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pillahuana.

Headword: 
pillahuana.
Principal English Translation: 

a festival involving the drunkeness of children, with some sexual initiation

Orthographic Variants: 
pilauana, pillauana, pilahuana
Attestations from sources in English: 

"This was the Pillahuana (Drunkenness of Children) festival, held every fourth new year, at which all the children born in the intervening period had their ears pierced and were taken to watch the human sacrifices by their godparents...."
Iain Gately, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol (2008), 98.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

"En la fiesta tepeihuitl una de las ceremonias realizadas era el pillahuana en la cual los niños de nueve años bailaban con mujeres jóvenes, bebían hasta embriagarse y luego se dedicaban a hacer actos licenciosos (Baéz 1988: 111)."
III Coloquio de Historia de la Religión en Mesoamérica y Areas Afines, ed. Barbro Dahlgren de Jordán (1993), 146.