Currently browsing tag

Holy Week

Semana Santa Vistas: A Cucurucho Family

Entire families enjoy the processions of Semana Santa in Antigua Guatemala. Often the entire family participate in different activities from making carpets, …

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 …

Mirada de Cucurucho © Rudy Giron

Cucurucho’s Look

Here’s one last picture from the Semana Santa. In this case, I got really close to a cucurucho, a teenager really, to …

Cucuruchos and Photographers by Leonel -Nelo- Mijangos

Cucuruchos and Photographers

As shown the other day, many cucuruchos are also photographers, a trend which seems to increase as more people use mobile phone …

The Holy Week Photographers by Leonel -Nelo- Mijangos

The Holy Week Photographers

Okay, the 365-day wait is over. The world-famous Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala is here. Get your cameras ready and join …

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 …

Theme Day: Red

The making of sawdust carpets, alfombras de aserrín, with its vivid colors and eye-catching patterns are among the most prominent elements of …

Cucurucho Tsunami

I confess that you have to click on the image above to understand the title. I confess I have never in my …

Holy Week Economics by Rudy Girón

The Economics of the Holy Week

As Semana Santa, the Holy Week before Easter, approaches, the historic colonial town of Antigua sees almost daily processions. These processions include …

Girls Procession

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

The Broom-head Romans Are Back

I have honestly tried not put as many Cuaresma/Lent and Semana Santa/Holy Week photos here. I could, in theory, have a Lent/Holy …

Holy Week: The Crowds

Oh yes, I had also forgotten to mention the superabundant crowds that you will find in La Antigua Guatemala during the Holy …

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 Photographers

click, click, click, click click click, clicks, click. See, if it does NOT matter how much effort I put into documenting the …

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!

Corozo Palms and its Smell are a Staple of the Holy Week

Just like the Christmas Season comes with its own set of smells, flavors and color palette, so does the Holy Week celebrations. I can bring to you still photos, slide shows, video clips and sounds. But I can not bring you the smells. Like I said back in the Virgin of Guadalupe Day, … the incredible power of the sense of smell can detonate nostalgic memories… if only the smells could be seized like Patrick Süskind suggested in his masterpiece Das Parfum (Perfume). How could one go about imprisoning the mixture of the smells of copal incense, corozo palms, fireworks, pine needles, moisten saw dust, fresh tropical fruits, palm flower arrangements and sweat into a digital format readily available to download onto your own computer?

Underneath a Holy Week Float in La Antigua Guatemala

So much mumble jumble to present the underneath view of a Holy Week float in one of the villages of La Antigua Guatemala. Andas (floats) are not only the affair of cucuruchos, women also participate; and sometimes even chuchos (street dogs) get involved in the penitent act of carrying the heavy float! 😉

Cucurucho Paying for His Turns at the Float

Each turn of the Holy Week Float costs around Q60 (around US$8), there are around 60 turns and each float has somewhere between 80 and 100 spaces for the Cucuruchos. That’s close to Q290,000 (US$38,000) per procession.

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.

Holy Week Elements: The Making of the Carpets

The making of carpets from sawdust, pine-needles, flowers, vegetables is a community-forming tradition. People get together by block or near-by neighbors to create the carpets on which the processions will pass by. Sometimes the making of the carpets is done at night, all night so they are ready for next day’s procession.

Holy Week Elements: Sawdust Carpets

The making of sawdust carpets (alfombras de aserrí­n) with its vivid colors and eye-catching patterns are among the most prominent elements of the Holy Week celebrations. You can come back all this week to see other samples of carpets made with flowers and fruits and vegetables.