page_title: Diablada
section_title: Oruro
hierarchical_section_title: Diablada / Regional variations / Oruro
caption_attribution_description: Mascara de 1880 de la comparsa de diablos de paria (diablada), mascarero santiago nicolas (padre), de paria en Oruro bolivia, la mascara se encuentra actualmente el "Museo Itinerante Supay", Descripcion: Lleva dos viboras en el rostro y un lagarto en la frente.
context_page_description: The Diablada or Danza de los Diablos, is an original and typical Andean dance characterized by the mask and devil suit worn by the performers. The dance is a mixture of religious theatrical presentations brought from Spain and Andean religious ceremonies such as the Llama llama dance in honour of the Uru god Tiw, and the Aymaran miners' ritual to Anchanchu.
context_section_description: The Diablada of Oruro goes back to the pre-Columbian period of the Urus who used to practice this dance in honour of the god Wari (also known as Huaricato or Huari). With the arrival of the Spanish conquerors and the evangelicalism, this divinity gradually personified the devil. The iconography depicted in the current suits, such as the snake, frog and ants, respond to the Uru mythology with the belief that if Wari wouldn't protect them they'd be destroyed by those creatures. Wari after petrifying the creatures retired to the depths of the mountains.
  The Bolivian anthropologist, Milton Eyzaguirre, based on a 16th-century chronicle of Bartolomé de Álvarez commented that in the Andean region of Bolivia, a cult in honour of the dead, named cupay, was practised. Over the centuries the cupay derived in supay, the figure of the devil in the modern Diablada. In pre-Columbian times the dead season started in November with the crop season, the conquerors made efforts to coincide the Andean calendar with their festivities, such as the carnival.
  The Diablada as is danced today in was originally the accompaniment of a theatrical play. In Bolivia there are two versions of this play preserved by Julia Elena Fortún. The oldest of these pieces belongs to the 16th century when in the parties of the city of Potosí in honour of the Virgin of Guadalupe, this play tells the story of Lucifer who, riding a horse, delivers a letter to be read to the public telling that Proserpina, the goddess of hell, was the most beautiful. A gentleman, representing the church, faces the demon defending Virgin Mary as the most beautiful. In the play after this dialogue a tournament started with fireworks and artillery shots followed by a squad of light cavalry of demons wearing black clothes and torches leading a chariot with snakes carrying Proserpina.
  This tradition continued in the city of Oruro over the centuries, in 1789 with the tale of the Chiru Chiru the festivity had another transformation with the introduction of the tale of the Seven deadly sins written by the parish priest Ladislao Montealegre, and with the Bolivian War of Independence the parade was moved to Carnival. By the 19th century the tradition had profound roots with the mining and the devotion to the Virgin of Socavón and, as it was recorded in the newspapers of that time, the dancers made offerings to the feet of the Virgin after the parade. At the beginning it was considered a working class custom but by the ends of the 19th century and beginnings of the 20th century the tradition was popularized reaching all groups of the Oruro society.
  The first institutionalized dance squad is the Gran Tradicional y Auténtica Diablada Oruro founded on 25 November 1904 by Pedro Pablo Corrales, followed by a Tradicional Folklórica Diablada de Oruro (1943), Diablada Círculo de Artes y Letras (1943) and the Fraternidad Artística y Cultural ´La Diablada´ (1944). The squad founded by Pedro Pablo Corrales travelled to Peru in 1918 teaching to the squad Los Vaporinos the dance. In 1956 this dance entered Chile brought by the squad Diablada Ferroviaria of Oruro which was invited to participate in the Tirana festivities of that year. The Chilean citizen, Gregorio Ordenes, was inspired by this visit to form the first Chilean Diablada squad Primera Diablada Servidores Virgen del Carmen in Iquique.
  In the year 2001, the Carnival of Oruro was declared one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity where the Diablada along with 19 other dances were registered as part of the festivity. And in the year 2004 the squad Gran Tradicional y Auténtica Diablada Oruro in its 100th anniversary received the Cóndor de Los Andes award, the highest distinction given by the Bolivian government.
caption: 1880 Diablada patronal squad mask, from Paria, Oruro
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