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Known
as the greatest indigenous pilgrimage in the Americas, this
festivity is celebrated every first week of May in Quispicanchis
(Cusco).
Each year the people of the district of Ocongate (Quispicanchis)
perform a ritual whose external aspect appears to be the image
of Christ, but whose real objective is to bring Man closer
to Nature.
The ritual, associated with the fertility of the land and
the worship of Apus, the spirits of the mountains, forms part
of the greatest festival of native Indian nations in the hemisphere:
Qoyllur Rit'i. The main ceremony is held at the foot of Mount
Ausangate, at 4,700 meters, where temperatures often plunge
below freezing.
The ritual brings thousands of pilgrims, including shepherds,
traders and the merely curious who gather at the shrine at
Sinakara. Popular belief has it that the infant Christ, dressed
as a shepherd, appeared to a young highland Indian boy, Marianito
Mayta, and they quickly became friends. When Mayta's parents
found them dressed in rich tunics, they informed the local
parish priest, Pedro de Landa, who attempted in vain to capture
the infant Christ who had disappeared and left behind only
a stone. Marianito died immediately, and the image of the
Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i appeared on the stone. Today, the festival
starts off with the day of the Holy Trinity, when more than
10,000 pilgrims climb to the snowline, accompanied by all
sorts of dancers in full costume (chauchos, qollas, pabluchas
or ukukus) portray various mythical characters. The ukukus,
or bears, are the guardians of the Lord and the Apu mountain
spirits and apachetas, stone cairns built along the way by
pilgrims to atone for their sins. The ukukus maintain order
during religious ceremonies. A group of hefty queros, members
of what is probably Peru's purest Quechua community, dress
up as pabluchas and set out for the mountaintop, at 6,362
meters in search of the Snow Star which is reputedly buried
within the mountain.
On their way back down to their communities, they haul massive
blocks of ice on their backs for the symbolic irrigation of
their lands with holy water from the Ausangate. |
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