Layqa
Layqa (Aymara and Quechua)[1][2] is a term employed prior to the Spanish Conquest to denote a ceremonial healer from the Quechua speaking central Peruvian highlands. After the arrival of the European Inquisitors, Catholic priests, began referring to all Quechua magico-religious practitioners by this title, equating the layqa with ‘sorcerer’ or ‘witch.’ Early references to the layqa appear in the Spanish Chronicles, as well as the Huarochirí Manuscript,[3] commissioned in 1608 by a clerical prosecutor and Inquisitor, Father Francisco de Avila, who used it for the persecution of indigenous worships and beliefs.
Several contemporary investigators, including psychiatrist and anthropologist Ina Rösing,[4] and medical anthropologist Alberto Villoldo have attempted to clarify that the layqa in the prehispanic world were not 'witches', but traditional healers and wisdom teachers.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Radio San Gabriel, "Instituto Radiofonico de Promoción Aymara" (IRPA) 1993, Republicado por Instituto de las Lenguas y Literaturas Andinas-Amazónicas (ILLLA-A) 2011, Transcripción del Vocabulario de la Lengua Aymara, P. Ludovico Bertonio 1612 (Spanish-Aymara-Aymara-Spanish dictionary)
- ^ Teofilo Laime Ajacopa, Diccionario Bilingüe Iskay simipi yuyayk'ancha, La Paz, 2007 (Quechua-Spanish dictionary)
- ^ Salomon, Frank; Urioste, George L. (1991). The Huarochirí Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion. University of Texas Press. doi:10.7560/730526. ISBN 978-0-292-73052-6.
- ^ Rösing, Ina (1987). Die Verbannung der Trauer: Nächtliche Heilungsrituale in den Hochanden Boliviens [The Banishment of Sorrow: Nighttime Healing Rituals in the High Andes of Bolivia] (in German). Greno. p. 79.
- The Four Agreements, Hay House, 2007.
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