Pageantry in Oruro.

• Author: Bustamante, Fernando
• Position: FESTIVALS

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In the heart of the Bolivian Andes, at a crossroads of the mountains, tropics, and highlands, February arrives, and with it, Carnaval. That's when the city of Oruro gets ready to receive almost a million visitors eager to witness a show of color, imagination, tradition, and religious faith. About 45,000 dancers and 7,000 professional musicians are participating this year in the Majestic Carnival of Oruro. Soon, the streets will be lined with stands decorated with enormous replicas of masks and carnival figures, and the epic parade will begin.

Oruro is the cradle of one of the richest expressions of folklore in the world--"a masterpiece of oral and intangible human heritage," according to a 2001 UNESCO declaration. A surprising number of foreigners and Bolivians come to town every year to take part in this great display of Bolivian culture, and 2009 Hill be no exception. Enrique Jimenez has danced in the carnival for 30 years, and every February he is a witness to "how the city transforms to accommodate the throngs of visitors anxious to see the show."

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This unique festival brings together various cultural currents that have their origins in the customs, deities, and religious practices of the Uru people of centuries past. Andean divinities worshipped in ancient Uru rituals survived years of censorship after the arrival of the Spaniards and gradually morphed into Catholic saints while preserving many of their original characteristics. Today's carnival invokes both Pachamama (Mother Earth) and the Virgin Mary--especially the local Virgen del Socavvon. It also invokes Tio Supay (Satan Uncle), who owns the mines and rules the underworld. The Tio seems to be a combination of pre-Colombian mountain gods and the Christian idea of the devil, and the miners seek to pacify him through offerings in order to prevent accidents from occurring underground.

A number of other pre-Colombian stories have found their way into this carnival. One legend has it that a demigod named Huari laid siege to the old town of Uru Uru and attacked the small population with four terrible plagues: a giant snake; an enormous toad; millions of ants; and a huge lizard. These enemy creatures were overcome and turned to stone by a nusta--the Quechua name for "princess" in the Inca Empire---who later took the shape of the Virgin of the Socavon. Today, visitors can see the four plagues carved in stone and located on various hills around...