Attempted Explanation...

Ok, so I realized that I made a very quick post, with hardly any explanation, dealing with a VERY important subject matter and event that I was invited to participate in... as an outsider... therefore decided an attempt at explaining just might be due...

That being said, I'm stealing some excerpts I've found online because I lack the time and energy at the moment to try to explain EVERYTHING I have (and am still in the process) of learning and understanding about this complex ancient culture and it's traditions... that are still in practice today!

"In the mines of highland Bolivia, "El Tío" is the familiar name for the spirit owner of the mountain, who is also known as Huari or Supay.

An icon of El Tío is situated in each mineshaft to receive sacrificial offerings of alcohol, coca, cigarettes, llama blood and other ritual items from the miners in return for his goodwill and his guarantee of good health and good fortune in the mines.

El Tío is not characterized by generosity, however. He is distinguished by his insatiable appetite. The miners must always think of that appetite and sacrifice llamas so that he will not claim human lives instead. His demands are more akin to those that indigenous men faced under the colonial order in which they were forced into the mines under the mita system and held to impossible production quotas.^[2] To escape such a fate, members of the lower classes were obliged to seek the favor of a patron, a powerful ally who would intervene on their behalf. Such interventions were obtained through bribes in much the same way that miners petition the favor of El Tío.

The llamas are sacrificed at the entrance of the mine and their blood is collected in a large bowl. The blood is splashed across the entrance to the mine and splattered on machinery within the mine or on the rock faces of active veins. In many cases, the llama's heart or a dried llama fetus purchased for the occasion is buried at the image's feet. The miners must then leave the mine so that El Tío can enjoy his meal uninterrupted while they feast on llama meat on the surface.

As the lord of the hills, El Tío's domain is entirely underground. The surface belongs to God. Consequently, El Tío never appears in church and it is taboo to make mention of God or the saints inside the mines, lest El Tío withhold his riches.

Scholars have used the physical and temporal separation of the realms inhabited by the Christian and Andean deities to suggest that the religion of Andean highland culture is not as syncretic as it appears on the surface.^[5][4] Despite many loans between the two traditions, the Aymaras understand the ritual activities that are associated with the Andean spirits and those associated with the Catholic saints as manifestly different. They maintain the two different, sometimes conflicting sets of beliefs and are largely able to do so because those beliefs are carefully separated so that they never actually come into direct conflict."

Ok, so I "stole" this disjointed information and photos mainly from http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/El_Tío. There is a ton of information on the web dealing with this topic and if you're interested I'm sure you can read until your heart's content TRYING to understand. It's a complex world we live in... I'm more and more convinced of that everyday.

Hopefully this helps a little bit!

Kate