ABSTRACT
"Silva" was born in 1913 at Ninobamba, a village in the mountains above the Pisco-Ayacucho road. The structure of Ayacucho Quechua culture should be understood in terms of its own logic, and since the ceremony reflects that structure and is logically consistent with it, why search for a "cause" in the logic of Western science? Two terms have survived from the ancient ceremonies held by speakers of Ayacucho Quechua: waytakuy, which literally means "to decorate with flowers", and chupa, which means "tail". One refers to the decoration of llamas and ritual paraphernalia, the other to the snipping off of the tips of the animals' tails as offerings to the wamani. Felix prayed sotto voce to the Tayta Urqu, asking him, in effect, to accept the offerings, to bless all the artifacts to be used in the llama decorating, to look with favor on the decorated animals, and to allow Felix to continue his successful shepherding of the wamani's flocks.
