Willakatuti

Willakatuti (also: Willakakuti, Willkakuti or Willka Kuti, return from Father Sun) is the New Year's festival of the Aymara population in the South American Andean highlands.

Willakakuti is the Feast of the Return of the Sun and is celebrating its 5523th anniversary in 2015. It corresponds to the New Year's Feast of the Northern Hemisphere and has been celebrated with ritual ceremonies since time immemorial on the Bolivian Altiplano. After the conquest of South America by the Spanish conquistadors, the Willakakuti festival of Aymara was forbidden and the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1509.

Willakakuti has been celebrated again for some time, with the most important celebration taking place in Tiahuanaco. Thousands of people gather in icy temperatures every year in the ancient temple town of Aymara at an altitude of almost 4,000 meters and await the rising sun through the "Gate of the Sun" in the pre-Inca Temple of Kalasasaya.

In June 2009, the Bolivian government under the Aymara president, Evo Morales, decided to declare June 21 by decree on the official holiday, so that this year there will be two New Year's Day in Bolivia: January 1, according to the Gregorian Calendar, and the 21st of June, according to the Andes world view. For the Morales government, this decree is an expression of Bolivian colonialism and the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Weblinks Edit sourcetext

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