Riosucio Carnival

Riosucio Carnival is a biennial celebration held every two years around January 6th in Caldas, built around a satirical Devil figure that has represented the town's mixed indigenous, African and European roots since 1915. The carnival traces to an 1819 forced merger of two rival towns and includes a distinct body of collectively authored satirical literature known as literatura matachinesca.

Riosucio Carnival stages a conflict that goes back to 1819, when Spanish colonial authorities, through the efforts of priests Jose Ramon Bueno and Jose Bonifacio Bonafont, forced the merger of two rival, ethnically distinct neighboring towns, San Sebastian de Quiebralomo, with indigenous and Afro-descendant roots, and Nuestra Senora de la Montana, with Creole and ecclesiastical tradition, into a single settlement.