From ‘Sacred Camelid’ to ‘Demonic Llama’

A colonial religious reinterpretation in the Peruvian Andes

Abstract

In ancient Peru, various animals and birds had a strong religious connotation, including the condor (Vultur gryphus), the falcon (Falco peregrinus), the hummingbird (Amazilia franciae), the guinea pig (Cavia porcellus), and the llama (Lama glama). However, it was the llama, a camelid with deep symbolic meaning in the Andean worldview, which experienced the greatest cultural transformation with the arrival of the colony. While in pre-Hispanic tradition it was considered a sacred and beneficial animal, in the colonial imagination it was linked to the damned, incest, and sexual deviations, which meant a process of ideological reconfiguration. Despite this cultural imposition, the indigenous people did not completely abandon their original vision of the llama, but gave it a new meaning by integrating elements of Christianity in a process of religious syncretism. For their part, the evangelizers distorted many of its expressions by reinterpreting them from their own Christian criteria. As a result, the llama became a hybrid symbol, the result of the cultural clash between the Andean worldview and the colonial perspective. This article analyses in depth this process of religious transformation of the llama in the peruvian Andes during the colonial period, showing how colonial discourses influenced the redefinition of a key symbol of Andean religiosity.