Currently browsing category

Processions

The End of the 2017 Holy Week

Domingo de resurrección or Easter Sunday marks the end of the Holy Week. We wave goodbye to the processions, the carpets and …

Antigua Lent Processions: Santa Ana

We continue our series Antigua Lent Processions thanks to the wonderful imagery of our friend and collaborator Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos who has …

Holy Week Generations

Slowly, but surely the love, devotion and passion for the world famous Holy Week in Antigua Guatemala are being passed on to …

Girls Procession

Transference: the action of transferring something or the process of being transferred. With these processions not only the heavy floats are being …

Lent’s First Sunday Procession

Sunday was such a great day in La Antigua Guatemala; nice weather conditions and a wonderful atmosphere all around town with people …

The Procession Season Is Officially Open

This entry should be called “ephemerides updates” because there several events that happened this week. On Tuesday, kids everywhere celebrated carnaval, carnival, …

Holy Week: Processions

It doesn’t matter if the processions in the villages and communities around La Antigua Guatemala are more authentic, more kitsch and with …

Holy Week: The Float’s Pilot

Interestingly enough, Erick was commenting yesterday how impressive was to see the massive float make a U-turn as he was watching the …

Holy Week Precessional Music

The Holy Week in Guatemala is a full five senses overwhelming experience. As you follow the processions all five senses are bombarded …

Holy Week: Women’s Float

You normally see men carrying the big heavy processional floats or andas as they are known in Guatemalan Spanish. You can browse …

The Old Man and the Band

This old man and the band are the tail of the procession. There goes Semana Santa 2008… we are at end of the Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala. Just one more day!

Holy Week: An Equal Opportunity Celebration

That is right, Semana Santa in Guatemala is an equal opportunity celebration. Sure, cucuruchos take the majority of the clicks of cameras and most of the video recorded, but children, women and dogs have a place in the Holy Week celebrations. Women’s float or andas are a bit smaller and carry virgins or angels most of the time.

Small Procession in San Pedro Las Huertas

Processions are majestic, huge and long in La Antigua Guatemala. You can browse the Processions category to get an idea of the size of the processions in La Antigua Guatemala. There are smaller and more humble processions in the villages and small communities surrounding La Antigua Guatemala. This year, I will try to focus more in the Holy Week celebrations and processions in the villages where you can still observe the fervor, regardless of the size, for all these Catholic rituals. The photo above was taken in the village of San Pedro Las Huertas, while the procession made a pit stop or parada as they are known in Spanish. Well, I think that is the name, maybe somebody more knowledgeable in Catholic rituals can provide the actual name for the stops the processions make every so often at specific spots.

Guatemalan Fair: The Pine-needle Processional Carpets

The making of these processional carpets is such a community-forming and bonding activity since in the process participate many, if not all, of the neighbors and family members. These traditions, festive calendar dates and special celebrations mark very strongly what makes a normal human being into a hard-core Guatemalan. You break the link or access to these experiences and you only have a person that was born in Guatemala; a fact as worthless as the fact of having had a pair of boots once.

Holy Week Elements: The Churches

Churches serve as terminals from which processions depart or arrive. Churches also serve as home-base for all the brotherhoods of cucuruchos and sisterhoods. Churches also put their best face for the Holy Week and many get a paint job and/or restoration works in the weeks prior to Semana Santa.

With this photo we wave goodbye to Semana Santa and to Holy Week’s processions. I was told the last procession, the Resurrection (Resurección) procession comes out on Easter Sunday (today) a 6 a.m. and its back in the church by 10 in the morning.

Holy Week Elements: The Sorrowful Mother

La Dolorosa or The Sorrowful Mother is the biblical figure of sorrowful mother Mary which follows Jesus in his way to his crucifixion. This act is represented by a smaller anda (long carved wooden flatbed image-carrying float [*]) —carrying the effigy of sorrowful Mother Mary and other female biblical representations— which is hauled exclusively by women who mostly dress in black or white as this is the appropriate dress code for a funeral. Jesus’ funeral.

Holy Week Elements: The Cross

Nevertheless, Good Friday is the culmination of the Holy Week Celebrations and the processions end at the Calvario Church (Calvario is the Spanish word for Calvary or Golgotha). The entrance of the Calvario Church in La Antigua Guatemala is a yellow façade with three arches, topped by three bells and three crosses —one larger than the other two— with a very large concrete cross in front. Can you see the obvious architectonic reference to Jesus’ crucifixion?

Holy Week Elements: Cucuruchos

Cucuruchos with their purple or violet cone-head dress are another prominent element of Semana Santa in Antigua Guatemala. Last week, Santiago Durham asked what its the significance of the color purple or violet in the dress and banners during Semana Santa, well it took a lot of digging to find out (I turned around and asked my office coworker), but I can now tell you the purple is worn as a sign of penitence. As a matter of fact, processions are a sign of penitence as well, heck the whole Semana Santa is a penitent act.