Beingindigenous | Magazine

Pachajaqiwi Amuyumpi Apnaqañataki
A better ecosystem management of all that surround us.

Even in the urban centers, Pachamama is one of the most known Andean divinities, but also one of the most difficult to define. Although Pachamama is usually translated as "Mother Earth", its personality is much more complex. Nowadays, in the communities - markas-, it is frequently known by other names in Spanish such as Santa Tira (earth) and Wirjina (virgin). All wisdom of the Andean people is gradually changing or perhaps disappearing in some places as a result of the intensive evangelization of the ancestral cultures. In linguistic, the word Pachamama comes from the existing dualism in the Andean world:

PACHA
The etymological meaning of Pacha is "thing" or "phenomenon". There are two elements, double on itself and a projection on other, the other is outside of itself, outside of its thought and outside of its environment. It is expression of the whole, space and simultaneous time, it is expressed by the diversity of the life; as a global knowledge that it is generator of the culture and the life of the Ancestral Indigenous Nations. It is territorial space -Pachamama- and cosmic space. It is expression of the space and the known and stranger time. In the cosmos, the Pacha is life and source of life, is wisdom and ignorance, "sacred and profane" say M. Eliade (1964). The Pacha is the inhabited territory and the unknown space (uninhabited), whose set of compatible elements is always in function of this partiality.

MAMA / TAYKA
It comes from the Aymara language and its etymological meaning is "mother". It is territorial space that includes natural resources and also production ecosystem, that implies natural environment as well. There is no distinction between profane and sacred, where abiotic becomes biotic. It is protective and source of wisdom and life. Pachatayka or Mother of the fertility. It is also the main principle of the generation of life : human, plants, animals, and all whatever exists in the whole time and space. Pachamama is usually associated with agricultural fertility. From this perspective, it has relation with other spirits multipliers of animals (illa), plants (ispalla) and minerals (mama). Moreover, it is defined as a tutelary spirit. In the Pachamama everything is sacred, so each community, each sayaña and even each small farm has its protective Pachamama. However, at the same time, the Pachamama is also universal and is anywhere. Therefore, Pachamama is considered as the main spirit of "this world" .