MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

S. America's peoples celebrate the winter solstice new year

The indigenous peoples of South America from the Andes highlands to the extreme south of Chile celebrated early Saturday the arrival of the winter solstice which signals the beginning of a new year.

In Bolivia and according to the Andean calendar it was new year 5.516 for the Aymara people who feasted in the archeological complex of Tiwanaku, to the west of the capital La Paz, headed by the country's elected, and first indigenous president Evo Morales. As an Aymará Morales received the dawn sun rays with hands to the sky and dressed in a multicolor poncho. He was accompanied by hundreds of people in spite of the freezing cold temperature of this time of the year at over 4.000 meters of altitude. For the Mapuches who inhabit most of what is today Chile the winter solstice is also the beginning of a new year or We Tripantu, the renewed equilibrium of nature, "when life and nature regulates their pulse with the lunar rhythm". It was also celebrated on Saturday, winter solstice, at the different indigenous organizations. In Bolivia the ceremony begins early morning before the sun is out with autochthonous music played with the quena (flute) and other traditional acoustic instruments and an Aymara priest who as part of the rites burns in a bonfire the offerings (sweets, alcohol, coca leaves) to Pachamama (mother earth) waiting for the arrival of Tata Inti (the sun). The climax is reached when the first rays emerge which according to indigenous tradition and beliefs are full of energy to fecundate mother earth. For the Aymaras the festivity is known as the Wilkakuti (the return of the sun) and for the Quechuas another people of the highlands it's the Inti Raymi and is closely linked to the agricultural calendar and to a circular conception of time.