It’s Huatia Time Again

Sumac Huahacha With Her Cow Pat...

In the fall of the year here in Peru they harvest the potato crop. It is hard to believe another year has passed by since I wrote about the huatia tradition here. I just got back from a huatia where I was invited. The sun is spectacular and though you freeze in the shade, out in the sun, you get wonderfully roasted like the potatoes. They cook the huatia in dirt clod ovens with dried animal dung.

Harvest in Full Process

While there, and I have no idea why I thought to ask this, I asked about Quechua names for dung. It turns out that Ccahua (beginning with a sort of pronounced glottal stopped k, the double c, kh-awa) means cow dung, but only cow dung. Then there is Ucha for horse dung and Chaccha (chak-cha) for sheep or llama dung. I am also not clear why this fascinated me so. Then they told me that if you aren’t happy with how someone is acting you call them Ccahua uma, a dung-head or worse… It is a pretty basic culture as you will suppose.

Juana Sacking Potatoes With Santos' Family

Nevertheless, a lot of words for animal excrement. They also use the generic caca for all of it but when the little girls come to school packing their dried cow pat to cook their lunch, it is, “Ccahuata escualeman apani."

Potatoes Heaped and Ready to Spread Out For Chuño