A God Forsaken: The Sacred Bear In Andean Iconography And Cosmology

Bears are all but invisible in Andean iconography, and consequently are considered unimportant in pre-Columbian cosmology. This assumption is re-examined in the context of present-day Andean culture in which bears are highly salient characters in stories, ritual and performance. Indeed, Qoyllur Rit'i, the largest native pilgrimage in the Americas, has a bear as its main protagonist. Refuting a presumed colonial Spanish origin for bear imagery in contemporary Andean culture, a pre-Columbian origin is proposed in El Lanzon, the principal deity at the Formative Horizon's highly influential cult centre of Chavin de Huantar. Here, we present ethnographic, ethnohistoric and archaeological data to propose a significant place for the bear in Andean cosmology.