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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATIOX NO. 



town. At each corner they stop while at least two 

 individuals dance the marincra, usually in costume, 

 disguised as Negroes or Indians, while the mayor- 

 domos set off a few rockets. The parade winds 

 through the town, returning to the central plaza, 

 where a barrage of rockets is set off. Then the 

 viayordomos and the band go to the house of a 

 dcvoto, who awaits them. They dance and drink 

 chiclia and hard liquor until about dawn when they 

 return to their own houses. Shortly after sunrise on 

 the day of the fiesta, everyone comes out of his house, 

 shooting oft' rockets while the band starts up the 

 music at the house of the chief mayordomo. Then 

 the mayordomia proceeds with the band to the 

 church to prepare for the mass, which is usually 

 supposed to start about 9 a. m., but does not cus- 

 tomarily get under way until about 10 a. m. The 

 mass lasts about 2 hours, punctuated by the discharge 

 of rockets just outside the church door and by the 

 rather dissonant music of the band, which has been 

 installed in the choir loft in the back of the church. 

 After mass, the invitados go to the house of the chief 

 mayordomo, preceded by the band, and a feast takes 

 place. From the house, plates of food are sent to 

 certain devotos or contributors who are unable to be 

 present. In the afternoon, the party, well fed and 

 somewhat drunk, goes to the temple and takes out on 

 parade the image which is being venerated that day. 

 passing through the streets of the town, preceded by 

 the band, at a pace so slow that it is nightfall before 

 it returns to the churcii. Another feast usually 

 follows in the evening, accompanied by the usual 

 drinking and dancing. The follow-ing Sunday there 

 may be a mass of the Adoracion and afterward the 

 mayordumos and the contributors go to the house of 

 another dcvoto where the eating and drinking of the 

 previous Sunday are continued. Often during these 

 feasts fights and famil}- arguments develop, which 

 are said to be an invariable accompaniment of a 

 fiesta. The majority of the celebrants, however, 

 enjoy themselves and suffer nothing worse than 

 hangovers and "liver colic" after the fiesta is past. 

 The drinking and merrymaking aspects of the usual 

 fiesta are said to be absent from the fiestas of Holy 

 Week, beginning on Holy Thursday. 



The religious fiestas which are most actively cele- 

 brated in Moche are the following: Epiphany, with 

 the lowering of the home altars of the Nativity, Janu- 

 ary 6; Fiesta del Senor de Ramos (Palm Sunday) ; 

 Semana Santa (Holy Week) ; San Isidro, patron of 

 agriculture. May 15; Corpus Christi ; SS. Pablo y 



Pedro (SS. Peter and Paul), June 29; Santa Rosa 

 de Lima, August 30; La Exaltacion de la Santisma. 

 Cruz. September; Setior de la Misericordia (Our 

 Lord of Mercy), October; Fiesta del Cristo Rev 

 (Christ the King), October; Todos los Santos and 

 Todos los Animas (All Saints' and All Souls' Days), 

 November 1 and 2 ; Santa Lucia de Moche, "La 

 Mocherita," patroness of the church of Moche, De- 

 cember 13; La Pascua de la Navidad, December 24 

 and 25. 



In addition, a number of fiestas of various images 

 which adorn the church are celebrated somewhat ir- 

 regularly, depending upon whether a mayordomia is 

 organized or not, during a particular year. The cele- 

 bration of the fiestas of certain of these images brings 

 out especially clearly the importance of the image 

 cult. Thus, the image of Nuestro Senor del Calvario, 

 celebrated on September 14, 1944, does not represent 

 a historical personage distinct from Nuestro Sefior de 

 la Misericordia or Nuestro Seiior de Ramos, for ex- 

 ample. To be sure, the images in each case represent 

 Jesus, but the attention of the people is fixed on the 

 image itself, and people speak of the images as dis- 

 tinct beings, rather than as representations of the one 

 and only historical and sacred person of Jesus Christ. 

 The same is true of a number of images of Virgins 

 and Sefioras, each of which, unless otherwise specif- 

 ically named, it may be presumed is derived from the 

 historical and holy person of the Mother of Jesus. 

 Yet people have fallen into a way of thinking as if 

 the image were an entity or being in itself. The near- 

 by village of Huaman possesses a famous Senor. 

 Mocheros compare their several Senores with that of 

 Huaman, as if speaking of distinct persons. Certain 

 images have exhibited powers of curing and healing 

 which other images have not shown and are therefore 

 the more venerated, better dressed, and so on. It 

 is perhaps too much to label this "cult of the images" 

 idolatry, because the devotees are usually willing to 

 admit that a vague higher power stands back of the 

 image itself, but it represents a type of cultural orien- 

 tation in which the material object (the image) has 

 lost much of its function as a mere representation of 

 a character or of a concept in church history and in- 

 stead has come to represent a power and a goal in it- 

 self. 



The same is true in many cases of the images of the 

 saints, but with them it i:? always possible to argue 

 that the image is a mere representation of a historical 

 personage now present in spiritual form on the right 

 hand of God. For example, Santa Rosa de Lima, be- 



