Mythology
Practically all Quechuas in the Andes have been nominally Roman Catholic since colonial times. Nevertheless, traditional religious forms persist in many regions, blended with Christian elements. Quechua ethnic groups also share traditional religions with other Andean peoples, particularly belief in Mother Earth (Pachamama), who grants fertility and to whom burnt offerings and libations are regularly made. Also important are the mountain spirits (apu) as well as lesser local deities (wak'a), who are still venerated especially in southern Peru.
The Quechuas came to terms with their repeated historical experience of genocide in the form of various myths. These include the figure of Nak'aq or Pishtaku (“butcher”), the white murderer who sucks out the fat from the bodies of the indigenous peoples he kills, and a song about a bloody river. In their myth of Wiraquchapampa the Q'ero Indians describe the victory of the Apus over the Spaniards. Of the myths still alive today, the Inkarrí myth common in southern Peru is especially interesting; it forms a cultural element linking the Quechua Indians throughout the region from Ayacucho to Cusco.
Read more about this topic: Quechua People
Famous quotes containing the word mythology:
“This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind! The new Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Love, love, love—all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)