Once a year around Christmas in the Peruvian Andes, the whole town gets together to dance, drink and beat the hell out of each other. 

In the Peruvian Andes, folks know how to celebrate the season right. What they do is, they put on a colorful ski-mask, dress up like Mad Max mountain bikers, tie a dead eagle to their heads, and get drunk and dance for about a week straight. Then, come Christmas morning, they all gather together in the middle of town and beat the baby bejesus out of each other.

The festival is called Takanakuy and its equal parts sporting event, indigenous display of hypermasculine defiance in the face of all the lilywhite metropolitan sissies in Lima, and makeshift judicial system. The province of Chumbivilcas, where Takanakuy takes place, has about three cops total and is a stomach-wrecking 10-hour drive through the mountains to the nearest courthouse.