COPACABANA & LAKE TITICACA

There is the belief that the name is derived from the Aymara kota kahuana, meaning "view of the lake." Nevertheless, the social scientist Mario Montaño Aragón, found in the "archives of Indias" in Sevilla - Spain, a completely different history: "Kotakawana" is the god of the fertility in the ancient Andean mythology, the equivalent to the classical Greek goddess Afrodit or the Roman Venus. This god is androgyne and lives in the Titicaca, and his court consists of criters (male and female) that are represented in the colonial sculptures as in the Catholic churches they were called "Umantuus", known as mermaids in the west culture. The fact is that the present Basilica was built where the main Temple of the Fertility of Kotakawana was once (nowadays there are small fertility temples along the shores of the lake in Bolivia and Perú). So that Copacabana has been a Sacred place even before the Spanish conquest.