Peace – Hundreds or perhaps thousands of families in the Andean zone of Bolivia entrust their protection, their health and their businesses to the ñatitas or human skulls, in a relationship that has created a cult among their followers and devotees who make prayers to them, dedicate their attention to them. and time, because in the Andean world the belief is strong that death is not the end of the road.
The Aymara Juana Conde directs the “Brotherhood of Mariano, Rosalinda and Edwin”, as she calls the three skulls that she has placed on an altar full of flowers in her home in a populous neighborhood of La Paz, where Every Monday night the believers come to light candlespray, chew coca leaves and tell miracles that they attribute to the ñatitas.
Juana received her first skull from a young woman 25 years ago, without knowing what she should call it until, according to what she says, she dreamed that a “tall gentleman, with his hat, with a lapel and who had a cape” told her in her dreams: “ My name is Mariano, Mariano, Mariano.”
“He gives affection and love to so many people, to so many brotherhoods that come,” stressed Juana, who affectionately calls her skull “blessed soul” and “beautiful soul” when she remembers anecdotes of how she believes her life has been protected by the skulls. of fights and a fire at home, but he also considers that his devotion has led to the return to Bolivia of his family who lived in Argentina.
Juana Conde and her husband, Félix Limachi, are believers in the cult of skulls, but they are also Catholics and next to the altar of the heads they venerate images of the Virgin Mary and Christ.
One of the followers of the skulls lights his candles, prays and asks to continue prospering in his businesses as a tourist guide and audiovisual producer.
Juana says that she does not charge money for visits to the altar because it is a “devotion to our little souls,” to do good and mediate so that people get jobs or achieve their goals, but not to ask for revenge against a third party.
“These little souls are not for doing evil. These little souls are for doing good. If you are down, you don’t have a job and your faith moves mountains, you come to ask, they give you a job and you find that job,” says Juana.
From time to time, Juana’s home is visited by anthropologists from the country and abroad and these days it is the center of media attention regarding the recent festivities dedicated to the Day of the Dead and All Saints, deeply rooted in the Andean zone of Bolivia.
The couple prepared a party called “Preste” for November 8 for the followers of the “Brotherhood”, in which they will share plenty of food and drink.
On that date, All those who have skulls in their homes, decorate them and take them to the General Cemetery of La Paz to make them walk and try to get them to listen to a mass, something that the Catholic Church rejects outright, although it is common for followers to pressure the priest of the cemetery chapel to pour holy water into the skulls.
Jade has 57 skulls and offers her services as a shaman
Another angle on the cult is offered by Jade, who presents herself as a witch, shaman, and healer.
She spends most of the day in the General Cemetery, sitting and waiting for clients in front of an area where there are skulls buried in a common grave, and at night she answers questions in her office, where she displays 57 skulls on shelves.
Jade assures that her main role, admitted by the Cemetery administration, is to keep the place where the graves are buried clean. ñatitas and, above all, “prevent people from doing bad things like lighting black candles and burying photos because it is harmful.”
He also emphasizes that ñatitas are not used to cause harm to other people and that their work with them consists of asking them for help with their health, winning lawsuits and keeping couples together.
Every November 7, the skulls in that sector are unearthed by workers from the cemetery itself and prepared and cleaned for the massive visits the next day. Then they are buried again until the next year.
And this cultural practice is so deeply rooted that the manipulation of these remains has practically been normalized, considering it as part of the Andean cultural heritage.
Jade admits that she makes a living from using skulls in her work as a shaman and that she sometimes even earns income by selling one at a cost that can reach around $150 per skull, depending on the client’s requirements.
When asked how he gets them, he answers: “I don’t know if they will exhume them or steal them. I’m going to be honest, but there are people who know us witches and call us or come to where I work and tell me ‘ma’am, I’m selling, don’t you want?’. But in the general cemetery, poor thing that they caught me with something. “There are rules.”
According to criminal experts, although the theft of remains in the general cemetery is prohibited, criminal legislation does not punish the desecration of graves as a crime.
In the Andean world, “the dead, as such, are not completely dead”
One of the scholars on the subject is Alberto Saavedra, president of the Student Scientific Society of Archeology and Anthropology at the state university UMSA.
On a visit to the cemetery, the young man points out that the cult of ñatitas “is a very powerful festival that, unfortunately, is on par with Halloween,” as has been seen in recent days, when the streets of La Paz were invaded. by children dressed as monsters.
The veneration of ñatitas or skulls has more indigenous roots in the Andean territory and has to do with the belief that heads, since pre-Hispanic times, were sources of power, vitality and fertility, as he explains.
“For the Andean man and woman, the dead person as such is not completely dead” and the worldview that “you can still talk to him, you can eat with him and you can drink with him, is still alive today” .
In the current Bolivian territory, the ancient Tiahuanaco culture flourished and the Incas expanded.
The manipulation of skulls in Tiahuanaco, according to Saavedra, is present in the iconography of that culture with the existence of decapitators, called “chachapumas” or humans with animal heads, because the skulls were considered a trophy.
The same thing also happened with the Inca civilization and with the preservation of the heads of indigenous leaders because it was believed that they, at some point, could return to life.
The story also tells of the pre-Hispanic custom of removing the dead from the mortuary towers known as “chullpas” in order to talk to them because “they basically lived with the dead,” just as it happens now when many people in their homes talk and live with the dead. skulls, Saavedra concluded.
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