Inca Lands: Peru and Bolivia

  The Inca civilization was enormous, powerful, extremely forward thinking, and extremely short lived.  But, the indigenous people identify continually more with their most recent non-Christian past.  Multiple languages including the Inca language of Quechua are regularly spoken in the rural communities of Bolivia and Peru (especially in the high lands where the Incas had their capital in Cusco).  Unfortunately this cultural heritage of the 100-200 years that most of non-Brazilian South America was united under the rule of the Incan civilization is looked down upon by those of European decent in all of South America.  But at least where we went near to the holiest and grandest ruins of the Inca civilization near the capital of Cusco there were many proud people to show us the customs, traditions, and religion of this long destroyed but still living civilization.  Today, the last Inca princess lives in Cusco and markets sell the condor feathers, llama fetuses, masks, and ritual items needed to present in burial for blessings from the mother earth, Pachamama.  We saw such a ritual for health and watched as sweets, a llama fetus, confetti, and even a cross were combined with a prayer to Pachamama in a mock Inca wedding ceremony.  We also watched as offerings were made to a devil statue inside the Potosi mines in the form of lit cigarettes, coca leaves, and alcohol to excite the devil to mate with and thus please Pachamama.  In a very odd hybrid religion, houses near Cusco (in Peru) have two bull statues with a cross in between them to symbolize and increase fertility. Christianity for some is a something that is practiced in addition to traditional religion, and sometimes it seems that Jesus is taken into the pantheon of local gods for worship (hence the cross given as an offering to Pachamama in the wedding ceremony).  I can not pretend to understand much of how Christianity and the local religions mix today, but both are clearly alive and respected in a very peculiar blend.

We have rooster windvanes, they have bulls and crosses for fertility.