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Ritual Spaces, Indigenous Faces:
the Ecuadorian Practice of Roman Catholicism

Lynn Meisch
St Mary's of California

Paper Abstract

For many indigenous people in Ecuador, believing in pre-Hispanic deities and performing pre-Christian indigenous rituals are compatible with self identification as practicing Roman Catholics, while for some members of the Catholic clergy the practice of Catholicism incorporates pan-Andean indigenous beliefs. This paper examines two different events: a baptism and a healing ritual. During the baptism in the parish church, a consecrated Catholic space, the priest speaking Spanish invoked pre-Hispanic Andean deities and the memory of contemporary social activists in a transnational pastiche of influences ranging from the Peruvian Quechua Earth Mother (Pacha Mama) to an assassinated Roman Catholic Bishop in El Salvador to a Brazilian social activist. The healing ritual, conducted by an elderly woman speaking Quichua in the secular space of an indigenous home involved indigenous methods of establishing a balance of forces as well as an appeal to the Trinity. I argue that Catholic spaces in Ecuador encompass practices, beliefs, and locations that go far beyond those considered Catholic in Europe and America, and beyond the facile label of syncretism to involve intentional political statements. In Ecuador they do it their way and it is precisely this inclusivity that accounts for the religion's continuing vitality.

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