Rituals to Make «Justice». Curses, Invocations, Yatiris and Offerings for Freedom in the Prison of San Pedro (La Paz, Bolivia)

Abstract

This article focuses on the work of yatiris prisoners, ritual specialists who officiate Andean ritual offerings on behalf of inmates who require their services. These offerings, given to the principal supernatural beings of the Andean pantheon the day before sentencing, serve to obtain the prisoner release or at least a significant reduction of his sentence. Therefore, yatiri is asked not only to act as a specialist in the cure of diseases, but he is considered a sort of «lawyer», advocating for his clients inmates, through the special relationship he could set with the Pachamama and Achachilas, the spirits of the mountains. In an unusual scenario for the study of certain ritual practices, we will see how the yatiris help inmates to find the «meaning» of prison experience through their own traditional tools, making the prisoner still part of a community that, once free, could return to accept him.