The Bolivian Way

Kari Kari, Diablada, Tio and other Daemons

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The Bolivian society defines itself as Roman Catholic; however, the heavy syncretism with old pagan practices creates a fascinating kaleidoscope of beliefs. Here are some of them:Kari KariKari Kari is a term kept for local male-witches. According to the locals, they can appear as black dogs, black birds or as a person dressed in black and that his face cannot be seen. The Kari Kari approaches his victims while they are asleep and takes out a bit of fat from their abdominal regions. Human fat is considered to be a powerful medicine and the Kari Kari uses it for healing his paying customers. As his customer heals, the person the fat was taken from dies.TioAt every Bolivian mine t...Read More

The Bolivian society defines itself as Roman Catholic; however, the heavy syncretism with old pagan practices creates a fascinating kaleidoscope of beliefs. Here are some of them:

Kari Kari
Kari Kari is a term kept for local male-witches. According to the locals, they can appear as black dogs, black birds or as a person dressed in black and that his face cannot be seen. The Kari Kari approaches his victims while they are asleep and takes out a bit of fat from their abdominal regions. Human fat is considered to be a powerful medicine and the Kari Kari uses it for healing his paying customers. As his customer heals, the person the fat was taken from dies.

Tio
At every Bolivian mine there is a Tio. “Tio” means “uncle” in Spanish but that obviously is not the case of the creature facing the miners. To understand the concept, it must be known that the Quechua language lacks the consonant “D.” Hence, the Spanish “Dios” (God) became “Tio” while the Quechua people pronounce it. Yet, the figure being worshipped there is not God, but Satan. Painted in deep red, with big horns on his head and goat’s feet, it resembles a sitting satyr with a huge erection. The miners bring him cigarettes, coca leaves, alcohol and soda drinks on a daily basis. Miners live in a double world, ruled by God while they are outside the mine, and by the devil when they are underground.

Diablada
The February Carnival in Bolivia (there are several similar feasts along the year – see my other Bolivian journals) is dedicated to “Diabladas,” (Devilish) dances, which are part of a devil’s cult which was merged with the local version of Roman Catholicism. The devil’s masks and customs give testimony to a rich imagination, in sharp contrast to the monotonous brass music played by the bands and the slow, unsophisticated, undulating moves of the dancers. The heavy dresses accompanying the men’s masks allow the dancers only clumsy, pendulum-like moves. The women use peculiar customs: hats belonging to 19th century London, long-sleeved, colored blouses, high-heeled boots reaching above the knees and skirts that seem to end before they begin. Each dancing group carries signs showing to which workers union it belongs. Interestingly, the devils have blue eyes.

Llama Fetuses and Beer
One of the strangest sights in central La Paz, especially around Sagarnaga Street (the main tourists’ center) is the dried-up llama fetuses offered for sale. According to local traditions, they are buried below every new building so that the Pachamama – the earth daemon-god – would be pacified and would not attack the house owners. In a related practice, Bolivians spill some of the drink they are about to consume on the ground, so that the Pachamama spirit would get some of it and would not harm the drinker.

Happy Birthday!
One Sunday – while visiting a Bolivian church – I witnessed a strange event. A young mother approached the altar, began crying and told everyone her girls were dying. It was strange because I knew the girls and they were perfectly well and happy, sitting on one of the back benches. Worried, I approached the mother and asked what had happened. “Nothing, everything is OK,” she told me drying up her tears. “Everything is OK,” the members kept telling me. Sensing something strange, I kept pressing until one of them finally told me: “It was the older girl’s birthday, so the mother spoke like that to fool the spirits not to take her girl since she is already dying.” Read Less

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Bolivian Music and Dances

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Kari Kari, Diablada, Pachamama and the Tio Photo - La Paz, Bolivia

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The MusicDespite Bolivia’s significant size, the local musical tradition is quite limited; one of the causes for that is the local conservativeness. No musical group would venture into innovating something, thus all of them within a given style end up with a similar sound. It is very difficult to remember a specific song or theme.From an ethnic point of view there are two well defined regions in the country; each of them created distinctive musical traditions. The Andean High Plateau inhabitants are mainly Aymara and Quechua, while the Amazonian Basin and other lowlands are populated by Tupi-Guarani people.The Andean Plateau population uses instruments of wind and percussion, t...Read More

The Music

Despite Bolivia’s significant size, the local musical tradition is quite limited; one of the causes for that is the local conservativeness. No musical group would venture into innovating something, thus all of them within a given style end up with a similar sound. It is very difficult to remember a specific song or theme.

From an ethnic point of view there are two well defined regions in the country; each of them created distinctive musical traditions. The Andean High Plateau inhabitants are mainly Aymara and Quechua, while the Amazonian Basin and other lowlands are populated by Tupi-Guarani people.

The Andean Plateau population uses instruments of wind and percussion, though cheap electronic synthesizers have conquered the market in the last years and have created a distinctive deterioration in the produced music. The most distinctive wind instrument is the quena (kae-naa), which is made of several bamboo-like tubes joined together to form a boxy structure. They appear in varying sizes; the longer ones are bigger than a man and demand a significant dexterity in their use. Other wind instruments are the pinkullo, the sicuri, the pututo, the huankare and the tarka. Percussion instruments – namely drums – are called here Pululu and caja.

Another popular instrument in the plateau is a local variation of European string instruments called charango. Originally it was made of armadillos, a small mammal of the Andean Plateau which has a strong armor suitable for constructing the instrument’s body.

The lowland people have completely adopted the Spanish instruments; guitars and drums are the main music producing devices.

For the fiestas and carnivals, the bands walking with the dancers do not use any of the traditional instruments. They are exclusively brass bands producing a noisy, metallic and monotonous sound.

The Dances

The Andean High Plateau cultures were communal rather than individual ones, thus also the dances were performed by them in groups rather than in couples. As with the music produced by the groups, this characteristic resulted in monotonous, un-innovative dances, with the dancers moving in slow, unsophisticated, undulating steps.

The heavy dresses accompanying the colorful men’s masks allow the dancers only clumsy, pendulum-like moves and represent archetypal figures from the colonial past. Devils and slaves, patrons and daemons, are all exquisitely represented. The women use peculiar customs: hats belonging to 19th century London, long-sleeved, colored blouses, high-heeled boots reaching above the knees and skirts that seem to end before they begin. Bolivians being heavily organized in unions, each dancing group carries a sign showing to which workers’ union it belongs.
The dances which can be seen during the many carnivals and fiestas filling up the Bolivian calendar are related to the Huayño, a dance in which the groups whirl around while moving down the street in a “Pandilla” (“gang”). The best known such event is the Diablada of Oruro, see the dedicated entry in my Oruro journal.

In the lowlands, the Cueca (koo-ae-kaa) is the favorite dance. It has Spanish origins, and is closely related to the Fandango. If invited to a wedding in the Santa Cruz area, most probably a group performing cuecas would be seen. South of there, in Tarija religious processions are popular. The best known one is San Roque on the first Sunday in September. Read Less

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Speaking Bolivian Spanish

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The Spanish immigrants who defined the future language of half-South America arrived from South-western Spain, and shaped the peculiarities of the regional dialects after their own. For those who learned Spanish as the Spaniards speak it, the South American versions are a bit difficult to comprehend at first. In Spain, the "c" is pronounced similarly to an English "th," however, in the whole of South America, the "c" and the "z" have been atrophied into an "s." The "ll" is a lateral consonant peculiar to the Spanish; in South America its pronunciation got lost and each region pronounces it differently, sometimes as an English "sh," sometimes as an English "j" and sometimes like an "ee." More than one ...Read More

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Eating in Bolivia: Bolivian Bromated Bread

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Huayna Potosi Photo - Bolivia, South America

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Many different Bolivian dishes have been described in several journals of mine (see for example the "Eating in La Paz" one). This entry is dedicated to several generalities which were not fit of other specific entries.Quantum FoodMost foods in Bolivia are sold in a quantum fashion, since most locals do not trust neither the scales nor the people managing them. Most fruits are sold by the unit, as the bread is. The most popular breads are tiny loaves called "marraquetas" and "sarnas." Since they are sold by the unit, the producers have an interest to make them as light as possible. The result was the adoption of sodium bromate as a regular addition to the bread; unluckily, it is a car...Read More

Many different Bolivian dishes have been described in several journals of mine (see for example the "Eating in La Paz" one). This entry is dedicated to several generalities which were not fit of other specific entries.

Quantum Food
Most foods in Bolivia are sold in a quantum fashion, since most locals do not trust neither the scales nor the people managing them. Most fruits are sold by the unit, as the bread is. The most popular breads are tiny loaves called "marraquetas" and "sarnas." Since they are sold by the unit, the producers have an interest to make them as light as possible. The result was the adoption of sodium bromate as a regular addition to the bread; unluckily, it is a carcinogen forbidden for use in food in most of the world. One of the pictures attached to this entry is of a newspaper from the 07/07/07 officially acknowledging the dangerous fact. While in Bolivia, bread should be avoided.

Carbohydrates Kingdom
Bolivian food is characterized by another peculiarity: most dishes served in markets and restaurants contain a very high percentage of carbohydrates and oils. Most dishes include rice, noodles, and potatoes (if mixing up rice and noodles they are called "mixto") and are served with half a loaf of "marraqueta" bread. Generous amounts of reheated oil are used in the preparation of meats. Care should be taken while consuming such dishes.

Potatoes Empire
The Andean High Plateau is where potatoes originated. There are over two-hundred types coming from the area and consequently they are present on every dish; Bolivians don’t feel to have eaten if potatoes weren’t included in the meal. Some of the special potatoes are very tasty. The Black Potato (actually it is kind of violet) is sweet and has a pleasant texture; while the tiny Oca has a taste very similar to a yam. To preserve them for long periods of time, potatoes are dehydrated with the kind help of the freezing plateau’s nights. The most popular dehydrated potatoes are called "chuño" and "tunta." The first is black, has a bitter taste and a grainy texture; while the second is white and has a more pleasant taste. However, the morning after the potatoes are frozen, they are stepped on with bare feet in order to extract the semi-frozen liquids inside it. There are neither health nor hygiene controls on the process and thus they should be avoided.

Safe Snacks
The most popular and safe snacks in the country are the salteñas and tucumanas. See my entry "Lost in Geography: Tucumanas and Salteñas" in my" Deep Down in the Valleys: Cochabamba" journal for details.

Fixing Up the Dish
The carbohydrates mix in every dish creates quite tasteless dishes. To fix that, a mixture of chopped chillies and tomatoes in water is put on every Bolivian table, allowing spicing up the dish. The spice is called "llajua" (ee-aa-hoo-aa) and is added to everything – including soups – except for sweet desserts.

Dry, Please
A result of the physiological adjustment to altitude is a lower consumption of liquids (see details in the "Urban Height" entry in my "El Alto Heights" journal). The cultural counterpart of the physiological event is the lack of liquids on Bolivian meals. If eating with a local, expect to see no liquids on the table, except for the omnipresent and rather thick soup.

Bon Appetite! Read Less

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Bolivian Streets’ Survival Guide

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I must apologize for this entry. Usually I try to write funny and informative entries, but as we share the good moments, there is no choice but share some of the bad ones. And if sharing my bad moments prevents other travellers of experiencing them, then it was worth writing and reading them. Some of the following paragraphs are quite funny and describe misadventures awaiting visitors in an unknown culture; others are gloomy facts regarding the sad reality in Bolivia.Conquering the GapDifferent cultures have quite different body language and diverse ways to manage life in a polite fashion. Here, Bolivians are unique in more than one way. One of the more peculiar Bolivian practices is...Read More

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Accident in Uyuni

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Mururata Mountain and La Paz Photo - La Paz, Bolivia

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On the first - and long - weekend of May 2008 a terrible accident occurred in the Salar de Uyuni, one of the main attractions in Bolivia. I reported that on IgoUgo's Message Boards and a series of events that lead to my hurried leaving of the country began. To my best understanding, this article is important not as a reaction to the violence exercised toward me, but as a warning toward other travelers. They still may decide to visit Bolivia, but then it would be a much better informed decision.The Accident in Uyuni On Thursday, May 1, 2008, between 2pm and 4pm two vans collided front to front between the "Isla del Pescado" (the Fish Island) and the Salt Hotels in the Sa...Read More

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Bolivia Journals

The Bolivian Way

Kari Kari, Diablada, Tio and other Daemons

Bolivian Music and Dances

Speaking Bolivian Spanish

Eating in Bolivia: Bolivian Bromated Bread

Bolivian Streets’ Survival Guide

Accident in Uyuni

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