In Quinamayó, a city in Colombia that takes its name from a river, the music and smell of gunpowder and fireworks explode in February to announce the arrival of Christmas.

Yes, in the traditional February of love, before Valentine’s Day, in Quinamayó it is the month to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus.

But in that place, located in Valle del Cauca, it has another characteristic and distinctive element, but it is the one that manages to evoke everyone, with dance and long routes: the Baby Jesus is black, emphasizes El Espectador.

This is the origin of the tradition of the Three Wise Men and the gifts

A black baby Jesus

“The Child has already been born, the Child is to be adored.”!”, is the cry that arises in this city of descendants of slaves brought from Africa. In their Christmas celebration, their baby Jesus represents them.

In Quinamayó they celebrate the birth of the black Child God as a symbol of liberation for the Afro-people in the south of the department.

Christmas in February?

Everything is different in that city, but rich in tradition, culture and respect for a past that they keep in their hearts.

The Christmas celebration begins after the fortnight. According to El Espectador, the streets of Quinimayó are filled with music and culture for four days in February.

Looking ahead to that time, “the community midwives teach the town’s little ones the Afro traditions they have inherited from their ancestors.”

With the black Baby Jesus, they told the EFE agency ten months ago, they celebrate the breaking of the chains that oppressed the Afro community for years, while they show their joy in enjoying freedom with traditional dances.

The slaves, who worked on the sugar cane farms in the Valle del Cauca department, were forbidden by the ‘masters’, the owners of those lands, to enjoy Christmas on December 25.

Rest was not allowed until 40 days later. The masters released them in February.

This is how the tradition was born more than 150 years ago: “black communities gathered to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, who is black in this city.”

However, another explanation is offered: “The birth of the Christ child is on December 25, but in our black communities we believe that we must observe the diet (quarantine) of the woman who gives birth to her child, so we do so . don’t celebrate.” Christmas does not fall in December but in February,” explains Holmes Larrahondo, according to a note published in La Vanguardia.

This is the Christmas celebration in February

Quinamayó is located in the municipality of Jamundí Valle and the mayor’s office points out that, attracted by this celebration, “visitors arrive from Robles, Villa Paz, El Hormiguero, Navarro, San Antonio, Potrerito and nearby municipalities with a high Afro population.”

The festival lasts four days and the Child Jesus is always born on Saturday, the third of the month, El Universo published in 2021. That is the day Quinmayoreños look forward to most.

In the singers’ voices you hear “the coos and praise yourself for the Child yet to be born. It is a gentle, stimulating song that pampers, loves and bless the arrival of the Child Jesus of Quinamayó,” explains the Jamundí mayoral office.

The party continues to the rhythm of the play“the one who made Quinamayó’s ancestors forget that they were slaves,” describes EFE.

Residents and visitors “invade the main streets and start dancing. The men drag their feet and carry their hands behind them,” the mayor’s office added.

The women join in the dance, wearing their full skirts, to complete the round. They drag their feet because it is in memory of the slaves who were chained

As soon as the street party starts, the municipality continues, a parade begins that lasts almost two hours and ends on a main stage.

EFE reported last February that “María” and “San José” will participate in the tour, accompanied by a girl dressed as the “Star of the East”.

Then “there are twelve angels, also children; They come to collect ‘the Indian women’, a symbol of the two cultures that exist in the area. Then they meet 12 children dressed as soldiers with wooden guns to guard the ‘Salvador’.

It is an honor reserved only for the godparents, “two young girls and a young boy”, to be able to “carry the newborn in a golden basket, until around midnight they reach the “Gate of Bethlehem”, where Jesus was already born used to be .”

That is the moment Quinamayó waits for year after year: “all you hear is playing, clapping and singing.”

Brazilian manger shows the black baby Jesus in a devastated Amazon region

When the music plays, Mónica Carabalí described to EFE, “an electric current runs through my whole body. It is remembering my ancestors. Celebrate that today we are free, that we are happy.”

‘That child wants

let me soothe him to sleep,

rock him to sleep

“her mother who gave birth to her”

‘A ro ro my child

a ro ro my god

sleep my life

Sleep, great Lord.”

The ‘quinamayoreños’ are proud of being black. A resident, with the memory of a chronicler, clarified for a report in El País: “It is not just the skin color, to be black is to feel the customs of a people that keeps its culture alive.”

(JO)