THE Q’ERO PEOPLE – DESCENDANTS OF THE INCAS
The spirituality we practice comes from a people who live high up in the snow-capped mountains of the Andes. These seven villages with over 600 families are called the Q’ero nation and they were discovered as late as 1955. The first expedition was led by Oscar Nunez Del Prado and his goal was to find a people who, according to myth and legend, were said to have floated up the mountains when the Spanish conquistadors invaded Peru and the Inca Empire fell. He searched far up into the mountains to the village of Paucartambo from where he continued his hike up into the mountains. For days his expedition trekked through mountain passes and across the cold plains of glaciers to one day look out over the lost villages of Q’ero. As they approached the villages, the team was met by the men. The women and children had gone into hiding as they believed the Spanish had found them and came with the same heavy intentions as their ancestors during the Inca Empire. Oscar asked the men:
– Where are your families?
– Our father is the sun and our mother is the earth, answered the Q’ero people.
During his stay with them, Oscar saw that they were indeed similar to the myths of the Inca people and they still practiced the traditional ceremonies and spiritual teachings of the Inca Empire. It turned out that this group of people were the ones Oscar was looking for; one of the groups that fled when the Inca Empire fell. When the Conquistadors took over the kingdom, missionaries arrived who tried to convert the spiritual nature and energy medicine of the Inca people to the Catholic faith. The Incas understood this and knew that their spiritual tradition, prophecies, and connection to the wisdom of the universe must not be forgotten or lost. They had already guarded and managed what they call the teachings of the universe for thousands of years and therefore chose to flee into the mountains.
Since the Q’eros have been completely isolated, their wisdom is also very pure and unaffected by other cultures, teachings and religion. They still hold a pure and ancient wisdom that has been passed down from father and mother to son or daughter for generations.
The missionaries brought the Christian faith with them which spread through South America. The Inca and its traditions were forgotten over time and those who fled became a myth of a people that disappeared when the Spanish troops took over the empire.
In the early 1990s, flags were seen on the horizon and the first q’ero shamans walked down from the mountains with their rainbow colored clothes. A people that had been a myth for almost 500 years now answered the call of ancient prophecies. The prophecies spoke of a new age and of changes on earth. They obeyed; When there is a tear in the sky that makes the sun shine brighter and hurts us, when the glaciers melt, the climate changes/natural disasters come and when the condor is close to extinction; shall we descend and share our spiritual tradition and wisdom with the world. The people of the West’s time to wake up from a deep slumber has now come. A new age has been born and the modern man of intellect and brain is now touched by the warmth, heart and soul of the Andes.
25-30,000 years ago, a people in the Himalayas began a migration westward, across the plains of China, up into Siberia and across the land bridge at the Bering Strait to North America. A people of deep spiritual wisdom and ancient knowledge that then spread through North America, Central America and eventually down into South America. Different cultures have formed here and they have had a large and important part of tradition that they shared in common. They have all believed that we live in a universe where life itself expresses itself through creation. All is one and life itself is sacred as everything born out of creation carries a soul and lives in reciprocity through a vast network of living energy. The Q’ero people are descended from this line of medicine men, medicine women and wisdom keepers who migrated to North America 14,000 years ago. These peoples look at our universe in the same way and their spiritual outlook and prophecies are in many ways identical to cultures such as the Hopi, Maya, Aztecs, Tibetan Buddhism and their own ancestors the Incas.
From their ancestors they inherit a tradition of soul and live in a world of living energy. In shamanic traditions we see that everything in the universe is alive; rivers, mountains, trees and that all people have a deep connection with the spirit of life.
