Fiesta of Santa Rita

Villagers in Apastepeque, San Vicente Department, El Salvador, celebrate Santa Rita‘s feast day with a dance-drama called the Dance of the Tunco de Monte, or Wild Pig, an Indian dance going back to pre-Christian times. One person dresses in pig skins and pretends to be a pig, while other dancers portray various other stock characters. They enact the chasing and, finally, killing of the pig. At the concluding “feast,” the hunter who has caught the pig alternates between praying to Santa Rita for the welfare of the village and cracking jokes. Discuss

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