«Sangres» para propiciar la vida: metáforas y creencias sobre la concepción «humana» en el altiplano andino

This article reflects on the participation of telluric entities in regulating and propitiating fertility in general and «human» fertility in particular in the Andes region. The first part of this study deals with the participation of telluric forces in the breeding of livestock and the propitiation of plant life, as well as resources in general. In view of the visibility of these propitiatory rites, the genesis of new individuals is couched in a language in which references to «blood» and excessive heat abound. This study of the notions relating to conception and human fertility in the Andes involves the systematization of references found in ethnographic literature, and presentation of my own research in rural areas of southern Potosi (Bolivia). I then go on to consider the bodily rhetoric of life-promoting pregnant bodies and their specificities with a view to probing more deeply into the concept of fertility of the people of the Andean plateau.