Indigenous spiritualities — South America

The indigenous spiritual traditions of South America span an astonishing diversity — from the high-altitude cosmology of the Andean peoples to the intricate ceremonial life of the Amazonian nations, from the Mapuche of Chile to the Guaraní of Paraguay and Brazil — each tradition a complete world of meaning shaped by millennia of intimate relationship with specific landscapes. Many of these traditions center on the reciprocal relationship between humans and the other-than-human world: the plants, animals, rivers, mountains, and spirit beings who are not background to human life but participants in it. These traditions are under profound pressure from deforestation, displacement, and cultural erasure — and they are actively maintained by communities who understand that their survival and the survival of the land are the same question.