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And Darkness-World. an Andean Healing Ritual for Being Struck by Lightning

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And Darkness-World. an Andean Healing Ritual for Being Struck by Lightning Field-Work Reports Lightning from the Upper-, Earth- and Darkness-World. An Andean Healing Ritual for Being Struck by Lightning. CONTENTS SUMMARY, ZUSAMMENFASSUNG, RESUMEN 1. Lightning in Andean ethnology: Locating the present study 2. The healing ritual 2.1 First phase: Mesa for the gloria lightning 2.2 Second phase: Mesa for the lightning of the mountain spirits 2.3 Third phase: Mesa for the lightning that struck the earth 2.4 Fourth phase: Mesa for the lightning of the Darkness-World 2.5 Fifth phase: Incense ceremony and burning of the mesa for the gloria lightning 2.6 Sixth phase: Purification, burning, and calling the lost soul 3. Final words: Innumerable lightnings in comparative data NOTES CITED LITERATURE I am deeply indebted to the following institutions which support my ethnomedical research in Bolivia: Robert Bosch Stiftung, Stiftung Volkswagenwerk, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Universitat Ulm. I also would like to express my deep gratitude to all Callawaya medicinemen and patients who gave me the opportunity to learn from their wisdom and life. SUMMARY: The present empirical study is based on participant observation and complete tape recorded documentation of seven healing rituals for being struck by lightning as performed by the Callawaya medicinemen in the Andes of Bolivia. One of them is described in detail including a selection of pray- ers that accompanies it in its original version (Quechua). A comparison between this ritual and the others documented by the author as well as what Andean studies have up to now contributed to the understanding of lightning as a numen and as an occasion for rituals does highlight the unique concep- tual and ritual richness of the one described thus contributing to an expansion and deepening of our understanding of Andean religion and Andean ritual culture. 4 Ina Rosing 4/1989 REVINDI ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die vorliegende empirische Studie basiert auf teilnehmender Beobachtung und vollstandiger Tonband-Dokumentation von sieben rituellen Heilungen fiir das "Geschlagensein vom Blitz" bei den Callawaya Medizinmannern der Anden Boliviens. Eines dieser Rituale ist eingehend beschrieben, einschliefllich einer Auswahl von dabei gesprochenen Gebeten in der Originalsprache (Quechua). Ein Vergleich dieses Rituals mit den anderen von der Autorin dokumentierten Callawaya-Blitzes- Heilungen und mit dem, was die Andenethnologie bisher zum Blitz als Numen und als AnlaB fur Rituale beigetragen hat. verdeutlicht den ungewohnlichen konzeptionellen und rituellen Reichtum dieses Rituals und tragt damit zu einer Erweiterung und Vertiefung unseres Verstandnisses von an- diner Religion und Ritualistik bei. RESUMEN: El estudio empi'rico aqui presentado esta basado en observacion participante y documentation com- pleta (con grabadora) de siete curaciones rituales "del rayo" realizadas por los medicos Callawayas de la provincia andina Bautista Saavedra en Bolivia. Uno de estos rituales esta descrito y documenta- do en detalle. incluyendo ejemplos de las oraciones en la lengua original (Quechua). Una compara- cion de este ritual con los otros rituales "del rayo" documentados por la autora y con lo que hasta ahora los estudios andinos han contribuido al entendimiento del rayo como una entidad transpersonal y una occasion para rituales — demuestra la riqueza excepcional de los conceptos y actuaciones ritu- ales del ritual descrito, lo que contribuye sustancialmente a una expansion y profundisaci6n de nues- tro entendimiento de la religion y cultura ritual de los Andes. 1. Lightning in Andean ethnology: locating the present study At the Andean altitudes of 3000 or 4000 m, thunderstorms are both frequent and highly dramatic and often fatally dangerous (GADE 1983). Their annual toll of destruction and fatal strikes (huts, animals, men) justifies the terror which the inhabitants of these altitudes, Quechua and Aymara speaking Indi- an peasants and alpaca herders, experience during thunderstorms, and which is testified by various Andean ethnologists. TSCHOPIK (1951), for example, speaks of a "fear that borders on panic" (p. 198) and LA BARRE ( 1948) notes that "it is thunder that most terrifies the Aymara" (p. 201). In ac- cordance with the spectacular character of this metereological phenomenon, thunder and lightning occupy a prominent place in the religious pantheon of the Andean people. This is true for pre-spanish times as well as for present time Andean religious reality (ROWE 1946, YARANGE VALDERRA- MA 1979, MARISCOTTI 1970). Chroniclers of the Spanish conquista (e.g. GUAMAN POMA DE AYALA 1966, MORUA 1922, BERTONIO 1879, VILLAGOMES 1919), as well as investigators of present day religious concepts and religious practices (e.g. MARISCOTTI DE GORLITZ 1978, MONAST 1972, GIRAULT 1988) which the conquista and subsequent "destruction of ideolatry" (DUVIOLS 1986) were unable to erradicate, testify that the ancient god of thunder was renamed "Santiago" (St. James) by the Andean people, rebaptized also with names of other Catholic saints (METRAUX 1934) and verbally associated with "Gloria" which in Andean ritual prayers and prac- tices is, however, very far from the Catholic understanding of the concept (AGUILO 1985, ROSING 1988a). Andean ethnological literature treats lightning mainly under two major themes: 1. All over the An- dean region being struck by lightning is considered to be a sign of election and call to become a healer, medicineman or ritualist.1 What has not been documented uptil now — except in some informants' reports and in a cursury manner — are the initiation rituals following the experience of being struck 4/1989 REVINDI Ina Rosing 3 by lightning and having learned to be a healer. I was lucky enough to be able to participate in four such initiation rituals among the Callawaya medicinemen in Andean Bolivia which will be published in forthcoming studies. 2. But lightning in the Andes is not only a sign of election and call — it is also a sign of illness, ill-fate, mischief and guilt. Lightning is seen as an extraordinary powerful numen or spirit, it may be either malicious or good. The spirit of lightning requires attention, reverence, worship and ritual sacrifice from men. If denied — it will come out for revenge, will punish and strike. If a person unknowingly steps on a place where lightning has struck — without attention and reverance — then lightning will grab the soul of the innocent culprit who consequently suffers the illness of the "loss of the soul" which is well known all over the Andes and indeed Middle- and Southamerica.2 Loss of soul is also a consequence of whatever fright experienced, thus it also follows upon the fright of lightning.1 All of this does urgently require the intervention of a professional healer or ritualist. His task is to calm the anger of lightning, to prevent future disaster, to sacrifice to the lightning, to heal men and animals and huts from the potential mischief which falls upon them by their association with lightning — and to call back the soul lost in the fright of lightning. This second theme — lightning as source illness, mischief or fright that needs ritual intervention — is only very superficially treated in Andean research uptil now. Many Andean investigators merely mention the necessity of ritual intervention in this case (e.g. TSCHOPIK 1951, CASAVERDE ROJAS 1970, MICHAUD 1970, MARZAL 1971) without giving any detail of how this ritual looks like. A few investigators do provide some lines of description of such rituals reporting what informants reported to them (ARANGUREN PAZ 1975, WENDORF DE SEJAS 1982, CARTER and MAMANI 1986). The only case of ritual healing based upon participant observation, described and analyzed in some detail up to now is — as far as I know — the study by YARANGA VALDERRAMA (1979). The only deficit of this excellent study is that it is nearly completely "mute" — mute with respect to the par- ticipants of the ritual: With the exception of ten little lines of prayer spoken by the medicineman of this healing ritual and documented also in its original version (Quechua) — we do not hear anything from the ritualist's mouth, neither sacred words and prayers nor any explanations, in his manner of putting it. of the ingredients, ritual steps, requisites or instances of invocation of his ritual per- formance. The documentation of an Andean ritual healing from lightning — this century old prominent nu- men of the Andean people — a documentation that is based upon participant observation and which includes not only prayers and invocations but also the explanations of the religious concepts by the medicineman himself, i.e. in his own words — this kind of documentation is up to now inexistent in Andean research. It is precisely this blanc or gap which the present research tries to fill. In the follow- ing pages I shall document a healing ritual for the illness, mischief and fright of lightning, performed by a Callawaya medicineman in the Andes of Bolivia. This ritual is highly complex and intricate, in- cluding sixty offerings of sacrifices to four kinds of lightnings; it continues — not counting introduc- tory and closing phases — full seven hours which are fully documented on tape with accompanying minutes. The present article is an abbreviated version of a 120 page manuscript which is based on the complete documentation, including all prayers, and analyzation of this ritual. When referring to this manuscript, it is to be cited as ROSING 1989d. The present work is part of my ongoing field research — started in 1983 — on the ritual healing of the Callawaya medicinemen in the Andes of Bolivia. Several books (ROSING 1987a, ROSING 1988a, Book I and II, ROSING 1989a) and smaller studies (ROSING 1986a, 1986b, 1987b, 1988b, 1989c, 1990a) have been published on this research to the present. Up to now I have documented (with tape recorder, synchronized minutes and photographs) more than 200 Callawaya healing rituals — "gray" healing rituals (ROSING 1987a), "white" healing rituals (ROSING 1988a. Book I und Book II) and "black" healing rituals (ROSING 1989a), rituals in the family context, as well as big collective rituals which may last several days and nights.
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