Munachi hand carved soapstone love charm.

The munachi is a Quachua charm used to enact love spells.

The Quechua people who live in the Andes, in what are now the nations of Peru and Bolivia.

"Munachi" is a Quechua word, a compound of the verb "muna" -- which means "to desire, to want" or, when applied to human beings, "to love" -- and the verb-modifying suffix "chi," which means "to cause to happen." One translation for munachi is "to cause to love."

The couple is shown in the position Chretien de Troyes called "head-to-head, heart-to-heart, and foot-to-foot," their arms wrapped about each other. They are kissing, faces pressed together, and there is a hole drilled through the stone to represent the space where their necks do not touch.

The munachi is used in a simple love spell as follows: Two hairs, one from each of the lovers, are either wrapped around the lovers' necks or doubled and threaded through the little hole in the object and secured by making a larkshead knot. (For folks who are unfamilar with knotcraft, a larkshead is the knot that you often see used to attach sales tags to merchandise; it can be made in a closed or an open loop of line.)

The munachi is not like the average lucky charm which is carried on the person because the hairs would be too valuable and fragile to subject to casual handling. Once prepared, it is kept in a safe place (e.g. beneath the marriage bed), or buried in the ground (e.g. beneath the door stoop or the bedroom of newlyweds). The burial of soapstone charm and amulets is a significant part of the rituals of the Quechua and their neighbors, the Aymara.

each one is hand carved and unique in color, size , and shape.

approx 1" long.

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