La Paz is home to the largest Alasitas fair, which begins its month-long celebration on 24 January. The ritual honors Ekeko, the city's patron deity of fertility, the Aymara god of abundance. During the rituals, participants procure miniatures of Ekeko. The activities include searching for and acquiring the figurines, then they are consecrated or blessed by the different Andean ritualists or the Catholic Church. Other cultural events include alasitas in religious observances throughout Bolivia: The Fiesta of the Virgin of Copacabana and the Fiesta of the Virgin of Urkupina.
In the pre-Columbian era, the indigenous Aymara people observed a ceremony called Chhalasita when they prayed for good crops and exchanged basic goods. As time evolved, it had elements of Catholicism and Western acquisitiveness to accommodate. The word "Chhalasita" comes from an Aymara word that means "buy me". According to Arthur Posnansky, the Tiwanaku culture used to worship its deities for good luck on dates near 22 December by offering miniatures of what they hoped to achieve or accomplish. Sebastián Segurola reinstituted the celebration during the siege of La Paz in 1781, transferring it from October to 24 January as a gift to Our Lady of Peace, the holy figure for which the city is named.
In this traditional practice, the miniatures have acquired a new meaning, as they carry the bearer's faith, granting wishes. People also exchange miniatures as a way to symbolize paying debts. People from all sectors of society, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, participate in the practice, which promotes social cohesion and intergenerational transmission. Donations and payment of debts are symbolic of how important these rituals are to lowering tensions between individuals and even between social classes. In modern life now, the belief is that a miniature version is thought to attract the recipient to the real object in the following year it is given, for example; items can be food and household items can be bought, as well as computers, construction materials, cell phones, houses, cars, diplomas, and even a figure of a domestic worker (whom the recipient may later hope to employ).
Since Alasitas are primarily transmitted through families, children usually accompany their parents on their journeys. Many efforts have been made to safeguard Alasitas through primarily civil society. Hopefully, the government's efforts to hold the exhibition of Alasita miniatures in museums and conservatories have created awareness of some of the themes, and also by organizing contests within the city may encourage the production and development of creativity, fostering an ever-increasing number of participants.
References
(https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/ritual-journeys-in-la-paz-during-alasita-01182) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasitas)