Purísma de Pampas Day in Peru

In Pampas, the capital of the Province of Tayacaja, in the south of Peru, they celebrate with unusual fervor their Patron Saint, the Purísma de Pampas, a celebration that begins more than a month before.

The devotion has a history of an apparition of the Virgin to Don Feliz La Torre who sent to Spain an image similar to the one he saw. Later, that image, already as the Patron Saint of Pampas, saved the town from destruction by the royal armies.

After the battle of Ayacucho, on December 9, 1824, the defeated royalist army began its retreat to the coast, in small groups in order to return to Spain.

The division of General José Carratalá made its route with the city of Huancayo as a waypoint.

After the journey the troop arrives to the locality of Tocllacuri, in the province of Tayacaja on January 19, 1825, where they decide to stay for one night, but not before sending one of their soldiers to warn the city of Pampas that, if they did not give him a strong quota, when the troop passed through their city, they would burn it and behead all of them.

With such threat, on January 20 of the same year, the Pampinos went out to the encounter with the Spanish soldier, carrying their patron saint: the Most Holy Virgin Purísima, who fully trusted in her mercy.

The encounter took place in the place of Rundo, a few kilometers from the Pampas city.

When Carratalá saw the image of the Immaculate Virgin, he knelt down, crossed himself and said: "Return her immediately to her temple, I am not worthy for the Virgin to meet me!

Eventually, the soldier had dreamed a woman who told him to be careful with his children because she protects them day and night, whom he identified as the patron virgin of that city.

Since that day, every year on January 20, this event is remembered and homage is paid to the Virgen Purísima de Pampas.