Apu Ausangate
Q'ero/Quechua · numen · pre inca · Recorded classification
Ausangate (Quechua Awsanqati), the highest peak of the Cordillera Vilcanota south-east of Cusco, is the pre-eminent apu, or mountain lord, of the southern Peruvian Quechua world, including the Q'ero communities on its northern slopes. Ethnographies of the region describe him as a powerful male lord who governs weather and water, grants increase to alpaca and llama herds, and watches over the communities within his view, receiving woven offerings, libations and despacho bundles from ritual specialists. The great pilgrimage of Qoyllur Rit'i, timed to the reappearance of the Pleiades, takes place at the Sinakara sanctuary on his flank, fusing devotion to the Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i with the older cult of the mountain.
Domains
- mountains
- weather
- herd fertility
Powers
- to send or withhold rain, hail and snow over the highlands
- to grant fertility and increase to alpaca and llama herds
- to watch over, protect and punish the people living within his gaze
Epithets
- Apu AwsanqatiAllen, Catherine J. The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. (secondary)
Relations
- subordinate to: RoalIn the hierarchy of supernatural beings recorded for southern Peru, the great regional apus such as Ausangate stand below Roal, the chief of the mountain spirits.Núñez del Prado, Juan V. 'The Supernatural World of the Quechua of Southern Peru as Seen from the Community of Qotobamba.' In Patricia J. Lyon (ed.), Native South Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. (secondary)
Sources
- Apu Ausangate is the divinized 6,384 m snow peak of the Vilcanota range and the paramount mountain lord (apu) of the Cusco-region Quechua and Q'ero communities, controller of weather and herd fertility and host of the Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage.: Randall, Robert. 'Qoyllur Rit'i, an Inca Fiesta of the Pleiades: Reflections on Time and Space in the Andean World.' Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Études Andines 11(1-2): 37-81, 1982. (secondary); Allen, Catherine J. The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. (secondary); Salas Carreño, Guillermo. Lugares parientes: comida, cohabitación y mundos andinos. Lima: Fondo Editorial PUCP, 2019. (secondary)