Every first Friday of the month in Bolivia you will find K'oa ceremonies being performed. The ceremony is about offering thanks to Pachamama (Mother Earth) for what you've received in the previous month and asking for her help in specific areas for the month to come.
Of the few that I have experienced the ceremonies vary from very simple and calm to pretty elaborate and festive. This first Friday, 1st November, Gary led a simple ceremony with a few of us here at the SB main house to give thanks and facilitate some personal processing, using a small metal stand and some coals. Later on the same evening I went with volunteers Florrie and Nicole to the cultural centre La Troje where there were crowds of folk and a large bonfire.
In both cases the important factors are that the flames of the coals or the bonfire are allowed to burn down to red hot, and then that the K'oa is prepared: this is an arrangement of plant material and small plastic squares that symbolise the different things you are wishing or hoping for with the offering, such as love or health (see the photo at the start of this post - this image of a condor is made from these small square offerings). This K'oa arrangement is placed on the glowing embers of the fire and allowed to burn slowly over time (apparently in very traditional contexts the leading Shaman will look at the remnant ts the following day to see what has burned and what not and make divinations from this).
Each participant also selects 2 to 4 coca leaves, the best possible, with no cracks or damage, gives thanks and thinks of their hopes and wishes before placing them into the K'oa. It seems that this can be done before or after its been placed on the fire depending on who's leading the ceremony. Another important factor are the four corners of the K'oa, representing the four directions, or four elements. From what I've experienced it seems these can be marked by pouring a liquid offering like chicha or a plant offering like flour, which is sprinkled at each corned in turn, starting from the . (such as the home-brew chichi we were drinking from urns with a communal scoop - the custom is that once you've been offered your scoop, pour a little onto the ground for Pachamama, 'salud' the person you're inviting to drink after you, drink the whole scoop, re-fill it and pass it along to the next person, the one you cheers-ed).
A great part of the night was reconnecting again with two of the Craneos Rojos lads - Mauricio and Ismael, who were exhibiting their brilliant oil paintings there and were great company for the night along with owner Jaimie and his painter friend Jon.
Florrie and I headed with them again on the Saturday to an art collector's huge country house near Tiquipaya to see this sculpture garden and (slightly surprisingly) to watch a projection of an opera.
Thanks for a fun weekend lads!
:-)
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