Cultural Identity

Traditonal Dress-In Peru's rural areas, the way people dress makes an important distinction, as a result of the blend of pre-Hispanic influences with the European clothing that the natives were forced to wear during the colonial era.

The traditional Inca anacu was transformed by the local women into the brightly-colored and multi-layered petticoats known as polleras. Depending on the region, a black skirt is decorated with a belt which can come in a variety of colors and is decorated with flowers in the northern Piura highlands or a brightly-hued woolen lliclla in Chiclayo, further south.

Traditional dress tends to be capped off by woolen or straw hats, sometimes in various colors. But in the coldest reaches of the Andes, the highlanders tend to wear the chullo, a woolen cap fitted with earflap decorated with geometric motifs.

Traditional Foods-Peru boasts one of the finest cuisines in Latin America. Recipes such as cebiche (raw fish marinated in lemon juice), pachamanca (meat and vegetables cooked underground), chupe de camarones (shrimp soup), ají de gallina (spicy chicken) and juane (cornmash pastries) are just a few of the mouth-watering dishes served up in Peru. The quality and variety of dishes in Peru are due to several reasons.

In the Andes, meanwhile, delicious ingredients such as the potato and sweetcorn in all its varieties, plus cuy (guinea pig) and ají chili pepper are the basis of highland cooking and are to be found across the country.

Music in Peruvian Culture-Thanks to the recent archaeological discoveries of musical instruments, experts now know that in Peru, music has been played at least as far back as 10,000 years ago.
 
This ancient tradition created quenas, zampoñas, pututos (trumpets made from sea conch) and a wide variety of other wind instruments crafted from a range of materials such as cane, mud, bone, horns and precious metals, as well as various percussion instruments.
 
Contact with the Occident has brought over a large number of instruments, which have been creatively adapted to the rhythmic and tonal needs of each region of the country. The clearest evidence is the many transformations that the harp, violin and guitar have undergone in the Peruvian highlands.
 
The encounter between the Andes and the Western World have given rise in Peru to 1,300 musical genres. But two of them have crossed the country's borders and have become symbols of Peru's identity: the huayno and marinera.


Llamas, Alpacas and Vicuña-The vicuña is the smallest of the Andean camelids and can stand 1.30 meters high. It features a graceful body and moves with agility. Its fur is light brown along its back and nearly all over its outer body, while its chest stomach and inside legs are pure white. The animal features a tufted chest with fibers that can hang down 20 cm. At birth the vicuña weighs just 5 kg, growing to 40 kg at adulthood. Females reach puberty at a year of age but generally mate at two years; vicuñas take 340 days to whelp.
 
Its fiber has been classified as the finest animal fiber on Earth, with an average diameter of 12.5-1.5 microns, but only grows 3 cm long. Shearings yield up to 320 gm of fiber per animal a year. As the vicuña produces the finest fiber, it is in demand, and for a time was in danger of extinction.  But today, the Peruvian government protects the species in intangible national parks. Poachers, however, continue to hunt the species, gradually whittling its numbers to 170,000 worldwide, of which 100,000 are found in Peru in areas over 3,800 meters in altitude.

Called pacocha in Quechua, the Inca language, the alpaca has a small and more curved silhouette than the llama, while its forehead features a classic tuft of fiber. The alpaca cannot be differentiated by color, as it comes in a wide range of hues. It stands up to 1.50 meters high and weighs 7 kg at birth, growing to a maximum weight of 64 kg. The animal takes 343 days to whelp, and like the llama, the female alpaca can mate at a year old.
 
In general, alpacas have more and better-quality fiber than llamas, and come in two varieties: Wakayo and Suri.