Virtual Laboratory

Coska magic

Chile | Thursday, July 4, 2013 | 5 photos

Coska is a small town located at the coordinate at -21.08 '- 68.35' in northern Chile, about 3,800 meters above sea level and only 10 kilometers from the border with Bolivia.
Coska is a center of pilgrimage annually welcomes hundreds of indigenous families from different countries of the Andean culture. For 4 days continuously renew their faith with rituals dedicated to the patron saint of the Andes: the Coska Andacollo virgin.
In the middle of the desert comes alive Coska people through Catholic religious syncretism, and indigenous Andean whose merger allows Pachamana cult and the Virgin Mary.
The flow of migrants, indigenous traditions and rituals have remained relatively intact, and the creation of community networks has facilitated urban space indigenous migrants continue these traditions and rituals, including the use and consumption of the coca leaf. Sheet sacred and commonly used medicinal curative effects, accredited and established in the north of the country and indigenous Andean communities and used as an offering to the virgin rituals.