Climate Change Threatens Qoyllur Riti, a Festival That Mixes Catholic and Indigenous Beliefs in Peru
Climate Change Threatens Qoyllur Riti, a Festival That Mixes Catholic and Indigenous Beliefs in Peru
Translation posted 16 June 2016 15:29 GMT
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Qoyllur Riti, Cusco, Peru. Image by Flickr by user Carlos Díaz Huertas (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
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Qoyllur Riti or Quyllurit'i is a spiritual and religious festival that has been held annually for hundreds of years on the slopes of the Andean Ausangate mountain, in the Quispicanchi province in the Peruvian department of Cusco. It gathers a great number of believers, organized as delegations, who identify as “nations” and who come from various towns and cities around the region.
However, this festival, so present in the region, is now being threatened by climate change. Snow is important to the festival; according to worshippers, Jesus Christ appeared as a small boy in the area during the 18th century. An image of him painted on a rock is known as the señor de Qoyllur Riti, a phrase in Quechua that means “Lord of the Bright Snow.”
More importantly, the ice in the area is said to have miraculous properties thanks to the appearance of Jesus Christ. Part of the festival includes participants climbing up to glaciers on Colque Punku mountain to collect some of it. But that ice is disappearing as temperatures get warmer.
The damage is so serious that this year marked the last time the Qoyllur Riti festival would gather ice from there, as in less that a year the ice has retreated several meters and now there are only rocks where the magnificent snow used to be.
More:
https://globalvoices.org/2016/06/16/climate-change-threatens-qoyllur-riti-a-festival-that-mixes-catholic-and-indigenous-beliefs-in-peru/
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Qoyllur Rit'i - Shining Snow Festival (2013) [/center]
