Festival of the Virgen de la Candelaria

A patron saint and her city

The Virgen de la Candelaria is the patron saint of Puno. Her feast combines Catholic traditions with symbols of the Andean worldview, and its main practitioners are the rural and urban Quechua and Aymara people of the region. Many emigrants from Puno return each year to take part. UNESCO inscribed the festival on its Representative List in 2014.

Local tradition links the devotion to 1781, when Puno was besieged during the rebellion that followed Túpac Amaru II. On the night of the last attack, the townspeople carried the image of the Virgin in procession, and the besiegers withdrew — an event remembered in Puno as a miracle.

Masses, a procession and two contests

The festival opens at the beginning of February with a mass at daybreak, followed by an ancient purification ceremony. The next morning, after the liturgy, the image of the Virgin is carried through the streets in procession, accompanied by music and dancing. The celebration moves through many stages — rehearsals, novenas, the albas at dawn, the entrances of candles and of k’apos, the eve, the feast itself, the octava and a farewell called the cacharpari.

The heart of the festival is two contests. More than 180 groups take part, among them traditional dances from the rural communities of Puno and the danzas con trajes de luces, dances “in costumes of light”, organised by the city’s neighbourhoods. Around them work some thirty-five thousand more people: sponsors, embroiderers, and craftspeople who make the masks, boots, shoes and bells.

Three regional federations organise the festival together. Dance, music and mask-making are passed on to younger generations in rehearsals and workshops. The festival closes with a ceremony for the Virgin, a parade and farewell masses.