20225503(es)/10 - El Ritual Lúdico Funerario en el Pueblo Kichwa Otavalo, Provincia de Imbabura (Ecuador)

Nhora Magdalena Benítez Bastidas, Raúl Clemente Cevallos Calapi e Iván Bedón Suárez

The primary focus of this research was to analyze the ritual funeral games taking place during the last night of the wake for deceased adults of the Kichwa Otavalo people, despite several of these games existing only in the memories of some of the elders, and the others being practiced less frequently because of increasing acculturation. Our ethnographic research reveals both the characteristics and underlying significance of the ritual funeral games according to the Kichwa worldview, or cosmovision, and examines how the rituals have been impacted by acculturation. To this end, this study was carried out using ethnographic methods, which involved the participation of 70 representatives of traditional knowledge, chosen from the 14 largest indigenous communities. 32 funeral games were also performed in the Otavalango Museum for interpretative purposes. Our analysis revealed Chunkana to be the predominant ritual game, whose winners and losers must fulfill a series of penances during the night. 70 penances were recorded and studied, most of them associated with daily chores. Participants cited nine reasons for performing such sacralized rituals, as a way of ensuring the soul’s passage to the chayshuk pacha (paradise).

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