Las minas del centro-sur andino, los cultos prehispánicos y los cultos cristianos

Abstract

The mines offered to Andean and Spanish belief systems the background of a landscape in which complex rites and cults were developed. If there was an adaptation of European beliefs it was because there were compatibilities between both systems of world representation. For example, in the middle of the XVIIth century in Potosi, the cult to the Virgen-monte, did not correspond to a popular practice, but it did not stop the practice of several native cults with greater historical depth. These cults of shamans are analyzed here and linked to products of exchanges with the Amazonian foothills and lowlands, and the otorongo figure. The images that come from them take into acount a series of artifacts, figures and institutions that we also find in description the of the old Colla cult of the island of Titicaca, heir to the Tiwanaku and in several regions of South Central Andes. All these cults influenced a big part of the religious system elaborated by the Incas; some of them remained until the beginning of the XVIIth century.

Keywords

• Collasuyo
• mines
• christian cults
• prehispanic cults