Cosmological renewal: an anthropological analysis of New Year celebrations in the Andes as a rite of passage

Journal article

Rites of passage are performed on an individual or community basis in order to make visible a transformation in the status, state or temporality of a person, social group or even the entire cosmos. Such rites, which are related to the periodicity of cosmic time, imply that the universe is governed by long periods (called pachas in the Andean context) of stability and short periods of chaos and renovation that have repercussions in human life. Among the most important of these rites are the New Year celebrations. In the Andean case, this rite is constituted by a set of different practices which take the form of the elaboration of años viejos (personified Old Years) or the presence of the viudas de año viejo (widows of the Old Year), whose transvestism indicates the destruction of Latin American hetero-normal patterns. During this night, there is an explicit desire to destroy everything that gives order to the cosmos in order to renew it and inaugurate a new cosmic period.

Authors: Jara, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Anthropological Society of Oxford
• Journal: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford Online
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 193-203
• Publication date: 2018-01-01
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-6renmzdbb
• ISSN: 2040-1876
• Language: English
• Keywords: cosmic night; viudas de año viejo (old year's widows); cosmological periodicity; JASO; Old and New Year; rites of passage