For thousands of years, the Andean peoples of northwestern Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and northern Chile have offered food and drink to the Pachamama (Mother Earth) on August 1 to so that their crops will be bountiful and their livestock prolific during the coming year. This date marks the official beginning of both a new crop year and a new Andean year; winter is beginning to lose its grip, the first rains set in, and people are thinking spring thoughts. In fact, the whole month is considered to be a sensitive time when people are supposed to take special care of their health, in sync with a recently impregnated Pachamama.
On the last night of July, neighbors pick up any trash that might be lying around outdoors and burn it in a symbolic “spring” housecleaning. Early on August 1, they drink a cup of ruda (rue) tea on an empty stomach to ward off envy and illnesses, and burn resins and herbs to “cleanse” their homes with the smoke. Around midday comes the most important part of the festivity – the corpachada or earth-feeding ceremony. Each member of the community puts into a hole that was dug in the ground earlier that morning, items that they think will please Mother Earth, such as an ear of corn, a slice of squash or potato, and “vices” that include chicha, wine, coca leaves and cigarettes.
In some places the offerings related to crops are added to cooked food in a clay pot that was put into the hole previously, in others they are put directly onto the dirt. The hole is later covered by a stone slab or pile of stones. After the ceremony, everyone shares in a big lunch. 
In Laguna Blanca in Catamarca’s Puna – where tourists have been allowed to attend the party only recently – the best sheep of the town’s herds is sacrificed at the edge of the hole. As a further gesture to tourism, people dressed up like the Pachamama and Coquena, the mythological protector of camelids, make an appearance.In February, a corpachada is performed at the beginning of Carnival to thank the Pachamama for good crops.
August 1 is not a calendar holiday, but Pachamama Day is celebrated in innumerable homes and communities in several places as a religious event. Every family home has a place to perform the ritual. Although in some towns Mass is celebrated at the beginning of festivities, there is no confusion in people’s minds as to the identity of the figure venerated; the Pachamama symbolizes fecundity, not virginity.
In the northwestern provinces, Pachamama Day is celebrated by criollos as well as Indians. Nevertheless, the places where it is observed with the most unction are precisely the indigenous communities.
In Amaicha del Valle in Tucumán, the first week of the month is dedicated to festivities that include music and dancing, and ballad singing. In some places there is a tendency to extend them to the entire month of August with an eye to attracting tourists.
In Jujuy – where the Andean people’s Carnival first became famous in Argentina – August is presented as the “cultural month of the Pachamama” because two other popular festivals – the “Headband Bullfight” in Casabindo and the Jujuy Exodus in the provincial capital – take place a few weeks later.
In Salta, Pachamama Month honors are divided in a Solomonic way between two major Kolla communities in the province’s high-altitude Puna region: this year, celebrations were officially inaugurated in San Antonio de los Cobres on August 1, and will concluded on August 31 in Tolar Grande. On August 30, a caravan of vehicles will set out from the Plaza 9 de Julio main square of Salta City at 2pm, arriving in Tolar Grande at 9pm.
From 8am to noon on August 31, locals will show visitors the sights around town. After lunch, there will be a solemn ceremony atop Mount Altar Sagrado (4,000 meters above sea level) at 3pm, after which visitors will begin the return trip to the provincial capital.In San Miguel de Tucumán, an urban Pachamama Day is staged in 9 de Julio Park every August 1 for city people who lack money to travel to the back country to participate in the traditional fiesta and, of course, for tourists who happen to be in town on that day. This year, the celebration called for peace and an end to illnesses, and asked people to respect nature.
Tourists can also participate in a corpachada in the Mataderos Fair in Buenos Aires.
Other worthwhile experiences at the same time of year: hikes and horseback rides around Purmamarca, and the Regional Folklore Museum in Humahuaca (Jujuy): the Pachamama Museum in Amaicha del Valle and the pre-Hispanic ruins of Quilmes (Tucumán); a 16-hour excursion in a very special Movitrack truck that begins and ends in Salta City, with stops in the Toro Canyon, San Antonio de los Cobres, the Salinas Grandes salt flats, and Purmamarca; Antofagasta de la Sierra in the Puna, Belén, and the remains of the Inca town of El Shinkal in Catamarca.
http://www.turismosalta.gov.ar/, http://www.turismo.jujuy.gov.ar/, http://www.tucumanturismo.gov.ar/, http://www.turismocatamarca.gov.ar/.
PHOTO CREDITS: The earth-feeding ceremony in Salta. Ministry of Tourism of Salta. The earth-feeding ceremony in Laguna Blanca. Iggy / Catamarca Tourism Secretariat. Tolar Grande. Ministry of Tourism of Salta.
On the way, his army defeated the royalists in two important battles. The people from Jujuy were able to return home only a year later. Many decided to remain in Tucumán. The city’s residents commemorate the traumatic exodus with a symbolic burning of miniature huts on the banks of the Chico River the night of August 22, and a parade of carts and people dressed in period attire the night of August 23.
Father Solano – already famous in the region for captivating Indians with his singing and violin playing – offered his mediation. He told the Indians that Christ was a good person like themselves, and the Spaniards that their conduct was unchristian. The Indians ended up accepting baptism in exchange for the “replacement” of the Spanish mayor with an image of the Christ Child. (Solano, the first New World saint, was canonized in 1726.) The deal arranged by Father Solano gave rise to the popular Tinkunaco Festival (invented by the Jesuits in 1624) in which the present Lord Mayor symbolically gives a Christ Child image the keys to the city during a procession that takes place on the night of every December 31. But it is only for three days; the keys are returned in a similar procession on January 3.
Carlo Petrini, the president of the international Slow Food movement, will come from Italy to visit the show and inaugurate the first Argentine edition of Terra Madre, an international network of food communities dedicated to producing quality food in a responsible, sustainable way . There will be cooking demonstrations, lectures and a photo contest. Salta will be promoting its Wine Trail. Other provinces that have confirmed their participation are Jujuy, Tucumán, Entre Ríos, Corrientes, Buenos Aires, La Pampa and Chubut. The show will be open from 12 noon to 9pm. General admission is 20 pesos, and 10 pesos for retirees and students on Thursday and Friday.
During the Dance World Cup (Aug. 23-31) competitions in the Tango Salón (the traditional social dance of the milongas) and Tango Escenario (show dancing that tourists see in the tango houses) categories will take place in the Luna Park stadium. More than 300 couples have signed up for the World Cup. A fair of items related to tango will take place in Harrods from August 15 to 30.
Last year more than 500 fishermen in 180 boats caught 336 fish during the four days of 45th edition of the contest while their non-fishing families went on horseback rides and tours in the area during the daylight hours, and nobody missed out on dancing chamamé or rock and roll played by bands at night. Don’t expect a big dorado bake at the end of each day – the catch and release vogue that began with trout in Patagonia has reached the depleted fisheries of the Paraná River as well.
The scene is repeated about ten times with different bulls and bullfighters as hundreds of onlookers perched atop the walls of the square wait to see what will happen. The event is preceded by a mass, and a religious procession that is accompanied by men dressed like rheas, and bands of musicians who play erkes and drums.
