Pachamama
Pachamama is Mother Earth in the Andes, honoured by Quechua and Aymara people with offerings buried in the ground, above all in August, when, farmers say, the earth is hungry and thirsty.
Meaning
The name comes from Aymara and Quechua, Mendoza’s government explains: “pacha” is earth, and also time or the cosmos, and “mama” is mother. Britannica sets the Andean earth-mother against the sun religion of the Inca conquerors. A resolution of Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies in 2007 recorded the belief of the peoples of the Argentine northwest that Pachamama has the power to make crops grow and herds multiply. In Peru, a state school reading says, the offering called the pago a la tierra is made on the first day of August and continues all month, because farmers say that then Pachamama is hungry and thirsty and must be fed. Ecuador’s 2008 constitution gives rights to “Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs”.
Origin and history
Garcilaso de la Vega, writing in 1609 of the peoples of what he called the first epoch, before the Inca kings in his account, said that some “worshipped the earth, and called it Mother, because it yielded their fruits”. Britannica gives Pachamama as the Inca name for the Earth Mother, beside Cochamama, the Sea Mother.
The August offering
The Peruvian school reading describes the pagos as the way people thank the spirits of the natural forces for what they give, in a relation of reciprocity. Into the earth go coca leaves, which mediate between nature and people, grain seeds, unworked silver, dried llama or sheep foetuses, chicha, wine, animal fat, sweets and huayruro seeds. Smaller gifts are part of everyday life: at festivals and gatherings, people pour beer or chicha on the ground as thanks to the earth. In Mendoza, Argentina, the government notes that the August celebration falls at sowing time, when farmers honour the earth for good harvests to come.
Honoured by states today
Pachamama now appears in law. Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies declared the August ceremony in the northwest of national interest in 2007, and Ecuador wrote her name into the rights of nature in its constitution of 2008.
Read next
- Next in Andean and Inca symbolsChakana (Andean cross)The chakana is the Andean stepped cross, a square cross with twelve points and often a circle at its centre. Its name means bridge or ladder in Quechua; that it stands for the Southern Cross is a modern reading.
- In Symbols across culturesFertility and harvest goddessesGoddesses of fertility and harvest include Demeter in Greece, Chicomecoatl, the Aztec maize goddess, Pachamama, the Andean Earth Mother, Renenutet in Egypt and Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of abundance. Japan’s rice deity Inari is shown as a man or a woman.
See also
Nazca lines, Nazca hummingbird, Nazca monkey, Nazca spider, Gateway of the Sun (the Staff God), Tumi (ceremonial knife).
Sources
- Pachamama, Encyclopaedia Britannica, topic page with passages from its articles on Bolivia, nature worship and pre-Columbian civilizations (Internet Archive copy, 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica, passages
- Cultura viva: pago a la tierra (Lectura N° 3, 3er grado de secundaria), Unidad de Gestión Educativa Local Chincheros (Apurímac), Peru’s state school system, June 2025, UGEL Chincheros (gob.pe), reading text
- Orden del Día Nº 2909: Ceremonia a la Pachamama realizada durante el mes de agosto de 2007 en las provincias del Noroeste Argentino, Cámara de Diputados de la Nación (Argentina), Comisión de Cultura, 5 September 2007, Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina, Informe
- Realizan hoy ceremonia a la Pachamama en el Ministerio de Cultura, Gobierno de Mendoza (Argentina), press release, Gobierno de Mendoza, press release
- Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador (2008), articles 71 to 74, Rights of nature, Constitución de la República del Ecuador, Registro Oficial 449, 20 October 2008; bilingual extract, Earth Law Center (extract of the Constitution of Ecuador), Article 71
- First Part of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, vol. I, by the Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega, Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios reales (Lisbon, 1609), translated by Clements R. Markham, Hakluyt Society, 1869 (Internet Archive full text), Hakluyt Society (Internet Archive), book I, chapter X
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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