The village of Santo Tomas is located in the mountainous area of Peru. It is tucked into the Andes at 12,000 feet above sea level and for the most part is isolated from the areas and government surrounding it. Every year, the villagers take out their anger on each other.
Ironically, they take the opportunity to take a whack at each other on Christmas morning. The festival of fighting is called Takanakuy. Everyone fights one another, from the youngest kids to the oldest of the elderly. Some people just fight because they’re drunk or for the sake of the festival. Other people have real disagreements to sort out.
In general, people who fight out disagreements in the festival tend to accept the final result. Whoever wins the fight, has won the fight they had in the previous year. Only on a rare occasion does someone appeal the results of the fight. The festival of fighting is a good way to solve problems, since they are so isolated and getting to a real judicial court would be very difficult.
There are some precautions put in place to keep it from getting deadly. For example, there are referees with whips to keep fights from getting to one-sided as well as a crowd to rush in and prevent someone on the ground from getting beaten up. It’s still pretty brutal though.
from Xter
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