Drumbeats and spirits

I wasnt sure what to write about but then I got interrupted with the offer of chocolate ice cream cake (this is why Im gaining so much weight here) and lured downstairs. I didnt want to be social but I wanted the ice cream, so I sat with Carmen, the new girl from Chile, who I found out it the boss of ECELA and trying to make the school here come alive. She was with as well one of the schools housemoms and we got in a discussion about why the Cusco school is doing so much worse than the others. We have like 5 students here, other locations have like 50, 80, or 100 even. Then Carmen said, Ive been meaning to ask you, Ygor told me that there is a ghost in this house. Do you still think so, because that would be one problem to deal with here? They took it so seriously, its as real a threat to the school as poor organization or bad PR. So I explained about the noises and the feeling I had of weird energy since I came to the house, and they listened like this was a totally normal conversation. And when I finished Judi, the housemom, said it sound like Presences but not a ghost. She told us how the Incas didnt have graveyards like we do, instead they buried their dead under the house where they could be near the family. So all of these old houses have many many bones under them and people who can feel energies sense the presence of the dead. Ghosts are an issue requiring shamans, but Presences are a fact of life in Cusco requiring occasional admonishment ("quiet down there, Im not dealing with you"). They also told me about the Incan traditions of human sacrifice, which when I ask tour guides and others, I am told is pretty much a myth. But oral tradition here has it that it was relatively common. I believe that it was as the people say and not as the tourguides represent it. Like, when we went to the Temple of the Moon which is a hidden cave within a mountain. And there was a sort of skylight in the ceiling of the cave through which a full moon would shine one a month, lighting up a smooth, round alter to the moon. Even when we were there (the day of a full moon) it was in use with coca leaves and voodoo dolls and animal hair. Ygor told us only plant sacrifices were given there; maize, coca, quinoa, and occasionally birds or even a llama. But I felt otherwise. It felt, not sacred per se, but filled with the pagan energy that permeates this place. It felt like warm blood and moonbeams and the beat of a deep drum. Judi tonight brought that as an example of places where humans were regularly sacrificed; often the virgins of the moon (since in all traditions, the moon is a feminine body, it was served by women here). This place is so full of mystical energy, even the most slightly open person is affected by it. Its interesting, in the same breath that people refer to their local Catholic father, they speak about Pachamac, the great spirit encompassing the three regions that roughly correlate to heaven (the condor), earth (the puma), and the underworld (the snake). It is interesting that even in pagan cultures there is a thread of Monotheism as well. Im coming to understand this theology, and it is really very rich and much more complex than the popular image of primitive paganism.