Yatiri are medical practitioners and community healers among the Aymara of Bolivia, Chile and Peru, who use in their practice both symbols and materials such as coca leaves.
Yatiri are a special subclass of the more generic category Qulliri, a term used for any traditional healer in Aymara society.
El Diario, Bolivian newspaper, mentions offerings made to the Pachamama and other such deities at most contemporary 2007 government events led by the President.
The Christian church has also often ostracised the Yatiri, perceiving their role to be superfluous in modern religious practice, and a form of paganism.
This has changed as current government officials openly support Yatiri presence in events that formerly might have had a Catholic chaplain under the terms and practice of the Concordat with the Holy See.
Layqa, traditionally marginalized and shunned, live on the outskirts of Aymara communities and use frogs and snakes in rituals to do harm to others.
Who a person will become is affected by the season in which she is born, by her patron saint, and by her ichutata ichumama (a specific kind of godparent).
The confirmation of this calling, however, is marked by the lightning strike, which typically happens to an unmarried Aymara out herding the flocks.
Once a yatiri-to-be has aged a few years, she undertakes a journey to find her ch'amakani, the senior yatiri who will train her.
The riwutu is placed together with saxra bullets (small pieces of metal or stone that have been fused together by lightning), as well as with tari llama wool, coca, and sculptures of the saints.