The Catholic church isn't always that divorced from the local ancient religions. A few years ago I was working in the northern highlands of Peru at a startup gold mine that I did the electrical design for. The ore was going to be coming from a neighboring hill, called of course Cerro de Oro. Before any ore could be moved down three local priests and one Catholic priest walked up the mountain alone, taking with them two bags of cocoa leaves and a tethered goat. Their job was to appease the mountain gods before the ore was removed. Later in the day when they returned there were no cocoa leaves and no goat. In the Andes they've learned to work together, I guess.

Larry