Bolivia

Bolivia is a country in the heart of the northern part of South America whose religious diversity stems from deep historical engagement with concerns beyond its boundaries grounded in local devotions. Its landscape, regarded as sacred by many of the inhabitants, contains some of the highest peaks of the Andes, a broad and densely populated high plateau, valleys, and the broad lowlands.

Well before the Spanish conquest, Bolivia's territory held Guarani and other lowland indigenous societies as well as the great Tiwanaku civilization, followed by the Kolla Confederations and the Inca Empire. Its shrines, such as the very holy Copacabana Peninsula with its offshore islands, known as Island of the Sun and of the Moon, figured strongly in Inca myths of origin and legitimation and continue to be important into the present, not just in Bolivia but also in Latin America, the United States, and Europe. Transformed by human effort, the peninsula became perhaps the largest man-made monument in the ancient world.

With the Spanish conquest, Bolivia became Catholic and has since participated in the changes of that institution. Today, a majority of Bolivians claim to be Catholic; estimates vary from 52% to 78%. Bolivian Catholicism ranges from devotions to figures grounded in the local landscape, such as the famous Virgin of Copacabana, the Virgin of Urkupiña, or the Virgin of Cotoca, with their confraternities, shrines, and pilgrimages that still mobilize the ritual calendar and much of social life, to various contemporary forms of Catholic devotion, such as the Opus Dei, catequists, and other lay movements. All of the above involve a combination of local social and religious concerns with transnational religious organization.

Some 20%–30% of Bolivians belong to religious groups that have more recently arrived in the country. This includes denominational Protestantism, nondenominational Evangelicals and Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh-Day Adventists, as well as Bahai's, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and various Metaphysical and Mystery movements. Other Bolivians claim no religion.

Bolivia's religious field is also being redefined as forms of native religion develop in the interaction of multilateral agencies’ emphasis on indigenous peoples’ rights with Bolivian social movements. In Bolivia, this new indigenous religion generally emphasizes devotion to the Earth Mother, called

[Page 150]Pachamama. Other aspects of indigenous practice, once belonging to ritual, such as the music, dance, and feasts connected with the Saints Calendar, are redefined as secular culture and folklore. Their popularity is growing strongly. The Bolivian state instituted a new constitution in 2009, which breaks the official connection between the state and Catholicism and declares the state as a lay entity. Nevertheless, indigenous symbols and rituals, including devotions to Pachamama, are increasingly important to legitimate and anchor Bolivia's social-political order, whether they are defined as religious or cultural. Bolivia's indigenous culture, whether considered religious or not, is developing followers in other countries and is influencing other indigenous people's movements.