Page 188 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

The story demands that I open my eyes to realities I would rather not consider. The Inca Empire is

often idealized in the Andes today, and the monuments it left behind, such as Machu Picchu, are world-

renowned treasures. Yet these creations were built by people laboring under a totalitarian god-king. I

wrestle with how to honor the beauty and spirit of a society while acknowledging the suffering it must

also have caused.

Finally, this journey requires me to face tragedies in our modern world, such as how climate change is

impacting the Andes. Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis, in his book The Wayfinders: Why Ancient

Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, states: “Eighty percent of the fresh water that feeds the western

coast of South America is derived from Andean glaciers. These are receding at such an obvious rate

that the pilgrims to the Qoyllur Rit’i [Snow Star Festival], believing the mountain gods to be angry, are

no longer carrying ice from the Sinakara [Valley] back to their communities, forgoing the very gesture of

reciprocity that completes the sacred circle of the pilgrimage and allows for everyone to benefit from the

grace of the divine.” I am forced to consider the effects of this devastation, not only at an environmental

and human scale, but also at the level of cosmology. I don’t want to imagine the mountain gods

stripped of their regal white cloaks, the mantles of snow and ice that have inspired centuries of devotion

and awe. But the journey of the story-carrier insists that I do.

Writing at Inca site Ollantaytambo, Peru