A Hopi Discovery in Bolivia

It was the first day of The Heart of the Andes. This year’s spiritual travel program included Bolivia as our starting point with culmination in Cusco, closely replicating the initiation journey of the first Inka couple Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo. Directed by their father-god Viracocha, they sought a most holy place to build a city—a place of the sun and navel of the world.*

Prior to setting foot in Tiwanku, said to be the Creation Place where Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo first emerged, we made a stop. On a high windy ridge overlooking the area—a ritual site— Q’ero paq’o friends led a despacho ceremony. Offering sacred cornmeal to each of us, Hopi Suhongva Marvin Lalo made his own prayers to the land as we all released our intent to the winds.**

Marvin had begun to share his feelings and his mission for coming on this journey.

Hopi Elders talk about and remind generations after generations of Hopi oral history, including the migration stories of various clans after the flooding of Palatkwapi, a unknown ancient village located somewhere in the south. Exact routes, established villages, and events have long been forgotten with time. Still, ancient ceremonies remain intact with clans responsible for carrying religious ceremonies through thousands of years of migrations to present-day Hopi villages where the ceremonies are still practiced today.

The Heart of the Andes journey offered an opportunity to connect with ancestral history, to visit the land of the ancients and its descendents, the Q’ero. To what extent my experience would take me, I didn’t know. The first despacho ceremony, I experienced a strong connection as I was presented with a Chakana; a sacred stone necklace and woven cords tied to my wrist. I gave thanks with offerings of my hooma.

At Tiwanku, Marvin already noted the possibility of his own people having set foot on this land. We wandered the ruins, a place of ancient mystery. We were all especially moved in a ritual square, the interior lined with stone faces—a portal perhaps.

Finally pulling ourselves away, in the last half hour before closing we ventured over to an adjacent site. Puma Punku may be the biggest mystery of all. Some conjecture it may have been a docking point, as thousands of years ago Lake Titicaca also covered this area. Now what was left were huge toppled stone slabs and much smaller structures fashioned with extraordinary precision … seemingly impossible for those times. It cannot be explained to this day.

And it was here that Marvin—who had traveled south all the way from Hopi Land on a mission for signs that his people had passed this way—found the Hopi migration petroglyph. The one that was known to point the way to his ancestors. The one that pointed north.

Atypical of other petroglyphs I’ve seen all over the US Southwest or elsewhere, it was large. I’d say three feet, maybe more. Also curious, there was a large serpent petroglyph in front of it, as though verifying the direction.

Even that large, it was easy to miss. The sun was at that point in the day when its rays glare as it’s headed toward the horizon ready for the night. Light bounced off rock surfaces, washing out details. Even with sunglasses my eyes were at its mercy. I missed it.

But not Marvin. He zeroed in on a symbol he knew to be his people’s…and his hair was on fire.

Hopi migration petroglyph at Puma Punka, black and white to better view. Not pictured in its entirety. Nor is the serpent petroglyph pictured. Photo credit: Janet Harvey.

What does this mean exactly? In 2008 Hopi Harold Joseph came on our program that included Puno. On the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, we went by boat to the reed islands. There Harold saw the reed boats with serpent heads that he knew from Hopi oral history. He took a replica back to Hopi to show his father-in-law, the last great oral historian of the Tribe…who got tears in his eyes when Harold presented him with an artifact that he already knew.

For Marvin and his Elders, how do you explain the presence of the Hopi migration symbol at Puma Punka if the Hopi had not been there? He talked with excitement of sharing this discovery with the Elders. When our guides spoke of a great city that once existed in this region, now lost, and the great flood that took it, he listened. Geologically, it appears valid. The same story exists in his oral history. The locals even raised the idea that the place we know as Atlantis and the great city they cite are the same.

After we came home, Marvin offered his words, to be included in this documentation, more overview of his time with us in a land he found not to be foreign to him.

The Q’ero and spiritual guides honored me by inviting me to sit in on the ceremonies and observe. I recognized the po.nga (altar) and offerings to be similar to Hopi. At one point I was asked to pray with my hooma for them: to ask the deities’ especially Hopi to help and assist the people to prosper. I quietly prayed, gave offerings of hooma, drank the cool tasty water and bathed symbolically at the springs.

Each day I visited archeological sites with our group and host. Visiting the great Titicaca Lake, to hear a local legend of a great city, which was flooded thousands of years ago sitting at the bottom of the lake. The more I saw, the more I was reminded of how the structures, stone walls, the land and historical stories are similar in the Hopi Southwest. The migration symbol is common to the Southwest but seeing it in South America helps support our Elders’ stories of Hopi migration from the south: ‘Palatkwapi.’

Suhongva Marvin Lalo, Island of the Moon. Photo credit: Carla Woody.

When we know our origins, it grounds spiritual identity. We know our place in the world through all the places our people traveled, the ground their feet have touched. It goes beyond mere belief. I’m not sure the word ‘faith’ is even sufficient.

And when you’ve followed something that you know, even as you don’t know what’s ahead or why…and it comes to some kind of fruition in a way you couldn’t even have imagined…that instills something for which I have no words.

That’s what happened for me on this journey. Next year it will be ten years since an eagle and condor flew together overhead at Huaypo Lake outside Cusco after a despacho ceremony with Q’ero friends. And I had an immediate vision of bringing Hopi people to Peru on my 2007 program…not knowing any Hopi…not knowing it was their migration path…not knowing how it would ever happen…not knowing of the Eagle Condor Prophecy.

I have no words.

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* Viracocha, Creator-Sun God, is also known as Inti.

** Q’ero paq’os (meaning priests, mystics and/or wisdom keepers) traveled to Bolivia from their home in the high Peruvian Andes as sponsored guests and experience the site of their origin for the first time. At important points in the journey they guided despacho ceremonies, a prayer ritual.

Suhongva Marvin Lalo of Walpi, First Mesa in Northern Arizona was our sponsored Hopi guest for the purpose he mentions in this article. Marvin consults for the Hopi Cultural Center in validating sacred sites and artifacts.

For more on why Kenosis Spirit Keepers has been sponsoring Indigenous guests on our spiritual travel programs, go here.