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Published: August 8th 2007
Inti Raymi is one of those special events that the Inca´s and the pre-Inca cultures celebrated in abundance.
Inti Raymi is the festival of the Sun. the Winter Solstice. the shortest day of the year.
The Inca´s took the time (and a lot of time that was) to study the natural environment and gain an understanding of the yearly calendar, the days, the years, the seasons and thereby developed a means to sustain themselves in those high altitudes for many centuries, before the Spaniards arrived that is.
the Inca's worked with Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) in accordance with her rythmns and it is believed that it was this connection that ensured abundance with crops and health for the following days ahead.
Inti Raymi is a celebration at the end of Winter. It signalled to the Incas that the days would be getting longer and it was time to head to the fields. It was time to sow the seeds for the new harvest and to prepare for the hard work that was to follow.
This time was initiated with a celebration of thanks and the request for a blessing from Pacha Mama for good times to follow.
Most of the Inca
idealogy was wiped out when the Spaniards arrived and very little information was passed down through the remaining generation due to the fact that the Quechua´s didn't write their language down.
so today, the celebration as we see it is a re-creation of the original festival and even then, mostly an academic guess at what might have happened.
but what a celebration it is!
we started the morning rising to meet the day early and get ourselves a vantage point on the hills of Sachsaywaman.
this in itself is a special enough place... we wander up the hills with all the other locals and a few tourists to enjoy the festival that was to unveil itself later in the day.
some keen locals had camped out for the night and we "selling" plots of ground to willing tourists.
we however, figured we were up there early enough to mark our own spot and estimated we had a fairly good viewing vantage point ...
so, we wait, we chat, we watch the crowds, buy hats, watch others buy food, chat some more and wait ... we were on Pervian time after all.
the first signs of Inca´s in costume were spotted
around 1pm and a while after that, the procession of colour and amazement began.
so did the pushing and hustling and bustling on the hill...
the celebration involved tribes from all over the land, coming together to worship and celebrate.
this means lots of different costumes, colours, music and dance steps.
everyone eventually congregates around the centre stage, creating spectacular shapes of stars and flowers and awaits the entrance of the queen and the king.
once settled on the stage, the main tribal leaders gather to offer various potions to the sun and even sacrifice a llama. thankfully the festival in cuzco is set up to have a wonderous display of a llama being brought to the stage and "sacrificed" in a cloud of fire and smoke, but secretly finding itself put into a trapdoor in the stage. llamas participating in other sun festivals around the country are not quite so lucky.
Inti Raymi is known for a day of rain, however we were lucky enough to have a sunny, if not cold (ok, ok, we are at 3,200m) day. one moment worthy of mention was when the entire production knelt down with arms stretched to the sky asking for
the sun ...
i´ve always said, be careful what you wish for as you will get it.
and the wishes of the Inca's and the cold crowd were answered.
the sun indeed did grace us with its presence.
the people cheered and the crowds smiled and the significance of the moment wasn´t lost on anyone.
it will be an abundant, successful and happy year for all.
The crowd around us!
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