Every May 3rd, the nearby communities to the town of Macha, Bolivia, get together to fight each other and shed their blood as an offering for the Pachamama (Mother Earth).
Although there is no historical record of when this tradition first started, this ritual, which is called the Tinku (Encounter) or “Fiesta de la Cruz” is intimately linked to the harvest seasons. It takes place when the Crux is positioned in Macha’s sky and realigned to the Earth.
Union, balance, and convergence are intertwined in the mixture of two opposite forces that are unified in the same flow.
Five hundred years after the arrival of the colonizers, this syncretic ritual gives us a clue of the spiritual meaning that traditions and Earth have for the inhabitants of Macha.
