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Fig. 8.2
The iconic fi gure of
Viracocha
in the center of the Sun Gate in Tiahuanaco in the high-
lands of Bolivia was sculpted in stone 2,200 years ago.
Viracocha
is surrounded by 48 winged
guardians, of which 32 have human faces and 16 have condor faces, illustrating how deities,
humans, and nature have been and are still united in Amerindian worldviews and lives (Photograph
Héctor Morales Deramond)
language, the name Viracocha is transcribed today as
Wairacocha
that means
waira
(wind) and
cocha
(lake, sea), or as
Ticci Vira Cocha Pachayachachic
that means the
source of fi re, earth, water, and air; i.e., the four pre-Socratic essential elements.
Viracocha also played an essential role in bringing order onto an originally cha-
otic world (Kusch
1962
), a worldview reminiscent of Heraclitus's notion of
logos
or
order (see Callicott
1994
). Both ancestral cosmogonies -the Andean and the
Heraclitean pre-Socratic-, in turn, have elements in common with current ecologi-
cal scientifi c worldviews. The science of stoichiometry has determined that humans
and all living beings are composed of the same major chemical elements. Moreover,
planet Earth also shares the same basic chemical elements with the rest of the mate-
rial bodies of the cosmos. Biogeochemical sciences have discovered ecological
cycles of energy and nutrients in which humans participate, and geology and astron-
omy have disclosed dynamic exchanges of energy and chemical elements at the
planetary scale (Schlesinger and Bernhardt
2013
). The notion of
participation
embedded in these Andean, pre-Socratic, and scientifi c worldviews provides a solid
foundation for both Earth stewardship and biocultural ethics. For Earth stewardship,
the understanding that humans
participate
in the structure and order of the biosphere
and the cosmos implies that appropriate forms of stewardship and governance need
to adjust to such order, which is the condition of possibility for life. For biocultural
ethics, the
ontological notion
of
participation
provides a foundation for the
ethical
notion
of
co-inhabitation
.
The Andean backbone hosts the highest mountain peaks in the Americas and
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