page_title: Blacks and Whites' Carnival
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Blacks and Whites' Carnival / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Blacks and Whites Pasto Carnival Player Français&#160;: Joueurs du Carnaval des Noirs et Blancs de Pasto en Colombie
context_page_description: Blacks and Whites' Carnival, is the largest carnival celebration in south Colombia, its geographical indication belongs to the city of Pasto. It is celebrated from January 2nd to the 7th of each year and attracts a considerable number of Colombian and foreign tourists.
  On 30 September 2009, this Carnival was proclaimed by UNESCO, as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
context_section_description: Strictly speaking, the modern carnival, arise at the dawn of an Epiphany day on 6 January 1912, based on the need to express imagination, play, friendship and sharing the joy that around that time of the year revives. In a fine and exclusive brothel in the city, the House of the Misses Robby located in the Calle Real (Royal Street, current 25th Carrera), was the place where the audacity of Don Angel Maria Lopez Zarama, renowned tailor of the city, leads him to take the French face powder of one of the most requested ladies and proceeds to gently spread the powder and some woman's perfume among all those present with the slogan ¡Vivan los Blanquitos! (live the Whiteys!). Soon, the companions of the master cutter and victims of the powder, join the game. Then, everyone would go out to repeat the joke with the unsuspecting
  parishioners exiting the Kings' Mass from the nearby church of San Juan Bautista, repeating: ¡Que vivan los Negros y que vivan los Blancos! (here live the Blacks and here live the Whites!) that expression under the custody of Galeras was inserted with force and forever into the essence of Pasto.
  However, other cultures and expressions have contributed to the formation of the intricate identity of Pasto's Carnival festivities. This fact characterizes and differentiates it between similar expressions.
  Its genesis is also rooted in the rituals performed by the Quillacingas, an agrarian culture, which, at harvest time danced honoring the moon and prayed to the sun, asking protection for their crops.
  These ancestral celebrations, with the merger and influence of Spanish culture, give rise to syncretism Hispanic-religious, generating early expressions of what will be the Carnaval of Pasto. In the early 19th century, the colonial authorities banned the holidays to prevent Indian uprisings, by 1834 Indian festivals reappear with churumbeles, mestizos with masquerades and hullabaloo of neighbors mostly, of course all these parties properly framed in the religious calendar, mainly with the festivities of the Virgin of Mercy (24 September) and Immaculate Conception (8 December).
  In those times, on the eve of the Epiphany also performed spontaneously festive the blackies' game, mainly between whites and mestizos, because of the scarcity of black people in Pasto, the holiday contrasted the extroversion of a community marked by a peaceful and taciturn life, who had in those days an opportunity to break the rules and release the spirit.
  The blackie game origin was a blacks' "asueto" (holiday), originated in the Great Cauca, old region to which belonged Pasto. In 1607 there was a slave rebellion in Remedios, Antioquia, which caused panic among the colonial authorities. This event was remembered by the large black population in Popayán who demanded a day of rest in which they would be truly free. To preserve social peace, the Spanish Crown granted to this end the 5 January:
  "THE PRINCE, DAY OFF FOR BLACK SLAVES. Now understanding the relationship and request of many black slaves in that province, have come to tell you that paternally hosts the request and will be granted a day off entirely to blacks and will be on 5 January, the eve of the feasts of the Holy Majesties and venerating with regard the Holy Majesty of the Black King. Dated in Madrid." I the Prince.
  That news was announced by proclamation in Popayán and thus was 5 January declared free day for people of color, the black population of the capital of Cauca took to the streets dancing to African music and began to paint the famous black-white walls of that town. Later this custom was watered to the south, taking an unusual strength in the cold city of Pasto, where the chronicler José Maria Córdoba Moure, said that there are traces of it was played as early as 1854.
  This is how was configured the genesis of Blacks and Whites' game in Pasto, and that way would pass its first decade, yet lacking the inclusion of other arts, as the Great Parade of the floats,  the comparsas and murgas, which would gradually will be joining the celebration, to enrich and shape the ide
caption: Whites' day players, January 2007.
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