Pachamama

The earth mother, most sacred Aymara deity; she renders the soil fertile and is honored with libations. A living object of cult across the Aymara altiplano today.

Domains

• earth fertility harvest

Powers

• Make the soil fertile and grant good harvests

Epithets

• Pachamama aymara · Pachamama'World/Time Mother' — the earth mother, most sacred Aymara deity, made fertile and honoured with the libation (ch'alla) and the burnt-offering (waxt'a)Bouysse-Cassagne, Thérèse & Harris, Olivia. 'Pacha: en torno al pensamiento aymara', in Tres reflexiones sobre el pensamiento andino, HISBOL, 1987 (secondary scholarship)

Relations

• equated with: PachamamaReciprocal of inca_pachamama.equated-with — Same theonym and deity across the Quechua- and Aymara-speaking Andes (pacha earth/world + mama mother): one areal earth-mother, not parallel goddesses. The ritual complex (challa libations, August rites) is continuous.Hans van den Berg, La tierra no da asi nomas: los ritos agricolas en la religion de los aymara-cristianos (1990) (secondary); John Murra & others in Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 2 (1946), on Andean earth-mother cult (secondary)

Sources

• existence: Bertonio, Vocabulario de la lengua aymara (1612) (primary); Modern Aymara ethnography (living cult) (secondary)