Landscapes and Agricultural Rituals on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia

Summary

Generations of ethnographers have documented the many levels of ritual that contribute to Andean food production, from subtle coca offerings to community-scale canal cleaning festivals. Here, we discuss a ritual conducted on a yearly basis in the community of Chiripa on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia to ward off crop damage by hail. This ritual involves a group of community leaders specifically charged with protecting the agricultural lands and yields. They walk two specific routes and burn offerings at several sacred locations. Through audio, video, and spatial documentation of these routes, we examine the physical manifestations of this ritual, how it links agricultural practice to key natural elements of the landscape, and reveals the local understanding of where risk comes from and how to mitigate it. We will consider some of the ways this ethnographic case study can inform our understandings of past ritual ecologies in this landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20622