Pacha Mama?

Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. Pachamama is usually translated as Mother Earth, but a more literal translation would be "Mother world" (in Aymara and Quechua mama = mother / pacha = world or land; and later widened in a modern meaning as the cosmos or the universe).

 Pachamama and Inti are the most benevolent deities; they are worshiped in parts of the Andean mountain ranges, also known as Tawantinsuyu (the former Inca Empire) (stretching from present day Ecuador to Chile and northern Argentina being present day Peru the center of the empire with its capital city in Cuzco).

In Inca mythology, Mama Pacha or Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting. Since Pachamama is a "good mother", people usually toast to her honor before every meeting or festivity, in some regions by spilling a small amount of chicha (wine or something similar) on the floor, before drinking the rest. This toast is called challa and it is made almost every day.

PACHA

The etymological meaning of Pacha is "thing" or "phenomenon". There are two elements, double on itself and a projection on other, the other is outside of itself, outside of its thought and outside of its environment. It is expression of the whole, space and simultaneous time, it is expressed by the diversity of the life; as a global knowledge that it is generator of the culture and the life of the Ancestral Indigenous Nations. It is territorial space -Pachamama- and cosmic space. It is expression of the space and the known and stranger time. In the cosmos, the Pacha is life and source of life, is wisdom and ignorance, "sacred and profane"   The Pacha is the inhabited territory and the unknown space (uninhabited), whose set of compatible elements is always in function of this partiality.

 MAMA / TAYKA

 It comes from the Aymara language and its etymological meaning is "mother". It is territorial space that includes natural resources and also production ecosystem, that implies natural environment as well. There is no distinction between profane and sacred, where abiotic becomes biotic. It is protective and source of wisdom and life. Pachatayka or Mother of the fertility. It is also the main principle of the generation of life : human, plants, animals, and all whatever exists in the whole time and space. Pachamama is usually associated with agricultural fertility. From this perspective, it has relation with other spirits multipliers of animals (illa), plants (ispalla) and minerals (mama). Moreover, it is defined as a tutelary spirit. In the Pachamama everything is sacred, so each community, each saya and even each small farm has its protective Pachamama. However, at the same time, the Pachamama is also universal and is anywhere. Therefore, Pachamama is considered as the main spirit of "this world".

DEPICTIONS OF PACHA MAMA