A Costa Rican dance against colonialism becomes a paradoxical tourist attraction

In a dusty village square in rural southern Costa Rica, men in colorful warrior masks are using huge leaves to whip a man wearing a muddy brown bull costume.

The man beneath the costume charges his attackers, knocking some of them over.

This is “Danza de los Diablitos,” or the “Dance of the Little Devils,” an annual, four-day ritual that takes place over the New Year period in the village of Boruca, home to Costa Rica’s Indigenous Boruca people. The tribe is believed to have a few thousand members, and is one of eight Indigenous groups in the country. 

The dance has been used for hundreds of years to celebrate Indigenous resistance against colonists. And although it was once a private, community event, in recent times, it has grown into a tourist attraction as a result of modern transport infrastructure creating better connections between the village and the rest of Costa Rica.

On a recent day, around 1,000 people came to watch the dance, including Moises Campos, a domestic tourist. He has visited Boruca multiple times for the rituals, he said, because they give him an education about his country’s history that he didn’t get at school.

“When I came here, and I listened to them talking about resistance and celebrating that they still have this tradition — and that they won against the Spanish people … I think it’s good for you as a human being to understand that, especially when you’re from this country,” Campos said.

During the ritual, a drummer and a man playing a flutelike instrument called a pito kept the rhythm for the masked men circling the man in the bull costume.

The masked villagers call themselves “devils,” because after Spain colonized Costa Rica, the Spanish supposedly used this slur against the Borucan people. The bull costume represents the Spanish colonists.

One of the devils wore a mask depicting a warrior’s face, painted red and yellow, itself engulfed by a wooden boar’s head. These masks are supposed to be throwbacks to the ones that Borucan warriors used to wear during battle.

The man behind this mask was Cristhian González Gómez. He’s in his 30s, was born in Boruca, and works as an Indigenous human rights consultant. He lives in the capital San José and said that he comes back to the village to take part in the ritual.

“It’s the heart of the community,” González said. “It says that we are still here. So, it’s the resistance of our culture against the modern ways to live here in this world.”

González said that it was only after the completion in the late-1960s of the Inter-American Highway, which runs through Central America, that Boruca got properly connected to wider Costa Rica.

He said that this was good in some ways, allowing villagers better access to health care and education. But it also eroded some traditions, such as natural medicine use. González said that when Borucan villagers had better access to shops, they also started buying cheap plastic masks to wear for the rituals.

“Batman mask, Spider-Man mask, Hulk mask. It was a mess,” González said.

In reaction to this, in the 1990s, González’s grandfather, Ismael González Lázaro, opened a mask-making school in the village.

Borucan warrior masks were traditionally made of wood, were quite small and were painted with basic colors using natural ingredients. Lázaro helped revive the wood tradition, but taught villagers to make bigger and more colorful masks. Now, Boruca-style masks can be seen in gift stores all over Costa Rica. They often have local plants and animals like toucans depicted on them.

With better road access to Boruca village, as well as colorful masks to buy there, a few foreign tourists started visiting in the 1990s. González said that before that, back in the 1980s, village authorities built a bullfighting arena in the village to attract tourist income. But a group of women in the village objected, and destroyed the arena. Bullfighting isn’t Borucan; it was brought to Costa Rica by the Spanish colonists.

González said that the women’s destruction of the arena was a signal that they “don’t agree with something that is not about our culture. The people said, ‘No, we are different. We need to preserve our ritual — choose the ritual, nothing more.’”

Jose Emanuel, 23, was also born in Boruca village, lives in San José, and said he returns for the rituals.

“I remember my grandma told me many years ago … it was totally different,” he said. “It was something private, just for Boruca culture, the community, because the festivity was just for them.”

As the procession went on, nearby, some American tourists painted their own masks. There are no proper hotels in Boruca, but there are basic homestays and people can also book craft lessons with local families.

Emanuel said that changing the mask style to be more appealing to tourists has its pros and cons.
 “It’s good for commercial [enterprises] to sell them,” he said, adding that in the past, the rituals were “more private … a special connection, because nowadays, you don’t see the masks that were used in the past. It’s a little bit sad not to see those masks.”