Introduction
Andean mysticism arose within the Andean culture and at the same time helped to shape the culture. I don't believe that either can be fully understood without the other. I think this is part of our great challenge, figuring out how to integrate Andean mysticism into Western culture. The Andean people are faced with a similar challenge, how to bring into their society the material advantages of Western culture without losing their mystical connection to the Cosmos. This integration is at the heart of what I want to nourish with this Salka Wind web site. In any event, for me Andean mysticism simply can't be extracted from the Andean culture and looked at in isolation without losing part of its essence.
Ayni
Ayni is the Andean concept of 'reciprocity', which provides the foundation for how the Andean people relate to each other as well as how they relate to Nature (they don't see themselves as being separate from Nature). With ayni you don't receive something without giving something in return, nor give something without receiving in return. It takes two to have ayni, for ayni is a way of relating, and it takes at least two to have a relationship. My Western culture is very skilled at technology, at coming up with ways to reach specific goals, but it is not so skilled with relationships. As a consequence, we have technology that does wondrous things for us as individuals but we tend to not notice the effects our technology has on the rest of Nature until the consequences come back to hurt us individually, and we do all we can to make sure we are the last one's hurt by what we are doing. In a similar fashion, I have noticed that many people have viewed Andean mysticism as a way of accomplishing certain, rather magical seeming, outcomes. In other words, they view it as a technology, and they remove it from the larger context of relationship, or ayni. When that is done, whatever you have is missing a fundamental aspect of its true nature.
Ayni is relevant at all levels of relationship. In the Andean villages the people work on projects on each other's land, helping each other and benefiting from each other's help. During the Inca empire the villages would send people to work on government projects and in return the government would store enough food to see the people through up to five years of drought. People wishing to be healed by a paq'o give the paq'o a gift and receive healing in return. Paq'os give gifts to the Apus and the Apus tell them what a person needs to be healed. In all of these exchanges, what is given is not a payment, it is a balancing of the relationship, which keeps energy flowing in a circular fashion between the participants. The end result is not to break even, it is instead a sense that everyone gained energy and is better off as a result of the exchange.
The Andean culture, the Andean people, have given us a wonderful gift. They have opened their hearts to Westerners who have come to learn their ancient ways of relating with love and respect to Nature. They have shared their ways of cleaning people of hucha (heavy energy), of healing, of connecting to the trees, and the wind, and the rivers, and the Apus, and Pachamama, and the stars.
Mini-sermon: please know that to learn the Andean way involves being loving and impeccable in the ways of ayni, not as a nice after-thought but as perhaps the most fundamental aspect of that way. If you seek information, training, whatever on Andean mysticism I recommend you explore to what degree ayni with the Andean people is being nourished. If your teacher, for example, is not walking her or his talk, is not insuring that the Andean people benefit from the sharing of their knowledge, then he or she is not doing the walk at all. If you feel like you have gained anything from the beauty of the Andean way, please find a way to give back to the Andean people at a level where balance is achieved. Thank you. I'll give off my high horse now. Oakley.
The Salka Wind Resources page provides links to nonprofit organizations that are helping the Andean people in ways that I think will truly benefit them. I also give some of the money that I receive as donations to Salka Wind to the people of Peru.
Politeness
The following information is drawn primarily from Inge Bolin's book (see Recommended Reading).
- When something, such as food, is offered to you with both hands this represents that they are offering it to you with all their heart, to accept the offer in the same spirit receive it with both hands.
- The people often embrace when they meet, it is a somewhat open (i.e. at arms-length) embrace, leaning forward and barely touching each other's shoulders or upper arms.
- In some social ceremonies a glass of liquor will be passed to each recipient in turn but they will only pretend to take a sip before handing it back (you might want to be on the lookout for this before chugging it).
- An invitation to chew coca leaves is an invitation to participate in a social interaction. See the information on the role of coca in their society below.
Men and Women
The following applies more to those areas where the pre-conquest Andean culture is more prevalent than where the post-conquest culture is predominant. Here I have relied upon both Inge Bolin's and Catherine Allen's books (see Recommended Reading).
Men and women have equally important but distinctively different roles in the culture. The relationship between husband and wife reflects the Andean organization of reality into complementary opposites that make up a unified whole. The Andean term for 'man and wife' is the single, composite word warmi-qhari which literally means 'woman-man' and refers to the 'fusion of two different but interdependent kinds of human beings.' (Allen, pg 54). The different roles of women and men in the Andes correspond to the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the cross (a mystic symbol found way beyond the boundaries of Christianity). When women and men are gathered together they tend to sit with people of their same sex, the men often take a vertical position (standing or sitting on chairs) while the women often take a horizontal position (not by laying down but by sitting on the Pachamama). Sitting on the ground also puts the women into right relationship with the Pachamama. The patterns of the men's clothing often run vertically while those of the women often run horizontally. The operation of the horizontal (ground) loom is considered to be a woman's task while that of the vertical (pedal) loom is considered to be a man's task. Many of the tasks performed by the people are identified quite clearly as being either a woman's task or a man's task, but while this distinction is clear and important it is also the case that when necessary a woman will do a "man's" task and a man will do a "woman's" task. The only exception I have found to this in the literature is that when working the fields the seeds must be planted by a woman if they are to grow (Bolin, 119).
Husbands are much more likely to speak up at meetings and to hold office than are wives. From this, and from the tendency to segregate by sex at gatherings, early chroniclers assumed that men have the more powerful role in Andean society and women a more submissive role. This, however, is misleading, for the husband is merely the spokesman for the couple and decisions are made in consultation between husband and wife (Allen and Bolin). It has also been my personal experience that the women of the villages give off a great sense of power, not an aggressive power, more like a power that is in touch with the foundations of the Earth.
Allen reports that the women of Sonqo asked her whether her husband beat her or not. While all of the men denied beating their wives they expressed suspicions that their sisters were beaten by their husbands and from what Allen writes it seems likely that some amount of wife beating occurs. A friend of mine witnessed an instance of this in an Andean village as well. In the Andes the men often need to leave the village to work as laborers or sell produce, there 'they often meet with humiliating treatment and return home drunk, ashamed, and furious.' (Allen, pg 60). Bolin, who writes about a community that is more isolated and less entwined with the post-conquest culture, presents a picture of a people for whom prevalent wife beating would be hard to imagine.
Status of Runakuna in Society
Speaking of 'humiliating treatment' (see above) it is hard at times for me to believe how the people I travel so hard to be with and whom I value so highly are sometimes treated by other's in their society. The runakuna (the indigenous people of the Andes), particularly those who follow the ancient ways, occupy a position at the very bottom of their society's social ladder (occupied at the top by those who are most European in looks and have money). They are dismissed by some as ignorant pagans and their coca chewing is viewed as a disgusting practice. In the media of their countries they are often portrayed as buffoons. In Cusco the Q'ero--easily distinguishable by their traditional clothing--are sometimes accosted by teens riding around in pickup trucks who stop to beat them up. Some restaurants will refuse them service or bring them obviously inferior food (while serving better food to non runakuna sitting at the same table).
This is both hard for me to believe and easy for me to believe, for it is not just the South American societies who have these values, the predominant powers from my culture have essentially the same attitude. Capitalists want them to stop their sustainable lifestyles and become bigger consumers. Western mining companies have their sites on the most sacred of the Andean Apus. Missionaries want them to stop their 'pagan ways' and are doing all they can to stomp out the traditional culture. In any event it is worth knowing that if you are on this path you will run into others who despise or at least look down upon the Andean people for the very same reasons you value and respect them.
Coca and the Runakuna
While I pulled from a variety of sources for this page, including my own experiences, I would particularly like to credit Catherine Allan's informative book The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identify in an Andean Community, 2nd Ed. (see Recommended Reading) for the specific details on phukuy, chewing coca, and for the information on the role of coca in Andean society.
Mythological Beginnings
The culture of the Andes is as blend of the original, pre-conquest, mysticism and the Catholicism that was imposed upon them by the conquering Spanish. In several sources I've run across a similar account of how the benefit of chewing coca leaves was discovered. The first person to chew coca leaves was Mary, mother of Jesus, who while wandering through the wilderness deep in grief for the death of her son absentmindedly pulled some leaves from the coca plant and began chewing them, and found solace for her distress.
Physiological Effects
When chewed, coca acts as a mild stimulant and suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, cold, and fatigue. It provides a few useful vitamins and minerals and is widely used in the Andes to help the body cope with high altitudes. From this it is obvious why chewing coca leaves has played an important role in the Andes, where people regularly face very hard work at very high altitudes. Coca tea is legal and commercially available in Peru, and hotels in Cuzco (11,000 feet) traditionally offer it to newly arriving guests to help them adjust to the altitude.
The Use of Coca in Ritual
The use of coca leaves in rituals involves the creation of kintus. To form a kintu three perfect coca leaves are taken from a bag of leaves, they are then held at the finger tips of both hands by the stem end, either as a bundle or slightly fanned. If the kintu is to be used by the person who formed it then the leaves are held green (non-veined) side up, if the kintu is to be given to someone else then the green side faces the person to whom they are to be given.
After a kintu has been formed, or received, the person usually performs a ritual known as phukuy. In a phukuy you hold the kintu in front of your mouth and gently blow your finest energy (i.e. your sami in the form of energetic filaments) into the kintu and perhaps beyond. If beyond you announce your intent to send your filaments, blended with those of the sacred coca leaves, to connect with the filaments of other aspects of the Cosmos. A common phukuy is to connect with the Pachamama (the great being who is the planet Earth), the Apus (the beings who are the great mountain peaks), and your community. In this way you are at that moment connecting your self to those other entities, inviting them into your ceremony. Wiith this connection you may also express desires, such as connecting with a chakra (an agricultural field, a daughter of Pachamama) to ask permission for cutting into her with a plow so that you may grow your crops, or connecting with an Apu towering over a valley you have just reached to ask permission to enter.
After phukuy kintu's are then either chewed or placed in a despacho (an offering made to the Pachamama or the Apus or some other sacred being). Despachos are then buried in the ground (for the Pachamama) or burned in a fire (released into the Cosmos).
Reading Coca Leaves
Coca leaves are also used in divination ceremonies. In the ceremonies I have seen the leaves are placed in a bag, which is then thrown onto a table top. The coca leaves roar out of the mouth of the bag as from a beast and onto the table, and the paq'o then carefully sorts through them looking at the orientation and condition of the leaves, interpreting their significance as he does so.
The Role of Chewing Coca Leaves in Andean Society
The social chewing of coca is called hallpay. It is a common ceremony when people meet--perhaps gathering together to work in someone's field in the morning--to spend some time sharing and chewing coca leaves. An invitation to chew coca is an invitation to have a social interaction. The subsequent sharing of kintus provides a nonverbal way for everyone to express and acknowledge their relative status, as the custom is that you give kintus in order starting with the person in the group you believe has the greatest status. Thus chewing coca leaves and passing out kintus both connect people together and provide an expression of the social order. And it doesn't stop there, for the phukuys that are performed after the kintus have been received draw the participants into relationship with the Pachamama, the Apus, and other sacred aspects of Nature. Thus, when the Andean people meet for hallpay they invite into their circle the vast and beautiful forces of Nature. Chewing coca is thus a vital part of both Andean society and their connection with the sacred.
It's a Crime
The Andean culture is caught up in, and is being threatened by, the wake of Western culture's insanity over the use of drugs. Western scientists invented the process of turning coca leaves into cocaine in the 1800's (involving the use of 41 chemicals and a 100 to 1 reduction in volume from leaf to dug), in doing so they created a drug that was far more powerful (and dangerous) than the simple act of chewing coca leaves. Our culture then moved coca outside of the context of connecting with the sacred and binding people together in social intercourse and turned it instead into a recreational drug. When people began to suffer from the use of cocaine Western governments made it illegal, which then guaranteed that powerful and violent crime lords would arise to profit from its cultivation and distribution. Today the Andean countries where coca is grown are suffering greatly from our invention, abuse, and subsequent criminalization of cocaine. The war on drugs is being fought on their soil, soldiers are fighting crime lords, violence and corruption are rampant in those areas where coca is grown on a large scale, and the people are caught in the middle. Herbicides are being sprayed over their land to destroy the coca plants, poisoning Pachamama, and making the land incapable of growing crops for many years. Even the basic right of the Andean people to chew coca leaves is in peril. Technically, international drug treaties require the Andean people to stop chewing coca and for their governments to insure that happens. I say technically, as there has been resistance to that provision of the treaties and as of now some of the Andean countries still treat coca leaves as legal substances (while outlawing cocaine). Please be aware of this situation, and if you ever have a chance to educate others, particularly politicians, about the difference between chewing coca leaves and abusing cocaine, and the vital and sacred role the coca plant plays in Andean culture, it would be a wonderful opportunity to help the Andean people, to keep them from having to suffer from our cultural insanity.
The Coca Shop
If you visit Cusco you might want to drop by the Coca Shop, located at Carmen Alto 115 in the San Blas area of Cusco. The Coca Shop is a Peruvian company working to promote a legal and alternative use of the Coca plant, and through this to help the Andean people preserve their right to have access to this plant that plays such a crucial role in their cultural identity. There are other neat things about the Coca Shop as well (having to do with its business structure) that you might find out about if you stop to chat. Please note that the Coca Shop that comes up when I google 'Coca Shop' (as of June, 2008) is not the same company (note the different address and city).