Religious observance · The Andes · 1 August
Andean Pachamama Day: Gold Returned to the Earth
Across the high Andes, through Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and northern Argentina and Chile, August belongs to Pachamama, the Earth Mother. Its first day is hers. Gold plays a quieter part here than at any other occasion on this calendar, and yet the belief behind the offerings speaks directly to one of the oldest questions about the metal: to whom does it belong?
Feeding the earth
In Andean tradition the earth is not inert. After the cold, dry months of the southern winter, Pachamama is said to wake hungry and open herself to receive what people give back. Through August, families, farmers and businesses prepare offerings. The most elaborate is the despacho or mesa, a carefully assembled bundle that may include coca leaves, seeds and grains, sweets, flowers, wool, animal fat and small figures representing the things a household hopes for in the coming year, which is then buried or burned. Libations of chicha, the maize beer, or of spirits are poured onto the ground in the ritual known as the ch’alla. In north-western Argentina and parts of Bolivia, 1 August is also the day for a small glass of caña con ruda, cane spirit steeped with rue, taken as protection for the winter that remains.
The principle that governs all of this is ayni, reciprocity. Nothing is taken from the land without something being returned, and what is returned should be of real value to the giver. It is a relationship, not a transaction, and it is renewed every year.
Metals on loan
The connection to gold and silver is clearest in the Andes’ mining communities. In the Inca view, gold was the sweat of the sun and silver the tears of the moon, but both lay in the body of the earth, and to dig them out was to take something that belonged to her. That idea survived the conquest and is still visible underground. In the silver mines of Cerro Rico above Potosí in Bolivia, miners keep figures of El Tío, the lord of the mine’s depths, to whom they offer coca, cigarettes and alcohol for protection and for good ore, while offerings to Pachamama are made at the surface. August, together with Carnival, is one of the main seasons for these ch’allas, and the rites are performed with the seriousness of people whose safety depends on the mountain’s goodwill.
Similar customs are found across the region’s mining districts, from small cooperatives to the edges of large modern operations, where it is not unusual for an offering to be made before new ground is opened. The metal, in this view, is never simply found. It is given, and the giving has to be acknowledged.
A different measure of value
Pachamama Day follows Inti Raymi by a little over a month, and the two belong together. One honours the sun whose sweat the gold was said to be; the other honours the earth that holds it. Both describe a way of valuing the metal that has little to do with its price, and much to do with obligation and restraint.
That outlook can seem distant from the modern market, yet it touches questions the industry now asks of itself in other language: who has the right to extract a resource, what is owed to the land and the communities around a mine, and what is left behind when the ore runs out. The Andean answer, offered each August in coca leaves and poured libations, is that a debt is incurred whenever something is taken from the ground, and that it ought to be paid.
A note on dates. Pachamama is honoured throughout August, with 1 August the principal day in most of the Andes. Practices differ considerably between countries, communities and families.
Related reading: Inti Raymi: Peru’s Festival of the Sun · Akwasidae and the Golden Stool
Pachamama is honoured on 1 August and through the month. Find it on the Gold for All Seasons calendar.