Camaquen and tonality in Andean cosmovision
Explanation
The Andean cultures (especially Quechua and Aymara, heirs and continuators of a millennial tradition that culminated in the Inca empire) developed sophisticated conceptions of consciousness, person and vital energy, articulated around concepts such as camaquen (or camay), sami, ánimo. Although they did not form written philosophical systems in the Greco-Western manner, they did elaborate complex worldviews orally transmitted, along with rituals and practices that embody them, today studied by ethnologists such as Frank Salomon, Catherine Allen, Tristan Platt, Marisol de la Cadena.
Camaquen is a central concept: a vital force or "animating principle" that gives existence and consciousness to all beings. Every entity — human, animal, plant, mountain, river, stone, sacred place (huaca) — possesses its own camaquen, which makes it what it is and keeps it alive. Camaquen can be transmitted, increased, weakened. Ritual practices (offerings, libations, despachos to Pachamama) seek to maintain the harmonious flow of camaquen between humans and sacred entities of the landscape.
Sami is a subtle energy associated with prosperity, luck, spiritual power. People, places and moments may have more or less sami. Rituals and ceremonies seek to accumulate sami. The "tonality" of the landscape, the specific colours of the sky in ritual moments, the atmospheric qualities during ceremonies — all is read as meaningful signs in a cosmology in which consciousness and nature are intrinsically interwoven.
Andean cosmology divides the universe into three planes: hanan pacha (upper world: sky, celestial divinities), kay pacha (this world: the everyday reality in which we live, with its huacas and apus), uku pacha (inner/lower world: subterranean, ancestors, seeds, fertility). These three planes are in constant exchange. Offerings of coca, chicha, food, llamas (ritually) maintain reciprocal relations (ayni) between humans and the entities of the three worlds.
For the theory of consciousness, the Andean worldview is relevant for its intrinsically animist character (every entity has its animic principle) and relational character (human consciousness is not isolated from the world, but constituted by its relations with places, ancestors, animals, divinities). This contrasts sharply with Western Cartesian individualism and approaches contemporary "relational" or "extended" proposals about cognition.
Today, the Andean worldview is still alive in Quechua and Aymara communities, in ritual practices such as the payment to the earth (despacho), in traditional medicine (Andean curanderos, ayahuasqueros if it is an Amazonian zone, paqos), and has become visible in political projects such as Buen Vivir (sumak kawsay in Quechua, suma qamaña in Aymara), incorporated into the constitutions of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) as a guiding principle. Anthropologists such as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Mario Blaser and Marisol de la Cadena have developed the "ontological turn" in anthropology by taking these worldviews seriously as alternative ontologies, not as mere "belief systems". Andean consciousness continues to offer a powerful perspective of the person-in-relation with the sacred cosmos.
Strengths
- Relational ontology coherent with deep ecology.
- Contemporary ritual and community vitality.
- Practical resources for healing and community.
- Dialogue with theories of extended and distributed consciousness.
Main critiques
- Problematic New Age appropriations.
- Limited scientific operationalization.
- Local variability makes generalisations precarious.