Post 7: We have Carnivals

In Challa time nobody gets angry!

Many people think that in Santiago and Chile in general, we don’t have carnivals, and when we think in carnivals we imagine Rio´s Carnival o Barranquilla Carnival. But the fact is that in our city we have carnivals since a long time ago.

The history of carnivals goes back to the European middle age, when celebrate charisma time. But the native people of Latin-American also have carnivals who celebrate harvest time and different moments of the annual cycles. So, the carnival we have now it’s a mixing of these two developments.

The “Challa carnival” is one of the most ancient carnivals of Santiago. The tradition of “challar” come from the Andean Culture (Who had carnivals since pre-hispanic times), and mains spry water and liquid as a form of blessing things and person, and in carnival contexts it´s use as a game where everyone gets wet. That celebration was common in the country in summertime, and with the people migration to the city, it became popular in here. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the Challa carnival was forbidden because according with the authorities violated morals and good manners. Another popular carnival, who it remembers by our grandfathers is the spring carnival, but have the same destiny of criminalization that the Challa carnival, this time because of the dictatorship.

But, don’t be sad, in the last decade the carnival has rebornd from the hand of social organization, and the Challa carnival it celebrate for 9 years in a row in barrio Yungay every summer. Also, the the student has recovered the spring carnival. It is less know that the communities carnivals are emerge in everywhere, especially in the vulnerable communities as a form to social struggle.