THE ANDEAN SNOW FESTIVAL.

Every year, in late May or early June, to coincide with the full moon, one week before the Christian Feast of Corpus Christi, ten of thousands of pilgrims gather at the foot of the mountains Qullqip'unqu (Quechua 'qullqi' is for 'money, silver,' and p'unqu' is for 'pond, reservoir, tank; dam') and Sinaqara in the Andes of Peru, to celebrate the annual religious Snow Star Festival (Quoyllur Riti). The River Sinaqara originates near the mountain and it is tributary of the Tinki-Mayu.
The Qullqip'unqu mountain is about 5,522m/18,117ft high, situated in the Northern extensions of the Vilcanota Mountain Range in Cuzco Region, Peru. The Sinaqara lies South West of the Qullqip'unqu and it is about 5,471m/17,949ft high.
The Festival attracts peasants from the surrounding regions, made up of Paucar-Tambo groups (Quechua speakers) from the agricultural regions to the North West of the church at Sinaqara which is the central place to the pilgrimage and proceedings, and the Quispi-Canchis (Aymara speakers) from pastoral (herders) regions to the South East. Both groups make the annual and sacred pilgrimage to the Feast, bringing large troupes of dancers in multi-layered skirts and musicians with drums and flutes and perform during the 3-Day Festival.
The celebration combines Christian, Inca and other Andean beliefs.
Specifically the participants groups act in 4 particular roles: Chunchu, Qulla, Ukuku, and Machula.
Several processions and dances in and around a shrine are included in the celebration. The culminating event takes place after the reappearance of Qullqa in the night sky, and the rising of the sun after the full moon. The Andean people kneel to greet the first rays of Light as the sun rises above the horizon.
Men dressed as mythical half-man, half-bear creatures (Ukukus) of each community, climb the glaciers and spend the night there. They used to cut blocks of ice from the glacier and return, carrying on their backs huge ice blocks to share with the people of their communities. The waters of the mountain are believed to have sacred healing powers, to heal the mind and the body, but have now stopped, noting a decline in the size of the glaciers because of the global warming trend.
The spectacled bear, also known as the Andean Bear and locally known in Quechua language as "Ukuku"or Aymara language as "Jukumari" is the last remaining short-faced bear of its kind, and the only surviving species of bear native to the Andes Mountains of South America, because of its habitat loss. They are referred as spectacle bears due to the light coloring on their chests, necks, and faces, which resemble eyeglasses in some individuals.
Before spectacled bear populations became fragmented during the last 500 years, the species had a reputation for being adaptable, as it is found in a wide variety of habitats and altitudes, including cloud forests, high-altitude grasslands, dry forests and scrub deserts. The best habitat for them are humid to very humid montane forests. These cloud forests typically occupy a 500 to 1,000m (1,600 to 3,300ft) elevation band between 1,000 and 2,700m/3,300 and 8,900ft depending on latitude. The wetter these forests are the more food species there are that can support bears. Occasionally, they may reach altitudes as low as 250m/820ft, but are not typically found below 1,900m/6,200ft in the foothills. They can even range up to the mountain snow line at over 5,000m/16,000ft in elevation.
The ancient festival celebrates the presence of the Stars, noting the reappearance of the Pleiades star cluster marking the start of harvest season, honoring Jesus Christ, and also honoring the local glacier.
In astronomy, the Pleiades, or 7 Sisters, are an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot, giant and very luminous bluish stars located in the constellation of Taurus. Pleiades is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and the most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood. The name comes from Ancient Greek. It derives from the word 'plein' meaning 'to sail' because of the cluster importance in delimiting the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea. In mythology the name was used for the 7 divine sisters, supposedly deriving from that of their mother Pleione, effectively meaning "daughters of Pleione."