Spirituality: Chuqui Chinchay

Spirituality: Chuqui Chinchay Inca Shamanic Glossary - Ch, Ch', Chh

Ancient Incas worshipped a dual gendered mountain deity named chuqui chinchay. This deity was also the patron of dual-gendered individuals such as the quariwarmi, the shamans who attended this gods wishes and rituals belonged to a third gender. Part of these rituals required same-sex erotic practices. The quariwarmi wore neither male nor female clothing, to represent, “a visible sign of a third space that negotiated between the masculine and the feminine, the present and the past, the living and the dead.” They represented dualism in Andean cosmology and their existence resists being taken out of their cultural context to be fit into a non-native Andean classification. The arrival of the Portuguese, however, destroyed the culture as it was. This touches on the relationship between sex and spirituality. Religion often informed ideas of sex and sexuality, which makes it difficult, or impossible, to impose western ideas of sex and sexuality onto any specific context. That being said, historians have noted various same-sex actions or customs in cultures across Latin America. Whether these are an act of sexuality, spirituality, or somewhere in between, depends by case. Still, the non-binary or dual-gendered nature of the god points to a bending of gender alongside sexuality proves people have existed outside of the binary for far longer than some homophobes care to admit.
Sources:
Bosia, Michael J., Sandra M. McEvoy, Momin Rahman, and Manuela L. Picq. "Decolonizing Indigenous Sexualities: Between Erasure and Resurgence." In The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics. : Oxford University Press, 2020-05. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190673741.013.23

Image can be found at: http://www.incaglossary.org/chextra.html
I'm Emily Ortiz, a freshman at Claremont McKenna College, and one of the co-founders. I'm a first-generation Mexican-American, so I have always been invested in the history of Latin America. I began to notice, however, that Latin America was often treated as a monolith, instead of the incredibly diverse and beautifully complicated countries they are. As I discovered more about myself too, I became invested in the LGBTQ+ movements, not only in the U.S., but in the various Latin American countries, as well. In the very little research I conducted, I could never find much information on pre-colonial views on sex and sexuality. Because access to information brings power, and silence on issues contributes to oppression, I believe this blog should serve as a space to learn and connect with people who are just as invested in learning more about their history.

Comments

Post a Comment