Saraguro, Day Two
On the second day of the trip, I woke up, said "rabbit rabbit" when my roommate Phoebe reminded me, and everyone headed out to a Pukara (sacred area) for a cleansing ceremony performed by a local shaman and shawomen (it's a word now, just go with it). We were asked to not take pictures, but I can still describe it. It began with an invocation to Mother Earth, other Saraguro gods and then the Lord Our Father. The mixture between the ancient Saraguro religion and Christianity was interesting, I also noticed that whatever aguardiente wasn't drunken was spread on the ground in the sign of the cross. This could have been a symbol important to the Saraguro, but all the talk of circles made me think that it must have been influenced by Catholicism.
Next we all went around and toasted all the above mentioned gods, drinking aguardiente (Ecuador's favorite firewater) out of shells. There were two women, one man, and a young girl who looked about twelve or so. When the man poured out the aguradiente for the girl, it was the tiniest drop, but he still looked at it considering, and poured more out of the shell, back into the bottle. This was a smart move, I could feel the drink warming up my insides, while leaving a burning sensation in my throat.
Then everyone was batted down with eucalyptus leaves with more aguradiente spat over them, and we all jumped three times on top of our personal bundle of leaves, filling the air with the smell of eucalyptus. After wards, each person was called up individually to a little mound to repeat the process, but this time, to seal the cleaning. It was a great feeling to be included in something that held such importance to the community, and I did feel spiritually lighter after wards, but that could have just been the alcohol.
Baa!
There's a chicken in this picture. It was following me.
During lunch we ate mote, potatoes, mote, chicken, chicha (alcoholic beverage made from fermented corn), mote, guinea pig, mote. Oh yeah, forgot to tell you that. We ate guinea pig. I don't think the texture was quite right, I would have liked it with crispier skin.
(Photo stolen shamelessly from Megan)
We explored more of Saraguro, and then hopped back on the bus for Cuenca where we spent the night, but that will have to wait until another day children.
More photos can be found here.