Mythologies of the Lickanantay/Atacameño Tribe

Deep in the otherworldly landscape of Northern Chile’s Atacama Desert – the world’s driest non-polar territory – the Atacameño or Lickanantay people managed a delicate balance for more than 12,000 years, developing a sophisticated civilization in collaboration with the land and the cosmos that provided its inhabitants with abundance and beauty despite the harsh conditions. Industrialization upended that balance, and the Atacama desert is now being mined as one of the world’s biggest sources of copper and, more recently, lithium. As the Global North’s response to climate change pushes to replace petroleum-powered transportation with electric vehicles, an ancient and unique ecosystem and a culture that has tended it for millenia are facing obliteration. The desert is a natural marvel where people travel from around the world to see the vast expanses of blindingly white salt flats, dotted with bright blue lagoons and surrounded by volcanoes, among them the world’s highest. In 1990 the Chilean government established the Los Flamencos National Reserve, named for the three species of flamingos that inhabit those lagoons. Besides the flamingos, it is a sea of biodiversity, home to animals with names that spark the imagination: vicuñas and vizcachas, ñañus and condors, chinchillas, chululos and caities, to name but a few. Mass tourism began to arrive in the area soon after the reserve was established, and outsiders moved in to develop the destination – a phenomenon with environmental consequences of its own. 


The Lickan Antay are the indigenous people of the Atacama desert in Northern Chile. The Atacama desert is the highest and driest desert in the world at an average elevation of 3692 metres with areas that have never recorded rainfall. Yet despite this extreme environment the Lickan Antay people have persisted for at least 6000 years carving out their existence in the Atacama surrounded by some of the world's most active volcanoes. They have survived as agricultural and llama herding people coexisting with 'Pata Hoiri' the Mother Earth and all it's living entities. The outside world is coming in the form of corporations and tourists all looking for something from the rich resources of the Atacama be it lithium or wool or simply a sense of well being. The Lickan Antay today prove to be resilient even with all the changes around them leading a lifestyle that is still very close to how their ancestors lived.


The need of establishing more substantive dialogs between the mainstream and Indigenous knowledge on volcanoes has been increasingly recognized. To contribute to this endeavor, in this article we present the basic volcanological understandings of the Lickanantay people in the Salar de Atacama Basin. The Salar de Atacama Basin is an active volcanic territory within the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes (CVZA). From the El Tatio geothermal field to Socompa volcano, more than 19 active volcanoes surround the territory that the Lickanantay (Atacameño) people have inhabited for more than 11,000 years. Living around and with the geological dynamism of the CVZA for millennia, the Lickanantay communities have accumulated rich observational and ceremonial data on volcanoes and volcanism. Paradoxically, however, while the Atacameño people have thoroughly characterized the CVZA, the volcanology community has not been properly introduced to the ancestral knowledge articulated in the territory. In order to make traditional Atacameño perspectives on volcanoes, volcanic risk, and geo-cosmic interdependence more amply available to the volcanology community, in this article, we present a basic description of what we call Atacameño volcanology. By Atacameño volcanology, we understand the ancestral principles by which volcanoes are known and understood as partaking in larger processes of a cosmo-ecological formation. Specifically, we describe the basic volcanological notions arising from the Lickanantay ancestral knowledge—volcanic formation, functions, and behavior. Second, we focus on the El Tatio geothermal field to offer a situated example. Finally, we delineate some relevant elements of human–volcano interactions and volcanic risk management from an Atacameño perspective. In our conclusions we suggest that volcanology, particularly in the context of the Andes, needs to engage more substantially with the Atacameño or other ancestral systems of knowledge production to expand volcanological insights and respond to the call for decolonizing science.


Atacama: few words sound so mystic and appealing. The idea of deserts has always blown humans’ minds because of the openness, the toughness and the challenging conditions for life. When it comes to the Atacama Desert, it is no wonder that this enigmatic place has been one of the main destinations for explorers of South America in the last 40 years. A long time has passed and tourism is now a well established activity, yet the Atacama Desert is just starting to let us experience all of its wonders and mysteries. Indeed, there are some people who know it much better than us, those who have wandered through it for millennia and learned its language, secret places and codes of behaviour: the Lickan Antay peopleThe ancestral inhabitants of the Atacama Desert conform the Lickan Antay nation, the “people of the land”, who acknowledge the “Pata Hoiri” (Mother Earth) as their creator and the true giver of everything they have. They also praise the enormous mountains and volcanoes of Atacama, the “Malkus”, as their protectors and fathers. There are simply no better guides in the Atacama Desert. The knowledge they will teach you has been passed from uncountable generations and matches perfectly with the desert and oasis that are their beloved home. I witnessed it myself while living in Atacama years ago. During those years, I walked through never-ending plains and learned to understand the messages carved in the rocks, and the secret messages of an otherwise meaningless landscape. The Lickan Antay taught me to find and appreciate life even in its smaller expressions, since it is so scarce and fragile where water is not available, temperatures oscillate between 27°C during the day and -15°C at night, and where the UV rays level is almost like being in the outer space.



The need of establishing more substantive dialogs between the mainstream and Indigenous knowledge on volcanoes has been increasingly recognized. To contribute to this endeavor, in this article we present the basic volcanological understandings of the Lickanantay people in the Salar de Atacama Basin. The Salar de Atacama Basin is an active volcanic territory within the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes (CVZA). From the El Tatio geothermal field to Socompa volcano, more than 19 active volcanoes surround the territory that the Lickanantay (Atacameño) people have inhabited for more than 11,000 years. Living around and with the geological dynamism of the CVZA for millennia, the Lickanantay communities have accumulated rich observational and ceremonial data on volcanoes and volcanism. Paradoxically, however, while the Atacameño people have thoroughly characterized the CVZA, the volcanology community has not been properly introduced to the ancestral knowledge articulated in the territory. In order to make traditional Atacameño perspectives on volcanoes, volcanic risk, and geo-cosmic interdependence more amply available to the volcanology community, in this article, we present a basic description of what we call Atacameño volcanology. By Atacameño volcanology, we understand the ancestral principles by which volcanoes are known and understood as partaking in larger processes of a cosmo-ecological formation. Specifically, we describe the basic volcanological notions arising from the Lickanantay ancestral knowledge—volcanic formation, functions, and behavior. Second, we focus on the El Tatio geothermal field to offer a situated example. Finally, we delineate some relevant elements of human–volcano interactions and volcanic risk management from an Atacameño perspective. In our conclusions we suggest that volcanology, particularly in the context of the Andes, needs to engage more substantially with the Atacameño or other ancestral systems of knowledge production to expand volcanological insights and respond to the call for decolonizing science.

At the top of a craggy path in Socaire, a hilltop village deep in Chile's Atacama Desert, a black flag whips in the wind above Jeanette Cruz's house. The desert sun has bleached it to a dark gray blur, but the defiance it represents remains strong. Above each house in the village, shimmering in the evening sun, these black flags represent the Indigenous Lickanantay people's resistance to the lithium mining that many say is tearing their communities apart. The lithium in the brine beneath the brilliant white Atacama salt flat, which stretches out across the valley floor, has become a global resource. It holds the key to the global green energy transition, but the Lickanantay communities that have inhabited the area for millennia are wondering what they themselves stand to gain. "Our life is contained in that water," says Cruz, gesturing forlornly out toward the salt as she stands in the low doorway to her home. "The day it dries up, we're dead as a culture, and we will have to leave. They can give us all the money and resources they want, but we'll never get back what we're losing." Before it can be refined, lithium-rich brine is pumped to the surface and mixed with groundwater, then slowly transferred between turquoise pools on the surface of the salt flat where it evaporates. The concentrated lithium carbonate salts are driven in great convoys of trucks to the city of Antofagasta on the coast, where they are purified and exported to be made into batteries — and end up in your cellphone or electric vehicle. Three companies have now set up operations on the Atacama salt flat.


















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