Brujaja: Folklore and Commercialism in the Witches’ Market of La Paz
Iglesia San Francisco, the ancient Catholic cathedral of central La Paz, Bolivia, daily draws large crowds to its stone-carved steps and the inviting plaza space before it. Mini-busses and trufis line up at the intersection in front of this Grand Central Station without trains, and indeed it is like a central station, but one of culture and economy, not of transportation. Among the crowds are paceñas waiting to meet friends or catch rides; tourists gawking at the famed church on their way to a hostel, restaurant, or tour agency; merchants selling chocolates, handicrafts, and anything else they might carry through the throngs; even local gringos, haunting the plaza for cheap sweaters and rich folklore. But the wealth of folklore is not to be found among the European religion and architecture at the foot of Calle Sagarnaga, where the church majestically rests. Behind the cathedral of Saint Francis, just two blocks up the steep, cobblestone street, is el Mercado de las Brujas, the Witches’ Market. Despite its looming presence and local notoriety, Iglesia San Francisco is both physically and culturally inferior to the market above, for it only represents one aspect of the local folklore. The market, however, stands at a crossroad, both literally and figuratively, between the endemic and the foreign, the ancient and the modern. Though ostensibly the center of tourism and commercialism, the Witches’ Market of La Paz actually serves the needs of a vastly diverse population of folk and functions symbolically as the center of culture and economy in the city of peace.
The climb up Sagarnaga is drastic. At the base of the cobbled declivity, beneath the cathedral façade, is the city, modern and alive. But up every steep hill in La Paz, one finds the past: outdated architecture, primitive hovels, ancient rock formations. It is the same in San Francisco, except the past is glossed (or tainted) with commercialism. Within the decrepit buildings are thriving businesses — hostels, restaurants, tour agencies — mostly targeting a foreign clientele. Nestled among the hostels and tour guides are chola market women selling lluchu hats, alpaca sweaters, and aguayo blankets. At the top of the street, tourism is supplanted by domestic necessity, and vendors of fruits and household goods line Illampu Avenue, which runs perpendicular to Sagarnaga and marks the end of the tourist area. Plunging back toward San Francisco is Calle Santa Cruz, a street that, though parallel to Sagarnaga geographically, is quite a contrast from its tourist-riddled neighbor. Santa Cruz evinces the Aymara temperament of excess in its rows of fruit stands followed by rows of appliance stores followed by rows of hair salons. This concentration of identical goods and services along the same streets “magnifies the feeling of abundance and heightens the appeal to the viewer, seller and customer not only to buy but also to participate in this abundance” (Tassi 198). But more importantly, Santa Cruz is a street that targets a strictly local clientele. A small street connects the two larger avenues, and along that street are shops where one can buy fetishes, oblations, even llama fetuses, all tools used by the folk to maintain balance between the good and evil forces in their natural world. Andean religion is “primarily apotropaic magic designed to protect people, crops, and animals against the malevolence of witches and a host of evil spirits” (La Barre 26). This is the Witches’ Market, and it is not just a name — the market indeed serves the traditional needs of the folk and their beliefs, and among those needs are protection from harm and charms for good fortune. The market also serves the needs of novelty seeking tourists, and those same carved stone idols that protect the home of the local also adorn the abode of the foreigner. This wide appeal contributes to the importance of the Witches’ Market in the La Paz community. But there is more to this market and this community than idols and offerings.
Among the shops in the Witches’ Market, there are fabric and clothing shops, music shops, a few restaurants, and numerous individuals, each squatting before a panoply of handcrafted necklaces, pipes, key chains, and other trinkets. But most salient are the traditional shops selling charms and fetishes. These are the original shops of the Witches’ Market; the fabric and music shops came later. The vendors in these shops are almost exclusively women, and traditionally Aymara market shops are always run by women. The attitude of the market cholas is a stern, somewhat intimidating one, and they are not open to questions. A few did agree to discuss the folklore of the Witches’ Market. The first, Lydia, was a young woman — she appeared to be in her 20s. She was eager to discuss folklore, perhaps because she was young and identified more closely with me and my translator (also a young, Bolivian woman). According to Lydia, the market sellers are almost all women because Aymaran men are poor communicators and are not very friendly. Historically, “market women operate directly in the marketplace, whereas male cholos tend to be long-distance traders, wholesalers, or factory workers in urban or provincial centers” (Seligmann 703). Lydia’s shop contains a number of traditional folkloric items, mostly idols and fetishes for protection and good luck, and traditional oblations, like bags and bags of mesa candy (figure 1). The mesa offering consists of a basket full of white candies and other offerings, topped off with a llama (of course) fetus facing east. Lydia demonstrated this particular offering (figure 2). The mesa is set out for the entire month of August, during which time the folk make oblations of wine (a strictly sacrificial wine — the locals do not drink it), coca, and bread, among other things, to the gods twice a week. At the end of the month, the mesa is burned and the ashes are buried for good luck.
Though popular with locals, offerings and oblations are only a part of what is available at these traditional markets. Lydia’s shop carries hundreds of fetishes (figure 3), including Pachamama (figure 4), or Mother Earth, a “comprehensive deity, identified with the Earth, worshiped on numerous levels and in numerous manifestations as the protector of the crops and giver of life for over two thousand years” (Damian 305). There are other fetishes for luck and protection called monolitos, miniature replicas of ancient monoliths like the ones found at Tiwanaku. Most of Lydia’s idols are actually made in Tiwanaku, which itself has a long history of crafts and mercantilism. Archeologists believe that “specialized craft production was an important dimension of Tiwanaku social and economic life” (Janusek 107). Another of Lydia’s fetishes is important in January, when Bolivians celebrate Alasitas, and so Lydia’s shop is stocked with figurines of the god Ekeku (figure 5) bearing miniature bread, money, and other desired goods. The amulets of abundance that Ekeku wears around his neck are called illas. Through this type of primitive magic, Andeans believe one will acquire real versions of the treasures in miniature. Illas “do not simply provide a model, in miniature, for the objects, desires and goods they represent, but they give rise to the objects themselves, their energy and even physical form” (Tassi 200–1). Animals, both quick and dead, are also available at Lydia’s shop, mostly dried llama fetuses. Those with fur (figure 6) are used in house construction, buried underneath as offerings to Pachamama. According to locals, the ancient practice involved living humans, and it is said that to this day drunks and vagrants are sometimes kidnapped and buried under construction sites for good fortune. Like the hapless drunk, the cuyes (guinea pigs) that Lydia sells (figure 7) will suffer for the local folklore: In yet another ritual of sympathetic magic, the misfortune or illness of an individual is transferred to the cuy, and then the cuy is killed to exterminate the bad spirits. In Andean culture “guinea pigs are considered a great delicacy, are important in folk-medical diagnosis, and are regularly sacrificed to the gods” (Sandweiss and Wing 47). Cuyes sacrificed to the gods are not to be eaten — that would lead to even greater misfortune. With merchandise such as this, it is easy to believe Lydia’s assertion that her clientele are more local than foreign, for no tourist would buy such goods to take home as souvenirs.
Just a few shops down from Lydia is Aymar (figure 8), a musician who sells traditional Aymaran instruments. Aymar is no exception to the trend of mostly female merchants — in Aymaran culture women sing, but “musical instruments are the exclusive realm of men” (Stobart 70). Musical instruments are an important part of Andean folklore and belief: “music is supposed to fortify the spirit of the people, animals and crops, stimulating their growth and stirring their emotions” (La Barre 205). In rural communities there can be “as many of 12 different types of instruments […] played through the course of the year, each connected with a particular period within the agricultural cycle” (Stobart 70). The most remarkable instruments in Aymar’s collection were the charangos, small guitars adopted from European stringed instruments (figure 9). These “strummed guitar-type instruments seem to have largely displaced the role of the drum in the (rhythmic) accompaniment of song” (72). In Andean culture, charangos “are of crucial importance to courtship” and are “thought to have the power to enchant and seduce women” (85). Aymar’s charangos are made by hand in Potosí, a Bolivian silver mining town. Though friendly and, unlike the others, willing to be photographed, Aymar was still reluctant to play any traditional songs for us, claiming that he did not know any traditional songs. Perhaps he was merely uncomfortable playing without the accompaniment of a female voice. Or perhaps he was simply following tradition: “without a girl’s voice the song [is] ‘no use’ . . . such songs [require] two gendered parts in order to be complete” (87). The marriage of the chorango’s tune to the chola’s voice is symbolic of the marriage of cholo to chola, and the one is incomplete without the other.
The flute is yet another important instrument in Aymaran folklore, as seen in celebrations such as the Festival of the Skulls (figure 10). Like chorangos, flutes are also primarily within the realm of men, and the male role “as the players of wind instruments is underscored by local discourse concerning the engendering power of breath and wind” (Stobart 78). It takes no great leap of inference to discern the phallic symbolism of the long, straight instrument played with the mouth, and these “associations are sometimes made extremely explicit” as men hold the flutes between their legs and chase women while making “hoarse mating noises” (79). Aymar’s flutes were of two types: tarka, carved painted flutes; and quena, straight, unembellished flutes (figure 11). Though not as popular as the charango, flutes — “widespread in the prehispanic archeological record” (70) — predate the stringed instrument influenced by European models. Some of the powers attributed to flutes and other Andean instruments are the abilities “to attract the rain and help the crops grow” and “to send away the clouds and attract frosts” (72). Other instruments in Aymar’s collection include cabras, goat-skinned drums (figure 12); erkes, pipes made from the horns of bulls (figure 13); and chaskas or chajchas, tambourine-like instruments made from goat or pig nails (figure 14). Like Aymar’s shop, “rural communities of the high Andes are home to a rich and diverse array of musical instruments whose forms have roots in both prehispanic and European models” (70). And like the Witches’ Market itself, Andean music is an amalgam of old and new, foreign and endemic.
Fabric and clothing shops are also popular in the Witches’ Market, though this was not always the case. Sandra — who sells sweaters, hats, tapestries, blankets, and other fabrics — claims that the traditional shops with the idols and offerings were first in the market. Fabric and music shops came later. Nonetheless, working in the Witches’ Market is a family tradition for Sandra: Her mother works one of the traditional shops. Sandra offers all of the typical fare, as regards fabric shops. Prominently displayed at the entrance are stacks of lluchus (figure 15), Andean hats that have been worn on the Altiplano for centuries. Hats are important in Aymaran culture. Research suggests that historically in the Andean region “hats indicate ethnicity and community identity” (Cook 355). Lluchus are certainly an apparel of identity — they are one of only two hat styles popular among Bolivian men, the other a felt fedora worn with more formal attire and sometimes atop the lluchu. They are also popular among tourists looking to take home a cheap but colorful symbol of Bolivian culture. Lluchus indeed make memorable souvenirs — they are almost universally embroidered with Tiwanaku iconography, a tradition that dates back centuries: “Designs common to the carved stone tradition of the Tiwanaku site were woven into both Tiwanaku and Huari tapestry tunics” (Rodman and Cassman 37). Also for sale are handmade tapestries, which have a similarly extensive history in the Andes. At one time, tapestry “was a natural reflection of political power in the Andes” (33). On display in Sandra’s shop is a beautiful, hand-woven tapestry (figure 16). These handmade items are not as popular as factory made fabrics because of the price, though the price difference is somewhat negligible — a handmade sweater sells for 95 Bolvianos ($13.75), whereas the factory version sells for 80 ($11.50). Sandra’s tapestries and fabrics, like many Andean fabrics, reflect the tendency toward “strict geometric images and brilliant color contrasts” characteristic of traditional Incan fabric (34). Sandra is not just a merchant; she is a producer as well. In her spare time, she works aquayo, “the colorful Andean weaving that indigenous Bolivians use to carry everything from groceries and clothing, to babies” (Murphy). Chola women can be seen all over the city, in marketplaces, streets, and other locations, weaving this bright and multicolored fabric. Along with the shawl and bowler hat, the aguayo blanket is standard apparel for traditional Bolivian women, and nearly all of them use it instead of a bag or pack to carry goods to and from the market. Aguayo has been adapted to serve many different, sometimes modern, purposes, including its use in contemporary style shoes (figure 17).
Probably the most colorful and traditional of all the merchants interviewed was Paulina. Paulina dressed in typical chola attire, minus the Bowler hat: She wore a colorful shawl and bright pollera skirts, like most chola women, who pile the skirts “one on top of the other, expanding the volume of their bodies in order to convey the sensation of well-being, power, and attraction” (Tassi 199). Paulina spoke to us freely about the items she had for sale, but only after we allowed her time to clean her shop. Paulina has worked in the Witches’ Market for ten years. Her grandparents were shamans, or Collawayus, “famous all over South America, even as far as Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, as folk-doctors” (La Barre 26). They made the charms and spells that bring good luck and keep evil at bay. It was only natural for Paulina to land in this business. Paulina’s shop was indicative of the Aymaran tendency towards an “aesthetic of overabundance in displays of the goods and quantity of commodities stocked in shops and marketplaces” (La Barre 198) — her shelves were stacked floor to ceiling, but only one product deep, giving the illusion of a far greater quantity of items (figure 18). Among the most salient were the rows and rows of perfumes used as offerings (figure 19). These perfumes are made in Brazil, but are very popular among Bolivians. Along with perfumes, of course, she sells many different types of incense, also offerings for the gods. Like Lydia, Paulina asserts that most of her customers are locals and that most of her idols and amulets are made in Tiwanaku, and she has an impressive array of them: Ekeku, Pachamama, and frogs — many, many frogs — which are supposed to bring money and good fortune. During certain times of the year, these amphibious fetishes are even given alcohol and coca leaves. According to Paulina, the local folk have strong beliefs and superstitions, using her goods for success in construction and business, good health, and protection from evil. And again, the foreign clientele stick mostly to the idols and fetishes, trinkets and conversation starters that will eventually collect dust on shelves and mantels. Paulina and the other market workers serve a wide range of customers and needs, often drastically different and at odds with each other. The chola market women are not generally offended by this — whether their goods are used as salutatory charms or charming souvenirs, both Paulina and Lydia say they appreciate business of both types.
The attitude of the chola market women toward tourists evinces the importance of tourism to the local economy. Though it would seem somewhat exploitive, under scrutiny the tourism industry reveals a folklore of its own. As do the local folk, tourist have needs, and these needs are met through their travels and discoveries. Tourists seek out cross-cultural experiences, especially ethnic tourism, “a special category of travel that emphasizes a search for the exotic, as seen in a local population’s dress, food, or behavior” (Jacobs 310). Places like the Witches’ Market are obvious centers for such experiences, with its chola market women dressed in Bowler hats and shawls, carrying bundles in aguayo blankets, and wearing a half dozen or more pollera skirts; its salteña and empanada stands alongside restaurants of Bolivian and international cuisines; and its appeal to superstitious locals and curious foreigners. Situated between Sagarnaga and Santa Cruz, the market exists in a kind of liminal space, the very type of space that tourists often seek out. There are even regularly organized tours of the market (figure 20). Through this experience, “the individual is separated from the ordinary world of home, and passes into a nonordinary or liminal state” (311). Llama fetuses hanging from the rafters and shelf after shelf of fetishes and offerings are stark reminders to the tourist that he is in a remote and exotic place. Cheap sweaters and novelty souvenirs are appealing, but those are common in many places around the world. The appeal of the Witches’ Market satisfies a deeper need for the unknown and unfamiliar.
The Witches’ Market has become symbolic of pre-Columbian folk belief in La Paz. A tourist experience “is shaped in large part by symbols and meanings supplied by the tourism industry” (Jacobs 311). Those llama fetuses appeal to the tourist not simply because they satisfy a need for knowledge of the exotic, but also because they are somewhat iconic of the Witches’ Market itself. Hanging from ceilings and stacked in boxes, they do not go unnoticed. Also symbolic of the market are the chola market women, and though they are not as unique in the Andean region as the hanging fetuses, tourists do expect to see these women in their shops and at their stands. Just a few miles up the mountain in El Alto, the cholitas wrestle for public entertainment — in shawls and skirts and hats, no less — and this spectacle is popular among tourists and widely advertised. Part of the appeal of the wrestling is to see the women in their traditional apparel uncharacteristically (and rather unrealistically) fighting. The Witches’ Market is similarly appealing, for the chola women in their “uniforms” are a part of the exotic experience, “a living spectacle to be scrutinized, photographed, tape recorded, and interacted with in some particular ways” (Van den Berghe and Keys qtd. in Jacobs 310), though few of the chola market women agreed to be photographed. The Witches’ Market is a rich experience for tourists because it is an authentic experience — it is not just a souvenir market, but a center for local folk belief and custom.
Truly the Witches’ Market serves the needs of the local folk in numerous ways. It “reveals man’s attempts to escape in fantasy from the conditions of his geographical environment and from his own biological limitations” (Bascom 343) in its extensive reliance on charms and fetishes to bring fortune and repel evil. The market serves a second folkloric function in “validating culture, in justifying its rituals and institutions to those who perform and observe them” (344). The Witches’ Market is central to the city and alive with customers, a constant reminder of the Andean traditions; it is no rural custom fading into the past, nor a fringe ritual going unnoticed by modern people except during national holidays and festivals. The market further serves the folk because it embodies the mythology of the folk, and though there are many schools and universities in La Paz, mythology is still a significant source of folk knowledge to these people. Finally, the Witches’ Market helps to fulfill “the important but often overlooked function of maintaining conformity to the accepted patterns of behavior” (346). Women sell the fetishes and offerings; men sell the musical instruments — the market clearly and unequivocally evinces a strict adherence to traditional gender roles. Its oblations and idols are easily obtained, giving the folk little excuse for not making their routine offerings or appealing to their pantheon of gods. The Witches’ Market’ contributes symbolically to keeping Andean custom and tradition alive in a modern and growing city.
The folk beliefs that gave birth to and are themselves nurtured by the Witches’ Market conflict quite patently with the cathedral below, that imposing symbol of monotheism perched upon the earthy goddess Pachamama and shadowed beneath the snow-covered god Illimani. One might imagine that after the Spanish conquest Catholicism became the “official” religion of the people, and indeed cathedrals and Catholic schools litter the city landscape. But the Witches’ Market is a stark reminder to folklorists and anthropologists of the challenge in distinguishing “folk religion from other categories of religion” (Mullen 10), for like the mountain god above, the market too overshadows the San Francisco Cathedral, albeit figuratively, in its importance to both the local and foreign folk — there are many cathedrals in La Paz and around the world, but there is only one Witches’ Market.
Works Cited
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