Feet Purple
Mes Morado – Purple Month in the old capital of the Inca Emprire, Cusco
Walking the streets of Cusco, Peru in October, you could be forgiven for thinking that the city’s sole reason for existing is to allow large numbers of people to gather, march, proceed and otherwise celebrate the enormous number of saints whose images inhabit the various churches. As you turn a corner, you realize where the deep bass beat of drums is coming from as an orgy of color and sound greets your senses. The marching band, whose dress varies from brightly colored traditional costumes, through plain black to the sand camouflage of the police units, proceed gravely over the cobbles, ahead of and often also behind an ornately dressed statue, carried at shoulder height by four or more sturdy cusqueños, natives of the city of Cusco.
The statue could be one of the many incarnations of the Virgin Mary, but this month it is most likely to represent el Señor de los Milagros, the Lord of Miracles, a saint whose origins lie in Lima, Peru’s capital city, but who has been enthusiastically adopted and revered by the inhabitants of Cusco. El mes morado, or the Purple Month, is so called due to the purple robes used to clothe the statue of the Lord of Miracles when he is paraded through the streets. The color was originally used by an order of nuns in Lima and was later adopted for the Lord of Miracles as a sign of the devotion felt by his many followers.
The origin of the Lord of Miracles is a little out of the ordinary, coming as it does not from an apparition of Christ or miracles performed by an ordinary person. Several hundred years ago, a group of slaves painted an image of a black Christ on the cross on a wall in Lima. A massive earthquake later destroyed much of the city, but the wall and the image survived intact, and later earthquakes also failed to have any effect on the wall or the picture. The image came to be considered miraculous and, having its origins outside the Church, which did attempt (and failed) to have the wall destroyed, it united believers from many different faiths. Regardless of race, faith or creed, many faithful believe the image to have miraculous powers and struggle in hordes to get close enough to touch it or the corresponding image when paraded through the streets.
Although you can see two or three of these small and not so small parades throughout any given day from any given point in the city, the best experience is to be had in the Main Square where you can see any number of luxuriously clothed saints paraded around throughout the day, each often accompanied by their own cohort of musicians and brilliantly dressed dancers.
Parading the saints is not the only way in which the mes morado celebrates the Lord of Miracles. Taking a quiet evening stroll down the Avenida El Sol, one of the main avenues of Cusco, you could be rather taken aback to hear distinctly religious music from an otherwise deserted street. As you walk on you come to a red carpet leading to a podium decorated with flowers and purple drapes surrounding an image of the Lord of Miracles, while four foot high speakers engulf you in hymns. And this is not at the entrance to a church, but to a bank, and sixty feet further up the road is a similar display outside another bank. On reaching the top of the road, you find a team of giggling teenagers, carefully pouring, scraping and sculpting various hues of colored sand into simple but eye-catching displays on the theme of the religious significance of the Lord of Miracles. The display is gone by morning as the ever-busy street sweepers do their duty regardless of religious fervor, but for days you can see the coarse colored sand in the cracks between the cobbles.
The Lord of Miracles has proven over the years to have significance to many, regardless of their denomination or even their religion. Putting aside their individual beliefs, many put their faith in this black saint and his miraculous abilities which is particularly interesting when Latin America is still so often divided by issues of race.
About the Author
Gary Sargent is the Managing Director of the travel firms Escaped to Peru and Escaped to Latin America. Gary is married to a Peruvian and lives and works in Cusco, Peru, the ancient capital of the Inca Empire. Both tour companies arrange tailor-made tours and vacations to Peru, the Galapagos, Argentina, Brazil and several other Latin American destinations.
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