Day 48 - Arica, Chile

Today's excursion was a cultural tour to Codpa Village. The bus ride was enjoyable and at times seemed like we were traveling into the past. As we drove towards the mountains, we entered the Atacama Desert and after two hours reached an elevation of 7,076 feet and the hidden valley containing Codpa village.

The village's central structure is a 16th century Spanish church surrounded by additional buildings completing the village of about 1,000 residents. Traditionally they were self-sufficient, but now days rely on weekly resupply runs for additional necessities. Their local school provides primary education for the village kids and those in surrounding areas. The guest students arrive each Monday by bus, spend the week attending school and return home on Friday. Graduating students often leave the community seeking opportunities outside those found in the community.

The 16th century Church of San Martin de Tours is the main village structure and one of many important missionary centers created during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. When the Spanish arrived seeking riches and to spread Christianity, they typically built new churches and converted the locals to Catholicism. In this case introduced may be more appropriate as the conversion seemed incomplete. I found it all totally confusing, but it appears the locals would not accepted the new Spanish church without compromise. The first compromise was not to abandoned their old religion and simply treat the new religious entities as new names for their existing Gods. Another interesting compromise surrounds the bell tower. Both males and females entities were important in the local religion and worshiped separately. They could not coexist in the same building. For the locals, the sanctuary building was for worshiping female entities and the bell tower was obviously for worshiping male entities. They had to be worshiped separately and therefore the buildings had to be separated. The new Jesus entity also posed a problem. He was male and not allowed in the main sanctuary with the females, but obviously important to Catholics and could not be hidden in the bell tower. As a compromise Jesus resides outside.

This all seems strange and makes one wonder if the conversion to Catholicism was actually incomplete and the Spanish left when the area failed to produce vast quantities of gold and silver?  Perhaps the locals were better negotiators?  This is only speculation, but the current results are definitely not the norm.