CORTAMONTE OR YUNZA Cortamonte is a festival that starts forty days before Easter (or as we call it in Peru Easter week). Nobody really knows how this tradition started, however, it is said that it came from the European religious tradition and our culture combined. Unsha in Quechua means Dress Tree. It’s another name Peruvians use for the festival; it’s celebrated in most of the Andes in Peru. The duration of the festivities and activities change with different towns. This celebration can also be seen or celebrated in some parts of the jungle. It starts early in the morning as a ritual where a group of people have breakfast in the house of one of the organizers or in the house of one of the “Padrinos”, sponsors of the festival. After they finish, they go to cut the tree. It depends how many people attend this festivity, they could use more than five trees. …show more content…
It could be the last person who took down the tree the year before, or in my experience, there is also an organization in my hometown for the street market; everybody in the organization votes for who gets to be president and that’s the person who must get the tree or form a group of people to get it. The “Padrinos” of the Yunza are the people that donate most of the gifts. In my hometown, the president of the street market also organizes a small group for a soccer game before the Yunza. It usually consists of the rest of the celebrants that are waiting for the tree to be brought home for