Travel Guides

The Carnival is the most traditional popular festivity of the Dominican Republic. It goes back to the colony, on the eve of lent, when people in Santo Domingo disguised themselves to imitate the European Shrovetide. Lent ends on Easter Sunday, the most sacred of Christian holy days because it is the day that the crucified Christ was resurrected. Although the word “carnival” originated with this pre-Lenten celebration, the celebratory style of masking, inversion and grotesque came to characterize other festivals as well; as a result, some scholars specify the pre-Lenten carnival with the term carnestolendas

Intense colors, music, religion – all expressions of the joy and warmth of being a Dominican: it’s Carnival! The Dominican carnival is the most authentic expression of our culture and is an explosion of sound and color which manifests itself on different dates and in different ways as a result of the cultural syncretism whose product it is. Originally of European origin, the custom of carnival was a religious celebration on the date of Corpus Christi. However it eventually evolved into a pagan celebration usually celebrated on the 27th of February, Dominican Independence Day. Original masks, costumes, floats and masqueraded dance groups from different regions of the country come together to celebrate. The Diablos Cojuelos come out into the streets on the weekends of February, month of the Dominican independence. Their costumes are ornamented with a number of decorative elements: small round and square mirrors, small bells, cowbells, ribbons, whistles, tiny dolls, etc. The dancers wore jewelry on their foreheads, in their ears, and around their necks, and colorful tattoos and painted designs on their bodies depicting their spiritual guides, their zemies. They also wore shell anklets that tinkled like bells as they moved in rhythmic unison across their bateyes.