Fighting is at first done only with fists, and later supplemented with weapons like rocks. Many wear colorful costumes, and sometimes a traditional sort of helmet. And the attire and methods of fighting are formalized as well. The fights are pre-arranged you don’t just go in swinging, like a mosh pit. The teams, such as they are, tend to be made up of ayllus, originally extended family units that have over the years become small, tight-knit communities. Where once there was peace, suddenly there is war, and just as suddenly, that war will end. Village against village, villager against villager. Traditionally, the fighting may have been meant to honor Pachamama, a Bolivian goddess, but these days it’s more like a sport than anything else, a way to prove one’s bravery.
Tinku is a heavily ritualized form of battle, but the skirmishes aren’t supposed to be personal. “I don’t think they are a violent people,” Stobart says of those who partake in the tinku sparring, “but unlike most groups they seem to have an outlet for it.” There are generally only one or two of these festivals per group each year, according to Henry Stobart, an ethnomusicologist who has lived with and studied the festivals, which means they really have to count. Some of the biggest are held in the towns of Macha and Potosi. In addition to the brawling, the festivals also include feasts, elaborate dances and huge, choreographed musical events. Tinku, which means something like “violent encounter” in Aymara, is the most notorious element of certain festivals celebrated by two native groups in the Andes, specifically the Aymara and the Quechua. Visitors return with reports of chaos and brutal warfare, fueled by homemade booze, in remote mountain villages. There may be no tourist attraction in the world quite like tinku, the ritual street battles practiced by some indigenous communities in the Bolivian Andes. And after a few days, everything goes back to normal. (Photo by Arnd Zschocke via Flickr)Įach year in early May, the hills and towns of Bolivia erupt with violent fighting.
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