CONVERSANDO CON LOS MUERTOS EL CASO DE LOS KICHWAS DE COTACACHI- ECUADOR

Abstract

In the Kichwa community of Cotacachi, the understanding of death is based on the experience of funeral rites and the complementary interpretation of their Andean worldview. The general objective of the project is to characterize the practices or rites that make up the death process of the Kichwa people that inhabit the Cotacachi-Ecuador canton. This research is of a qualitative type and considers an anthropological case study; the unit or population under study are six communities; the instrument applied was a questionnaire based on structured and in-depth interviews. As results, seven anointed rituals were found for boh “little angels” and adults in the context of death; the set of rituals are staged in the wake, the mortuary games, the fandango dance, the wantyay, the burial, the wakcha karay and through the redistribution of food and the conversation with the dead through the sobbing narrated by the Kichwa women. It is concluded as follows: for the Kichwas of Cotacachi, death is not the end of existence, there is a firm belief in immortality, since people do not die and move on to another form of life, that is, to the chayshuk pacha, in which there is no room for pain, fatigue, hunger, and everything is harmony.