jueves de comadres... godmothers' thursdays..

We have begun our trip to carnival at northwest.We will live from within, along with the locals, one of the most important, the real, traditional festival of the Northwest Argentina. An Andean celebration, full of native root’s rituals and ceremonies. The devil is the figure that represents Carnival. It enables people to get rid of their negative aspects that were repressed during the year.
We decided to arrive one day earlier to may capture a special event. On Thursday before Saturday of carnival takes place Thursday godmothers (jueves de comadres), the day dedicated to women who meet in different places like the Square, the market, where they wish a good carnival, they invite drinks, food, but more important are the songs (coplas) they share. They sing all afternoon, they form circles and dance and they throw people and themselves talc and wear garland of flowers and colourful papers
Before going to see these comadres we found some members of one of the groups that will be present when carnival be unburied next Saturday..

Although, not all public was happy with the loud music..
We then went to the main square at Tilcara where comadres were ready...

Coplas are simple phrases, singed from the heart to express sorrows, love.. to just describe life in all aspects.. voices go direct as an arrow to the heart of the spectator, even not knowing what words mean....

Maybe you would like to feel them now?

you can click here, and after a brief introduction of a man playing the erquencho, you will see las comadres.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnKV2WiW-L4
we didn't know at that time, but the following day would bring us more surprises related to copleras...