Peru

My Scholarship entry - The Inti Raymi Festival

PERU | Monday, 24 November 2014 | Views [522] | View Larger Image

An actress dressed in the traditional garb of one of the realms of Tawantinsuyu (the Incan Empire) watches the High Priest perform a final, re-enacted ritual sacrifice of a white alpaca (basically a giant puppet with fake guts inside) and read the omens contained within its "entrails".

Hundreds of colorful onlookers watch the equally colorfully clad participants from the tops of the Saqsayhuaman fortress. Thousands of people come from all over the world every year to watch this performance. Even though it is now a pageant, for those chosen to participate in the reenacting, it's a great honor and a source of cultural pride, a reminder of the importance that the sun had for their Incan ancestors.

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An actor portraying the Sapa Inca, Patchacutec, entreats the sun god, Inti, to return to end the long drought and for Pachamama (the Incan goddess of fertility and harvests) to allow the crops to grow anew. With a final blessing, he leads the entire procession out of the fortress which signals the end of Inti Raymi, the second largest festival (next to Carnivale in Brazil) in all of South America.

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Peru

My Scholarship entry - The Inti Raymi Festival

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