The experience of Puno communities teaches all of us a way of interacting both with the human community, the community of nature and the collective spiritual component.  There are various ways of achieving harmony with all that surrounds us.  CARNIVALS are a manifestation of deep faith, mainly linked to the regeneration of our fields and of life itself.

Celebrations begin after the most important holiday in the year for Puno people: the festival of the Virgin of Candelaria or “Mother Candelaria”, which takes place during the first days of February.
Carnivals have a direct relationship with crops and cattle, especially for people living in the country.  The festival has different forms of expression in communities.

First, Carnival Monday is the beginning of the flower-spreading ritual in our homes and, at the same time, it is a period of profound ritual experience regarding our farms.  This is called JATHA KATU or ACHU KATU, which is the act of collecting the first fruits of the agricultural season in each crop area.

Before sunset, families, with deep respect and joy, go from crop to crop and in each of these places, they perform the CH’UA ritual (Aymara word that refers to a sacred ceremony related to agricultural and animal husbandry products).  The ritual elements used are q’oa (wild plant used in every ritual), UNTU (llama fat that is placed on top of the coca leaves and the q’oa) and coca leaves.  This last element must consist of twelve green and healthy leaves.

Women have an intense participation in this ritual because seeds, women and the Pachamama are the same person, because they are sacred and they contribute to the regeneration of life.  In many communities - as part of the initial ritual – the first thing they do is to form knots with chilliwa plants (wild plant from the high Andean zones) in the 4 corners of each field.  The aim of this is that the seed spirit does not go away and stays and feeds all the families always.

During the offering, a small oven is built in the middle of the field using dry dung, where the previously prepared ritual table is offered and burnt.  Families and the women in them pull out a shrub from each land plot – depending on the number of land plots they have – and then, using both hands, they lift the products they extracted towards the four corners.  They thank and kiss the fruit.

Women and their families call upon all the deities of the zone.  In Aymara, the guardian mountains are called ACHACHILAS (that is, protecting Fathers and they are always next to the female mountain – Tayka, that is, Mother mountain).  They thank them for the good harvest and the good cattle they have given us.  Next, they spread flowers and sprinkle wine throughout the cultivation area and they decorate plants with streamers.
This thanksgiving act is accompanied by dancing and toasting.  Some experience these ritual offerings collectively, but there are also others that do so just with their families, depending on the custom of each zone.  This agricultural festivity is diverse; there is no single way of performing these rituals.  It lasts an entire day and in some places, an entire week.

Families and dancers who have prepared themselves for several months get together and visit each other to overflow with joy, because it is an ayni ritual and it is the turn of human beings to make seeds happy.