This book examines ritual practices and public festivals in the Otavalo and Cotacachi areas of northern Andean Ecuador's Imbabura province. Otavaleños are a unique group in that they maintain their traditional identity but also cultivate a cosmopolitanism through frequent international travel. Ritual Encountersexplores the moral, mythic, and modern crossroads at which Otavaleños stand, and how, at this junction, they come to define themselves as millennial people.

Michelle Wibbelsman shows that Otavaleños are deeply engaged in transnational mobility and in the cultural transformations that have resulted from Otavalan participation in global markets, international consumer trends, and technological developments. Rituals have persisted among this ethnic community as important processes for symbolically capturing and critically assessing cultural changes in the face of modern influences. As religious expression, political commentary, transcendental communication, moral judgment, and transformative experience, Otavalan rituals constitute enduring practices that affirm ethnic identities, challenge dominant narratives, and take issue with power inequalities behind hegemony. Ritual Encounters thus offers an appreciation of the modern and mythic community as a single and emergent condition.

| Contents Preface Acknowledgments Note on Orthography List of Illustrations Introduction: Otavaleños at the Crossroads 1. Uku Pacha—The World Below 2. Return of the Migrants 3. Encuentros: Dances of the Inti Raymi 4. Mythico-Religious Encounters—The Clash of Aciales 5. Conversations with the Dead 6. Stations of the Cross: The Eternal Return to Existence and Hence to Suffering Conclusion: Threshold People of Imbabura Appendix 1: Glossary of Quichua and Spanish Words and Acronyms Appendix 2: Calendar of Festive Rituals in the Imbabura Area Notes References Index |

"An intelligent and welcome book."—Anthropology Review Database

"An important addition to the literature on Andean ethnography and the anthropology of ritual."—Latin American Music Review

"Ritual Encounters offers a richly textured reading of core Otavalan ritual performances and the cosmological discourse that sustains them."—Journal of Folklore Research

|Michelle Wibbelsman is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at The Ohio State University.