Pujllay!

Sunday 16 March 2008

Alright, now for the festival I promised you. It is called Pujllay, and takes place in the tiny Bolivian town of Tarabuco the third Sunday of every March (which just happens to also be Palm Sunday this year - a great big celebration day). Pujllay means "to play" in the Quechua language, and seems to be both a day commemorating the defeat of the Spaniards in a battle in this town (after which the Tarabuco warriors ate the hearts of the Spaniards), and paying tribute to Pachamama, the Andean Mother Earth. Here you can see the offerings to Pachamama, in fact - a ladder absolutely full of food - meat, canned goods, pop, wine, bread, all kinds of stuff, and a group dancing around it.

The part of the festival we saw was mostly dancing - people danced for hours and hours in traditional costume. I don't know how they did it, in fact, in those thick ponchos in the hot sun. It was really amazing to see the colorful costumes, and the people so consumed by what they were doing. It is one of the biggest festivals in Bolivia, and a really unique experience for Ryan and I.