El Solar healer and malero witch. Ambivalences of the Cerro Chaparri in the mythology of the northern Peruvian coast

Abstract

This article analyzes the ambivalent character of Cerro Chaparrí in the mythology of the northern Peruvian coast through the study of a series of myths describing the confrontations between this hill and the Yanahuanca. These myths, present in different documentary sources, explain the agency attributed to the hill and how it is invoked today in the “mesas” or ritual sessions of master healers and witches of a wide region. Chaparri is considered a “healer”, associated with the identity of the Sun, as well as a “witch” who devours the shadows of those who pass through him and his victims. This double identity explains the diversity and complexity of ritual practices that use the hill as a setting, or in which its “charm” is invoked. The approachof the text is ethnographic addressing notions of agency, intentionality, humanity, petrification or the materiality of Cerro Chaparrí, of which there are no monographic studies in Americanist literature.