The story
Corpus Christi Villa de Los Santos in La Villa de Los Santos
Sixty days after Easter, La Villa de Los Santos stages one of Panama's most striking religious and folkloric events, where costumed diablicos sucios and diablicos limpios dance through streets built around the medieval Corpus Christi feast brought by Spanish colonizers. The dances were inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2021, recognizing a tradition with roots in early colonial Panama.
Corpus Christi arrived in Panama with the earliest Spanish colonizers, carrying a devotional tradition already three centuries old by the time it reached the isthmus.