Millenarian Andean Ritual

Defying the height to appreciate the prince of the South American camelids, in its wild state. The vicuna, smallest of the four South American camelids, is the mammal who has one of the world's finest fibers.

The Chaco name comes from the language quechua, whose meaning is "zone or surround of hunting"

More than 200 people they unfold throughout the plain, forming an India row to be part of a beautiful ritual that goes back to pre-Inca culture times.

The vicunas flock moves with a plasticity and singular agility. They have a leader, a big and slim male, trying to break the human cord that is narrowed around her. One and another time, they line up toward that point where the cord offers a breach, an escape possibility. One and another time the voices run off with on ululating of the wind, somebody shakes a hat, and the vicunas they are frustrated the exit route and they give half turn. But, his vital space is every smaller time. They have fallen in the trap: in the “chaco”.

From each vicuna we obtaine 250 grams of fiber approximately. Each kilo is valorized in USS 385.

The Andean man was able to tame the potato, the llama, the alpaca and the ferocious geography of the Andes, but never the vicuna. By some whim of the nature, the vicuna is up to now an animal non domestic. The tension that produces to be restricted its freedom sinks them in a tension that inhibits its reproduction in captivity.

 

The vicuna, smallest of the four South American camelids, is as well the mammal with one of the finest fibers of the world. The hair that covers it is finer than cashimere, bisón and other exotic fibers of the world. It is not casual, that it is the vicuña symbol of the national shield of the Peru , with the tree of the keno and the cornucopia of whose mouth flows currencies of pure gold. It is the graceful symbol of the liberty.

During years the illegal commerce of the vicuna fiber resorted to the easy file of the hunting of vicunas. An accurate shot replaced the effort and organization that means to prepare a massive “chaco”, with the one which to surround to the vicunas and to induce them to enter the corral where they are sheared in life preserving, literally, to the camelids of the gold fiber.

Even so many men are needed to celebrate the “chaco”. The human deployment to 4.000 meters of height is necessarily slow. To that height each step that is taken is unavoidably calculated. But in addition it was necessary to draw an infinity of stones, hidden among the “ichu”, of which the puna was sprinkled. So many in fact that soon it was discovered that it was easier to walk on the stones, as who crosses a river that to try to draw them. Small magical detail that it made surprising still more and to appreciate the speed with which the vicunas moved by the plain.

Meanwhile, the shareholder fulfills to celebrate the payment to the "Pachamama". A vicuña fetus, leaves of coca, liquor and blood of the camelid with which it tint the cheeks of the participants. It is not painting of war, but painting of life.