The early summer festival of Corpus Christi has been for many centuries the occasion for vibrant street theatre throughout the Roman Catholic world. The pageantry thrives in Cusco, Peru, where the week of Corpus Christi festivities runs concurrently with the massive civic parades that precede the reconstructed Inca solstice festival of Inti Raymi. This miscegenation of festive traditions befits the celebration's multiple ethnic referents, invoking the heritages of Spain, the Incas, the rural Indians of the Amazon and the Andes, and urban mestizos.

Vigorous masking, dancing, music, drinking, and celebratory chaos mixing old and new animate Carnival in Portugal and northern Spain. Harris attended five Galician carnivals in 1998, reporting here on his experiences.