The Witches' Market — Mercado de las Brujas

OVERVIEW

The Witches' Market lies on Calle Linares in La Paz's Rosario neighbourhood and spills into the streets around it. It sells herbal and folk remedies and the materials of Aymara ritual: amulets, potions, dried frogs, medicinal plants, armadillos, owl feathers — and dried llama fetuses, the sullus.

HISTORY

Most of the goods are sold by Aymara women. The market is run by yatiri, identifiable by their black hats and coca pouches, who also tell fortunes and work love magic and curses. The sullus are buried under the foundations of many Bolivian houses as a sacred offering to Pachamama. October, the month of the Pachamama rituals, accounts for around 60% of sales. La Paz named the market Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

This is on the map as a living ritual practice at its own place, not as a haunting: the yatiri's divination and curses, and the offerings to Pachamama that stand under much of the city.

VISITING

A popular market in central La Paz. It is a working market and a religious one; ask before photographing the yatiri.