A condor propitiously circled Huayna with the grace and surrender of a piece of driftwood caught in a river eddy.
Agapito handed a k’intu or stack of coca to his friend Pachacútec, holding between his thumb and forefinger the two most complete leaves he could find against the backdrop of the cloud forests 2000 feet below, to represent the harmony inherent in the world’s dual elements of male and female. Pachacútec reciprocated the offering, also with two leaves, to one of the maidens named Sand, who abashedly lowered her eyes while flirtatiously shooting past his fingertips to his palm before stroking in retreat and graciously accepting. Agapito smiled at the implications of this exchange.
Putting this aside for a moment, Pachacútec began, “Agapito, with whom I have had thousands of journeys, you are my closest confident, please never forget that. I want to tell you something. As I sat my last evening on Lake Titicaca and watched my men run the Aymara into surrender it was as if all the mountains were within my grasp. I have wanted to give this gift to our people, that we can teach mountains to talk and thereby learn to think and they will rise in our favor. And this is the place to learn this, here at my home on this mountain. People will learn these things for many years, can’t you see?” Pachacútec proposed to Agapito and Sand.
“As the llama fat nourishes our relationship with Pachamama, so this land will nourish our relationship with future generations,” Agapito offered in reply.
They both sat quietly as the local priest prepared the table of offerings and the four llamas and twenty warriors fidgeted anxiously, while a maiden apiece began to massage and wash Agapito and Pachacútec’s feet, occasionally moving up their legs to tease toward the evening of celebration ahead. On the table was prepared a representation of the universe, with its three tiers placed in the infinite Pacha of space-time. And in our middle-realm of existence were placed objects representing the myriad manifestations of existence in this tier: clouds, llama and warrior figurines, coca and herbs. The priest held a glass of chicha and poured half to the ground on the four sides of the offering, to Pachamama, and drank the remainder. Agapito and Pachacútec did likewise, each also offering drinks to the captives and the women – the chicha circled around and around until the mood became infused with a touch of levity for an otherwise grave moment. And Sand took the chance to flirt again, offering to Pachacútec that, “Not only does alcohol loosen our tongue to speak to the earth but also to each other.”
The train bumped through its final tunnel and the loudspeaker commented in English only that Machu Picchu village was 2 minutes away so people should begin to ready their things. The Dutch man blinked awake, scratched his forehead, grimaced, and stuffed his fleece jacket into his rucksack, with the warmth of the lower climes removing any need for layering. His face was pink and his eyes renewed with a look of curiosity. Agapito asked him how long he was traveling for and if this were his first time here. As most Dutch do, this man spoke impeccable English and commented that his stay is yet to be determined, being on sabbatical and that of course this was his first time. He was as jovial as a dog about to go out for its daily walk, and Agapito appreciated both his innocence and his wonder.
Heading to Machu Picchu Village, or Aguas Calientes as it is often called, Agapito closed his eyes and raised his head toward the hot mid-afternoon sun burning between the steep jungle-clad slopes of these lower Andean valleys. The Sacred Valley is a fertile depression that rolls north from Cuzco toward the tropical lowlands and, along with Cuzco, is the most continuously inhabited and farmed stretch of land in the hemisphere. Corn, potatoes and quinoa have grown for thousands of years and cities are built upon cities upon endless history. Annie Dillard in For the Time Being describes dusting or sweeping a home as simply postponing our inevitable burial considering the impressive rate that sand and dust fill a place. And this is no exception – with farm-fields most likely plowed and tilled above entire pre-Incan homes and hamlets which were, in like, plowed and tilled above their ancestors. Through sedimentation, Andean winds and simple disregard time has piled earth upon people and places for dizzying amounts of years while all this rich history now nourishes the crops that feed the distant descendents of a people once proud.
The Sacred Valley curves with the sacred water of the Urubamba River past countless sacred ruins and sacred stones and caves, reminding a pilgrim that a pilgrimage is sacred, lest they forget. The river meanders and slopes and it picks up a sense of urgency as the valley becomes a canyon and the open Andean slopes give way to steep jungle-clad cliffs. And mountains that were content to yawn a few kilometers back now begin to shout and show their teeth and stab sharply toward the sky.
Is this what happens when a place becomes sacred, it is bold enough to point and cut into the heavens?
The Urubamba swells and pushes against canyon walls that, along with the jungle’s desire to conceal and cover, allowed for Machu Picchu to be hidden from Western archeologists for hundreds of years. It is no wonder, while traveling on a modern train to Aguas Calientes through the overgrown canyon, that the ruins played such an impressive game of hide and seek and how many more such sites remain? Endless similar valleys pour into the main Urubamba drainage with high ridges, waterfalls, three thousand-foot chasms and humbling mystical mettle.
As Agapito bore the heat on his cheeks, his senses opened and the Urubamba River bounced and ripped through the canyon above Aguas Calientes while the clank and clunk of construction machinery resounded heavily against the granite walls, giving the impression that the entire ground was being scoured from under him. Aguas Calientes was no town before the explosive tourist phenomenon of Machu Picchu in the last thirty years. Now hotels, restaurants and ubiquitously kitschy Incan craft shops wind and cut into the steep walls of the canyon 2,000 feet below the famous Incan citadel – a modern show of construction that pales against the construction of Machu Picchu itself.
The train schedule was such that pilgrims arrive to the town no earlier than breakfast time, when crowds inevitably begin to fill the walls of the ruins. Agapito preferred to wait for the crisp early morning to walk the steps to Machu Picchu and have the solitude and fresh night-ionized air to explore the grounds.
On his first trip Agapito was curious.
His second visit was to affirm the first.
His third was again of curiosity since the second was lost to affirmation.
Now on his fourth visit he came to seek.
His seeking was simple. He was seeking a pilgrimage, a circular intent of which he was well aware. For a pilgrim seeking or a seeker making pilgrimage inevitably will meet along the same path and recognize one another. If he began as a seeker intent on making a pilgrimage, thereby recognizing himself as a pilgrim (as noted above, we all are), of whom all are seekers, well, where do we begin? The truth his, Agapito knew not what he sought, only that he did. And being still young on his path he had embodied the mantra, “It matters little WHAT you seek, only THAT you seek.”
He stepped over a pile of cement and felt a tugging at his wool sweater. Looking up from two feet below, a young girl of no more than 6 years held a tray of bubble gum, cigarettes, Kleenex and llama figurines, asking or maybe requesting “Buy please, meester?!” And whether she asked or requested mattered not to Agapito, he was busy looking at the combination of items on the tray and wondering how these came to be the first things he was offered upon arrival. An odd array, but he chose not to share this concern with the girl, leaving her to the throes and thrills of informal market madness while smiling and replying, “No gracias.” He wondered of other pilgrims arriving and in what shape that they perhaps would need one or all of the offered commodities for the coming journey. What arrangement of poor planning and/or spontaneous necessity would create a demand for this sales-spread?
“Y tus padres? Donde estan?” Agapito softly asked as he squatted to eye level.
The girl looked down and to her left, shyly fidgeting her right hand in the pocket of her miniature apron. On her feet she wore a classic pair of rubber sandals with her sprouting toes plunging off the front edge and probing at the ground in front. Beneath the apron a skirt was layered over another and she had a dull grey sweater that contrasted her brilliant dark and smooth face. Her hair hung long and was caught in her lips. She tried to pull it off her face as she looked up at Agapito and replied, “Buy me some, meester?!”
Innocence was not a virtue prided by the people of Tawantinsuyu, least of all by the leader, the Inca. Raw and honest, bold and confident, the people from Cusco set out to level taboo and build an empire.
The high priest of Machu Picchu pulled his obsidian knife from a llama-leather sheath and began to chip and sharpen the atom-thin blade. The llamas would be slaughtered first, in respect for the solidarity of humankind – not out of disrespect for the natural world but out of respect for different elemental spirits in the manifest world. On the block now in the Temple of the Condor, the first two llamas were dragged to the altar. And there is no sound or sight more undignified than the squeal and spit of a llama off to slaughter. For those accustomed to the soft whimper of a llama in the field, it is hard to imagine that it is the same animal making the noise. With the high-pitched wail of a siren yet with a guttural growl of a grumpy gorilla and the panic of a hyena, the llama digs deep to prevent its fate from manifesting. And with the guttural growl comes the green cud, partially digested grass that the ill-fated llama will hurl at all in its proximity.
Donkeys are the beasts of burden that held the Old World with minimal complaint. Llamas are the beast of burden that held the New World with a whimper, a spit, a shout and a scurry. A llama is a curious and cunning creature, aware of both this relationship and its powerlessness to change it. And they fight it tooth and nail, vocal chord and green cud.
As the llama snorted and spat and shouted and squirmed its way to the alter block, the Aymara warriors stoically squinted their eyes and withdrew their jaws, knowing that any self respecting warrior would have a much more dignified gait to his fate.
But then, who ever asked a llama to fight? Who ever sat with them and said, “We have a very noble and important cause, and we need your expertise, we need your sophistication in this matter. You see, the future needs progress, and you are the perfect fit. You must only forgo freedom, free-will and comfort and the world will progress WITH you, beneath your fluffy little shoulders.” Without this respectful and honest conversation, who could actually expect a llama to be slaughtered with any level of grace or dignity?
The soldier, on the other hand, had a rational control over his impulses because he had been informed as to the nature of his fight. He was only captured after a stronger force had overtaken him and until that point he aimed to be the capturer. And so he has a conscious understanding of his relationship with his enemy and with humankind at large. He had fought a noble fight and lost. What llama has ever been given a choice in the matter? I’d squeal too.
But elements of sacrifice are as myriad and misunderstood as culture itself. And to sacrifice in the name of knowledge may indeed be a dignified aim. To hunt for food is as equally or even more justified. To kill an animal to restore the balance, or ayni with the natural world, is a rite long lost and rued – human or otherwise. But the truth is, the human race has shown no more respect for the inherent value of the natural world or their human brethren since the abandonment of ritual sacrifice.
Tristeza was the girl’s name. Her real name was Elena but for some reason she would not reveal to Agapito, she had taken the name Tristeza, the tragedy of which was only immediately apparent in her vending cart. Each morning, she explained, she would ride the train to Aguas Calientes with all the confidence her 9 years of being could offer and sold Kleenex, cigarettes, bubble-gum and ceramic llamas. She noticed nothing different in her exchange this day with Agapito so far, only that he lingered for a spell longer and that in his eye was a twinkle she only sees in the stars over her home just up the train tracks.
“Mama is all we have, and she is ill. Papa, I don’t know where. Mama won’t say. Meester, buy me some?”
“No Tristeza, but have you even been to Machu Picchu?” Agapito asked.
No response.
“Well, it’s just right up there, whatya say we go together tomorrow morning, my treat? It is really special and you would love it, everybody does. You must get to know it,” Agapito offered.
A tiny smile.
A growing smile.
Eyes peering up.
Eyes lifting up further from under her dangling bang that was still caught in her lips and they were wide and beautiful.
Tristeza nodded “SI!”.
