Editors Only Story
Chiaraje : Ritual Battle
“Chiaraje : Blood shall be spilled in the name of the Pachamama”
In the face of a global climate emergency, my main purpose for documenting this project was to ensure photographic imagery of a kind of religious ritual linked to climate cycles, economic and cultural activities related to the Andean worldview.
This project started in 2019 when I heard about a ritual battle that takes place in the Southern Peruvian Andes at the beginning of every year. Peasants battle each other as an offering to the gods for ensuring enough water supply and fertile soil for their crops. After finding out about the matter, I arrived at the small community of Checca in Cusco located at 38000 meters over sea level. Alongside the neighboring communities of Langui and Q’ewe they perform the ritual battle in honor of the Pachamama, the feminine god that represents Mother Earth and main supplier of life in the Andean worldview. Early in the morning every 20th of January, peasants from these communities gather in Chiaraje, a sacred extensive pampa located over 4000 meters above sea level. Men face each other with huaracas (slingshots), stones, and whips while women watch the battle, singing and dancing.
In the face of a global climate emergency, my main purpose for documenting this project was to ensure photographic imagery of a kind of religious ritual linked to climate cycles, economic and cultural activities related to the Andean worldview.
This project started in 2019 when I heard about a ritual battle that takes place in the Southern Peruvian Andes at the beginning of every year. Peasants battle each other as an offering to the gods for ensuring enough water supply and fertile soil for their crops. After finding out about the matter, I arrived at the small community of Checca in Cusco located at 38000 meters over sea level. Alongside the neighboring communities of Langui and Q’ewe they perform the ritual battle in honor of the Pachamama, the feminine god that represents Mother Earth and main supplier of life in the Andean worldview. Early in the morning every 20th of January, peasants from these communities gather in Chiaraje, a sacred extensive pampa located over 4000 meters above sea level. Men face each other with huaracas (slingshots), stones, and whips while women watch the battle, singing and dancing.
At simple sight, the people of these communities believe that this type of ritual activity has a direct impact on weather. However, by witnessing the overall ritual it has become clear to me that it is a sacred agricultural ritual because farming is at the center of the community’s social life. In the Andean worldview a community is both a land extension and a cultural identity, these two aspects are intertwined: people are their lands and the surrounding nature. Although these communities wrestle each other, they are not enemies but rather friendly neighbors who agree on the importance of social and economic bonding through ritual practices around nature’s cicles. The productivity of the Pachamama is at stake, and this requires a large amount of energy. The spilled human blood feeds the soil, nourishes it and makes it fertile throughout the year. The comuneros believe that those killed in battle will bring with them a good omen of rainy season. The bodies of the dead are in themselves an offering, and the combatants accept this risk in advance. Win a community or another, blood guarantees prosperity.
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