Bolivia, 2024
With funding from the Trustman Fellowship, I spent nine months living in Bolivia learning about Andean women’s water rituals and beliefs about frogs. Photographs are from this time, largely on Lake Titicaca’s Island of Moon where I lived with the Koati Community.
The Koati community look to the lake’s giant water frogs (Telmatobius culeus) to call for rain. This ritual is based in the belief that Pachamama is an interconnected being who is responsible for the earth’s cycles and frogs are her sacred kin. Frogs are seen as intermediaries; connectors between the three realms: Hanan Pacha (the upper world–the sky and stars), Kay Pacha (the middle world–Earth and the living), and Ukhu Pacha (the lower world–ancestors and new life).
When the lake frogs are out of water, they unleash insistent and tremendous croaks that are said to reach the highest skies. In response to these cries, Pachamama brings rain to the land, protecting her dear ones. Therefore, in periods of drought, the community selects a frog to cry out from the highest point of the island to bring rain for their crops. This is a rain ritual of care and trust, the belief in a mother’s care to save her sacred kin.
Lucy Jackson 