In late May I spent a day hanging out with the miners of the Bolivian City of Potosi, home to the largest silver mine of human history, during their annual blood sacrifice to Tito, the shadowy god/supernatural force of the underworld. We started drinking singani (grape liquor) at 9 am, beers at 10 and grain liquor at 11, and by 12 we (i.e the miners; I was not trusted with the knife) were ready to cut some llama throats. After the blood was scattered liberally around the mining site, the llamas were quartered, butchered and barbecued; we feasted on them as the sun set over the mountains.
I took this video of one of the four llamas sacrificed that morning. It’s on facebook, so only those of you with a facebook account will be able to see it…apologies.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=622300308034&saved#!/video/video.php?v=622300308034
