Lechuguilla Mask
The lechuguilla is the masked costume of the Fiestas de los Santos Inocentes in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, held every December 28, when costumed runners race through the streets of the town in painted wire-mesh masks and gowns covered in ruffled fabric curls. The celebration descends from a custom brought by the Canary Island settlers who founded Hatillo in 1823, and it re-enacts the biblical Massacre of the Innocents: the masked runners, called corredores, take the part of King Herod's soldiers, hunting the Christ child, while the crowd flees and turns the hunt into a chase of laughter. The masks,