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Lord
of the tremors: Holy week in Cusco
The most moving and public part of Holy Week celebrations in Cusco takes place the Monday before Holy Friday when the most important religious symbol in the region -the Lord of Tremors or Señor de los Temblores- is taken out in procession from the Cathedral along the streets. Also known as the Cristo Moreno, this dark-skinned and life-sized icon is paraded around the historical town center on his enormous silver pedestal. The procession comes to an end with an emotional farewell from the crowd gathered in the Main Square, when the Christ returns to the Basilica accompanied by the deafening sirens of the voluntary fire department.
By Stephen Light
 Thousands of pilgrims come to Cusco for Holy Week and many of them come on foot from the most remote villages in the region. While many people come to attend the Quechua mass celebrated before dawn on Easter Monday, and others enjoy the typical dishes prepared and served in the narrow streets around the Main Square, most of them want to see the procession of the Lord of Tremors.
To the beat of the heartbroken pealing of the Maria Angola bell, the Lord of Tremors is taken out of the Basilica on the devotee's shoulders. On Easter Monday the image, decked with gold and precious stones, leaves the Cathedral at around four o'clock in the afternoon to be paraded along the Portal de Panes and the Plateros street to the Church of Santa Teresa. From there, the procession passes along the Heladeros, La Merced and Mantas streets and return to the Main Square.
During the three-hour procession, the image of Christ is accompanied by civilian and military leaders of the city, representatives of public and private institutions, religious orders, varayocs (village chiefs) and ordinary pilgrims. Along the route the balconies of the houses are decorated with baskets full of red flowers known in Quechua as ñuqchu, which are showered up on the Christ by the fervent settlers.
At about seven o'clock in the evening as the procession comes closer, dozens of thousands of people gather in the Square and its ten access streets, in a silent but emotional farewell to the Cristo Moreno who will rest again in the Cathedral until the following year.
Cusco's Earthquake of March 31, 1650
"Cusco, who saw you yesterday and sees you today... !
How can you not cry?"
(Gil Gonzáles Dávila, 1650 earthquake's eyewitness)
Before a strong earthquake shook the city in 1986, it was said that earthquakes only occurred in Cusco every three hundred years.
According to the legend, at the beginning of the Inca Cusi Yupanqui reign (successor of the Inca Viracocha) a strong earthquake destroyed great part of the city and affected the whole region. The young sovereign decided to rebuild the city as great imperial capital, festooned with the finest temples and palaces especially designed to withstand earthquakes. Since then, he was known as Pachacutec, "The One Who Shook The World" in Quechua.
This earthquake is likely to have occurred in the middle of the XVth Century. The next two large-scale earthquakes -which devastated Cusco- happened on March 31, 1650, and May 21, 1950.
The veneration for the Lord of Tremors, also known as Tayta Temblores, dates from 1650. This effigy of Christ had been given to the city by Charles V of Spain one century before, and it is said that the series of tremors that had already destroyed great part of the city only stopped when the effigy was taken out to the streets.
The Cathedral itself resulted almost unharmed from the destruction and the Inca brickwork of the city remained intact.
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