What is this holiday? Basically, the Aymara New Year is a ceremony involving the Winter Solstice. In pre-Colonial America, the native peoples of the Andean highlands depended on agriculture and their agricultural rituals were carried out to obtain the blessings of the gods, above all the Pachamama (Mother Earth) and Inti (Father Sun), to ensure an abundant harvest. The Quechuas and Aymara celebrated two annual festivities: the planting season and the harvest, coinciding with the summer and winter solstices. Some Amazonian tribes also celebrated the solstice, with other rituals and in a different manner, each according to their customs.
However, let’s focus on what this celebration is according to the Aymara. Every 21st of June, from very early in the morning, when dawn is beginning and the first rays of sun have not yet shone, a group of amautas (a type of priest) meets with various ceremonial objects in the Temple of Kalasasaya, in Tiwanaku and they make toasts (wassail), burn offerings, and sacrifice tiny immaculate llamas as they wait for the rays of sun to pass through the Gate of the Sun, located in the same temple. This officially initiates a new agricultural cycle. They don’t measure time by the Western system of 12 months and 4 seasons. They have two ways of dividing their time: the first is a solar year which is divided into two periods, the summer solstice (December-January) and the winter solstice (June-July). The latter ends precisely on June 21st, and on this date one solar year ends and a new one begins. The second manner in which they divide their calendar, is in three seasons called ‘pachas’, each of which is divided further, and this is based on the climate.
Aymara New Year Activities
In a country of nearly 10 million, only about 2 million people identify
themselves as Aymara and of those, many are actually mestizo
(indigenous/European mix). People throughout the country who are not
Aymara are very upset at having the Aymara New Year imposed upon them.
In any case, those companies that do not shut down and whose employees
work on this date will be fined and will be forced to pay their workers
double for the day.
In La Paz there will be celebrations in Tiwanaku, Sorata, El Alto, Copacabana, the Valley of the Moon, and Pasto Grande.
In Cochabamba, at the ruins of Incallajta, there will be ceremonies and rituals to welcome the Aymara New Year.
In Santa Cruz, at Samaipata, the winter solstice will be celebrated as an astronomical phenomenon, (although the ruins at Samaipata are also not of Aymara origin).
In Potosí, there will be typical music and dances at Tahua, a visit to the ruins in Vinto, and at dawn participants will go to the island of Tajarete to await the sunrise.
The Arguments Against Aymara New Year
Cultural argument: The most vociferous argument made by those who
oppose this holiday is based on the fact that Bolivia is not an Aymara
nation. In fact, there are dozens of native Bolivian cultures and
therefore, they argue, the rituals of only one culture are being imposed
upon all the other cultures, some of which are also very large ethnic
groups, such as the Quechua and the Guaraní.
It’s not that they are against the festivity itself; after all, it’s
perfectly understandable that the Aymara culture should continue with
its customs. What they are against is the fact that the entire country
is being forced to obey with complete disregard for those who are not
Aymara, those who are of different ethnic groups, those who are mestizo
(mixed race), and worse yet, those who are not even remotely indigenous.
Therefore, they argue the Aymara New Year should be limited to the
regions where the Aymara population is numerous, in other words, Western
Bolivia.
Historical argument: There are those who argue that there is no evidence the Aymara ever celebrated a New Year prior to the arrival of the Spanish. They also affirm that this “Aymara New Year” is nothing more than a celebration of the potato harvest which doesn’t actually occur on the 21st of June. The first existing evidence of this celebration is from the 16th Century when Incan Emperor Pachacutec imposed the celebration of the Inti Raymi (the festival of the Sun god) on all people Incas or not, free or colonized, throughout the entire Tawantisuyo, the territory over which the Incas ruled. In addition, writings from the era when the Spanish arrived contain no evidence of an “Aymara New Year” but do mention the Inti Raymi.
The vindicative argument: There are those who explain that, taking into account historical evidence, this celebration is very recent, and is actually an attempt to vindicate the Aymara culture and that these ceremonies were created for this sole objective. They claim that the ceremony uses the customs of other cultures to give it an “ancestral” feel, not to mention what a great tourist attraction it makes. There are also those who argue that elements not native to the Aymara culture are included in order to manipulate ideologies, and that this is actually detrimental to this culture as it corrupts their identity even further.
Archeological argument: This argument states that almost nothing is known about the Aymara culture as they have no written history and very little archeological evidence of their culture has been found. In addition, because they were conquered by the Incas they were “Quechua-ized”, and in fact, their very name “Aymara” is actually a Quechua word used to describe natives who are not Quechua, who were deported as slave labor to the Inca Empire. The word is not original to their true ethnic identity and was grossly mispronounced by the Spaniards. Therefore, there is no evidence that the origins of this festivity are Aymara. In addition, the location where they now celebrate this Aymara New Year, the ruins of Tiwanaku are not Aymara ruins. They belong to the Tiwanakotas, a different culture. Finally, there is concern, among archeologists and local inhabitants of Tiwanaku, that the ruins will be damaged.
