Engines of transformation; purveyors of wealth. Volcanoes as apus in the Indigenous Andean psyche.

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Celebrating the Contributions of Volcanologists Minard Hall and Patricia Mothes to Ecuadorian Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the Andes, many large mountains are volcanoes, although Indigenous Andean peoples don't necessarily distinguish 'mere mountains' from those that are seismologically active. The name given to the largest and most significant in a region and accorded the highest veneration is 'apu', meaning Lord. They are the mountain spirits and in the post Spanish conquest colonial period, apus became understood to be loci where goods were transformed into gold and silver, overseen by a man dressed richly in Spanish colonial style, mounted on horseback - the personification of the apu. Beliefs surrounding mountains and mountain spirits are fundamental to the Andean psyche and continue into the present, as recent surveys of Indigenous Andean beliefs demonstrate. This paper explores some of principal mythological themes associated with volcanoes as apus, and discusses how and why these changed under the influence of invading European paradigms.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Celebrating the Contributions of Volcanologists Minard Hall and Patricia Mothes to Ecuadorian Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51096