Event: Belize

Deer Dance Festival

When:	Aug 2008 (annual)
Where:	San Antonio
Costs:	Free

A fascinating hybrid of Christian and ancient Mayan culture, San Antonio's Deer Dance Festival in southern Belize is off the beaten track, but well worth a detour. Obscure ritualistic dances are performed and participants attend to the elaborate preparation of a greasy pole.

The ancient deer dance, involving an elaborate and ritualised hunt of a deer, is acted out to the music of home-made harps and violins. One man is dressed as the deer itself and several others as tigers, women and hunting dogs. The hunt procession parades to the village of San Antonio and the "deer" is chased into the forest before being brought back for the ceremonial final attack and killing.

The greased pole is a long piece of tree trunk carefully hewn and then greased with a combination of soap and lard in preparation for its scaling on the final day of the festival. Although a practice that many would view as bizarre, greased pole climbing is not confined to the arena of ancient civilisations. It had its heyday in medieval France but still gets the occasional outing at the lesser-known French village fetes to this day.