Festival de Los Compadres -- 2/8/07

After being invited to it by some friends we made around town, we convinced our academic director to let us go to the Festival de los Compadres (Festival of Godparents) in the nearby town of Huilloc. It is a national festival that is celebrated annually, and is part of the “preview” for Carnaval (as far as I understand, there is a Carnaval day that is coming up in two weeks, but people begin celebrating Carnaval way before that). “Godparents” for Quechua people are basically mestizos with whom they develop a reciprocal relationship by giving them gifts (of bread or maiz, for example) or working for them, so that the wealthier mestizo will support them in times of need. It’s impossible to describe how incredible this festival was; I will put some pictures up on the web soon and maybe they will do a better job of explaining it. Hundreds of people were dressed in an orange traditional costume, and some joined in a procession carrying three altars to saints. There was also a brass band playing, and after the procession down the hill there was a dance performance. In addition to all the people dressed in traditional costume, there were some men and boys dressed in a special costume with a knit face mask and a whip, called ubucus (sp?) in Quechua. In the middle of the dance they began to battle it out with their giant whips. This, I was told, is meant to symbolize the resilience of the culture, to show that they can withstand pain. I don’t think there was any bloodshed, but there WAS a lot of noise. I won’t claim to understand all the symbolism involved in the festival, but the syncretism between Quechua and Spanish tradition is really interesting. For instance, we were surprised to see that the schedule for the day contained a “corrido de los toros” (running of the bulls)—obviously a tradition borrowed from the Spaniards.