AT CHRISTMAS, THEY FIGHT BARE-KNUCKLED… THEN THEY EMBRACE: TAKANAKUY, THE FESTIVAL THAT RESETS THE SCORE!
On 25 December, in most homes, people exchange gifts. In Santo Tomás, in the province of Chumbivilcas, in Peru's southern Andes, they exchange… blows. Then they embrace, raise a glass, and the year starts again from zero. This is Takanakuy — Quechua for "to strike one another" — the most bewildering, and on reflection perhaps the wisest, Christmas ritual in our Top 10.
The principle has an implacable logic: every unsettled score of the past year is resolved in public, bare-knuckled, before the whole community. An undigested insult, a disputed field, a debt, a rivalry: everything is settled in the arena, to the sound of Huaylia music, which gives the festival its other name, Huaylia Takanakuy. Men, women and children take part. But make no mistake, this is no wild brawl: the fights are regulated and supervised — they stop the moment a fighter is down or a supervisor steps in. And every bout ends with an embrace and a reconciliation. The grudge has had its day; it will not have the next year.
Where does this justice of fists come from? Some researchers see a possible lineage from pre-Hispanic rituals — a link with the 16th-century Taki Onqoy movement is discussed in academic research. Let us say it as the researchers do: Takanakuy's pre-Hispanic antiquity is debated, and no documented founding year exists. The tradition itself is very much alive, with no official website and no tickets, carried by the communities of Chumbivilcas and the southern Andes who converge on the Santo Tomás arena.
Next appointment: December 25, 2026, as every year. No official attendance figures exist — the Takanakuy is not measured in spectators, but in buried quarrels. Number 8 of our Top 10 of the most unusual festivals in the world: the one who understood that a good Christmas sometimes starts by making the year... loyal.
Practical information
Takanakuy (also called Huaylia Takanakuy)
Where: Santo Tomás, Chumbivilcas province (Cusco region), Peru — and other communities of the southern Andes
Next edition: 25 December 2026 (every year at Christmas; festivities spread around Christmas Day)
Organiser: Andean community tradition — no official website, no ticketing
— Moïse 1er, the Festival Explorer