Layqa (Aymara and Quechua) is a term employed prior to the Spanish Conquest to denote a ceremonial healer from the Quechua speaking central Peruvian highlands. After the arrival of the European Inquisitors, Catholic priests, began referring to all Quechua magico-religious practitioners by this title, equating the layqa with ‘sorcerer’ or ‘witch.’ Early references to the layqa appear in the Spanish Chronicles, as well as the Huarochirí Manuscript, commissioned in 1608 by a clerical prosecutor and Inquisitor, Father Francisco de Avila, who used it for the persecution of indigenous worships and beliefs.
Several contemporary investigators, including psychiatrist and anthropologist Ina Rösing, and medical anthropologist Alberto Villoldo have attempted to clarify that the layqa in the prehispanic world were not 'witches', but traditional healers and wisdom teachers.
See also
References
- Radio San Gabriel, "Instituto Radiofonico de Promoción Aymara" (IRPA) 1993, Republicado por Instituto de las Lenguas y Literaturas Andinas-Amazónicas (ILLLA-A) 2011, Transcripción del Vocabulario de la Lengua Aymara, P. Ludovico Bertonio 1612 (Spanish-Aymara-Aymara-Spanish dictionary)
- Teofilo Laime Ajacopa, Diccionario Bilingüe Iskay simipi yuyayk'ancha, La Paz, 2007 (Quechua-Spanish dictionary)
- Salomon, Frank; Urioste, George L. (1991). The Huarochirí Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion. University of Texas Press. doi:10.7560/730526. ISBN 978-0-292-73052-6.
- Rösing, Ina (1987). Die Verbannung der Trauer: Nächtliche Heilungsrituale in den Hochanden Boliviens [The Banishment of Sorrow: Nighttime Healing Rituals in the High Andes of Bolivia] (in German). Greno. p. 79.
- The Four Agreements, Hay House, 2007.
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