In a spatial order, the Aymara pantheon is presented as the one that takes care of natural, seasonal and geographical facts (including those relating to the ancestors such as archaeological remains) all from a broader vision of the space that is inhabited.
It does not refer to the closer inhabited space, but rather the total geographical area where the life of the Aymara community develops. So we will see reflected in this pantheon the sun, the earth, the mountains and hills, the water, etc. We are interested since it is these higher deities who represent the vastness of the territory where traditional inhabitation begins to reduce the radius of interaction of the person with the environment (and the representation of it) until arriving at the nearest inhabited space.
8 In some texts the Akapacha is mentioned as Taypipacha. See Tudela P. (2000) La religión tradicional entre los Aymaras de Arica. Revista Chilena de Antropología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la universidad de Chile. No 15, 1999-2000; pp. 99-118.
9 Van Kessel, J. (1996) La cosmovisión aymara. In Etnografía. Sociedades Indígenas Contemporáneas y su Ideología, ed. Hidalgo, J., Schiappacasse, V and others; pp. 169-198. Andrés Bello, Santiago.
There is great flexibility in the central cult figures among the Aymara. We find changes in whom is considered the main deity depending on a person’s gender, age and whether they are catholic or evangelical. However, we can recognize an ordered hierarchy of deities recognized by the experts who work on the religious issue10.
Kollanta (“Tata God” or Inti) is the most confusing deity in terms of his attributes. He is of male gender, his function being “father protector” of humans. His direct responsibility is health issues, since he is the one who takes care to restore the physical and mental welfare of his devotees. He is present in all ceremonials through the ritual of wilancha (animal sacrifice), but to him is offered the animal's heart, unlike the other deities. His presence is manifested to humans during the first light of day, when he interacts directly with the sun as a figure.
The Pachamama appears alongside Kollanta in all rituals, as an entity of female gender and a mother figure. She is associated with fertility, agriculture, and pasture for animals. She is also linked to financial prosperity. She is the earth and is alive, in the hills and fields, is their fertility. Her rite takes place on the hills, the pukaras where cattle eat, and on agricultural land. Within ritual activity she is always close to Kollanta, represented in the wilancha by the action of challar, or making a toast with drink, coca and kopal (plant resin burned as incense). The relationship with God is diffuse. It is believed that Kollanta comes first, but we must never forget Pachamama and the hills where they deities eat the animals11.
The Mallku-T’alla or Uywiris are deities with a lower level of ambiguity compared to the Kollanta and the Pachamama. Their features refer to humanity: they have sex-gender, can be lovers and be married, have names, children, etc. They can
10 Gavilán, V. (1998) Elaboraciones de género en la religiosidad de mujeres y hombres aymara del norte de Chile, Revista de Ciencias Sociales nº 8, pp. 65-82.
11 Grebe, M. E. (1981) Cosmovisión Aymara, Revista de Santigo nº 1, pp. 61-79.
be rich or poor, and can have an optimistic or a pessimistic significance. They can both give life and kill, and their favourite food is blood, which they like to drink and share with devotees, guarding the order and morality of the inhabitants. Within the ranks of Uywiris are located the hills, those who protect a community, which can have individual names. They can be Mallku (male) or T'alla (female). Also within the ranks of Uywiris are the Pukara, sacred places dedicated to agriculture. For this reason they symbolize Mother Earth or Pachamama. They are also associated with ancestors, with the time of the Inca, and were located on hills, ridges sometimes in places where there were ruins of Inca fortresses. Further Uywiris are the Juturi which are holes, very deep ones that reach the depths. The Manqhapacha is a "creational” hole, an origin of life, from which
“the cattle emerge”. It can be a hole filled with water or it can be dry. The Serenos are waterfalls where the water produces sound. They are often charged with a reputation for tradition. There is a link between these places and the music, through the Serenos:
those who give to the instruments, at night or before dawn, all the melodies in the World.
Human characteristics given to Uywiris refer to an indigenous past, specifically the Incas: the ancestors who lived in other times. They can be from different geographical areas and are beyond humanity because they live in another state, as bearers of tradition and customs.
We also have to name the animals, since these can represent deities, and because the Aymara also gave them ancestral features. The condor (biggest Andean bird of prey), the armadillo (small mammals with a leathery armour), and the titi (wild cat) are the main ones and are incorporated into the rituals.
About the Saints, even when we can relate them to the Uywiris, they do not have a direct link with the ancestors. The cult can be in a country estate or “estancia”
(a family-lineage), but the most important are those who protect a whole community.
The Aymara people practise a series of rituals and religious festivities. These can be divided basically into those associated with agricultural fertility, those associated with the rites of passage of individuals, and those associated with the celebration of religious holidays. The first, rituals associated with agricultural fertility, are held in the immediate area surrounding the traditional dwelling in the “estancia” or Uta, where the corrals are located (only the carnival, as we will see, happens in the central village or Marka and has a communal character). The rituals associated with the passage of individuals through certain stages of their life cycle happen inside the Uta or in the courtyard (“patio”). Finally, the rituals associated with the celebration of religious holidays in the Christian calendar are held in the Marka and also inside the village house that the Aymara families possess there.