Because of Ausangate, we are here, we all exist. We give him offerings and he gives us everything in return. Ausangate takes care of everything, animals and people. Thanks to Ausangate, there are plenty of animals and food, because we make offerings to him. Ausangate has always been like that. He gave us all those things. He gives us potatoes and chuño. In ancient times, the shamans gave the best offerings, k’intus to the Apus. ~ Maria Merma Gonzalo, interview in Ausangate (documentary film) by Andrea Heckman and Tad Fettig, 2006.
Above the Peruvian city and ancient Inca capital of Cusco lies the great fortress-temple of Sacsayhuamán. Covering an area of over 3,000 hectares, this is the grandest engineering project ever executed by the Inca Empire, or Tawantinsuyu (Quechua, lit. "the land of four parts") as they knew themselves. Begun in the reign of the empire-builder Pachacuti Inca Yapanqui (r. 1438-1471), construction persisted for almost a century, built right up to the eve of the 1532 arrival of the Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizzaro that augured the end of the magnificent Inca Empire. Perched 300m above the Cusco valley at over 3,700m above sea level, the air there is suffocating to most of Cusco's 1.5 million yearly visitors, of whom over half suffer from some form of acute mountain sickness (AMS). From the vantage point of Sacsayhuamán, one can survey as the Sapa Incas did five centuries ago the entirety of the Cusco valley and the surrounding territories. Looking eastwards down the valley, one can behold on many a cloudless Andean day a glaciated peak on the horizon, perfectly framed by the contours of the slopes that demarcate the boundaries of the valley. The glistening white of the mountain's snowclad walls contrasts heavily against the arid brown of the adjacent landscape. Tourists admire this mountain for its outstanding scenic beauty. Few, however, are aware of the immense spiritual significance of this mountain, Ausangate, to the ancient Inca and their Quechua descendants.
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| Ausangate and the Cusco skyline as seen from Sacsayhuamán. |
An impressive massif dominating the Vilcanota range of the Andes in southern Peru, Ausangate (Quechua: Awsanqati) rises to a venerable altitude of 6,384m. Though it is only the 5th highest mountain in modern Peru, it is the loftiest peak in the Cusco region - no other mountain within visible distance of Cusco stands taller. Its eternal snows and magnificent stature have since time immemorial permeated all life in the traditional heartland of the Inca Empire. The mountain is surrounded by turquoise lakes, stone forests, and glaciers dominating the surrounding plains, where llamichus and pacocheros communities, llama and alpaca herders, have lived for centuries and who remain some of the last pastoralists on earth. Ever clinging to their Incan heritage, the Quechua regard Ausangate as the supreme Apu, or mountain deity, worshipped from Cusco all the way to Lake Titicaca.
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| Ausangate from Lake Pucacocha. |
Apus, Inca Religion, and Ausangate
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| Illustration of sacrificial worship towards the mountain god of Vilcanota in Guaman Poma, Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, 1615. |
The highest snowcapped peaks of the Andes are thought to be inhabited and animated by powerful deities (wakas) who act as guardians to the people. These mountains are known in Quechua as Apus (Quechua plural Apukuna), a word that is comparable to the English "chief" or "lord" and which was also used by the Incas as a title for military officials and high-ranking government ministers. Apus are thought to preside over surrounding regions and to command a hierarchy of lower peaks. Due to the physical attributes of high alpine peaks as catchments of snow and rain, containers of glacial ice, and thus the sources of snowmelt that form the headwaters of rivers, Apus are also regarded as gods of weather and war. Wrapped in rain-bringing clouds high above the plains and plateaus of the Andes, these mountain gods are thought to control the meteorological phenomena of rain, hail, snow thunder and lightning, as well as protecting the livestock of villagers.
Accordingly, Ausangate has long been regarded as the most powerful of all Apus. It was the foremost among a schema of 12 Apus ranging from small hills to major glaciated peaks that traditionally presided over the Inca heartland around Cusco. In order, these are: Ausangate, Salkantay, Mama Simona, Pillku Urqu, Manuel Pinta, Wanakawri, Pachatusan, Pikchu, Sacsayhuamán, Viraqochan, Pukin, and Sinqa. As the most prominently visible snowcapped peak from Cusco and given the proclivity of the Incas to peregrinate over very long distances, Ausangate was doubtlessly an ancient shrine. In the Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, the Quechua chronicler Guaman Poma placed Ausangate (he spelled it "Ausancata") as the first in a list of the most important wakas of the Incan quarter/province of Qullasuyu, and notes that the Inca emperors often dedicated sacrifices of gold and silver to it (Guaman Poma, 1615, 275[277]).
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| Ausangate view from trail near Pacchanta by Stefanos Nikologianis, 2016. |
As some of the most powerful terrestrial deities in the Incan pantheon, Apus could also serve as sources of political legitimation. An illustrative example of this can be inferred from the chronicle of the 17th century Quechua historian Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui. Yamqui recalled from his oral history sources a wondrous occurrence that took place over 200 years earlier during the time of the empire builder Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui. Pachacuti was crowned Sapa Inca (emperor) in 1438, having usurped the throne from his brother Inca Urco as well as forcing his father, the former Sapa Inca Viracocha, into exile. While Pachacuti was campaigning in the north around the year 1448, a series of miraculous omens were reported to have issued forth from the sacred peaks of Ausangate and Pachatusan (4,842m):
They say that at that time news arrived of how a miracle had occurred in Cuzco, of how a serpent had emerged from the mountain of Pachatusan, half a league long and two and a half fathoms wide, with ears, fangs and whiskers; and it came by Yuncaypampa and Sinca, and from there entered the lake of Quibibay; then there came forth from [Ausangate] two comets of fire, and one passed to Potina [a volcano] near Arequipa, and the other came near Guamanca where there are three or four high snow-covered mountains, and they say they were animals with wings, ears, a tail and four legs, with many spikes on their backs like fishes; and from a distance they looked like fire. And Pachacuti set out for the city of Cuzco, where he found that his father, Viracocha, was very old and sick. ~ Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, “Relación de las antigüedades deste Reyno del Perú,” in Tres Relaciones de Antigüedades Peruanas, 1879, p. 276-277.
On the surface, one could interpret this miracle as an augury by the mountain deities foretelling of the impending death of Viracocha. On closer inspection, this mythical account is indelibly linked to the cultural schema of the Incan royal succession. On this occasion, Pachachuti was recalled to Cusco by these divine signs not to usurp temporal power from his father but to preside over his death. This served to facilitate the harmonious transfer of the mandate to rule from father to son, ensuring the legitimacy of Pachacuti's rule. Though this account is no doubt pro-Pachacuti propaganda, we can surmise from it the tremendous symbolic importance that the Inca placed on the mountains that bounded the limits of their mental horizons.
Ausangate in Contemporary Quechua Religion
In the almost 500 years since the Spanish Empire conquered Peru, most of its population has fallen into the Christian fold - today, almost three-quarters of Peruvians identify as Roman Catholic. However, the old gods have proven hard to expunge. Since the outset of Spanish colonialism, indigenous Amerindian beliefs have endured, experiencing a high degree of syncretism with Catholicism. This is especially true in the rural areas of the Cusco Region around the snow-fluted slopes of Ausangate.
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| Misayoqs in the Cusco region, still from Ausangate (documentary film). |
Andean peoples adhere to a model of social reciprocity called Ayni in the Quechua language. Ayni supposes that all things in the world are connected, and that to survive in the harsh climes of the Andean heights, it is necessary to engage in cooperative relations of reciprocal giving and receiving within one's social networks as well as with their natural environment. As well as serving as a basis for social relationships in Quechua society, Ayni also continues to inform how they regard and interact with Mount Ausangate. Some rural Andeans still call their Apus uywaqniyku, which in Quechua means "those who nurture us," likening their relationship with their sacred mountains as akin to one between parents and their children. These divinities are thought to watch over and discuss human morality and ritual behaviour. Illness and bad luck are taken as signs of the mountain's displeasure, and diviners called misayoqs are specially trained to communicate with Apus to speak on behalf of their communities. Misayoqs communicate with Ausangate through an elaborate ritual involving the tossing of coca leaves onto woven cloth and studying messages encoded in the configuration of the leaves. The importance of coca as a gift for Ayni with the mountain is aptly explained by one Andean local:
Coca is the base of our ritual; no ritual exists without coca. Coca is the favorite food of the Apus. With coca, we establish our relations of ayni with the Apus and we also establish our relations of ayni between us. It is fundamental to our relationship with the sacred. ~ Juan Victor Nuñez del Prado, interview in Ausangate (documentary film), 2006.
Since Apus were usually represented as male deities, they played a key role in the lives of Incan women, a belief that has persisted to the present day. Andean women traditionally worked as pastoralists who managed their flocks under the protection of mountain deities. As such, women would symbolically marry their Apus before getting married to their husbands. A similar practice is observed by men, who were traditionally agriculturalists who tilled and farmed the land, who symbolically married Pachamama, the female earth goddess. Quechua women of the highlands weave their beliefs into the textiles that they wear. Diamond patterns known as qochas represent glacial lakes, and zigzag motifs or qenqos represent the rivers that originate from the snowmelt from sacred Ausangate's glaciers. These works of folk art express the value of water and the life-giving quality of the Apu as the source of water.
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| Panorama of the Qoyllur Rit'i festivities, 2007. |
Ausangate is not only sacred to those who live around it. It is the centerpiece of an annual pilgrimage called the Qoyllur Rit'i (Quechua, "star of snow") that blends Catholicism with indigenous Andean beliefs. The origin story of the modern pilgrimage suggests that around 1780 during the time of Tupac Amaru II's revolt against the Spanish, a supposed miracle occurred at the base of Qullqipunku (5,522m), located adjacent to and regarded as an extension of Ausangate. There are various versions of this story but to put it briefly, an apparition of Jesus Christ as the Señor de Quyllurit'i (Lord of the Snow Star) was said to have appeared before a shepherd boy, culminating in the imprinting of an image of Christ on a boulder, now enshrined in the eponymous sanctuary. Though the story as maintained by the Catholic diocese of Cusco reflects the Catholic Church's attempt to erase pre-Columbian beliefs and assert the triumph of Christianity, they had inadvertently paved the way for the integration of this festival into syncretic Quechua religion. Qoyllur Rit'i, the "snow star," is also identified as the Apu Ausangate, and it coincides with the emergence of Pleiades in the southern hemisphere in the early winter, which the Inca associated with the return of fertility to the fields after the previous harvest.
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| Ukuku on the Qullqipunku glacier collecting glacial ice. |
One week before the Corpus Christi feast in late May or early June, Qoyllur Rit'i is celebrated 20km north of Ausangate at the base of Mount Qullqipunku. Each year, Quechua and Aymara peoples from as far as Bolivia, Northern Chile and Lima make the pilgrimage, traversing the valleys and passes surrounding Ausangate to congregate in the Sinakara Valley at suffocating altitudes of over 4,600m above sea level. This is South America's largest religious festival. Over three-days, more than 10,000 pilgrims fill this otherwise silent glacial valley, inundating it with the sounds and sights of colourful costumes, dancing, and music. Syncretism of beliefs is evident, as pilgrims pray to Jesus and the Virgin Mary, as well as to the Apus and Pachamama. Groups of dancers come dressed in a plethora of feathered costumes, masks and headdresses that carry unique motifs that identify their specific native-places and their ritual functions.
Of all the disparate groups of pilgrims, none are more important or arcane than the ukukus (speckled bears). Shortly after midnight on the final night of the festival, the ukukus make a procession up to the glaciers above the Sinakara valley. Spending the blisteringly cold night up on the glacial snows, the ukukus perform a penitential ritual, planting a wooden cross in the ice and lighting candles in the snow to pay homage to Christ, the Sun, and to the Apu Ausangate, clearly visible to the south as the first light of sun illuminates its north face. Before descending from the glacier, the ukukus cut chunks of ice from the the Qullqipunku glacier, which they bring back to their villages. The ice, the Quechua believe, has medicinal properties that derive from the mountain itself. This ice is then melted down into either drinking water or used as holy water in churches. Underpinning this practice is the acknowledgement of water as a life-giving element and its principal link to mountains, the sources of the rivers and lakes that channel the sacred waters that nourish and provide livelihoods for the people living downhill.
Pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllurit'i: UNESCO, 2011
To appreciate the scale of Qoyllur Rit'i - Peru by Drone, 2017
Adventure Tourism and Conservation
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| Ausangate summit approach by Tim Farley, 2012. |
Ausangate was first ascended in 1953 by the renowned Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, he of "Seven Years in Tibet" and Eiger North Face first ascent fame. Since then, Ausangate has become a popular mountaineering peak with multiple adventure tourism agencies in the region providing guided ascents with the assistance of porters and climbing guides. Ausangate is also situated in an internationally popular trekking region that contains world-famous geographical landmarks such as the incredibly photogenic Rainbow Mountain and the neighbouring Red Valley. Most trekkers tackle Ausangate as a 5-day 70km circuit that encompasses landscapes of snow-capped peaks, vibrantly painted hills, and turquoise glacial lakes.
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| Vinicunca (5,200m), also known as Rainbow Mountain, located 10km to the south of Ausangate. |
Unfortunately, human as well as climatic pressures have created a variety of environmental risks in the area. Synchronous across much of the globe, anthropogenic climate change is triggering rapid glacial retreat throughout the entirety of the Andes. In the Ausangate region, some local Quechuas believe that glacial retreat foretells the pending departure of the mountain god or even of the end of the world. Religious pilgrims to Ausangate and its satellite peaks have even begun to refrain from the age-old practice of collecting glacial ice, out of fear of hastening the disappearance of their glaciers. Meanwhile, local Andean mountain guides have expressed fears that glacial retreat would diminish the appeal of the Andes and send tourists to other places where ice and snow remain accessible, depriving the Andean economy of the tens of millions of dollars that trekkers and mountaineers bring annually.
Quelccaya over time: NASA Landsat imagery.
However, not all is doom and gloom. As early as the late 1960s, the Peruvian government passed legislation banning the poaching of vicuñas, the wild ancestors of domesticated alpacas, who graze on the slopes of Ausangate. And in a momentous stroke of success for environmental conservation, the Peruvian Ministries Council approved for the creation in December 2019 of the Ausangate Regional Conservation Area (ACR), designating 66,514 hectares of Andean ecosystems around Cusco as protected areas. Of particular concern is the protection of Quelccaya Ice Cap, the largest tropical glacier in the world, situated 45km from Ausangate. The declaration of the ACR came at a fortuitous time, when mining companies were petitioning the Peruvian government to create mining concessions in key parts of this conservation area. Today environmental conservators both public and private continue to promote sustainable economic activities in the area as well as nature-based tourism in the ACR area. While change is inevitable in Ausangate, modern conservation efforts continue to signify how the connection of the Quechua to their sacred mountain and their land sustains them.
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