Modernity, Tradition, and Andean Alasitas – MAA Digital Lab

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14 April 2026
Modernity and Tradition through Andean Alasitas
12 minute read
The Andes mountains in South America are a landscape of impressive scale. As the tallest peaks in the Western Hemisphere and the longest mountain range in the world, people living there have long had to adapt to environmental extremes. However, inhabitants of Highland South America have also used scale in their material culture to create connections between people, objects, and the wider environment. The use of
alasita
miniatures in contemporary ritual and daily life mirrors longstanding notions of Andean relationality with the landscape, while also reflecting Indigenous re-conceptualisations of Western-style capitalism and modernity.
Miniatures in the Andes
These types of miniatures, originally bought at fairs and sanctuaries in the southern Highlands Peru and Bolivia, are known as alasitas. They are miniaturisations of a wide range of commercial and valued objects, such as cars, houses, electrical technologies, and educational certificates. They are acquired so that the holder may eventually obtain the full-sized equivalent and increase their prosperity [1].
Figure 2.
Alasitas
of cars, trucks, and houses for sale at a stall outside the Marian sanctuary of Copacabana, Bolivia. Photograph by the author, August 2024.
This practice follows a long tradition of miniaturisation in Andean offering-making. During the Inka period, stone
conopa
(carved figurines alongside unmodified pebbles) were central to communication with powerful beings believed to reside in mountain peaks (
apus
) and other landscape features (
wak’as
) [2]. Miniatures were understood as active agents within a reciprocal network in which humans offered these figures, along with other objects such as coca leaves, to powerful entities and, in return, typically received agricultural and pastoral productivity [3]. Some scholars link this practice to the Andean concept of consubstantiality, whereby all entities share a vital spirit (
sami
in Quechua) understood to emanate from the
apus
and
wak’as
[4]. Miniature stone figurines and models, known today as
illas
and
enqas
inqaychu
, are thought to derive directly from sacred places without human intervention and, as in Inka times, represent elements central to Andean life [5].
Figures 3 and 4. Left – Inka
conopa
miniature of a llama, into which llama fat, coca leaves, and other substances were often placed as part of an offering. Peru, Late Horizon (Inka), 15th–16th century. Donated by Louis Colville Gray Clarke. MAA
1955.61
. Right – Stone
illa
depicting livestock and farmhouses, offered to apus to ensure the fertility of livestock and agricultural produce. Peru, first half of the nineteenth century. Photograph by the author; object in the Museo de Arte de Lima.
Figure 5. Stone
inqaychu
acquired in Cusco in 1955 and now held in the British Museum. Image reproduced from Allen, C. J. (2016), “The Living Ones: Miniatures and Animation in the Andes,”
Journal of Anthropological Research
, pp. 416–441.
However, most studies of Andean miniatures only treat
alasitas
as an afterthought, usually as a contrast to more ‘traditional’ forms like
inqaychu
. For example, Catherine Allen concludes her study of Andean miniatures by suggesting that
alasitas
‘signal fundamental change’ from the past [6]. Others, such as Deborah Poole argue that the modernisation of traditional miniatures is ‘too obvious’ to warrant serious analysis [7]. I aim to show how the
alasita
in MAA’s care materialises a process of negotiation between past and present, and between globalised and local forces.
The Truck
Vehicles are a common type of
alasita
and, outside ritual contexts, are often sold as toys [8]. The example in the collections at MAA, however, was likely acquired from the sanctuary of El Señor de W’ank’a in the Department of Cuzco, Peru, or from another sanctuary in the south-central Andes, by Bill Sillar in the early 1990s [9]. It is almost certainly a miniaturisation of a Toyota DA model. The painted horses and stars reflect a popular practice of decorating trucks in Peru and Bolivia.
Figures 6 and 7. Left – Toyota DA115, produced from 1964. Right – Toyota DA100, produced from 1974. Images courtesy of Toyota Motor Corporation, 2012.
Toyota, a Japanese multinational company, began exporting vehicles to Peru in 1957, opened an assembly plant in the country in 1967, and by 1983 had secured the largest share of the Peruvian automobile market, a position it has almost continually retained [10]. The
alasita
therefore represents a recognisable and popular type of flatbed truck. By wishing for a specific model produced by the country’s largest automobile manufacturer, rather than a generic imported vehicle, local actors articulate a locally grounded understanding of modernity and their place within the global economy.
Figure 8. Painted truck from the Peruvian highlands. Photograph by the author, September 2025.
The
alasita
at MAA is a working model, with movable wheels.
Alasitas
must be well made and free from defects, as it is believed that the form of the miniature will be exactly replicated in the full-sized object [11]. In contrast to Allen’s assumption that
alasitas
are uniformly mass-produced, many are carefully handmade in artisan workshops, typically family-run and consisting of no more than five people [12]. For example, Santos Paty runs a workshop with his son Hernán in La Paz, Bolivia, where they exclusively manufacture miniature buses and trucks – similar to the MAA example – out of wood. In a local TV programme documenting their work, the two artisans repeatedly emphasise the length and labour-intensive nature of the process, as well as the fact that each piece is handmade. They clearly take great pride in their craft. As Olivia Angé observes in the context of
alasitas
in the Argentine Andes, such skilled production is often understood as an ability bestowed by the saint to whom the
alasitas
are offered [13]. In the case of the truck, there is a striking contrast between the industrially produced vehicle and the labour-intensive handmade miniature.
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The Contents of the Truck
Figure 9. The interior contents of MAA
1999.151 A-L
Inside the cargo bed of the truck at MAA are ten packages: seven small packets of different local grains and beans, one packet of pasta hoops, one packet of earth, and one packet of stucco. Many of these items, particularly maize, are sown at the beginning of the rainy season, which the pilgrimage to El Señor de W’ank’a marks [14]. Ritual practices in the Andes are closely tied to annual cycles of agricultural production. These rituals respond to and mediate relationships within Andean communities across the year. They reflect shifts between communal values and reciprocity during the planting and growing season, as well as more individualised concerns associated with food storage during the dry season [15]. Nevertheless, rituals in each season emphasise both collective and individual dimensions, preventing an excessive privileging of one set of values over the other [16]. The interrelation between work and ritual thus collapses any clear distinction between the two. Through an analysis of fairs and sanctuaries associated with the sale and use of
alasitas
, the contents of the truck can be understood through the lens of the annual ritual and productive cycle.
The History and Context of
Alasita
Fairs
Festivals centred on the purchase and offering of
alasitas
originated in the Andean Altiplano of southern Peru and Bolivia. Their subsequent spread across the wider Central Andes reflects long-standing regional connections created through caravan trade and labour mobility, making this an area of intense cultural interaction since prehistory [17]. Although the earliest references to fairs selling miniatures relate to celebrations of La Virgen de La Paz in the Bolivian capital during the 1780s [18], these events evolved significantly in the context of 19th-century urban growth and industrialisation. This period saw increased interaction between rural belief systems and the increasingly commercial worlds of urban centres [19]. As a result, miniatures that had traditionally been made as offerings to
apus
began to acquire a more commercial character. For example, a parish document from Puno dated to 1868 records the sale of miniature stone houses that had previously been produced exclusively for offerings to the nearby Machallata mountain [20].
Alasitas
also became associated with the figure of the
ekeko
, a bringer of abundance closely linked to commerce, itinerant trade, and rural–urban migration [21].
Figure 10.
Ekeko
figure laden with objects symbolising abundance. Photograph by the author, Museo Costumbrista Juan de Vargas, La Paz, Bolivia.
In contrast to the strongly Indigenous focus of
apu
veneration,
alasita
fairs increasingly attracted participants from a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds throughout the 20th century, contributing to their dramatic growth in popularity. Comparing the
alasitas
fair in Juliaca between 1987 and the present, some scholars have noted that while there were 237 market stalls selling alasitas in 1987, by 2012 the number had risen to over one thousand [22]. Although
alasitas
are purchased from vendors and artisans at these fairs, their ritual potency is only activated once they have been blessed, either with holy water at a Catholic mass or by a traditional shaman (
yatiri
in Aymara) [23]. To fulfil the desire represented by the
alasita
, the miniature may be left at a sanctuary or, more commonly, taken home and displayed as a constant reminder of the effort required to obtain the full-sized object [24]. In some cases,
alasitas
are even incorporated into foundation deposits for houses [25]. Increasingly, they also depict foreign imports, which are valued precisely because of their distant origins. In this way,
alasita
fairs and practices remain adaptable to shifting social contexts and are experienced and interpreted in diverse ways.
Figure 11. Miniature spanner inscribed with ‘MADE IN CHINA’ The irregular lettering suggests that it was handmade – like other
alasitas
– in the Andes. The object reflects the value attributed to foreign imports within
alasita
practice. Peru. Collected by Bill Sillar in the early 1990s. MAA
1999.172 J
Since the 1980s,
alasitas
have also been sold at mountain sanctuaries such as El Señor de W’ank’a and El Señor de Quyllurit’i [26]. These sanctuaries, particularly W’ank’a, from where Sillar most likely collected the miniature truck, are closely linked to Andean agricultural cycles and overlap with older pre-Hispanic ritual traditions [27]. The pilgrimage to the sanctuary of El Señor de W’ank’a takes place at the beginning of the agricultural cycle in September. The sanctuary was established on the eastern slopes of the Pachatusan mountain in the late 17th century, following repeated visions of the flagellated Christ reportedly experienced there in 1675 by Diego Quispe, an Indigenous labourer working in nearby gold mines that date back to the Inka period [28]. Importantly, the site’s ritual significance predates its Catholic foundation. Pachatusan, meaning ‘the one who sustains the world’, rises to 4,840 metres and is the highest mountain in the vicinity of Cuzco. It lies directly east of the city on one of the four principal ceques (Inka ritual lines) radiating from it [29]. For the Inka, this
ceque
was central to observing the equinoxes and timing the sowing of crops [30]. The area therefore has a long history, both as an
apu
and as a Catholic sanctuary, of association with the annual agricultural cycle. From this perspective, the contents of the truck, particularly the seeds associated with different foodstuffs, as well as the packet of stones, can be understood as a materialised plea for agricultural productivity and sustenance over the coming year, consistent with the deeper ritual history of these sanctuaries.
The inclusion of stucco, used for house repairs, further aligns with the logic of the productive cycle. In rural communities, house maintenance, such as rethatching, typically takes place during the dry season and is associated with personal and familial wealth accumulation [31]. The truck itself, with its connotations of modern consumerism, can thus be understood as compatible with the accumulation of private wealth that mountain spirits (such as that associated with W’ank’a) are believed to permit during the dry season [32]. This interpretation is reinforced by the packaging of grains and stucco together within the truck, all of which relate to the values of this season. These values, as well as the production of the grains themselves, remain relational to the rainy season, depending on the sowing of new crops and the shifting balance of reciprocal obligations that accompany it [33]. The placement of the truck at a mountain sanctuary, most likely El Señor de W’ank’a, a site associated with transitions between phases of the agricultural cycle, underscores how the
alasita
encapsulates the interplay between cycles of productivity, social values, and ritual practice in the Andes.
Andean Belief and Ritual in the Age of Globalisation
As the
alasita
demonstrates, the long-standing lack of separation between ritual and practical or commercial activity in Andean societies continues to operate within contemporary capitalist systems. Rather than representing a residual survival of pre-Hispanic practices, miniatures in the Andes today reflect specific socio-economic realities through which globalised trends are framed and reinterpreted using established worldviews.
The
alasita
illustrates how mass production, globalisation, and individualism can be absorbed and reshaped through long-standing practices of miniaturisation and artisan production, allowing them to coexist with Andean cycles of productivity, ritual, and social relations. As such, alasitas exemplify the fact that Indigenous rituals in the Andes are not relics of a pre-Hispanic past, but dynamic and complex articulations of past and present that creatively reimagine global processes on a local scale.
Footnotes
[1] Golte, J., & Gabriel, D. L. (2014).
Alasitas: Discursos, prácticas, y símbolos de un “liberalismo aymara altiplánico” entre la población de origen migrante en Lima
. Lima: IEP.
[2] Sillar, B. (2016a). Miniatures and Animism: the Communicative Role of Inka Carved Stone Conopa.
Journal of Anthropological Research
, 442-464.
[3] Sillar, B. (2004). Acts of God and active material culture: agency and commitment in the Andes. In A. Gardner,
Agency Uncovered: Archaeological Perspectives on Social Agency, Power and Being Human
(pp. 154-189). London: UCL Press.
[4] Allen, C. J. (1988).
The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community
. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution.
[5] Allen, C. J. (2016). The Living Ones: Miniatures and Animation in the Andes.
Journal of Anthropological Research
, 416-441.
[6] Ibid., 436.
[7] Poole, D. (1988). Entre el milagro y la mercancía: Qoyllur Rit’i.
Márgenes
, 101-119.
[8] Derks, S. (2009).
Power and pilgrimage: Dealing with class, gender and ethnic inequality at a Bolivian Marian shrine
. Nijmegen: LIT Verlag.
[9] MAA. (1997).
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: Annual Report for 1996/1997
. Retrieved from
[10] Anderson, P. D., & Arturo, N. N. (2021). Evolución del automóvil en el Perú.
Ingeniería Automotriz, Universidad Politécnica Amazónica
[11] Van Kessel, J. (1992). Technología aymara: un enfoque cultural.
Cuadernos de Investigación en Cultura y Technología Andina
[12] Golte, J., & Gabriel,
Alasitas
145-148.
[13] Angé, O. (2016). Materializing Virtues: Crafted Miniatures as Moral Examples in the Argentinean Andes.
Journal of Anthropological Research
, 483–503.
[14] Sallnow, M. J. (1987).
Pilgrims of the Andes: Regional cults in Cuzco
. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
[15] Gose, P. (1994).
Deathly Waters and Hungry Mountains: Agrarian Ritual and Class Formation in an Andean Town
. Toronto: Toronto University Press; Wallis, C. (1980). Pastores de Llamas en Cailloma (Arequipa) y Modelos Estructuralistas para la Interpretación de su Sociedad. In R. Matos,
El Hombre y la Cultura Andina
(pp. 248-257). Lima: Actas y Trabajos del III Congreso Peruano.
[16] Gose,
Deathly Waters
, 235.
[17] Sillar, B. (2016b). Globalization without markets? Population movement and other integrative mechanisms in the Ancient Andes. In T. Hodos,
The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization
. London: Routledge.
[18] Paredes, M. (1963 [1920]).
Mitos, supersticiones, y supervivencias populares de Bolivia
. La Paz: Ediciones Isla.
[19] Nuñez, M. (2007). El ekeko y su mundo mágico de las alasitas.
Antropología. Revista de Investigación, Análisis y Debate
[20] Salcedo, J. C. (2013).
Dioses y mercados de la fortuna: Recorridos históricos del ekeko y las alasitas en el altiplano peruano
. Lima: Ministerio de la Cultura.
[21] Golte, J., & Gabriel,
Alasitas
160.
[22] Arnillas, F. (1996). Ekeko, alasitas y calvarios.
Allpanchis
, 119-135; Golte, J., & Gabriel,
Alasitas
[23] Derks, S. (2009).
Power and pilgrimage: Dealing with class, gender and ethnic inequality at a Bolivian Marian shrine
. Nijmegen: LIT Verlag; Stensrud, A. (2010). Los peregrinos urbanos en Qoyllurit’i y el juego mimético de miniaturas.
Anthropologica
, 39-65; Golte, J., & Gabriel,
Alasitas
102.
[24] Salcedo,
Dioses y mercados.
[25] Golte, J., & Gabriel,
Alasitas
160.
[26] Allen, “The Living Ones.”
[27] Sillar, “Acts of god and active material culture.”
[28] Sallnow, M. J. (1982). A Trinity of Christs: Cultic Processes in Andean Catholicism.
American Ethnologist
, 730-749.
[29] Sallow,
Pilgrims of the Andes
[30] Zuidema, R. T. (1977). The Inca Calendar. In A. Aveni,
Native American Astronomy
(pp. 219-259). Austin: University of Texas Press.
[31] Gose,
Deathly Waters
, 86.
[32] Ibid., 79.
[33] Wallis, “Pastores de Llamas en Cailloma;” Gose,
Deathly Waters
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Evan Grandidge de Paz
Evan Grandidge de Paz completed his undergraduate degree in Archaeology at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He is currently studying for an MPhil in Latin American Studies at Clare Hall with a focus on colonial situations in the Americas from across the pre/post-Hispanic divide. He is currently completing research on Late Intermediate Period textiles from the site of Pacatnamú in Peru.
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