She’s danced in it several times-though her role didn't require her to carry an armadillo rattle.Īs a part of her master’s degree research, Pacheco surveyed 165 Bolivians about their attitude toward the armadillos. candidate in ecology at the University of South-Eastern Norway, has attended the Carnival of Oruro for as long as she can remember. Participants carry the armadillo rattles in the morenada, a traditional dance that tells the story of African slaves imported in the 1600s to work in Bolivia’s silver mines.Īndean hairy armadillos, unlike other armadillos around the world, live at high altitudes-around 12,000 feet-mostly in the Bolivian Andes but also in Chile, Peru, and Argentina.Ĭarmen Julia Quiroga Pacheco, a Bolivian Ph.D. (When Bolivians hunt the armadillos for use as carnival objects, they catch them alive, then suffocate them so their faces and shells won’t be marred by wounds.) Their shells are embroidered on costumes, hollowed out and made into rattles, or used as the body of guitars. The creatures are one of the star attractions of the carnival in Oruro, a city in western Bolivia, which takes place every year around Mardi Gras. They’re pointy and belong to an animal that resembles a furry coconut: the Andean hairy armadillo. Look closer, and you’ll see that the matracas have faces. As the procession advances, the dancers twist the wooden handles on their matracas, or rattles, which make a hollow, clattering sound.

Trudging along to a slow, mournful song, more than a thousand dancers in elaborate costumes fill the streets for the Bolivian Carnival of Oruro.

Armadillo tracks