The Aztecs divide the universe into four separate realms or regions. First, there is Ilwihkaktli’ or the arc of the heavens. This region is symbolized in Aztec altars by a leaf covered arch to which has been attached representations of the sun or stars. The second region is the earth which in Nahuatl is called Tlali’. The earth is the seat of human activity and is represented in rituals by the surface of altar tables. Third is Miktlan or the realm of the dead which exists under the earth’s surface. The souls of all people who die “naturally” go to Miktlan to live a life similar to that on earth. Miktlan is represented in religious rituals by a display which is located on the earth floor underneath of altar tables. Finally, there is Apan or the realm of water where all souls of people who die violently go. Apan is the region that connects all other regions into one integrated whole. The sky is reflected on its surface, streams and springs flow on the earth and yet their depths penetrate to Miktlan, the underworld. In religious rituals Apan is recognized by a display that is set up by a spot that has been designated as sacred to the water.

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Rattle dances usually take place only at night and are rather long in duration, sometimes lasting up to one hour. The dances themselves are seen as offerings or sacrifices dedicated to Tonantsi’ and the more energy and effort invested in their execution the more they are appreciated by the diety. In fact, this element of sacrifice is considered to be the primary raison d’etre for the dances themselves. Informants state that throughout the year Tonantsi’ supplies all that is necessary for a good life–food, health, happiness, etc., and thus feel it is only fitting that during the ceremony dedicated to the honor of Tonantsi’, her followers sacrifice as much of their goods, energy and time as is possible in order to show as much gratitude and appreciation as possible. Indeed, informants will state that physical exhuastion in her honor is testimony to her honor as much as physical offerings.

from https://folkways-media.si.edu/docs/folkways/artwork/FW04358.pdf

Excerpts from https://publications.iai.spk-berlin.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/Document_derivate_00002030/BIA_055_067_081.pdf (this does include briefly the negative associations between q’iwa, homosexuality, and unproductivity that Elly mentions in the other thing I will link below, but think it is worth reading first if you are not familiar with the language/vocabulary for context before diving deeper):

Ethnomusicological studies in other parts of the world have noted correspondences between sound structure in music and social structure (e.g. Feld 1984). Similarly, I shall suggest that specific sounds used in musical perfor­mance, by certain peasant farmers in highland Bolivia, both appear to reflect and are perceived to manipulate social and cosmological structures. (note: see Noise by Jacques Attali for more on how musical relationships can affect new relationships in this world and beyond)

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Whilst in the towns q’iwa is commonly translated as maricón or homosexual, in the countryside it is used in a less specific way to refer to a variety of aspects of gender mediation. A man with a high-pitched voice is q’iwa as is a woman who speaks in a low-pitched voice or acts like a man. Similarly the term is used to refer to men when they dress up in women’s clothes for certain rituals. But more specifically, on several occasions I have been told that q’iwa is khuskan qhari, khuskan warmi or “half-man, half-woman”. As such, q’iwa represents the conjunction of male and female, where the opposing sexes mix together equally.

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Excerpts from https://www.momaps1.org/post/228-transcriptions-of-the-indigenous-and-migrant-justice-symposium:

Elly Crampton Chuquimia Quiñones-Tancara: In the 5th edition modern Aymara-Castellano dictionary, q’iwa & q’iwsa are treated as synonyms for queer people. Strategically, the new entries omit the anti-queer or bad character traits that have come to be associated with the terms (thank you Dr. Pairumani). We recall the musical or medicinal roles of these terms, which shows their unique medicinal or practical functions— for instance, the q’iwsa siku and q’iwa pinkillu. Q’iwsa also relates to the anti-spiral, unscrewing, twisting or luxation/dislocation, and q’iwa— the tears of our ancestors as qillqa, as writing, as language, joyful sadness. It is this medicine that also directs our roles as queer (q’iwa/q’iwsa) people for our communities, our relations, which is our ayni to the pachanaka, reciprocity to our people. The refusal of this medicine, brought by Christian doctrine, state law, and so forth, has caused a break in ayni that has yet to be paid back, or made just. In our commitment to our relations and the wak’as, our ancestors, we as queer people continue to give back what we owe, even when our medicine is so often mistaken for poison. We have a saying in our language, which is said many ways, but that I learned this way: qhipnayr uñtasisawa sarnaqaña. This is translated as: hay que mirar el pasado y el futuro para proyectarse en el presente—we must look at past and future in order to project ourselves in the present. Google translates it as: walking around looking backwards. Recalling the verb q’iwsuña, in the context of this phrase, we’re reminded that living in so-called reverse is also a perspective of balance. When it’s winter in our territories, it’s summer over here—to be in good relation with these lands I must live in reverse.

The phrase qhipnayara uñtasisawa sarnaqaña also implies we live with the ancestors in permanent encounter. The ancestors in our misperceived individuation, the elders of our elders, what physicists call the void, vacuum, the powerful small, where spacetime undoes—they say—somewhere around 10 minus 33 cm (a physicist told me that once). Can we understand that permanent encounter means we can give up the story of loss and recovery and remember what we already know, what cognitive neuroscience calls implicit or non-declarative memory, immemorable memory, which, as such, cannot be forgotten.

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Ch’ixi indicates grayishness. Specifically, tiny spots, in contrast to the word allqa, which refers to big spots. This is important because allqa is associated with the contrasting colors that are seen as paired, and sometimes differentiated from q’iwa or queer medicine, which is frequently called lonely or single, separated from pairing (while q’iwsa also means “to remove something from its place,” we should be careful using q’iwa and q’iwsa as synonyms).

Through ch’ixi, what appears as a solid color, gray, is in fact made up of various spots. What is sometimes missed in the translation of the word ch’ixi, is that it also means a pile of small rocks, additionally, referring to the Pleiades constellation. Ch’ixi is also accumulated scree or the rocky debris that forms below mountains. Perhaps this recalls the image of our chullpas, the stone mounds that hold our eldest elders, in Paqajes. The spots & grayness of ch’ixi describe the titi felid or Andean cat, which the great Aymara scholar Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua drew as chuqui chinchay or qowa, writing this quote “very speckled animal” was “guardian of hermaphrodites, Indians of two natures.” Pachacuti also illustrates the relation, between the Pleiades, Venus, and chuqui chinchay or qowa the cat—our elders still speak these connections, as do confesionarios from the early colonial period.

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It is in this context that Dr. Cusicanqui works our ancient queer medicines. Elaborating on that, we look at the suffix -naka, which is often referred to as a pluralizing suffix. Our elders tell us this suffix does not just indicate pluralization however, but variety, more precisely. So, when we say q’iwanaka and q’iwsanaka, we are referring to the manifold variations of so-called queer medicine. Re-sounding and practicing q’iwa and q’iwsa medicine is part of our ayni, our obligation of reciprocity as queer people. We say this in order to address the misunderstanding, of q’iwa, as unproductive, which comes with the historical violence of forced sterilization on queer people by the occupying states. Dormancy or repose, is not the same as unproductivity—Guamán Poma and his uncredited scribes and elders showed us this beautifully, in their planting ceremony illustrations.

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This is why we listen to the tree, the bud, pankara, the butterfly, snail, ant, cricket, the trash, the river, the road that we set foot upon every day as stem, where we, as sariri, relay Tunupa, who they say changed from man to woman across the water, seemingly walking alone, only paired or connected across spacetimes. Recall the elders’ famous saying, translated as: “Do not pity q’iwa people, because they walk looking at the stars.” As mentioned, the last time we spoke, balance is a matter of perspective.

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The pachanaka, or manifold spacetimes, stained us, jiwasa, before the creation of the World over our mother, the earth. Like titi, we were already stained before Europe arrived to these lands—very speckled, muy pintado, to quote elder Pachacuti again. This is the bittersweet red song, the lonely q’iwa melody, the transnocturnal huayño, the blood-red penumbra that spilled out as the chullpas mistakenly sang the first sunrise, seeing each other for the first time, individuated in sadness and joy, shared aloneness, speaking with tears, our first language: the birth of the mundo en policía, the policed world.

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Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: Our languages have been colonized, our philosophers have been killed, our theorists have been killed, and we have been left with nothing but degraded words, only words reduced to their pragmatic meanings. Then it’s up to the new generations.

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Because the thing about the potency of ch’ixi is that it’s indeterminate. It is neither male nor female, it is neither above nor below, but it is both at the same time.

It is both male and female, it is both above and below. So how can this be transferred to the human? One can be in two forms. Ch’i—The pronunciation is a little difficult because there is ch’ixi with aspirate [pronunciation] and there is ch’ixi with explosive [pronunciation]. Ch’ixi is soft, it is unlearned. And I’ve made it more understandable with the notion of Pa’churrima divided heart, divided soul like the “double bind” that Gayatri Spivak talks about, right? I mean, “double bind” is when you have one identity mandate and you have the opposite mandate. You have the mandate to be white, and you have the mandate to be Indigenous. And they are in a clash. But that causes schizophrenia, social schizophrenia, collective schizophrenia, and personal schizophrenia. And the ways to cure these schizophrenias are to find [how] to live with the contradiction of having this identity that has two roots. They force you to choose one to deny the other, and I refuse to ignore the fact that I am also white, that I also have European roots, and that I do not regret it because I am not to blame for having been born that way. So I want to liberate myself by recognizing the best, the most profoundly contentious of both dimensions.