The Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee, approved this Tuesday, December 14, 2021, to include the Festive Cycle around the devotion and worship of San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist), in the Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Unesco’s decision will contribute to consolidating and promoting the cult of Saint John the Baptist internationally. It was possible thanks to the instruction of the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who urged to initiate the procedures for UNESCO to recognize the festivities that strengthen the national identity.
The Festive Cycle of San Juan Bautista, is the eighth Venezuelan manifestation inscribed on the lists of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity, it also includes the Dancing Devils of Corpus Christi of Venezuela, the Parranda de San Pedro de Guarenas and Guatire, the Oral Tradition of the Mapoyo and its Symbolic Referents in the Ancestral Territory, the Traditional Knowledge and Technologies Related to the Cultivation and Processing of Curagua, the Carnival of El Callao: festive representation of a memory and cultural identity, the Llano Work Songs and the Program Bio Cultural Safeguarding of the Blessed Palm.
The merits fall on the celebrators of the cult of San Juan Bautista, who contributed their knowledge and festive practices, for the Bolivarian Government to present the file before Unesco.
More than 50 brotherhoods, brotherhoods and parties from Miranda, Argua, Carabobo, La Guaira, Yaracuy states and the Capital District contributed to the research team of the Foundation Center for Cultural Diversity, an entity attached to the Ministry of People’s Power for Culture presided over by the professor, Benito Irady.
