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Steve: "Holy"
Sonja: "Seeped in culture"
Grace: "Outstandingly beautiful"
Lucas: "Surreal"
These are the words we have each chosen to describe Semana Santa, or Holy Week. In the weeks since the last procession on Easter Sunday, I have repeatedly gone back to my memories and tried to come to any sort of clarity on how to describe it. Words will likely fail, so this entry is heavy on pictures.
If you do nothing else, please view the pictures in their enlarged view, as they look too small for the job in thumbnail view. The videos give you a small taste; I have compressed them so that they will stream faster to your PC, so although the quality is a little fuzzy, you'll get an idea of how the floats move and sound.
Semana Santa is THE main event in Antigua. It's the Macy's Parade, the Mardi Gras, the Super Bowl of Antiguan culture, and is by far the most hugely anticipated event in all of Guatemala. People come from all over the world, and we have heard that the population of Antigua swells from 35,000 to 125,000 people. (Last year, the water system
ran out of water.. THAT's
Station of the Cross X - Tracy Reimers inspects
These were opened every Sunday during Lent, and remain closed the rest of the year.how many people come to visit!)
Beginning in February, the Lenten season is the 40 days preceding Easter, and was noticeable in Antigua with the very obvious introduction of the color purple. Purple is the color of Lent and signifies penitence. Suddenly we noticed all sorts of purple banners over windows, storefronts, restaurant entrances, etc. Even the trees got into the act, with the wonderful Jacaranda trees bursting into wonderful purple blossoms.
Later in the month, during the fun visit of our friends the Reimers, we noticed that the little buildings spaced about 200 meters apart leading up the road to our neighborhood church (called El Calvario, or Calvary), which represent the Stations of the Cross, were opened for the first time all year. (The Stations of the Cross represent the final hours, or passion, of Christ. It's most well-known in the Catholic Church).
These little buildings had large wooden doors which opened up to a very small little altar, upon which candles burned. Above the altars were paintings depicting various scenes from the passion of Christ. These would remain open (on Sundays only) for the next 4 weeks, and it was nice, after months of walking
Station of the Cross XI
This one is in the courtyard of El Calvario (Calvary) church. A separate church brought in their congregants to walk to all the stations. by these locked little buildings, to finally know what was behind their doors. People on walks through town would stop by and take family pictures in front of them.
Semana Santa is big enough to close all the schools, so the kids had the week off and we filled up the time with Spanish lessons from Marisol, as well as cooking lessons. Marisol, who bless her heart doesn't use recipes (unlike me, the former chemistry student, who needs to follow the precise directions), taught us how to make several favorite dishes, including Jacón, a family favorite made up of only green ingredients. She also took us around Antigua and some surrounding little towns to see the various preparations of Semana Santa.
There are 3 major physical sights of Semana Santa: the Alfombra, the Velación, and the Procesión.
Velaciónes are biblical scenes using wooden figures set up at the altar of a church which are created from scratch every year. We went to see velaciónes at several different churches, including one which featured a
500 year old statue of Christ!
Alfombras are sawdust carpets that are spread onto the streets in the hours preceding a procession. As
Velación (Bibical scene) at La Merced
You might be able to see the Alfombra carpet in the foreground (complete with fish tank!) and the Velación up on the altar. a sacrifice showing gratitude for blessings given during the prior year, these carpets are made from brightly colored sawdust and use stencils to make beautiful designs on the ground. Many alfombras are also made up of long pine needles, flowers and vegetables and are also beautiful works of art. What’s so amazing about these carpets is they only last a few hours before they are trampled on by the Procesiónes.
Procesiónes are the processions (very somber parades) where men (called cucuruchos) wearing long purple robes carry massive floats on their shoulders, from their church into the streets of Antigua. In front of the floats there will typically be a group of younger men and boys waving incense holders so that you can always tell a procession is near by the smell and the fog of incense. The floats feature a statue of Christ carrying a cross, and are followed by a smaller group of women carrying a float of an image of Mary. Bringing up the rear is a band playing funereal dirges. The floats can be huge; over the course of the week we saw 3-5 big ones that required 80 men to carry! Since that is such
Velación at another church
This shows Adam and Eve (on the right) and the Trinity up in the middle. a big load, the men take turns, so that at any given time you will have hundreds of purple-clad cucuruchos walking in front of the float, either having just finished their turn carrying, or preparing to step in at their appointed time.
A major procesión will also have a contingent of men dressed as Roman guards, who will precede the parade and will sometimes be on horses or little chariots. We saw two instances where the Roman guards, standing in front of the church, would re-enact the reading of the death sentence of Christ, and then out of the church would come the incense and the float. The incense, the slow swaying of the floats (to keep the cucuruchos walking in synch), the decorated statues, and the funereal music all combined to make for a real sensory experience.
One of the more memorable moments came when we were getting ready to leave our house to walk into central town with our friend Marisol, and she insisted we bring a sweater. This seemed pretty unneccessary as it was about 80 degrees, but she insisted. She told us that at 4pm the clouds would cover the sun as the
Purple, purple everywhere!
A cucurucho (floatbearer) with the Jacaranda tree behind him. These men (and boys) wore purple robes from Palm Sunday up until Good Friday, then switched to black on Friday afternoon through Saturday. crucified Christ was brought out in a procesión that we were heading to. We sort of shrugged since we're not terribly supersticious about such things, and away we went.
We first went to the main Cathedral in town, where we had thought there was to be a re-enactment of the Crucifixion. (How's that for a sentence you don't say very often: "Hey kids, let's go see the crucifixion.")
We ended up being late for that, but noticed that the town had changed a bit. It was past noon, and no longer did we see the cucuruchos wearing purple. They had switched to black, obviously signifying the death of Christ. Also in the town square we noticed that the purple banners of the palace had been replaced with black ones.
We entered the main Cathedral and saw a line of people slowly filing alongside a class coffin containing the figure of the crucified Christ. As people walked by the coffin, they took a ball of cotton and wiped it on the glass. Marisol told us that this cotton ball becomes something of a holy relic and is brought home to provide health to the family.
We then headed
over to a church called Escuela Christo to see one of the major processions, where they bring out a huge float carrying another glass coffin of the crucified Christ. The float is massive; it required 80 men to carry it and, because the church door leads directly out towards a cement fountain in a little park across from the church, the men had to march very very gently in order not to bang into the fountain before they can make their 90-degree turn into the street. This whole event calls for a great deal of care and dignity, and there was a sickening moment when the float was coming down the stairs where there was a great jolt and we thought they might lose control of the float. Truly, it would have been disastrous because this is an incredibly somber event.
As the float emerged from the church, there was clapping sound that was made from a large wooden wheel being spun (somewhat like a noisemaker) from the roof of the church, and sure enough, we noticed that the sun disappeared behind clouds that hadn't been there a few minutes before, and the air became very still. (We didn't
Levity and Penitence combined
When they weren't on duty, the general atmosphere was quite upbeat. It was a pretty social occasion. exactly need sweaters, but the moment did register. A LOT.) We looked over at Marisol when we noticed the shadows from the clouds, and she just nodded and said that this is the way Good Friday works in Antigua.
Wow.
Saturday, which is called Sabado Gloria, was much more quiet. We went back to the Escuela Christo church and found ourselves somewhat early for a procession of a Mary float. (This procession signifies the mourning of Mary). We sat down inside the church in front of a massive Mary float, and over the course of the next hour a stream of black-clad women entered and took their positions by the float. A young altar boy took the lecturn and prayed the rosary over the speakers. The band showed up and tuned up. Then, at the appointed hour, the band started to play its sad, funereal music (that's a lot of sound in a small cement/marble church!), the women hoisted up the float and started the rhythmic swaying that keeps the float in synch, and very slowly made a 90-degree turn to go down the aisle of the church, almost crushing the band in the process. Once again there
Incense is everywhere!
A young bearer of the incense pot. Note the boy holding his nose nearby... was a tense moment as they went down the stairs, but the float stayed upright, and the procession went on its way throughout the streets of Antigua. Fantastic.
On Easter Sunday we (and our visiting nieces and nephew, see upcoming blog) went to our regular church, San Francisco, for mass, and noticed that the front altar had a huge painting of the resurrected Christ. The painting was so interesting to me because along with the picture of Christ, there were a lot of images that related directly to the plight and hope of the indigenous people. If you look at the photo of this picture, you'll see the images of Mayan education, cultural food and clothing, and even the effects of the civil war. Pretty radical for an altar painting!
At the end of the mass, which is normally extremely ordered and predictable, the priest said a few final words about the hope and miracle of Easter, and then said, "let's have a round of applause!" And so we clapped! It was quite lovely, actually, but it also seemed so out of character for the more formal tone of our mass.
We then walked into town and
right into the start of a procession float of the resurrected Christ from another little church called Iglesia de la orden Betlehemita. The mood and music was in synch with Easter itself; lots of bright colors, music and festivity. As the float exited the church, we immediately noticed that the float-bearers where no longer purple-robed male cucuruchos, but men and women together in their regular clothes. There was a well-known priest there who gave the float a little blessing, and again called for applause. How fun to clap!
Over the course of the week, we saw maybe 8-9 processions, dozens and dozens of alfombra carpets, and visited 5-6 different churches to see their velaciónes. It is a time of reflection and deep meaning for Christians such as ourselves. Although not Catholic, we found so much to enjoy and think about in connection to our own faith.
Across the whole arc of our year here in Antigua, we’ll never forget this week. Unlike anything we’ve ever seen!
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