Death on a weeping mountain
The plight of Glacier Pastoruri, Peru
We all encounter death at some point during our lives. Some deaths are small, while others are great, but each event is life-changing. The process strips away superfluous layers, revealing what is truly means to be human.
While visiting glacier Pastoruri, in Ancash, Peru, I had a brief but significant encounter with death. This was not my first. Five years before, my mother suddenly died. Her death catapulted me into the dark labyrinth of grief. Dazed and confused, and brokenhearted, I experienced my first major anxiety attack within hours of her death and these attacks plagued me for many years after. I stumbled along in life, searching, trying to understand life’s greatest mystery. What does it mean to die? And how do you live a full and happy life after someone you love so dearly is gone?
I tried to seek answers by talking to friends and family but soon discovered that people navigate grief’s labyrinth in different ways. When some people find themselves rendered blind, fearful, and disorientated, they return in the direction they came. Once they have exited the maze, they try to pretend that life simply must go on as ‘normal’.
Subconsciously I then sought answers through my PhD research and landed in Peru with a project that aimed to tackle one of the most controversial topics of human history: human sacrifice. Human sacrifice violates beliefs and axioms of the modern Eurocentric worldview, especially that human life should be preserved at all costs. As a result, many of us fight death, masking up with denial. While living in Peru, I was eager to learn how contemporary Andean communities viewed this transitional rite. As I discovered, they perceived life and death from a very different light. Regardless of our perspective, there is no doubt that how we deal with this transitional rite shapes how we live day-to-day.
Apu Pastoruri, the weeping mountain
While conducting fieldwork ten years ago, I was fortunate to visit Nevado Pastoruri, a tropical cirque glacier. The mountain is part of the Cordillera Blanca (‘The White Mountain Range’), located within the Huascarán National Park, in Ancash, Peru. Of the many places I have visited in the Andes so far, I can…