(1 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Altos, Paraguay – 30 June 2025
1. Kamba kuña dancing on stage
2. The kamba kuña flips off the stage
3. Organiser Eugenia Perez, walking hand in hand with a kamba kuña
4. SOUNDBITE (Guarani) Eugenia Pérez, organizer:
"I don’t know how to tell you, but we do this because we don’t want it to end. Men have been doing it for a long time, which is why we women, besides having fun, maintain the tradition."
5. Various of people getting ready backstage
6. Women leaving the backstage area
7. Various of Guaycurú men dressed in banana leaves ‘kidnapping’ women holding fire
8. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jesús Ruíz, Devotee:
“We have to look for dried banana leaves, gather a lot, and make one, two, or three (costumes before) the festival.”
9. Various of Guaycurús
10. Various of crowd
11. Fireworks
12. Pan from fireworks to procession
STORYLINE:
Revellers dressed in elaborate costumes and masks came together Monday in Altos, Paraguay for the annual Kamba Ra’anga festival.
The event is a Paraguayan tradition honoring Saints Peter and Paul and blends Catholicism with indigenous folklore.
Featuring masked figures, often in costumes made from banana leaves, the festival incorporates elements of fire, music, and dance.
Spectators watch as the ‘Guaycurú’ – men in masks wearing banana leaf costumes – chase and twirle children who ‘defended’ themselves with lit handfuls of straw.
The community in Altos, in the west of the country, work for months to prepare for the festival.
“We have to look for dried banana leaves, gather a lot, and make one, two, or three (costumes before) the festival," said participant Jesús Ruíz.
The Kambas are another part of the spectacle, wearing wooden masks representing stereotypes of society and animals.
The origin of the Kamba mask dates back to the 17th century and is the product of the fusion between the local Indigenous cultures and the Africans who arrived to Paraguay as enslaved people during the Spanish colonial period.
AP Video shot by Emilio Sanabria
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