La Paz — Bolivian Cholita Market
190.96 €
A cholita — Bolivian Aymara woman in traditional multilayered pollera skirt and bowler hat — photographed at La Paz’s Mercado de las Brujas (Witches’ Market) amid offerings of llama fetuses, dried herbs, and amulets.
Description
The cholita — the traditional dress form of Aymara and Quechua women in Bolivia and southern Peru — consists of multiple layered pollera skirts, an embroidered blouse, a shawl (manta) fastened with a decorative pin, and the characteristic bowler hat (bombin) introduced by British railway workers in the 1920s and adopted as a status symbol. The Mercado de las Brujas (Witches’ Market) in La Paz specialises in the materials of Andean spiritual practice — dried llama fetuses (offered as building consecration sacrifices), medicinal herbs, palo santo wood, and ritual amulets. This photograph places the cholita seller at the centre of her stall in the market’s covered passage, surrounded by the dried offerings. The available market lighting — fluorescent strips supplemented by individual vendor lights — creates an uneven illumination that the photograph accepts rather than corrects, preserving the market’s authentic character.
