Willakatuti
Willakatuti (also: Willakakuti , Willkakuti or Willka Kuti , German: "Return of Father Sun", also Machaq Mara , German "New Year") is the New Year celebrations of the Aymara population in the South American Andean highlands.
Willakakuti is the festival of the return of the sun and 2015 marks the 5523rd anniversary. It corresponds to the New Year celebrations in the northern hemisphere and has been celebrated with ritual ceremonies on the Bolivian Altiplano since ancient times . After the conquest of South America by the Spanish conquistadors , the Willakakuti festival of the Aymara was banned in 1509 and the Gregorian calendar was introduced.
Willakakuti has been celebrated again for some time, the most important celebration takes place in Tiahuanaco : Thousands of people gather every year in the ancient temple city of Aymara at an altitude of almost 4,000 meters in icy temperatures and await the rise of the sun, whose first rays come through the " Gate of the Sun ”in the pre-Inca temple of Kalasasaya .
In June 2009, the Bolivian government under Aymara President Evo Morales decided to make June 21 an official public holiday by decree , so that from this year there will be two New Year's days in Bolivia: January 1, according to the Gregorian calendar, and June 21, according to the Andean worldview. For the Morales government, this decree is an expression of the emancipation of Bolivia from colonial times and also an implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples .
In order to include other parts of the country on this holiday, it is officially called Año Nuevo Andino Amazónico , which is occasionally expanded to Año Nuevo Andino Amazónico Chaqueño in order to also include the region from Santa Cruz de la Sierra to Yacuiba . If the holiday falls on a weekend, all authorities and institutions are closed on the following Monday. In many non-Andean regions, however, St. John's Day is more important around the winter solstice .