Diablada Pillareña

The festival

From 1 to 6 January, the devils took Píllaro. In this Andean town of the province of Tungurahua, the partidas — a neighbourhood troop of up to 400 dancers — descended from rural hamlets towards the center to the sound of the pueblo bandas: diablos with horny masks and embroidered capes, parejas de línea which depict the former patrons, guarichas and capariches.

The oral tradition in the colonial era is a gesture of rejection of Spanish sermons and ill-treatment; the local legend tells of fathers disguised as devils to scare the pretenders of their daughters, between the rival districts of Marcos Espinel and Tunguipamba. It is also said that a devil must dance seven years in a row, under pain of strange misadventures. The Diablada Pilareña, former "fiesta de inocentes", is an intangible cultural heritage of Ecuador since the end of 2008.