Máscaras de la diablada puneña
The making of devil masks and full dance costumes for the diablada, the signature dance of Puno's Festividad de la Virgen de la Candelaria — a February festival syncretizing Catholic devotion with Aymara and Quechua Andean cosmology, in which the Virgen represents Pachamama (Mother Earth). Distinct from, though related to, Bolivia's Oruro Diablada, the Puno tradition has been the subject of a deliberate contemporary effort by local mascareros to research and revive historic mask styles specifically to reduce the region's dependence on masks imported from Bolivia. UNESCO inscribed the Puno festivity on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014, and the tradition today mobilizes roughly 170 dance groups and 40,000 dancers and musicians across the annual celebration.
Risk level: Vulnerable · La fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria en Puno was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014 (9.COM)
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