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Description

Large orange devil mask with four tall curving horns, four smaller flat horns and a dragon at the top. The bulging eyes have protruding black pupils and pink irises. Each eye has three spiked green eyelashes. The thick, bulbous eyebrows are furrowed. The snarling mouth has three pointed teeth, framed on either side by a pair of crossed fangs. There are large flame-like ears on either side, fading from black at the centre to orange, yellow, and white at the edges. Grooves in the ears and the dragon's wings, ears and arms are decorated with gold glitter. At the top of the forehead there are four medium-sized flat horns which fade from a dark brown-red at their bases to yellow at their tips. The two large outside horns have a deep curve. The two large inner horns have a concentric white and gold diamond pattern on the front. The dragon curves up from the middle of the head with short green arms and flame-like, yellow and brown wings; its open mouth has a row of pointed teeth at the top and a pronged tongue, and its pink-tipped blue ears curve around the face from the eyes to the chin. The back of the wings are a dark blue. Coarse orange hair has been attached with pink cloth to the back of the mask.

History Of Use

Supay mask; used in the diablada dance performances, during the Virgin of Candelaria feast days. For the people of the Andes, metals were considered "like the harvests, products of the earth", and to extract them, in the colonial period and today, a prospective miner or speculator must be prepared to make a contract with their proprietor. There were various proprietors throughout the centuries, with Supay, also identified as Apo Parato, appearing around 1650. Miners made offerings of chicha, feathers, and diminutive wax effigies for Supay; they hoped for clothes, silver, and food in return. In many of his depictions, Supay has a large erect phallus and can return a miner's lost virility. He has an intimidating and belittling attitude to his supplicants, and the minerals hidden in his cavernous world are often though to be false riches. He is associated with the remaking of the world after the Spanish invasion; also associated with sickness and death.