The Americas · c. 1500 BCE – today

Ekeko & alasitas miniatures

Meaning

Ekeko is the Aymara god of abundance, a small moustached man covered with miniature goods: food, money, houses, cars, diplomas, suitcases. He embodies plenty and the fulfilment of wishes.

Intent

People buy miniatures of what they want at the Alasitas fair in La Paz (from 24 January), have them blessed, and hang them on their Ekeko. He must be 'fed' a lit cigarette on Tuesdays and Fridays, or he stops giving.

Significance

Alasitas is recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage (2017). Ekeko shows Andean ideas of reciprocity: you care for the spirit and it provides. A pre-Columbian stone Ekeko (the Illa of Tiwanaku) was returned from Switzerland to Bolivia in 2014.

History

Ekeko's origin is pre-Hispanic, and the Alasitas fair in its modern form dates to 1781, after the siege of La Paz. The plaster figure with miniatures is a 19th–20th century development.

Making yours

10–25 cm plaster or clay figure with open mouth, laden with tiny tin, cloth and paper goods.

The Americas: the tradition

In the Americas, protective and power objects belonged to the relationship between people, ancestors, animals and the land. Andean herders kept stone illas for the fertility of their flocks, Mesoamerican rulers wore green jade as breath and maize, Isthmian goldsmiths cast animal spirit-helpers, and Arctic and Northwest Coast shamans carried carved spirit charms. Catholicism, arriving from 1492, brought saints, milagros and the Iberian evil-eye tradition, which fused with Indigenous and African belief into new forms such as Ekeko, the Afro-Brazilian balangandã and Santería. Many Indigenous objects are sacred and some communities ask that they not be displayed or copied; the Zuni, for example, distinguish sacred fetishes from carvings made for sale.

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Anything in the gallery can be made, by hand, in the prescribed metal or yours and, where the tradition names an hour, at that hour or with a plain note that it was not. Numbered. Price on commission, quoted first. I reply within one business day.