Submitted by ARASAllison on
Prayer to the Patasola
‘Patasola, Patasola, I am sorry you live alone, but if you dare to attack me, I will cut off your crutches. You’d better go and pack your bags’. (Creepypastas y paranormales/Facebook)
According to oral tradition, when walking through the Colombian Amazon, the verses of this prayer must be repeated as a way of protection. The Patasola (one-legged one) is a hidden, disconnected yet threatening presence. Who is the Patasola? What does this mythological presence represent? How does this prayer for protection emerging from the Colombian cultural collective speak to us?
Current situation of violence against women and the feminine in Colombia
Being a woman in a predominantly Western culture that has been overwhelmingly patriarchal for millennia implies a great challenge for the evolution of feminine consciousness. The current upsurge in violence against women in Colombia is alarming.
According to Corporación Sisma Mujer, in Colombia, every 13 minutes, a woman is assaulted by her partner or ex-partner; every half hour, a woman is a victim of sexual violence; and every four days, a woman is murdered by her partner or ex-partner. In 2016, various types of gender-based violence increased, such as intra-family, sexual and interpersonal violence and femicide. Femicide is the murder of a woman because she is a woman and ‘is usually accompanied by a series of actions of extreme violence and dehumanizing acts, such as torture, mutilation, burns, cruelty, and sexual violence, against women and girls who are victims of it’ (https://es.wikipedia. org/wiki/Feminicidio). This is due to the normalization of gender-based violence against women, who are dissuaded from reporting the violence they suffer, constituting a social fabric of individual, collective and institutional silences, even transferring the responsibility from the perpetrator to the victim and thus revealing patterns of violence, invisibility, denial, and silence (Corporación Sisma Mujer 2017).
The upsurge of this type of violence is linked to the work of female leaders and human rights defenders who have come out into public life to denounce femicide, and to work for the protection of the rights of girls and women. This type of protective action represents a risk factor for women (ibid.).