The article explores the location of the Underworld in the Andean tradition as a part of its religious system. The main sources for this study are different colonial documents (including archival ones) in various genres, archaeological data, iconography, and ethnography. Based on the analysis of these sources, the author identifies the following locations of the Underworld: mountains / volcanoes, some subterranean / oversea place, and heaven. All these variants have a close connection not only with views about the Underworld, but also with ideas of the world order in general. For example, mountains were venerated as sources of moisture and fertility in the mountain regions of the Andean civilization, and the see had the same function in the coastal culture. At the same time, only heaven reflects the Christian stage of the Andean worldview, the others locations appeared in the pre-Hispanic period. At least the first variant of location shows a high degree of concretization: the sources contain numerous information about specific mountains / volcanoes that were thought as locations of the Underworld. Some of them are interregional in nature (the most representative example is the Koropuna volcano), others, on the contrary, were revered only at the local level by specific communities. Despite the fact that references of mountains/volcanoes as locations of the Underworld predominate in the sources, the author does not consider that it is possible to talk about the predominance of this location in the Andean worldview in general. Such situation is caused primarily by the disparity of sources by region: most of the data relate to the Sierra areas, while the Costa is much less
Key words: Andean civilization, Underworld, worldview, colonial period, Christianization, mountain worship
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2023_1_83
About the author
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Elena V. Novoselova – Ph.D. (History), Assistant Professor at the Department of Foreign languages, MIREA – Russian Technological University; 78 Vernadskogo avenue, Moscow, 119454, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |