Salasaka Tapestries - Inka Ñusta

INKA ÑUSTA

Inka Nusta means the Chosen Women, sometime called the Virgins of the Sun, who were carefully trained to made the ceremony of making a "pukara" or a "despacho" an offering for Mother Earth. Her face portrayed as a gold disk from which rays and flames extended in forms of birds. The Sun's powerful energy warms the Mother Earth, which is vital to life and for the production of crops.

Salasaka Tapestries - Tree of Life

TREE OF LIFE

This symbol represents life itself. When portrayed as a tree, the branches reach high towards the sky and the roots are buried firmly in Mother Earth.
Having this symbol in the home, or wearing it in jewelry, can symbolize a connection with, and celebration of, life.

Salasaka Tapestries - Llama

LLAMA

The llama was probably domesticated some six thousand years ago in southern Peru. Life in the Andes would have been much more difficult, and probably less developed, had it not benn for the llama. The llama and its relatives had a role in agriculture, for example. Pastoralism and agriculture developed together in the Andes. The cultivation of the potato, a basic native food and the most important high-altitude crop, was dependent on the use of camelid manure. In Inca times, llamas were controlled by the state, and the Incas expanded the range of llama herding widely, north into Ecuador and south into Chile. Llamas were shorn for wool to make clothing and objects such as the sling and the quipu, the Andean counting device made of knotted stings.