Display Two Pucará Bulls for Family Protection / 🇵🇪 Peru

The little bulls from Pucará have a bright finish, curled tails and details that make you want to look at them from the side as well as the front. They are made in clay or ceramic. A ceramic example by Magaly Castillo stands 14 cm tall, measures 18 cm long and 7 cm wide, and weighs 318 g. Other pieces have different sizes. In towns in the southern Andes, people place two bulls on the roof to express a wish for protection and unity at home. You can bring the idea indoors by giving a pair its own place on a stable shelf. Choose the spot from the viewpoint of someone arriving home after a long day.

1. Choose two ceramic bulls. Set them on the table first and look at the patterns, horns and tails that distinguish each piece.
2. Clear a level spot on a low, firm shelf. Put the pair side by side and leave room around them so a hand reaching for something else will not knock them over.
3. Choose one wish for the people who live with you. Say it aloud or write it on a small card to keep beside the pair.
4. If you give the bulls to someone moving house, tell them about the roof pairs in Pucará and let them decide where their own pair belongs.

Pucará is in Peru’s Puno region. The history of the ceramic bulls also takes in the artisans of Ch’eqa Pupuja and the trading route on which the pieces became known by the name of Pucará. Local accounts connect them with older practices involving herds and abundance. Details such as painted rosettes and curled tails give each maker room for variation. Above the doors of some homes, two little figures stand where anyone in the street can see them. The pair can bring the same idea to a new setting: it marks a home as somewhere its people wish to look after one another. Each person who notices the bulls may have a different reason to stop and ask about them.