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[5] have attempted to clarify that the layqa in the prehispanic world were not 'witches', but traditional healers and wisdom teachers.
See also
editReferences
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)
- ^ The Huarochirí Manuscript
- ^ Ina Rösing
- ^ Alberto Villoldo
- The Huarochirí Manuscript, A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion,
Translation from the Quechua by Frank Salomon and George L. Urioste, University of Texas Press, 1991
- Die Verbannung der Trauer, Ina Rösing, Greno 10/20–15, 79
- The Four Agreements, Hay House, 2007.
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