During the month of August, the native peoples of South America began the celebrations for the month of “Pachamama” or Mother Earth this Sunday.

Among mythical and ancestral rituals, and with offerings to give thanks for what was harvested during the last year and ask again for a year of prosperity, a month of celebration for Mother Earth was conceived. The month of August is the month designated for the celebration because it is the end of the first agricultural season in the Andean world and is the moment when Mother Earth "opens her mouth" to feed herself with offerings that reward the fruits given and those that will be given in the future.

It's a celebration that seeks to make invisible the borders of the region now called Latin America, give thanks for the abundance and goodness of the fertile land of the territory, and the products it gives us. We thank the land, the favorable weather for the process, the animals, and the food itself. The celebration is based on an offering of reciprocity that is preserved and transmitted from generation to generation, and as part of the ritual, the "challa" or payment to the land is celebrated. 

Rituals and offerings can be made in every home or business, but there are sacred sites in the Andes where the celebration is symbolically carried out due to the energetic charge of the space. The Waraco Apacheta, located on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, is a city that receives people who travel to the site from early morning to give thanks for what they have received and make new requests to the Andean deities.

The "amautas," masters or indigenous wise men who guide the rituals and prayers in Aymara and Spanish, sounding pututus, and chanting "jallalla" or "viva" in Aymara, gather at the site.

The amauta Mariano Condori, or Mariano of the Andes, presided over the ritual and affirmed that "when they sow in the field, the plowing is done, the earth is broken and the toads appear. That is called 'marani' and we venerate all that. 'Marani' are the ones who give fertility to the land and also the blessing to each man or woman who offers a table." 

On the table are offered sweets of different shapes and "misterios," sugar boards with images in which it is believed that the luck of the one who makes the offering comes out. Wira k'oa, a sacred medicinal plant from the Altiplano, incense, aromatic vegetable resins and llama fat are included. Once the offering is assembled, it must be "ch'allar" or blessed with alcohol, wine or beer, to be placed on a pyre, and everything must be reduced to ashes. These are later buried or kept.

It is important to make the offering with faith and confidence that you will receive what you are asking for.