With stalls overflowing in oddities visitors to this market can find any item needed for cures of the body and soul. If you walk through the market, you will find everything a witch could desire; they are amulets, talisman, herbs, good luck charms, dried armadillos and frogs, ceramic figures of naked couples, aphrodisiac formulas, owl feathers, dried turtles, starfish, snakes and the Bolivian favorite, dried llama fetuses.
The most peculiar items that are prominently featured at the market are dehydrated llama fetuses, displayed along many of the stalls. According to tradition, Bolivian families make a sacred cha’lla (offering) to Pachamama (mother earth) by burying a llama fetus under the foundation of a new home.
The offering is believed to bring protection and happiness to the homeowners as well as ward off bad spirits, protect builders from accidents, and bring good luck to businesses. Many use the dried llama fetuses for this ritual, however, the wealthy often sacrifice a living llama. It is believed that nearly every Bolivian home has a llama buried beneath it.
These men and women are said to have the ability to communicate with the dead, serve as community healers, and perform an assortment of other sacred rituals. In one ritual performed, an offering table is burnt in return for a blessing from the gods. Another more ominous ceremony involves boiling frogs in order to place a curse upon an enemy.
While some of the objects are eerie and entertaining, if you don’t respect their craft you might end up with a curse placed upon you.
One of the best-selling items is boxed herbs from Brazil and Peru that purportedly improves s$x life. Although a vast majority of Bolivians are Catholic, few actually practice Christianism. Instead, locals follow ancient tradition and visit fortune tellers and witch doctors called yatiri.
These practitioners of the occult can easily be recognized in the crowd by their black hats and coco pouches containing amulets, talismans, and powders that ensure luck, beauty, and fertility.
For the right price, these voodoo doctors will cast a spell on your enemies or grant a child good marks in school. Some witch doctors even sell packaged, pre-made spells and potions to treat various problems.
One of the most peculiar items on the market is the dried llama fetuses. According to traditional belief, families must make an offering to goddess Pachamama by burying a llama fetus under the foundations of their new homes for protection, health, happiness, and good luck. Sometimes llama fetuses are burned to bring the goodwill of the goddess.
It is said that nearly every Bolivian family has a dried llama fetus thrown under the foundations of their house for luck.
For example, every year miners throughout the altiplano would sacrifice llamas in order to appease El Tio, the lord of the underworld.
The blood of the animal is then smeared all over the mine’s entrance, machinery, and active veins of ore. This is why llama fetuses in the Witches’ Market come in all different sizes.
Since the past few years, the Witches’ Market’s biggest customers aren’t locals coming for cures to health and spiritual problems but tourists who take home the bizarre goods sold here as souvenirs.
