PERU: Coca Bird

A wall installation containing several hundred-coca kintu’s (using a two leaf kintu for pacha mama) creating an image of a pre-Columbian bird symbol.

A kintu is a device used in Andean spirituality/religion. It is made up of either 3-coca leaves for the APU’S (Quechua for Mountain) or 2 coca leaves for PACHA MAMA (Quechua for Mother Earth). After putting 2 or 3 of the most perfect leaves together a pray is blown into the leaves and given to a person, an offering, or placed in a auspicious spot in the earth. When the kintu is exchanged with two people the leaves are chewed. Offering and exchanging kintu’s is a way to affirm our relation with each other, nature, and the almighty powers.

FEATURED in›
• “Mandala” Alianza Francesa de Lima PERU 2004
• “Pachamama Hanaqpacha K’anchay” Institute of Culture Peruano & North
Americano. Cusco, Peru 2004
• “Killamanta Kutimusaq” Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Ridgefield, CT 2006

Coca Bird, detail