A visit to God - The account and interpretation of a religious experience in the Peruvian community of Choque-Huarcaya

Abstract

The account and interpretation of a religious experience in the Peruvian conununlty of Choque-Huarcaya. Iluring our fieldwork in the River Pampas area, Department I J of Ayacucho, Peru, we were told by an old lady, Francisca Chaqiri, how she had died when 20 years old and how she had gone to God.He, however, said that He had not called for her and so He sent her back to earth and to life.We also heard elements of her religious ideas and descriptions of similar visits to God on other occasions.What makes her account so valuable is its clearly discernible structure, which relates it to similar ideas in Inca religion and social organization; ideas that still survive, as this account proves.The Quechua text (printed as an Appendix to this paper) was collected and recorded in the community of Choque Huarcaya, near the River Pampas, by R. T. Zuidema and U. Quispe and translated by the latter.The data on the modern culture were collected in Huarcaya by U. Quispe and S. Catacora and in Sarhua by S. Palomina and J. Earls, all students of the University of Ayacucho, on various occasions between April and September 1966.The two communities belong to the district of Sarhua, province of Victor Fajardo, department of Aycucho.After a translation of the recorded Quechua text we will give the interpretation of it.

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