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Description

Large black devil mask with four orange-red tall curving horns, four smaller horns and a dragon at the top. The bulging eyes have protruding black pupils, pink irises and spiky green eyelashes. The bulbous eyebrows are furrowed and the mouth is curved in a snarl with three pointed teeth framed by a pair of crossed fangs. The ears are flame-shaped, black at the centre, fading to orange, yellow and white near the edges. Grooves in the ears are decorated with golden glitter. Atop the forehead are four medium-sized flat horns fading from black at the base to yellow at the tips. The two large, outside horns have a deep curve. The two large inner horns are decorated with a concentric white and gold diamond pattern on the front. Red tinsel is wrapped up the two large inner horns and across to the outside horns. The dragon curves up from the middle of the head. It has short orange arms and flame-like orange wings. The mouth is open with a row of pointed teeth at the top and a pronged tongue. Pink-tipped green ears curve around the face from above the blue eyes to the chin. The groves in the wings and ears are decorated with golden glitter. The back of the wings are white. Coarse yellow hair has been attached with yellow 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.