Buckets and buckets of Llama Blood

The gringos in the background (in yellow mining helmets and grey overalls) can´t bear to look as the second llama gets the chop.

On Saturday I attended the annual Fiesta del Espirtu (festival of the spirit), a festival held by the miners here in Potosi. Rather than being a large, centralised festival, it is a relatively small affair (perhaps 50 people) that is held by each individual mining cooperative at their own mine. And what is the basic idea of the festival? Well, there are two main elements - bottles and bottles of puro (96% potable alcohol) and buckets and buckets of llama blood.

The feista is actually relatively simple in concept. The miners have very strong spiritual beliefs - you can understand it when they spend so long underground, constantly exposed to the dangers of arsenic gas, natural asbestos, carbon monoxide poisoning and most importantly of all, a long term destruction of the lungs by fine silica dust known as silicosis pneunomia (not to mention the other inherent dangers of mining, such as cave-ins etc): the average lifespan of a miner is 10-15 years of work in the mines. The most important spiritual character for the miners is Pachamama (the earth mother), who owns the minerals (silver, tin, zinc) that they are taking, and who they actually work inside. The logic of fiesta del espiritu thus goes that by making an offering to Pachamama of Llama blood, she will be satisfied and thus will not need to spill any of the miners blood. As you can imagine, with Dorthe and I living in Potosi as we are, and reading so much about the miners, we were both very interested to learn more about such an important part of the miner´s lives. A number of tour companies here organise Espiritu tours, and so we signed up. Unfortunately, Dorthe was rather ill on the morning and unable to go, leaving me to join about a dozen other gringos on what was to prove to be an unforgetable day.

The day started with a trip to the miners market, where we purchased some gifts for the miners - coca, cigarettes, beer, alcohol, and also a big bag of maderins for the children. Also on sale there, readily available for the amateur terroist, was dynamite, fuses, detonators, and ammonium nitrate to make a bigger, better bang. But the most interesting part was seeing the llamas for sale - people from the surrounding villages brought their prize llamas into town to sell to the miners to be sacrificed. The image of a car driving by with the boot wide-open and a rather confused looking llama sticking its head out is one that I will never forget. Similarly, large trucks with twenty people and a dozen llamas on the back cruised the streets, bringing the unsuspecting victims to the market.

From the market, we made our way to the mine - a 45min crawl in a bus up the side of Cerro Rico, the silver rich hill that is where the mines are located. We arrived at our mine just in time for the main activity of the day - the ritual llama sacrifice at midday. The entrance to the mine was a narrow gully perhaps three metres wide, and thirty metres long, and was absolutely packed with about 50 people and four confused looking llamas. And about 15 gringos who weren´t quite sure what was about to happen, and whether they wanted to watch.

First, the individual animal was captured, and its hind legs tied tightly against its body, so that it was forced to sit, and to stop it from kicking (understandible). The sitting animal was then force-fed coca leaves, beer, and puro (more on that stuff later), and then sprinkled with more beer - all offerings for Pachamama. The animal was then turned around to face the mine, and rolled over on its side - three people sat on the body, and the head was bent back as far as possible, fully exposing the neck. Next, while all of the other gringos stood in the corner and looked the other way, one person held a large plastic bowl underneath the neck, and another swifty cut its throat right the way through to the spine, which was then promptly snapped. And the blood just poured out of it - the plastic bowl collected most of it, but there were also random jets squirting in all directions, all over everyone. Very messy.

And then the action really started - men, children and women with babies on their backs produced large dinner plates and filled them with warm blood from the bowl and started scattering it over everything solid - most importantly above the entrance to the mine, but also above the doorways over all of the buildings and homes, and even over some of the vechiles too I think. And of course, over all the people too - by the end of it, everyone (unwilling gringos included) had Llama blood all over their faces and necks. This incredible process was repeated three more times as each animal was sacrificed - the surreal scene was only enhanced by the miners denonating sticks of dynamite nearby in celebration.

After that, everyone (myself included) needed a beer. Or a puro. Or both. And so we all sat around and had a drink, with four Llama carcasses at our feet. What is puro you ask? Well, it is the drink of choice for the miners - 96% potable alcohol (it is basically meths without the purple stuff that makes you vomit) - they´re serious about their drinking here in Bolivia. And it is dirt cheap too - one litre for about US$1 or so - that´s enough to keep you happy for a while. Its actually not as bad to drink as you´d think - its a lot smoother than straight rum or tequilla for example, mainly because it all evaporates in your mouth, and never reaches your stomach. That doesn´t mean that it doesn´t get absorbed into the bloodstream though, I can assure you.....

Drinking with the miners involves five steps. First, you pour a little on the ground, as an offering to Pachamama (often you pour it over the Llama carcass as well). Then a little for whoever you like (the devil is a common choice). Then you drink. Then, because there is a duality between Pachamama and you, you repeat the process. And then after that, you accept the next drink that is going to be thrust into your hand - I can assure that you that the miners, as poor as they are, are extremely generous with their alcohol, and extremeley exhuberant in their celebration of life.

Two down. Two to go. Note the blood spread above the entrance to the mine in the background.

After an hour or so of relaxing, drinking, chewing coca leaves and talking to the miners, it was back into it. The four carcasses were skinned and gutted. The pelt, stomach, legs, head, and intestines of each animal were placed in a large tray, a deep hole dug at the entrance to the mine, and the trays buried along with some cigarettes, coca, and more puro, as a further offering to Pachamama. The meat from the animal was taken and carved up by the women in a separate room near the mine. I helped them with this for a while, while I helped hand out the presents (my inability to find the right place to cut through the still warm spine of the Llama caused great hilarity amongst the women, and earnt me many shots of some dubious orange coloured liquid that was puro (and orange juice?) based). The women, seemingly innocent dressed in their traditional clothes, were actually the worst drinkers, and got me far more drunk than the men. The meat was then taken out and barbequed over charcoal. The rest of the day dissolved into a mad torrent of feasting on the llama meat, drinking and, in true Bolivian style, lots of dancing to crazy music.

Probably the nicest thing about the day though was the way that we foreigners were treated - even though we were gringos, the five of us that stayed for the barbeque (the others had had enough and took the early bus home) were treated like family, and made to drink, feast and dance like we were Bolivians. Of course, mone of us were, or ever will be, Bolivian miners, and the net result was some very drunken gringos. But then, you might say that was part of the whole thing, a beautiful duality to please Pachamama: Llama slaughter and Gringo Slaughter.

Random fact of the day: Never approach a llama from the front. Like most other members of the camelid (camel) family, they spit. And I can assure you from personal experience, that a pissed off llama is a really good shot....