ed. 2006. RÖSING, Ina (2006), Die Schließung des Kreises: Von der Schwarzen Heilung über Grau zum Weiß. MUNDO ANKARI Vol. 4. Frankfurt: Zweitausendeins, l st ed. 1991; Kröning: Asanger, 2nd ed. 2006. RÖSING, Ina (2006), Abwehr und Verderben: Die Schwarze Heilung. MUNDO ANKARI Vol. 3. Frankfurt: Zweitausendeins, l s t ed.
1990; Kröning: Asanger, 3rd ed. 2006. RÖSING, Ina (2006), Dreifaltigkeit und Orte der Kraft: Die Weiße Heilung.
MUNDO ANKARI Vol. 2. Nördlingen: Greno; LST ed.
1988; Kröning: Asanger, 4th ed. 2006. RÖSING, Ina (2001), Die heidnischen Katholiken und das Vaterunser im Rückwärtsgang. Zum Verhältnis von Christentum und Andenreligion. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. RÖSING, Ina (1999), Geschlechtliche Zeit - Geschlechtlicher Raum. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. RÖSING, Ina (1997), Jeder Ort - ein heiliger Ort. Religion und Ritual in den Anden. Zürich: Benziger. 447
RÖSING, Ina; APAZA, Marcos et al. (1994), Zwiesprachen mit Gottheiten von Bergen, Blitzen, Quellen und Seen: Weiße Kallawaya-Gebete. Ulm: Ulmer Kulturanthropologische Schriften. RÖSING, Ina (1992), Die Verbannung der Trauer. (Llaki Wif chuna.) MUNDO ANKARI Vol. 1. Nördlingen: Greno; l s t ed. 1987; Frankfurt: Zweitausendeins; 3RD ed. 1992. RÖSING, Ina (1990), Der Blitz: Drohung und Berufimg. Glaube und Ritual in den Anden Boliviens. München: Trickster. Spanish books on the Kallawaya culture RÖSING, Ina (2008), Cerrar el Círculo: La Curación Gris Como Tránsito Entre la Negra y la Blanca. Rituales Nocturnos de Curación en los Andes Bolivianos. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert . RÖSING, Ina (2008), Defensa y Perdición: La Curación Negra. Rituales Nocturnos de Curación en los Andes Bolivianos. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. RÖSING, Ina (2006), Los Católicos Paganos y el Padre Nuestro al Revés. Sobre la Relación del Cristianismo y la Religión Andina. Quito, Ecuador: Abya Yala. RÖSING, Ina (2003), Religión, Ritual y Vida Cotidiana en los Andes. Los Diez Géneros de Amarete. Segundo Ciclo Ankari: Rituales Colectivos en la Región Kallawaya, Bolivia. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. RÖSING, Ina (1996), Rituales Para Llamar la Lluvia. Segundo Ciclo de Ankari: Rituales Colectivos de la Región Kallawaya en los Andes Bolivianos. Cochabamba/La Paz: "Los Amigos del Libro". RÖSING, Ina (1996), El Rayo. Amenaza y Vocación. Creencia y Ritual en los Andes Bolivianos. Ulm: Ulmer Kulturanthropologische Schriften. RÖSING, Ina; APAZA, Marcos et al. (1995), Diálogos con Divinidades de Cerros, Rayos, Manantiales y Lagos: Oraciones Blancas Kallawayas. La Paz: ""Los Amigos del Libro'VHisbol. 448
RÖSING, Ina (1995), La Mesa Blanca Kallawaya. Libro 3: Contribución al Análisis: Observaciones Intraculturales y Transculturales. La Paz/Cochabamba: "Los Amigos del Libro". RÖSING, Ina (1993), La Mesa Blanca Kallawaya. Libro 2: Variaciones Locales y Curación del Susto. Estudios Kallawayas 4. Cochabamba/La Paz: "Los Amigos del Libro". RÖSING, Ina (1992), La Mesa Blanca Kallawaya. Libro 1: Una Introducción. Cochabamba/La Paz: "Los Amigos del Libro". RÖSING, Ina (1991), Las Almas Nuevas del Mundo Kallawaya. Análisis de la Curación Ritual Kallawaya para Vencer Penas y Tristezas. Tomo II: Datos y Análisis. Cochabamba/La Paz: "Los Amigos del Libro". RÖSING, Ina (1990), Introducción al Mundo Kallawaya. Curación Ritual para Vencer Penas y Tristezas. Tomo I: Introducción y Documentación. Cochabamba/La Paz: "Los Amigos del Libro". Transcultural and Himalayan research: RÖSING, Ina (2008), Ist die Burnout-Forschung ausgebrannt? Analyse und Kritik der internationalen Burnout-Forschung. Kröning: Asanger, l s t ed. 2003,2 nd ed.. 2008. RÖSING, Ina (2007), Der Verwundete Heiler. Kritische Analyse einer Metapher. Kröning: Asanger. RÖSING, Ina (2006), Weisheit. Meterware, Maßschneiderung, Missbrauch. Kröning: Asanger. RÖSING, Ina (2004), Intelligenz und Dummheit. Wissenschaftliche Konzepte. Alltagskonzepte. Fremdkulturelle Konzepte. Ein Werk- und Denk-Buch. Kröning: Asanger. RÖSING, Ina (2006), Shamanic Trance and Amnesia. With the Shamans of the Changpa Nomads in Ladakhi Changthang. New Delhi: Concept.
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