Offering to Mother Earth Pachamama
A millenary ceremony celebrated to connect with Mother Earth
Every year, every first of August in different regions of Peru, the day of Mother Earth or Pachamama is celebrated with events and experiences that extend throughout the month. The gestures of gratitude to nature, the requests for abundance, the cane with rue or wine and the contrast of its essence with the worldview of modern cities.
This is the day we remember the intimate connection of human beings with their environment, the natural world. The native societies and communities, which have inhabited this continent for more than 3,000 years, found in nature and its elements the answer to their concerns and the union with the whole.
Every August 1st, different ceremonies and rituals take place in different parts of Peru to thank the “Mother Earth” Pachamama for her protection and providence, these ceremonies extend throughout the month.
According to the Quechua language, “Pacha” means “world” or “earth”: the “Mother Earth”, Pachamama is seen as a deity in which many Andean people place their faith and gratitude for all that nature provides. Communities such as the Quechua or Aymara see in Mother Earth the goddess of creation, the one who sustains life on this planet, who provides rain to grow crops and air that refreshes the soul. The cosmovision of these peoples can be seen, today updated, as a call of attention to today’s society in the face of so much forgetfulness of the only home.
The celebrations for the day of Pachamama extend almost all over Latin America, as for example in the north of Argentina are concentrated most of the celebrations and ceremonies. It is one of the areas of the Gaucho country that most vividly preserves these ancestral customs, linked to pre-Hispanic cultures, which managed to survive westernization after the Spanish conquest: today there are at least 35 officially recognized native peoples in Argentina, representing more than 400,000 people, according to the INDEC’s Complementary Survey of Indigenous Peoples. In this sense, the Pachamama has a very deep meaning. It is an ancient ceremony that is celebrated and lived as a celebration.
To understand the essence of this ritual, one must holistically understand the universe and its beings, while at the same time it is inserted within the agricultural and pastoral cycles of each year. During the driest time of the calendar, gratitude is given for what was harvested a few months earlier during the summer, the land is tilled to refresh it, and it is prepared to be worked. With a view of unity among the elements of nature, and conceiving Mother Earth as a deity, tributes are offered in gratitude for what has been provided. The offerings consist of incense, food, plants, wine, beverages and even tobacco (a sacred plant for many cultures). Thus a circular cycle is formed, of gratitude, but also a request for abundance for the times to come. In a way, the Pachamama is nourished, provided for and a holistic relationship is established with her. It is not something alien to people, it is not the environment, the ecology or the soil, but a dynamic, constant, integral and abundant living being. The culture of soils is projected in the cultivation of the human being’s own soul, raising animals one is raised together with them. By caring for and sustaining Mother Earth, humanity is sustained.
Nature is often seen as a tool at the service of human beings, uncoupled from them, used for purposes that are far from achieving greater equality of quality of life and opportunities in society. Given the modern worldview, especially Western, of cultural and natural uprooting with Mother Earth, the first day of August reminds us of the importance of understanding the environment and the planet as a whole. Where the interconnection of species and ecosystems is the rule, where balance is necessary and structural for the cycle. Each year the seasons pass, fires worsen, inequality increases, and the social and environmental struggle becomes more notorious. Pachamama Day can serve, in this sense, to bring to the present the notion that a healthy environment is an indispensable condition for a healthy society.
