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The cult of the Pachamama inspired a

divine presence for Incan Women

(Espacio de Arpon Files).

EFFECT OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST

The Spanish, shocked by the idea of women performing spiritual ceremonies and having a respected role in

society, leave no record of women priestesses in Inca society in their chronicles (Silverblatt, 2002). They

could not grasp the concept of duality in religion, women officiating during ceremonies and seeing women as

equal to men in sanctity, because their society had never been understood this way (Silverblatt, 2002). The

doctrine of Christianity is very different than the Andean Cosmovision. In the Andean genesis, men and

women were created at the same time (Smith, 2008). Women were not created from the man and was not

associated with sin and guilt, something completely opposite of Christianity (Smith, 2008). In Christianity,

women were created from the rib of the men and because of her betrayal, had men exiled from the promised

land. In Christianity, there are various examples where women are seen as subordinate to men. After

colonization, Indigenous women repeatedly attempted to return to their native religion as a form of cultural

resistance (Silverblatt, 2002). They would seek out to punas, or high plateaus in the Andes, to return to their

original, ancestral ways and reject the ideology and institution of colonization (Silverblatt, 2002). Hiding in

their huts, women refused to attend the Christian mass or allow their children to be baptized…

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