Don Benito Q'oriwaman

Don Benito Q'oriwaman was a Quechua healer who disappeared. It is still told that he is not dead, that his spirit lives in a lake of great mystery at the top of Pachatusan Mountain.

Don Benito Q'oriwaman was a Quechua healer who, in the 1980s, disappeared into a lake high in the Andes. In Quechua cosmology, healers are guardians who maintain a dialogue with nature and the beings that inhabit her. Throughout his life, Q'oriwaman has maintained this connection with rituals and songs of gratitude. But one day he stopped everything, leaving the beings of the forests, rivers and mountains in solitude.

All who remember him says that the skin of his large hands was cold and pale. That he used to sit alone in his garden as if he was patiently waiting to fall into sleep. In his dreams, Don Benito would hear the soft rustling of the wind on the surface of a lake. And one day when he woke up, he set out on a journey in search of a lake that showed itself with the first winter rains high in the mountains. When he finally encountered it, Q'oriwaman let his body slowly sink into the cold water. Then silence fell, there were no more waves.

The story of Don Benito Q'oriwaman has become a myth that reminds us of the healers' close relationship with nature as they inhabit her. It is still told that he is not dead, that his spirit lives in a lake of great mystery at the top of Pachatusan Mountain.