HISTORY
Also called “Pablucha” or “Ukumare”, the Ukuku is a legendary character, the son of a woman and a bear, who communicates with the divinity without forgetting his relationship with the high-altitude glaciers, the source of the water that gives life to the communities. South of Cuzco, in Peru, he dances tirelessly at the feast of the Lord of Quyllurit’i
Here a story
The Ukuku is the giant bear who falls in love with Kukuli, a beautiful woman. He kidnapped her and had a son named “Alajo”.
Alajo’s mother cried and told him: “I want to go to my town, I am a captive of your father. He can kill me and you too.” “When I grow up I can kill my father and I will free you,” Alajo told him then. And so it was, he grew up, he became strong, he could break trees and mountains and when he shouted the earth trembled.
And just as Alajo promised, one day he murdered his father and took his mother to his town. When he got there, everyone accepted Kukuli, but about this half-bear, half-man being they said: ‘he can’t be with us, you’re not people, go with the bears’.
Alajo goes to look for his bear town, but they kicked him out too. So he lived alone, until one day God took pity on him and gave him the power to know everything that happens on earth and to be his messenger, with a small image of him around his waist, keeping the eternal secret.
The Ukuku is a mythological character present in an iconic way in the dances and festivities of Cusco, it represents the Andean Spectacled Bear, a character that generates both mischief and fear, an undeniable part of our rich heritage in folk traditions and culture.
The dancers of "Capac Qolla"
The Ukuku is often confused with another masked character from the festivity in the town of Paucartambo, the “Capac Qolla”, who represents another transhumant being, half man, half llama, who perhaps has similar choreographies, but who is typical of a different dance, since the Ukukus are dancers of the “Ocongate” region in Cusco.
This story was told to me by the foreman of the Dance of the Capac Qolla of Paucartambo once when I was lucky enough to meet the festival of the “Mamita del Carmen” and it goes like this: Paucartambo children, even from a very young age, often challenge each other to a whipping duel called or known as the “Yahuar Unu” in which they learn to value themselves by enduring the lashes that are given, each one taking turns as proof of their value and manhood.
Likewise, when the ritual is loaded with a level of greater violence, it is called “Yahuar Mayu”, which means River of Blood, and that is when the challenge is even greater and it does not stop until you see threads of blood run from the lashes that are uttered. Generally when they do it, the other people who witness it sing a tune in Quechua that says “Don’t cry, don’t cry little brother when you cross the bloody water.”
Crossing the “Yawar unu” is a symbol of virility that implies the courage not to cry or scream even when you see the blood flowing from your skin from the whipping.
