THE NEXT JURIDICAL precondition to be fulfilled, so that a pueblo de indios like Qaqachaka could become transformed into a colonial cantón (in the medieval sense of this term as a “free city”), was that of accumulating enough Catholic saints in the central church to be able to celebrate a complete annual cycle of feasts.

This juridical precondition frames the following narratives of Qaqachaka's oral history, about the journeys of other saint-gods to the pueblo de indios, to become grouped together in the new church in the principal plaza of the marka. Each one of this ensemble of saints is identified with certain ancestors and lineages of the place, as their own gods and ancestors in common, precisely in order to fulfil the demands of the colonial laws. Once the ancestors had united sufficient gods to represent all the minor ayllus of the annex, they set out to accommodate them all in the new church.

First his Wife, Mama Candelaria

Although these ancestors sought to fulfil the terms of the colonial dispositions, their reasoning did not derive from a subservient attitude. The very first priority for them was that Tata Quri, in his protecting role towards them as “Our Father” (Awksa), was alone, and in need of a wife.

For Don Alberto Choque, the first option they considered was that of procuring other gods from the doctrinal capital of Condocondo, where they had already obtained materials for the church construction. The problem was that the priest there did not want to lose these other saints: