Cuzco is ready to celebrate this month’s great and much awaited night, Halloween. The great day, filled with fun and mystery has finally arrived. It will fill the streets, discotheques, and clubs of the city. A Halloween in the Peruvian style will costume the streets with terror and fright.
Even though this celebration is not part of our traditions, Halloween has claimed an important place in the celebrations of our city. It has become a popular and famous event.
Also known as the night of witches, noche de brujas, Halloween is celebrated just like elsewhere on October 31st. It comes on the same day we celebrate the Day of Creole Song.
Tradition relates that on the last day of October and the first day of November Celtic peoples organized a festivity in honor of the harvest called Samhain.
On this night, the separation between the world of the living and the dead thinned and the dead could walk freely on the Earth. The custom was carried on as well as transformed in time in the various places where it made a home. In 1840 it arrived in the United States and that country gave the feast new touches.
Just as people usually do every year for the Night of Witches, children in Peru walk around in groups and knock on the doors of houses. They shout out “Halloween” and people give them sweets. In this way the people of Cuzco, like elsewhere, live moments of fright. The children go crazy with dressing up in their costumes. They honor famous people as well as witches and haunts.
At night, Cuzco’s Plaza de Armas holds a parade of costumes. There you will see the most surprising, colorful, and even frightening costumes. Multitudes of people will be there.
Along with the locals, you will see visitors from all over the world. They come together in the international feast with Peruvian flavor, “sabor!”
