Pachamama
Mother World
Pachamama – this is what the people of the Andes call the great mother who carries everything. Today the word is heard everywhere, at festivals, in songs, in ceremonies around the world. It is often simply translated as “Mother Earth”.
But the word is bigger. In the languages of the Quechua and Aymara it means more than the ground beneath our feet. It speaks of the world as a whole, of time, which lets everything come into being and pass away, and of a mother who lives, gives, grows hungry and wants to be fed.
This page explains what lies within the word and how it is still lived in the Andes today.
What the word means
Pachamama is made up of two words found in both Quechua and Aymara: pacha and mama. Both are older than the Inca and reach far back beyond anything handed down in writing.
Pacha – world, time and space
Pacha is one of the richest words of the Andes. It means earth and world, but also time, age and place. Where we separate space and time, Andean thought sees a unity: every place has its time, every time its place. Soil for planting, on the other hand, is called allpa (Quechua) or uraqi (Aymara). So Pachamama is not primarily the earth as matter, but the mother of the whole living world in which everything comes into being and passes away.
Mama – mother and lady
Mama means mother, but it is also used as a term of honour for a lady or guardian. So there is not only Pachamama but many mothers: Mama Killa, Mother Moon, Mama Qucha, mother of the lakes and the sea, Mama Sara, mother of maize, and Mama Kuka, mother of coca. Pachamama is the greatest of them. She is close, she lives in the fields, springs and animals, and people speak with her as with a relative.
Hanan, Kay and Uku Pacha – the three worlds
The Andean world has three realms. Hanan Pacha, the upper world, is the world of sun, moon and stars, and its messenger is the condor. Kay Pacha, this world here, belongs to people, animals and plants, and its sign is the puma. Uku Pacha, the inner world, lies beneath the earth: there the ancestors and the seeds rest, there the water of the springs rises, and its being is the serpent Amaru. Pachamama embraces all three.
Pachakuti – when the world turns over
Kutiy means to turn back, to return. Pachakuti is the great upheaval when the world turns over and a new time begins. The Inca ruler who around 1438 turned the small kingdom of Cusco into the great Tawantinsuyu took this name. Many in the Andes also see the arrival of the Spaniards as a pachakuti, and some today await a new one in which the world will find its balance again.
Giving and receiving
Pachamama gives food, water and life. But this only goes well as long as people give too. All of life together in the Andes rests on this balance.
Ayni – sacred reciprocity
Ayni means: today I help you, tomorrow you help me. It is the basic rule of village life, when building a house, at harvest, at festivals. And it applies just as much between people and Pachamama. Whoever takes from the earth gives something back: the first drops of a drink, a few coca leaves, part of the harvest. Whoever only takes throws the world off balance, and then the earth can make people ill or withhold the harvest.
The apus and the mothers
Beside Pachamama stand the apus, the spirits of the great mountains. They are regarded as protectors of the villages and herds, as lords of rain, hail and meltwater. Around Cusco they include Ausangate and Salkantay, in Bolivia Illimani. Among the Aymara the mountain spirits are called achachilas, the grandfathers. People greet them when crossing a pass, often by placing a stone on a cairn, the apachita.
August – when the earth is open
In August, at the end of the cold, dry season and before the new sowing, Pachamama is especially hungry. Then, it is said, the earth stands open. Families dig a hole, often on 1 August, and feed her with cooked food, chicha, coca, wine and sweets. Then the hole is closed again. In north-western Argentina people drink cane spirit with rue on this day, so that the cold of winter does not make them ill.
Ch’alla – the first drop for the earth
Before drinking, the first drops belong to Pachamama. People pour them on the ground or flick them with their fingers towards the four directions. This gesture is called ch’alla, and it accompanies every celebration. At Carnival many families in Bolivia bless their houses, fields, tools and even cars and shops in this way, on “Martes de Ch’alla”, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.
Pachamama today
Pachamama is not an idea from olden times. The word lives in the villages, in the churches and even in laws.
Nature is given rights
In 2008 Ecuador became the first country in the world to write the rights of nature into its constitution. Article 71 begins with the words “La naturaleza o Pacha Mama”: nature or Pachamama, where life comes into being, has the right to have its existence and its life cycles respected. Bolivia followed in 2010 with the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth and in 2012 with a framework law. How well these rights hold up against mining and oil remains disputed to this day.
Pachamama and the Virgin Mary
After the conquest the Spaniards banned the old ceremonies. People found ways to keep honouring Pachamama, often in the form of the Virgin Mary. A famous painting from Potosí, from the 18th century, shows Mary as a mountain: the silver mountain Cerro Rico is her cloak. To this day the two merge in festivals such as that of the Virgen de la Candelaria in Puno or with the Virgen de Copacabana on Lake Titicaca.
Sumak kawsay – the good life
Sumak kawsay in Kichwa, suma qamaña in Aymara: the good, fulfilled life in harmony with the community and with Pachamama. It does not mean having ever more, but living in balance. Ecuador and Bolivia wrote this guiding idea into their constitutions in 2008 and 2009, as “Buen Vivir” and “Vivir Bien”. Since then it has inspired people around the world who are rethinking growth and prosperity.
With respect
For millions of people in the Andes, Pachamama is a living reality, not a fashionable word. Around the world “Pachamama ceremonies” are offered today, often without any connection to the communities they come from. Those who wish to honour Pachamama can do so simply: give thanks before taking, give something back, treat water and soil with care. And those who are allowed to attend a ceremony in the Andes follow the people from there, bring a gift and ask before taking photos.
Sources
Josef Estermann: Andine Philosophie (Andean Philosophy), 1999 · Catherine J. Allen: The Hold Life Has – Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community, 1988/2002 · Joseph W. Bastien: Mountain of the Condor – Metaphor and Ritual in an Andean Ayllu, 1978 · Constance Classen: Inca Cosmology and the Human Body, 1993 · Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, 2008, Art. 71–74 · Bolivia: Law 071 on the Rights of Mother Earth, 2010, and Law 300, 2012 · Wikipedia: Pachamama
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