Imaginaries and meanings of the high-Andean lakes in the Quechua worldview of the central-southern Peruvian Andes

Taipe N.; Taipe H.; Rojas N.; maldoNado M. · Boletin de Literatura Oral (2026) · DOI: 10.17561/blo.v16.9983

Resumen

This article analyzes Quechua oral narratives from the south-central Peruvian Andes (Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Junin) to interpret how lagoons are conceived as animated, gendered, and morally active entities, shaping a relational and ethical landscape that sustains collective identities and territorialities. The ethnographic-qualitative study is based on 16 mythical stories and records of rituals collected between 2022–2024, analyzed through a hermeneutic-ontological interpretation and contrasted with historical and ethnographic sources. The study concludes that lagoons are paqarinas and dwelling places of wamanis, amarus, waris, and mermaids, acting as moral agents, regulators of social, ecological, and cosmic order, and as nodes of interconnected sacred territories.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional de San Cristóbal de Huamanga