Ayabaca Province - Etymology

Etymology

The name Ayabaca, also written as Ayavaca, derives from two Quechua roots: aya, related to death, but also to immortality; and huaca connected to sanctuaries and sacred places. Some local monographs have limited its meaning to that of "grave and ancient tomb of the dead" ("tumba de muertos"), considering possible links between this designation and the findings of bones and primitive weapons near the zone where the Spaniards gathered the native population in 1571, when they founded the first "Pueblo de Indios de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Ayavaca" or "Ayavaca Vieja". Under this supposition, such bones and weapons would be the "remains of hordes fallen in combat against the expansionist advance of the Incas". For a better understanding of the etymology of aya huaca or aya waka, it must be considered that aya does not only mean deceased or ancestor in the physical sense of the corpse or skeleton, but also in the symbolic and spiritual sense of the soul, consciousness and energy that departs the body, temporarily at night and definitely at the end of the life, but continues circulating in all vital processes, as the cycles of water, light and seasons, that move along with the Earth; for that reason, aya is also related to the pale red or yellowish colors of twilight and of dawn, as well as to the paleness of newborns and dying persons, while huaca is the name of sacred places or objects. In this sense, the old sanctuary of Ayavaca or Ayahuaca, situated in the western extreme of the mountain range of the Andes, an area where all regional rivers have their sources, is properly the Sanctuary of Death, but also of Immortality, of life’s changes and transformation. http://es.scribd.com/doc/79485308/AYAVACA-CON-V-DE-VERDAD