IN GUATEMALA

Doctor Alejandro Eduardo Giammattei Falla

Constitutional President of the Republic

Lic. Felipe Amado Aguilar Marroquín

Minister of Culture and Sports

Arq. Mario Roberto Maldonado Samayoa

Vice Minister of Cultural and Natural Heritage

Arq. Breitner Roely Gonzales Maldonado

4 General Director of Cultural and Natural Heritage

Original idea and Responsible Authority

Lic. Felipe Amado Aguilar Marroquín
Minister of Culture and Sports

Arq. Mario Roberto Maldonado Samayoa

Vice Minister of Cultural and Natural Heritage

Creativity and design management

Mariana Marroquín González

Graphic design and final artwork

Mariana Marroquín González

Photographs and references

Aguilar, F., Melchor Toledo, J., Grigsby, K., Castellanos, M. F., Figueroa, N., Calvillo, O., y
Dardón, Y. (2009). Contemplaciones: Historia, Arte y Cultura de la Semana Santa Guatemalteca. Punto
3, S.A.

March 2021
 Guatemala, March 2021

Señor
Tim Curtis
Secretary
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
UNESCO
Paris, Francia

In September 2008, the State of Guatemala declared Holy Week in Guatemala as an Intangible
Cultural Heritage of the Nation through Ministerial Agreement 560-2008 for being an annual
tradition of religious fervor and spiritual recollection that dates back several centuries as a sign
of national identity. This manifestation, unique in the world, is characterized by its syncretism
and is experienced through the five senses.

It is a cultural and religious holiday highly developed in the Republic of Guatemala. It has been
present for five centuries, through which it has undergone transformations that have made it the
7
celebration that brings together the majority of social and cultural diversity in the country. From
a religious point of view, its purpose is to commemorate the mysteries of redemption - passion,
death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth -which is creatively reflected through multiple
representations throughout the country.

All the cultural and religious manifestations that form Holy Week in Guatemala are built from
the collective, using applied arts, crafts, oral tradition, gastronomy, and nature; that is why it is
properly stated that Holy Week in Guatemala is experienced through the five senses.
Therefore, the following publication seeks to make recognizable this manifestation of great
importance and transcendence in the country in which many Guatemalans feel identified
and reflect in it their spirituality and creativity. For that reason, this is a small sample in
commemoration of this celebration that we look forward to celebrating again as we have
traditionally done in recent years.
Sincerely,

Felipe Amado Aguilar Marroquín

Minister of Culture and Sports
 PRESENTATION 7

INTRODUCTION 11

BACKGROUND 15
Holy Week through time 17
Prehispanic considerations around Guatemalan Holy Week 19

8 HISTORY 25 9
Flourishment of Guatemalan Holy Week 1524-1821 27 27
Contemporary history 1954-2008 31

PLASTIC ARTS 35
Processional sculpture of Holy Week. Images of Passion 37

APPLIED ARTS 39
Splendor, utility and beauty 41

Music and Literature 49

The music of internal worship in Guatemalan Holy Week 51
Charisma, vocation and heart. Outdoor music 55

EPHEMERAL AND POPULAR ARTS 61

Sacred spaces of Lent and Holy Week 63
A glorious step. Carpets of Guatemala 67
The flavor of Lent and Holy Week 71

NATURE 75
The natural tribute to passion. Flowers and fruits of Guatemala 77

BALANCE 79
Holy Week in Guatemala: Intangible Cultural Heritage 81
 Miguel Alfredo Álvarez Arévalo

To evoke Holy Week is to touch the most sensitive fibers of the heart of Guatemalans.
Immediately emanate the profound memories that are kept in the soul; suddenly,
we find ourselves wrapped in the arms of our parents, trying to lift us to witness
the passage of a procession or climbing on a balcony for the same purpose. That
atmosphere is completed with incense accompanied by the crowd that observes
the paso of the Nazarene and the vibrant notes of the band, the sowing of these
incomparable traditions roots in our being.

The first effort to appreciate the cultural manifestations of Holy Week globally is
the book Semana Santa Tradicional en Guatemala by Luis Lujan Muñoz. On the 11
other hand, the book Contemplaciones: Historia, Arte y Cultura de la Semana Santa
guatemalteca (In English: Contemplations: History, Art and Culture of Guatemalan
Holy Week) responds to the need to obtain multidisciplinary information about
this exciting topic. This book is a national first, as it is an effort that unites thirteen
professionals in history, anthropology, and other social sciences, who have excelled
in various fields of these sciences and coincide in their interest in the Guatemalan
Holy Week as a social phenomenon. Through its pages, they explain with academic
rigor the accumulation of heritage values that form a melting pot of cultures, initiated
almost five centuries ago and is still in force since it is updated and adapted to the times
while maintaining its traditional roots.

These cultural manifestations are one of the transcendental forms of expression

of Guatemalan people, so heterogeneous and varied but united in a unique Holy
Week that should be considered an Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Nation and
Humanity.

We discover how this great work, Holy Week, is not a theatrical representation;
it is the living reality, with the multitudinous performance of a people, which has
opened the curtain and has been placed on the ground of Guatemala, turned into an
extraordinary stage, the most spectacular scenographic, and choreographic assemblies.
A multicolored ballet that dances splashed with all the tonalities that can exist in a
palette, where the sky is a great canvas that both nature and man used as a background
to impregnate the brushstrokes that among the widest chromatic expression dominate
 the purple, black and white, with a ritual ceremony, as liturgical symbols; and the It would be enough to lift the asphalt layers of the streets of Nueva Guatemala de la
ground is covered with the most different tonalities, that in the form of carpets or Asunción to find the deep traces left by past societies, where we would find: worn stones
alfombras in Spanish, on that stage of stone, earth or asphalt cover our paths. because of the slow pace of tired penitents, stones kneaded with the wax of candles.
Likely, of course, in the old city of Santiago de Guatemala, where with astonishment,
The five senses are activated excitingly, and the sight contemplates a horizon even the footprints of Hermano Pedro would emerge by themselves just by following
illuminated by the sun, where that blue canvas contrasts with the colors of the seasonal his passion route changing from San Francisco to Calvario.
flowers, while the Easter nights let break the monotony of darkness by the clarity of
the first full moon of spring. All of the above demonstrates how the Guatemalan Holy Week has a unique appeal
and, therefore, attracts many tourists from around the world who travel to Guatemala,
12 The devotees are impressed by the contemplation of the images of passion or the dazzled by photos of carpets and processions captured on posters or postcards. 13
admiration of the spectators. Their eyes are enraptured by the scene of the color of the However, Holy Week is more than that; it is the splendor of the experience of a people
tunics and mantles, the decoration of the floats, the night illumination, the procession, in color, smell, taste, sound, and expressions of faith, valuable from any perspective.
the clothing of the penitents and devotees, the most complex spectrum of colors, Holy Week tourism represents considerable economic growth for all sectors, including
carpets laid on the ground, contrast and violent combination of colors and textures, the informal economy. From airlines and five-star hotels to traditional sales of súchiles
wake altars, orchards, flower arrangements, chandlery, informal commerce, windmills (a type of local drink) and empanadas, print shops, bookstores, electrical and other
and balloons, lollipops and other treats. At the same time, the ear shudders at the products, transportation, farm goods, and, undoubtedly, sales of fabrics and sewing
sound of those bands playing funeral and triumphal marches, percussion instruments, materials, laundries, and music. Everything is vital for the development of these
whispers, matracas, bells, prayers, and exclamations. The connection is drawn back activities.
before the contact with the devotional images, when touching the wood poles of the
floats or the horquillas (stands that support procession floats while carriers rest), the
materials for the offerings, all together in harmony with the sense of smell that inhales
the most exquisite scents, gift of nature and converted into a single meal for the Lord.
These help us to understand why the processions with images are the central theme
of Holy Week, become part of the family, and provoke different demonstrations by
the devotees or admiration by the simple spectators. The processioned images are
masterpieces where the collective feeling is admired and sublimely collected by various
artists; moreover enhancing pain, death, resignation, and hope. These are a figurative
expression of a people that suffer, artistic exteriorization that has achieved the love
of a people before the contemplation of the tormented figures, same that transmit
serenity when transferring a spiritual enjoyment through the specific, through the rite
and the intimate splendor that in the deepest of its symbolism represents the tears of
the people.
Holy Week through time
Johann Estuardo Melchor Toledo

Holy Week has a history of more than twenty centuries. It has overcome schisms, wars,
and other tribulations. It is based on the very founder and foundation of Christianity,
Christ, being innocent, to set free man from sin, accepts to bear all men’s sins, and
receive the punishment that those sins deserve.

The Holy Week processions are unmistakable because they are encouraged by a
particular spirit: penitence. That does not change. Penitents are those who make the
procession by carrying the paso (sculpture that depicts a scene from the Passion of
Christ) on their shoulders, no matter what it weighs.
17
Silence is one of the distinctive features of Holy Week: neither prayers nor chants;
only public display of the penitent condition and in many places still, in some cases,
hardly acts of penance: walking barefoot, doing the whole procession on their knees
or dragging shackles and chains on their feet.
Prehispanic considerations around the
Guatemalan Holy Week
Juan Antonio Valdés Gómez

Como el intrincado diseño de un textil, en la Semana Santa de hoy se tejen numerosas

cJust like the intricate design of textiles, today’s Holy Week is woven with numerous
characteristics that turn it into an amalgam of ancient traditions, both Mayan and
Judeo-Christian. Its preservation and manifestation through almost five hundred
years introduce us to completely new, rich, and dynamic worlds that contribute
to Guatemalans to live a unique experience of diverse nuances, reflected in this
celebration so unusual and at the same time so general, which become before the eyes
of locals and strangers in the mirror of our millennial history.

Processional floats, carpets, music, imagery, and even the iconographic and religious 19
construction of the Mayan and Spanish culture seem to meet again after centuries in
a ritual episode, which we call Holy Week in Guatemala.

About fifteen years ago, a glyph was deciphered that caused some doubt in its
interpretation, and epigraphers managed to translate it as throne or palanquin. Despite
its recent reading a long time ago, scenes painted on ceramic pieces and incised graffiti
on walls were discovered, showing sovereigns seated comfortably and carried on the
shoulders of persons of lower rank.

However, much more significant and complex is the scene sculpted on a wooden
lintel of Temple I of Tikal, where the sovereign ascended to the category of Divine
Lord or Sacred Lord (which translates in Maya Chol K’ul Ahaw). He appears seated
on a float or palanquin that was carried on the shoulders of several people, which
shows similarity with the “andarillas” or litters that up to this day travel the streets
of Guatemala and especially the towns of Mayan origin on certain occasions of
the year, settled in what in archaeology is known as Highlands, in other words, the
departments of Huehuetenango, Quiché, Sololá, Totonicapán, Chimaltenango, and
Quetzaltenango.

The flat surface was decorated with flowers and feathers. Through the graffiti, it has
also been possible to recognize the existence of a baldachin or canopy installed to
cover the one that was carried on shoulders -the western terms have been used here to
describe this type of canopy-.
 Carpets for the lords

This tribute paid to the lords by carrying them on palanquins is closely related to other
that looks very familiar to Guatemalans. Taking him on the shoulders prevented the
lord from touching the ground, but when he had to get off his portable platform, he
was not supposed to step on it either. Then, the surfaces were covered with abundant
flowers during the procession and descending, scattered by people who preceded the
passage of this one.

The purpose, more than an offering, is to preserve its divine integrity. The same
thing happens with Hispanic carpets. Although they do involve a sense of offering of
20 gratitude, they safeguard the passage of the image to avoid coming into contact with 21
the ordinary world represented by the floor. When a scene of passion is taken down
from its dressing room to be draped, it is not placed directly on the floor.

Nevertheless, the resemblance between these and the present ones goes beyond the
purely formal. The lord, ruler, or priest, who was carried on these litters, has acquired
in the classical period a new category: he has become an incarnation of the divinity;
he is the man-god who on earth, governs and leads, not in a personal but divine
capacity, to the society. His rank and importance demand to be preserved from any
contamination on the ground, and therefore he is carried on shoulders.
 Flavors, colors, and scents

In Guatemalan kitchens, the flavors are fired with strong scents, which recreate all the
ancestry of those who have reproduced the oral tradition - a strength and intrinsic
condition of the Mayan people. It is possible, especially in the area of the piedmont
and Quetzaltenango, to find the pilgrimages dedicated to the images of passion, dishes
containing the iguaxte or lizard, directly linked to pre-Hispanic gastronomy.

Likewise, it is fascinating to observe scenes in Santiago Atitlán, Santa Catalina Zunil,

or Santa María Nebaj, where the dominant color on Good Friday is not black as it is
in the predominantly Ladino areas. It is probably because death in the Mayan world is
22 associated with the Western, a site where the sun sets, a space that corresponds to the
color yellow. Although the costumes worn by the said communities are predominantly
red, the mournful meaning of the color black does not permeate them, as it does not
reflect anything in their worldview about death.

The ancient and well-elaborated iconographic and ideological program of the

Mayans deeply permeated their tradition, identifying itself later with the millenary
Christian program. All this converges in acts such as Holy Week, which involves a cult
of suffering that the Mayan culture did not fail to see. There is no abrupt or violent
difference, the conceptions or origins may be different, yet they adapted and merged
to their visions. Hence the air breathed during the Guatemalan Holy Week makes it
unique, whether in the big cities or small towns.
Origins of Guatemalan Holy Week
1524-1821
Johann Estuardo Melchor Toledo

LThe beginnings of Holy Week in Guatemala date back to the 16th century. In the
first years after the conquest, the Castilians began to carry out religious activities,
which did not lack the Passion of Christ. In Guatemala, the celebrations took a distinct
direction from the processions in the Iberian Peninsula; in the first place, because there
was syncretism among the inhabitants of the different towns of the time; the second
cause was the distance from Spain, which made that in Guatemala the changes arrived
slowly and the influence of the metropolis was not as effective as in the viceroyalties
of Peru and New Spain. These allowed that with time the Guatemalan Holy Week
evolved and changed by itself, and led it to become unique due to its characteristics.
27
In the Late Middle Ages, confraternities were born and became an integral part of
medieval life. “Its appearance can be dated to the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the
16th century. The first were those of the Vera Cruz, who were born from the confraternities of the
Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, either united to them and their respective crucifixes or as independent
associations. They had as the center of their cult a relic of the True Cross. The Franciscans were
their main promoters, given the devotion that this order and its founder had for this mystery. Examples
of these were those founded in the Castilian cities of Zamora and Valladolid at the end of the 15th
century.”

A confraternity included three aspects: institutional, economic, and religious. The

first referred to the election of one or more stewards and a spokesperson before
the ecclesiastical authority. For example, in the temple of San Juan Alotenango,
each confraternity was directed by ten people (two mayors, four stewards, and four
deputies), who the day of the patron saint, handed over the position. Another example
was the brotherhood of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad and Santo Entierro de Cristo of
the temple of Santo Domingo in the capital of Guatemala, which had four stewards,
of which one was in charge of the accounts.

There was also another religious organization whose purpose was to worship a particular
saint, the brotherhood, and it was similar to the confraternity. The difference was that
the confraternity had an almost guild-like character, while the brotherhood was not
as structured as the confraternity. In Ciudad Vieja, the cofrades ladinos (In English:
ladinos brothers) changed the name of their confraternities to brotherhoods at the end
28

of the 18th century. The Church endorsed this change because both institutions were
religiously related. This modification was ethnic so that the confraternity remained
an eminently indigenous institution, while the brotherhood functioned only for the
Ladinos, as it happened in San Miguel Dueñas.
Contemporary history
1954-2008
Miguel Aldredo Álvarez Arévalo

Although the experimental forms in the manifestations of the Holy Week date back
to the 16th century, from 1954, the bases that have taken root in all contemporary
society are consolidated. One of the political events that most affected the situation
of the country during the second half of the 20th century was the so-called National
Liberation Movement, known in history as the Counterrevolution, such a way
that “With the triumph of the so-called liberation in 1954, a new stage opened in
Guatemala for the Catholic Church. Archbishop Mariano Rossell Arellano, who
followed the anti-communist line set by Pius XII, had played a part in achieving this
triumph...”.
31
The 1956 Constitution began with an invocation of divine protection, which was
outside the ideological field of atheism. Public worship was allowed, with no limits
other than those required by peace and order, and the right of free religious association
was recognized, which opened the country’s doors to orders and congregations which
had previously been legally forbidden to enter.

In 1954, the commemorations of the Passion of the Lord took place with great pomp
and splendor. According to the following chronicle of the newspaper La Hora “With
great solemnity, the festivities of the Semana Mayor or Major Week began yesterday.
In all the Catholic temples of the capital, pious acts were performed early in the
morning, and during the rest of the day, several processions went through different
neighborhoods of the city. Even though thousands of people from the capital leave
the city to go to the outskirts of the country, the Christian fervor continues to manifest
itself to the extent that this year’s Holy Week celebrations will surpass in splendor
and devotion those of other years”. This note refers to the procession of Jesús de las
Palmas de Capuchinas, which since 1949, thanks to the impetus of Ramiro Araujo,
had begun its metamorphosis. Also, the procession of Jesús Nazareno de los Milagros
of the San José temple, which in 1953 began several innovations under the direction
of Mario Ruata Asturias. In 1954, it premiered a 40-armed platform, but the prior
one had 30 bearers, then it went to 60; in the same decade, it reached 80 bearers, and
Guatemalans were amazed.
 Today, in the cobblestone streets of La Antigua Guatemala, as well as in the paved
avenues of Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción; in the Valle la Ermita, or the winding
paths of Quetzaltenango; in any municipality, town, or piece of Guatemala, the smell
of earth and dust settled with water will come through. The scene will be the same the
Nazarene burdened with the weight of the cross, the recumbent Lord, the beautiful
Dolorosa, the inseparable binomial formed by St. Mary Magdalene and St. John. In
every place, there will always be something special, from the naive product to the most
elaborate in adornment and pomp, as in the processions of Old Santiago and the
modern capital of the country or Mazatenango, on the Pacific Coast; Sumpango in
32 Sacatepéquez; Rabinal in Baja Verapaz; Cuilapa in Santa Rosa or San Pedro Soloma 33
in Huehuetenango. All have maintained a constant tradition and change and thus are
reflected in the permanence and vigor of the processions.
On the blue Caribbean coast, Holy Week is perceived in Puerto Barrios and Santo
Tomás de Castilla or the Garifuna Livingston. In the departmental capital of the
warm Izabal, the commemoration begins with the Way of the Cross-, where students
make the different routes dressed as Romans, Palestinians, and other characters of the
time, and of course, angels. On Palm Sunday, the procession of Jesus the Nazarene,
the Dolorosa, St. John, and Mary Magdalene takes place. Participation of many
porters who do not use cucurucho tunic but street clothes. crawlers; of those penitents who carry the blood of Tohil, and who now honor the
blood of Christ, as part of a five times centennial process of evangelization.
On Good Friday, in Puerto Barrios Izabal, the descent of the image of Jesus on the
cross takes place in the cathedral. Subsequently, this image is transferred to the float Live passions, ancestral and syncretic processions, and large and pompous sacred
of 50 bearers to begin the procession of the Holy Burial and ends its journey between parades all have a common heritage: they are a fundamental part of Guatemalan
23:00 and 24:00 hours. On Saturday of Glory, the processional of the Virgin of culture, and they put together what is, for us, the most beautiful and unique Holy
Solitude, accompanied by Saint John and Mary Magdalene, takes the same route as Week in the world.
the previous one.

As for the Santo Tomás de Castilla Village, on Good Friday, live Stations of the Cross
are held, which travel through the streets of the village and end at the parish church.

In another cardinal point of our homeland, there in the mountains of Quiché,

every Holy Thursday, the bells of the temple of San Andrés Sajcabajá ring out
their centennial voices accompanied by the maracas, to announce the parade of the
Holy Week processional sculpture.
Images of Passion
Carlos Mauricio Morán Alvizurez

In Guatemala, it is said that The procession goes inside when one wishes
to express that “one suffers... even if the feeling is not noticeable.” Historically,
Guatemalans identify with pain; plagues, devastating earthquakes, volcanic
eruptions, landslides, and floods have marked some of the episodes of history
they have lived. The believer sees reflected in the images of the bleeding
Christs and in the tears of the Virgin, his sorrows, and finding in the presence
of this spiritual comfort.

Guatemalan processional sculpture developed motivated by the preference of 37

the faithful for images of passion. The culture of sacrifice, with antecedents in
pre-Hispanic times, was strengthened during the baroque period. Remember
as an example the processions of blood, which consisted of public acts of
flagellation and mortification of the flesh, which were common in the 17th
and 18th centuries.
Splendor, utility, and beauty
Juan Haroldo Rodas Estrada

The words splendor, utility and beauty summarize the elements of the
paraphernalia of the most sublime cultural manifestation of Guatemala: the
commemoration of the passion of Christ. In this event, mysticism, expression,
and reality gather to turn the whole message into something authentic that
identifies and seeks to unify Guatemalans.

These manifestations flourish in traditions that unify the Spanish with the pre-
Columbian and accomplish the chromatic integration in which all the elements 41
are wrapped and construct the expressiveness of the passion of Christ. This
is staged in a framework of intense qualities, sometimes somewhat full of
enhancement, which seeks to exalt the maximum expression of the scourge of
Christ, although for some, it is only a manifestation of splendor.

We cannot determine what is more important: is it the piece that is embroidered

with dexterous hands, the silver forge that adorns a sculpture, or the structure
carved by skilled artisans who leave with it a thread between art and tradition?
There are many productions here or there, but it is a demonstration of the
creative force with which the Guatemalans emerges in their daily life to
highlight those sublime moments that have no explanation, only in the spirit
and identity, in which there is religiosity, but more than this, a desire to show
how the passion of Jesus is relived.

This situation also caused the brotherhoods with fewer resources to turn the
workshop of Casa Central (Central House), where French nuns embroidered
works of exceptional quality, but cheaper since they were made in Guatemala
and the labor was undoubtedly cheaper.

From this workshop came beautiful pieces that still appear in different
processions; when this defunct, particular embroiderers emerged, with a
 more artisanal sense. They maintained this tradition, making flourish a very
chapín order in this confection; in this field stands out the embroiderer of
Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa, Ramiro Gálvez. He has created a school of this
genre in the area, as has Jorge Mario Díaz from the city and others. Finally,
the pieces painted by the artist Luis Alberto de León for the procession of La
Recolección at the end of the seventies. Currently, the restorer of this genre,
Javier Fernandez, who has made several transfers of embroidery and restored
several pieces of high quality, stands out. Structures bearing the sky
This is the splendor of an instant, of the special moment when the devotee
contemplates his image of devotion to sanctify himself before it, seeing it as a These groups also offer regional characteristics; the antique ones are of wavy carving
whole when it is carried on the magnificent structures that seem to move the and are called pigeon breast, highlighted in the concave part, and it emerges in the
upper section in a lower form towards the highlighted part ending in a division that
sky in front of human eyes.
descends in the substructure. Generally, the carvings reproduce foliage ornaments of
the antique temples: leaves, rockeries, and details that sublimate the architecture. In
this case, the wood poles or spaces where the bearers’ shoulders should be placed are
round but are attached to the side skirts. The front and final parts are similar to the
lateral ones, and only two wood poles protrude in the forepart for the float’s leader,
so he can place his hands and lead the movement of the whole piece of furniture.
42 Though each brotherhood has produced unique models, they are all inspired by the 43
designs of the temples.

There is a creative display that shows the variety of appreciation and tastes of different
social sectors that make up the brotherhoods, such as the example of the float of the
Buried Lord of the Dominican temple that presents in its corners: angels for children
of woodcarving with glued blanket coverings. In addition, the pieces of lions with the
Mercedarian shields were created in the fifties for the float of Jesus of La Merced,
taking as inspiration the lions of the temple’s dome that remind Jesus more powerful
than the lion and sweeter than honey.

Each image of the Nazarene Jesus or Buried Lord is carried on a majestic float, just
as the one of the temple of Calvario is transformed into an outstanding masterpiece.
This is composed of a small colonnade that recalls the Greek temples in a postmodern
adaption that even offers details of color changes and lights according to the ornament
exhibited in the upper part, giving it a sense of spectacle of great light and splendor.

The platforms of Quetzaltenango are soberer, with finishes in the corners but with
corner pieces that only seek to give a sense of solidity to the part of the structure.
They are usually smaller than the previous cities, but they also seek to create their
physiognomy and dynamics for the whole. The rest of the country responds to the
three centers of Lenten irradiation. Nevertheless, all of them want to offer a piece of
structure provided with originality and beauty to the procession, which corresponds
 The marks of brotherhood
The banners identify the brotherhood, in which the emblems or anagrams of each
group have been woven. In these, there are designs, embroidery, or carvings that stand
out with high and low reliefs. There are also shapes of crosses, coats of arms of orders,
or figures of enigmatic animals that once occupied a place in the heraldry of ruling
houses, such as two-headed eagles or lions whose claw rests on the coat of arms of
the Mercedarian order or the arms of Christ and St. Francis united, recalling the
Franciscan origin of a brotherhood. Others seek an identification that may be more
original but always based on the fundamental elements that remember the biblical
meaning, as is the case with the Ibis stands out to identify the brotherhood of Jesus the
44 Nazarene of La Candelaria. 45
In recent years, religious movements have also emerged from smaller groups that
have brought together members of a residential colony, a village, or a town that
seek, through these, to generate elements that identify them; thus generating models
that combine the elements described or aspects related to contemporary religious
iconography. However, all seek to possess an expression and message that leads them
to identify their group.

All groups are here, and there is a variety of appreciations and of opinions that converge
behind their symbols to create a message of unity, in which each one expresses its own
but leaves room for the dialogue of reunion of ethnicities, social groups, ages, and
genders to meet again through the communication that passion gives.

to the taste and interests of each association, thus achieving an identification between
society, artist, and creation.

These generate a mark of originality within each procession, giving it an identity behind
which various groups participate, sometimes ethnic or social, but all work together
behind their main image to which they pour in different forms and expressions.
 High crosses and candleholders
Although all brotherhoods look for an element that identifies them as such, they
are integrated into a common symbol: the Cross-. It is why, as in any Christian
procession, all processions are initiated with three key pieces: the standing cross and
two candleholders. In Guatemala, these pieces date from the 16th to the 19th century,
including those of the 17th and 18th centuries. All have a particular characteristic: a
wooden base cross-covered with silver, either silver plated, gilded or mixed. They are
generally in the shape of a Latin cross, although there are also those in Greek form;
they include in the center a Christ generally chiseled and sgraffitoed.
46 Among the notable crosses, it highlights the temple of Ciudad Vieja, a town near La
Antigua Guatemala, at whose intersection can be seen an embossed descent from
the crucifix. It was elaborated in the 16th century, as well as several high crosses that
marked the routes of the processions of several processions in the Dominican zone in
the northern region of Guatemala.
Matracas, bell lyres and canopies
Other unique contributions generated by the Guatemalan people around the passion
of Jesus Christ are the matracas (a type of wooden instrument), the bell lyres, and
palios known as canopies that trace the passage of the bearers, facilitate the transfer of
the floats and mark the closing of the processions.
The matracas with wooden handles produce the sound that marks the passage for the
continuity of the road. Crosses with metal slopes form that chiming that constitutes
the most impressive effect with which the silence is broken, and it is said, without any
word: “Go ahead, Gentlemen, Go Ahead”. These pieces were possibly made in the
19th century, but have survived after the tradition that flourished from carpenters, and 47
cabinetmakers, and even today, with the passage of centuries, are still made just as
yesterday, because they mark the pace and break the silence at every moment in the
procession.
Bearers always trace their pace, following the signals of the silence that prevailed in
Lent: the language in which men can recognize a language where generations can
communicate and form an idiom that gathers them.
Our Lent is not alone, is provided with many aspects that from generation to
generation have remained to leave a trail of traces of the men of yesterday, today,
and tomorrow, perhaps because it is based on a Christian message. However, it has
adopted its physiognomy because now it no longer belongs to the Roman church nor
the non-Catholic Christian order; it is a poem that envelops everyone and gives them
the magic with which it annually reminds them of the passion of a Christ who is
for everyone: Indians, Black, Mestizos, and Ladinos. Furthermore, for all the rites,
myths, and forms of veneration because its effects make talk with all its paraphernalia
to the men of yesterday with those of today but mark the language with which the
child is born and grows, rocking their saints on platforms, with their silver sparks,
covered with embroidery because within these manifestations is born the charm of
being Guatemalan or rather chapín in Spanish.
The music of the internal worship in the
Guatemalan Holy Week
Paulo Renato Alvarado Browning

In its popular manifestations, however, the praise is accommodated to a clear

and rather less pretentious mission: that the Catholic parishioners actively
associate themselves with the demonstrations of their faith through song.
On the one hand, we speak of external worship: the huge celebrations in the
temples and the impressive processions that go through the streets on special
dates such as Lent and Holy Week, and about which there is a considerable
amount of documents. 1 On the other hand, we refer to what is properly the
subject of this note, the internal worship: that part of devotion that comes to
life on an intimate scale, in the neighborhood, on the block, in the home, within 51
the family itself. Moreover, of this, by contrast, very little has been written.

Characteristics of the Praise

The praises sung in Guatemala are monodic, tonal, binary, or ternary
compositions, with texts exclusively liturgical or devotional. They can be
harmonized and instrumented thoroughly, although they are usually interpreted
as acapella, without necessarily keeping the strict rhythm in which they have
been conceived. In addition to plenty of tunes of Spanish origin, those may be
due to Guatemalan authors employing European musical and literary patterns
of the 19th and 20th centuries, and their structure depends on their script.
Many of them consist of a verse that, with different lyrics, is repeated several
times. Others take the form of a couplet and chorus, in which a singer leads
the stanza while the flock responds with the chorus. In those traditional stanzas
usually, the couplets are presented in quatrains, rhymed in a conventional
style, with metrics of weak metric -pentasyllables up to octosyllables- or of
strong metric-decasyllables (like the hymns) and hendecasyllables-. In other
words, the praises are religious poetry-made songs in which without the need
for accompaniment, everyone sings at the same time the melody.
 A Guatemalan music

It is evident that, in essence, everything resembles the models of foreign provenance,

but in the details, everything is different from that because of its context, its use, and
its transcultural adaptation. The simple fact is that this music has been played in
Guatemala for 200 years in the same way it is still used today. It has already transformed
into Guatemalan music because of its peculiar tones and combinations.

In the end, the music of the Lenten cycle in this country is music that we can call
Guatemalan more for its idiosyncratic traits than for its artistic peculiarities. Like
Christianity, whose festivities it complements, it is an approximation to practices that,
52 even lately, have originated outside Guatemala. The fascinating thing is that they have
been assimilated and have transmuted to such a degree that, undoubtedly, they are
fully identified with the collective soul of all Guatemalans. This is the spirit that we call
“chapín” in the music of our Holy Week.
Charisma, vocation and heart.
Outdoor music.
Carlos Roberto Seijas Escobar y
Johann Estuardo Melchor Toledo

Guatemala cannot be understood without Holy Week, just as there cannot

be a Guatemalan Holy Week without funeral processional marches. Funeral
marches accompany the processions and are in them, a genre of music in
the country. That is why it is the second most famous type of music after the
marimba because it prepares a community to witness a miracle: the miracle
of faith.

Outdoor music of Holy Week 55

in Guatemala through time
The music of Holy Week processions has its source in the 16th century when
the religions of the inhabitants of the current territory of Guatemala were
syncretized with the Roman Catholic religion.

The music of Holy Week as we know it today dates back to the middle of the
19th century when Benedicto Sáenz, Jr. returned to Guatemala. He had been
studying in France. Upon his return, composed works in musical styles not used
until then in Guatemala. He also prepared religious works for the Cathedral
of Guatemala, produced transcriptions of Italian operas, and translated them.
During this period, compositions by European composers that influenced
the development of funeral marches also arrived in our country. The most
outstanding is undoubtedly the sonata in B flat minor by Chopin. This work
could be presented in its transcription for band in the processions of the Señor
Sepultado de Santo Domingo and Jesús de La Merced. Chopin’s funeral
march has been the official march of the Señor Sepultado (The Buried Lord)
of Santo Domingo for over a hundred years. In Antigua was the official march
of all processions until 1960, when it became fashionable for each processional
to have its official march.

This period also dates the use of brass instruments that previously did not exist
in the compositions of the eighteenth century in Guatemala. Therefore, it was
not until the 19th century that the instruments that can be heard today in a Holy
Week band were completed. Then during the period that followed the Liberal
Reform (1871-1944) the influence of the military bands in the Holy Week
processions can be highlighted. The liberals, led by Barrios, had a disagreement
with the external worship of the Catholic Church. The processions survived
56 this era by using the martial bands of the military detachments or those of the
departmental governorates to accompany processions.
From this period is also Christ the King by Miguel Zaltrón, which premiered in
1932. This march is one of the most famous of Holy Week and was dedicated
to Jesus Nazareno de La Candelaria. Another march called Máter Dolorosa
was premiered in the temple of Beatas de Belén on Good Friday in 1942.
This composition was created by Julia Quiñónez (la Masiste), a character who
persecuted General Ubico’s detractors. It is now the official march of Jesús
Nazareno de Los Milagros.
Valenzuela composer of San and Edvin Quisquinay Alcor of Sumpango, both
from the department of Sacatepéquez.
Guillermo Mendizábal, director of the Jocotenango band in Sacatepéquez,
considers that there are approximately 2500 original funeral works written
by Guatemalans in the country. Guatemalan processional funeral marches
are an extraordinary contribution to the development of western music.
Emerged in the heart of Guatemalan society at the end of the 16th century,
to accompany the processions of the buried and Nazarenes during the Major 57
Week, they became the Guatemalan funeral song and part of the popular
music. Guatemalans have composed almost all the funeral marches except for
some works written by Frederic Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven. Another
famous one is El duelo de la Patria, which is rarely performed because it is
too long. However, in La Antigua Guatemala brotherhoods ask for it to be
performed, although it is not always completed in the schedule that a shift
lasts.

The 20th century also brought technology to funeral marches as radio

transmissions began, which made this musical genre even more popular. 19
María Elena Schlesinger also tells other anecdotes about the radio. They
listened to the TGW program of funeral marches on a “little transistor radio”
and the “radio theater” with the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Currently, new and young composers continue to contribute to the enormous

cultural heritage that represents this musical current of Guatemala and
uniquely identifies our devotion to the Major. We have news of Antonio
 Processional bands in Guatemala
Marches as an integral part of Guatemala

The organization and administration of the bands that perform the funeral marches
are unique. They have the following composition: conductor, piccolo, lyre, gong,
clarinets, trumpets, tenor tubas, baritone tubas, bass drums, cymbals, timpani,
trombones, tubas, and basses. Their number ranges from fifteen to more than forty
musicians in the most sumptuous processions.25 On most occasions, musicians are
dressed in formal attire, with a tie or bow tie, and some companies or brotherhoods
provide them with caps to protect them from the sun during the long daily walks.
The structure of the processional bands has its origin in the liberal martial bands that
follow the European model, which is composed of woodwind instruments (flute and
58 clarinet), brass (trumpet, trombone, horn, tuba, among others), and percussion (snare
drum). Guatemalan processional bands developed their structure by incorporating
symphonic instruments, such as the piccolo, lyre, timpani, and gong, while, unlike the
martial band, there is no transverse flute.
For Guatemalans, marches are an integral part of Holy Week and their lives. Some
listen to funeral marches all year round as part of their daily lives. They listen to
radio programs during Holy Week and like to walk in the procession to the end of
the rows, very close to Jesus. All to listen to the marches and exchange opinions with
their friends.
In every procession float, every corner of the country, regardless of the date, we hear
the musical compasses that paint with multiple sonorities, like the carpets, the walk of
the images, which at the same time give the compass to the walk of the cucuruchos or
penitents who, like the musicians, demonstrate charisma, vocation, and heart, in each 59
step, in each chord.

The art of interpreting funeral marches is passed down, among amateurs, from
generation to generation. In this way, they know the tradition and the scores by heart.
This is demonstrated by the fact that children who are barely seven years old learn to
read and write at one time as they learn to play music. In San Miguel Dueñas, sixty
percent of the villagers are dedicated to this tradition. They currently make up the
Vega Band Orchestra, which has been in existence for seven years.
Sacred places of Holy Week and Lent
Ofelia Columba Déleon Meléndez
y Yuri Asurin Chávez García

In Guatemala during Lent and Holy Week, there is a tradition of elaborating

altars inside temples and some residences. Likewise, in La Antigua Guatemala
the orchards are made specially. In addition to the tabernacles, which are
visited on Holy Thursday night.

The religious 63

An altar is a mound, stone or construction consecrated to worship or devotion.

In its origins, they were simple mounds of earth or stones or a board placed
on some steps, on which some “offerings were deposited and/or sacrifices (bloody
or not) were celebrated to the divinity”. For centuries, the altar was the principal
element of the house, before which the family performed their devotions
and, progressively, they were installed in the places dedicated to the cult and
centralized. These descriptions, given for the western world, coincide in many
aspects of the Mesoamerican cultures.

Heirs of that tradition, in the Guatemalan environment, faithful examples of

religious syncretism are manifested in the manifestations that every Lent and
Holy Week can be seen in private homes and in the different temples, which
exhibit altars of various characteristics.

The artist who makes an altar is the altar maker, who, in addition to building
these works inside the temples, prepares the movable altars for the procession
platforms.
 Type of altars
Curtains. Fabrics arranged in canvases of different lengths and widths are
superimposed on wooden or metal structures. The colors are related to liturgical
aspects.
Of curtain backdrops. Painted canvases, with figurative character in which a scene
is executed, in the center of which the image of veneration stands out.
Domestic altars. Elaborated in private homes combining diverse elements, in the
center, the image of veneration or in a set that presents a scene that moves to the
reflection.
64
The handling of the space, the decorative elements, the depth, and the lighting of
the altar create theatrical effects for the recreation of the scenes, in which the image
of veneration is the center of attention.
Recently, some curtain altars have presented sound effects, such as bird-song and a
river running. Around the wakes where these altars were built, other activities also are
prepared, such as marching concerts outside the temples and traditional food sales
that delight visitors; the communities live a real party.
Wakes
The wakes are ceremonies that take place inside the temples during Lent
and Holy Week. For example, in La Antigua Guatemala, a space is prepared
by arranging a backdrop in which a biblical scene is represented, and as a
central character, the image of devotion, the picture is complemented with
an orchard, curtains, flowers, candles, and incense. The vigil represents an
offering, a tribute to the images that will later be carried in the procession.
Fridays of Lent are preferred for this activity, which usually lasts until midnight.
Around the wake, different activities are developed: concerts, marches, and
sales of traditional food, and represent for the communities an authentic event 65
in which, at the same time, as the religious manifestation, commerce, tourism,
and social interaction are dynamized. Originally, the wakes were activities for
the city as well as for the interior of the country, nowadays, they are events that
last in the interior of the country, and it is there where they present their most
traditional aspects.
Altars, orchards, tabernacles, and wakes are the sacred spaces of Guatemalan
Lent and Holy Week. These are evidence of the religiosity of the Guatemalan
people. Likewise, the creative richness of the artists and artisans who make
them is manifested. Through them, one can perceive all that the believers are
capable of offering in the images of their devotion, not only in the spiritual
aspect but also in the material.
Sacred spaces are unique cultural manifestations of their kind, not only
because of the complexity of elements and representations of the Guatemalan
worldview but also because they are evidence of a historical past linked to a
new generation that lives and values its traditions.
A glorious step.
Carpets of Guatemala
Ofelia Columba Déleon Meléndez
y Yuri Asurin Chávez García

Holy Week in Guatemala is dynamic, full of nuances that impress the senses, is
an ancestral legacy, a mixture of the Hispanic and the native that surviving the
time remains in force within the society that is immersed in the ideological and
technological sway of the twenty-first century, fights for the preservation of
this deep-rooted tradition. The atmosphere is saturated with flavors, sounds,
smells, colors, shapes, and ideas that move a conglomerate that, under the
influence of Christianity, makes this extraordinary celebration an unforgettable
experience.
67
The human component linked to the development of a nation and its
traditions vitalizes each of the activities of the Guatemalan Lent and Holy
Week, whether in the outskirts of the country or the city, allowing the observer,
whether he is an observer or not, the kaleidoscopic view of a society through
its traditional and popular manifestations.

Carpets are a living example of cultural mixing. Although it is essential to

establish their origin, it is more important to know that Guatemalan people
have made them their own and have impregnated them with characteristic
features of their own identity. In Guatemala, carpets are made all over the
country; they stand out for their beauty and majesty and because they are
manifestations of a special and unique feeling that acquires different nuances
according to the place they represent. Among the most famous are those made
in Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, La Antigua Guatemala and the city of
Quetzaltenango.

One of the longest carpets is the one that takes place every Good Friday in
San Cristobal, Alta Verapaz, where a multicolored carpet of varied designs is
laid out along a kilometer, which uninterruptedly descends from the Calvary
temple to the town’s central park. Flowers, sawdust, pine, corozo, fruits, and
vegetables are spread out in colorful harmony, delimiting the space through
 which not only a religious image will triumphantly pass, but also the history of
a people that Christianity has marked.

As for their elaboration, traditional carpets generally include creative designs

in which the use of material elements challenges the creativity of the master
artisans, who delimit spaces and spread a base of white sand of varying
thickness on which they combine elements from the earth, forming a symphony
of designs, scents, and colors, which give body to the whole work. The main
natural elements used are pine shredded into strands, flowers such as statisia (a
type of flower), carnation, bougainvillea, chilca, gravilea, matilisguate, corozo,
and jacaranda. Assorted fruits, raw vegetables, sometimes whole or broken
into pieces, coral, and palm.

68
The flavor of Lent and Holy Week
Ofelia Columba Déleon Meléndez
y Yuri Asurin Chávez García

Gastronomy is a cultural phenomenon that evidence society’s attachment to

rituals, especially, because within the psychological aspect, the ingestion of
food is associated with well-being, acceptance, preparation, and the pleasant
reception of what is indispensable for life.

To refer to the culinary culture of a country means to mention important

aspects of the material culture that includes the preservation of food, its
preparation (which involves recipe books), seasonings, and other adjacent
aspects of confectionery, pastries, and bakery. 71
Gastronomy is also part of the social culture since there are traditional foods
that are prepared for specific festivities.

During Lent and Holy Week, food deeply manifests the rich symbolism it
carries within the framework of the anthropology of food linked to the sacred
dimension. Guatemala has rich and varied gastronomy. Each ethnic group,
each town, and each region of the country has exceptional dishes and drinks
that characterize and distinguish them. Guatemalan cuisine, as well as the
other aspects that make up the traditional popular culture, is the result of the
mixture of pre-Hispanic and Spanish elements. It is a mestizo cuisine.

Among the desserts are torrejas, molletes, hojuelas, dulce de chilacayote or

ayote, dulce de garbanzo, empanadas de yerbas (beet, peas and carrot) and
milk. One of the most principal and traditional beverages is hot chocolate. It
is typical for breakfast on Holy Thursday, especially in towns of the western
highlands, accompanied by bread spread with honey.
72

San Juan Sacatepéquez (department of Guatemala) has an exclusive dish

rooted within the indigenous population of high economic resources, which
contains white beans with dried fish.

In the highland towns, fruits such as pataxte and peach are consumed. In
addition, cacao cobs are brought from the coast to enjoy the bitter sweetness
of the pulp (ancestral food, raw material for chocolate). Other traditional
dishes: pickled onions, and chiles rellenos. Also, refreshments such as horchata
(a type of milky drink), pineapple, and súchiles. Special slices of bread are also
prepared at this time of the year.
Natural tribute to passion.
Flowers and fruits of Guatemala
Juan Carlos Lemus Hernández

Processions pass by leaving trails of incense. The streets have haloes of the
sacrament. Moreover, the days are immersed with a clamor wrapped in smells
of pine and roses, crushed sawdust, green and red anilines, and wounded
particles that still keep the scent of wet logs in the woods.

Every Holy Week, the earth softens in a particular part of the world. In the
waist of America, in the north of Central America, the New Guatemala of
the Assumption becomes a miraculous orchard that sprouts the flowers of
the jacaranda, the matilisguate tree, the flower of sorrows, and the bush with 77
Nazarene flowers.

If Guatemala is a country whose orchards are kind throughout the year, at

Easter, it redoubles its generosity and lends itself to serve as an atmosphere to
provide smells, flavors, and colors in each plant and fruit. The leaves create
sounds when they crack in the wind. The murmur is new music, accompanied
by each step of the penitents of the holy brotherhood that walk silently through
the streets.

Throughout the country, the streets are chained to each other with carpets that
gather flowers and fruits of the earth. Moreover, inside the homes, homemade
snuff crowns the table offering sacrifices to the codfish. The pishtones (a type
of thicker tortillas) seem -even at the poorest tables- dressed in respectful
white mourning as they wait their turn to be a bed of oils and sardines. Corn
congregated in balls of tamalitos, sweet ayote, pacayas, and bananas in glory,
bathing the eyes of the families with light. Nature gives its fruits and shares its
love with the grateful people.
Holy Week in Guatemala:
Cultural intangible heritage
Anantonia Reyes Prado

Holy Week is a commemoration that brings together, year after year, thousands of
men and women, boys and girls, nationals, and foreigners. Being part of the cultural
baggage imposed during the Colony, it was integrated into ours by religious syncretism
and has acquired in the country particular characteristics that make it part of our
identity just because it has contributed colors, forms, flavors, sounds, textures that
constitute a splendorous form, not exempt of contradictions, to remember the Passion
of Jesus.

This festivity has motivated the interest of researchers, but its study needs to be
deepened. Most approaches to the subject have been made from a religious perspective, 81
from the access of folkloric studies or art history, presenting plentiful descriptions of
this expression of religiosity. However, although it is affirmed that it is part of the
national identity, little progress has been made in unraveling, explaining, and above
all, interpreting this social fact as a cultural product, which reveals the historical, social,
and economic context that generated it and that sustains it at present.

In addition to relying on the authors’ approaches, this note is guided by a reflection

on cultural heritage, defined as “a social construct that arises from the recursive and
intersubjective communicative events that occur in a common environment and,
as such, is internalized, sedimented and legitimized within the community itself. It
is a dynamic reality that is constructed, reproduced, and reinterpreted with each
generation, contributing to the sense of belonging and cohesion of the group, in its
necessary and inevitable process of change”. Cultural heritage includes tangible and
intangible expressions of exceptional value from the point of view of history, art, and
science, due to their historical, aesthetic, ethnological, or anthropological significance.
It is a question of answering the question of why a social event such as Holy Week,
which reply to a particular universe of meaning, one among the many and very
diverse that exist in Guatemala, can come to constitute national and universal cultural
heritage and how valid is the effort to declare it as such.
 Celso Lara has expressed that unraveling the meaning of Holy Week would contribute
to understanding the identity of Guatemalans, a pending task since the study of this
notion, so complex, still does not receive Guatemala the attention it deserves, even
though the subject of identity is key to the interpretation of social relations in the
country.
The search for the meaning of Holy Week for Guatemalans could start with the
investigation of the relationship of this ritual, this commemorative act, with other
elements, such as ethnicity, politics, the religious content it reproduces, identifying
the historical, social, and economic context in which Holy Week takes place, which is
different for each of the social sectors involved, and reviewing the participation of the
community regarding the protection of cultural heritage.
82
Holy Week and ethnicity
This commemoration, religious and pagan at the same time, reflects the complexity of
interethnic relations in Guatemala, throughout its history, as Carlos Mauricio Morán
Alvizurez states in his contribution. To illustrate this, he mentioned some facts, each
of which opens many questions in this direction; for example, the reference stated by
Johann Melchor Toledo that in colonial times “representations of Nazarenes were made for
each of the ethnic groups. A white one for the neighborhood of Spaniards (both Creoles and peninsular)
in the church of La Merced, a mulatto one for the church in the neighborhood of San Jerónimo... and
an indigenous one for the neighborhood of La Candelaria”.
Melchor Toledo also refers to how the tension between the brotherhoods of the temples 83
of La Candelaria and La Merced required pontifical mediation so that, in 1677, it was
decided that the processions would take place once on Holy Thursday and once on
Good Friday, and indicates that it was ladino brotherhoods who decided, in Ciudad
Vieja, to change the name of their brotherhoods - a form of social organization linked
to the indigenous people - to brotherhoods, at the end of the 18th century.
Even today, the image of Christ the King, whose burdened gaze to the front recalls,
according to some interpretations, the attitude of an Indian carrying the load with the
tumpline is lifted from its throne every Holy Thursday by porters dressed in frock coats
who are part of a social sector quite different from the one where the devotion to this
Nazarene was born, in a paradoxical fact that calls attention from the point of view of
interethnic relations.
At present, Holy Week is commemorated, with greater or lesser splendor in departments
whose population is mainly inhabitants, despite the possible tension, with different
nuances, between this expression of popular Catholic religiosity and the renovating
tendencies within that religion and the efforts for the recovery of the culture of the
indigenous peoples, which includes spirituality.
 Holy Week and politics
Holy Week, from a political perspective, is one of the commemorations of Catholicism
that was imposed in Guatemala, like the law and language, from the process of
conquest and colonization; it is found in the pre-Hispanic blood rites and self-sacrifice
referents that would have made the image of the bloody Jesus not so alien to the
indigenous peoples, which facilitated its use as a means of instruction.
Haroldo Rodas, quoted by Melchor Toledo, explains that “...the sense of iconographic
strength of the Nazarene was born in Guatemala in a current eminently manager
of a Creole process...” that has acquired a particular ethnic interpretation -for there
84 are Spanish, Creole, and indigenous images-, moved to the 19th century when the
mestizos or ladinos began a period of political and social ascent. The Holy Week
experienced vicissitudes related to the changes of political power in that century:
it acquired a boom in the government of Rafael Carrera and declined, although it
did not disappear -just because of the efforts of the brotherhoods already converted
into brotherhoods-during the government of Justo Rufino Barrios, revitalized in the
government of Jorge Ubico.
Starting from the background described by several authors in this collective work, the
Holy Week we know is the result of the fifties, in the middle of which an image dear
to the Catholic tradition in Guatemala and the region, the Cristo Negro (Black Christ)
of Esquipulas, was used by the ecclesiastical hierarchy against the revolutionary
government. In 1955, the image of Jesus of Candelaria represented liberation from
communism and another; years later, in 1980, in a message opposed to the approaches
of Liberation Theology, highlighted the phrase “I will always have the poor people.”
Holy Week, as the article by Miguel Álvarez Arévalo refers, acquired a boom after the
counterrevolution and had in the 1976 earthquake a motive for the increase in the
affluence of carriers and spectators. The lengthening of the routes, the enlargement
of the platforms, whose adornment is unique in Latin America, and, recently, the
incorporation of technology in the sale and distribution of shifts, in the decoration of
the floats, and the coordination of the processions, are proof of the flourishing of this
religious practice.
The imagined Jesus
The Nazarene image causes emotion and commotion among a good part of the
indigenous and ladinos or mestizos. The cultural parallelism with Quetzalcoatl and
the idea of redemption as a pillar of the Christian tradition seem to combine in this
devotion to the Nazarenes and explain why this image is the favorite of Guatemalan
sculptors, whose work is remarkable throughout Latin America, and why, in the past
and the present thousands and thousands of cucuruchos identify with these faces,
beautiful in their agony and sweet in the bitter encounter of the hero with his destiny,
without worrying about whether the image responds to a Gothic, Renaissance,
Flemish, Baroque, Neoclassical or Romantic influence.
85
Certainly, there is also rejoicing in the celebration of his birth, since Christmas also has
another relevant place in the cycle of religious festivities for a part of the Guatemalan
population; however, the mystery of the Resurrection, a central idea of Christianity
that gives meaning to suffering, does not awaken the same emotion as the Passion, as
already highlighted in 1930 by José Rodríguez Cerna, quoted by Francisco Albizúrez
Palma in his work. The image of the resurrected Jesus is carried in procession through
the temple of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, El Calvario, in Guatemala City.
However, it does not summon crowds like the Holy Burials, perhaps, because on Easter
Sunday, tiredness and the pressure of returning to school and work conquer us, or
perhaps because, in the context of despair in which we live, we have invested so much
energy commemorating death that we have none left to celebrate life.
What feature of our identity would be reflected in this rejoicing in pain, in that option
for that precise moment in the life of Jesus, as tradition tells us? What mechanisms of
distinction and classification have led to this moment and not another, this image and
not another, being legitimized and internalized in a part of our cultural system? What
universes of meaning are expressed in this exaltation of pain?
 Participation in Holy Week
Holy Week expresses a particular form of participation; it is a commemorative act,
which becomes festive at present, the church is the area where the extraordinary
unconventional participation is registered, according to the annual survey of the
Latin American Public Opinion Project, although of course, this includes not only the
Catholic Church but also the Evangelical Church and the multiple aspects of both.
Holy Week is one of the peak moments of the circumstantial participation around
the religious, although the preparation of the processions, which takes several months
of the year, also congregates numerous people from the brotherhoods, who are in
charge of developing other forms of maintaining devotion, such as the daily tour
of the replicas of the image of Jesus de La Candelaria in the homes of the capital,
86 the annual vigil of the Nazarene representations such as that of Jesus de La Merced
in August and that of Christ the King in November, and those of the images of the
Virgin of Dolores in September.
The processions are an expression of occupation of public space; Holy Thursday is
one of the days when the crowd circulates in the streets of Guatemala City due to the
visit of the altars that commemorate the institution of the Eucharist, the attendance at
the entrance of the procession of Jesus of Candelaria, and to the exit of the procession
of Jesus of La Merced. The circulation of vehicles is affected by the making of carpets
and the passing of the processions but is accepted without complaints or claims.
It is a reason for family and community gatherings; relatives, friends, and neighbors
congregate before and after the processions, to purchase and pick up the shifts, to
participate in the arrangement of the litter, in the preparation and making of carpets,
in the traditional lunch or the preparation of the vegetable gardens.
Holy Week can take on simple manifestations -such is the case in some departments
such as El Quiché- or luxurious ones -such as the Holy Burial of Calvary-, but it is
experienced in different departments of the country and has faithful of all ages among
different ethnic, social and economic groups; it is a celebration that highlights the
social stratification of Guatemala, as Morán Alvizurez exposes.
Participation in Holy Week is contemplative and highlights the centrality of the
subject.
Economy and Holy Week
The economic component of this act is not negligible; historically the expenses of the
processions have been defrayed by the parishioners organized in confraternities or
brotherhoods, with funds coming from the sale of shifts, which have different costs and
permanent collections by means of diverse resources.
The sale of shifts reflects, once again, the type of social relations present in Holy Week,
in which the issue of prestige also comes into play. There are shifts for all pockets,
from the very expensive ones, corresponding to the lifting of the platform from its
seat or its placement in it at the end of the day, first and last blocks of the route, the
passage before the places of political or ecclesiastical power (like the National Palace -
today National Palace of the Culture - and the Metropolitan Cathedral, in Guatemala
87
City or the cathedrals and mayor’s offices in the departments), to the ordinary shifts,
more or less accessible for the majority of faithful bearers. The expenses financed by
these funds are very diverse: adornment of platforms, bands, the printing of shifts and
posters, embroidery of tunics -although not every year there is a premiere-.
The population is also, who provides the funds for the realization of the various
manifestations of material culture that make up this festive event and that are detailed
in several of the articles included in this book, such as carpets, orchards, food typical
of the time and tunics.
In Guatemala City, the buying and selling of an infinite number of objects fill the
streets with colors, smells, and flavors, because before the candlesticks and the high
crosses and after the bands, the procession is opened and closed by vendors selling
traditional cotton candy, soft drinks (súchiles, pineapple, and horchata), lollipops, chips
and little flags with little paper cones filled with candy, or the modern pieces of pizza
and cucuruchitos (sponge cones), chips and flags with little paper cones filled with
candy, or the modern pieces of pizza and sponge cones, T-shirts printed with the
favorite Nazarene image and CDs of funeral marches.
 The increasing media coverage of the processions and the proliferation of web pages
on the subject, which are visited by the parishioners even from abroad, speak of the
dynamism of this social practice, which knows how to adapt and use modern resources
to preserve a tradition.
Women and children
An economic study of Holy Week has not yet been made to identify the contribution
that a good part of the population is willing to offer to guarantee, one time or another,
that the great ritual is maintained and reproduced in spite of social, economic, and
political difficulties and to obtain extra income.

In general, the participation of women does not appear in the historical records of Holy
Week. Some names have already been identified, such as Clarita Soto, who adorned
the processional platforms with exquisite paper flowers made by her own hands; Julia
Quiñónez who created the march Mater Dolorosa that still moves devotees, or Blanca
Estévez, Carmen de Valle and Carmen Prado de Reyes, who for many years sang
melodies such as Jesús, yo sin medida or Jesús, Vivir no puedo from La Fuente or
Agnus Dei by George Bizet, for the procession of the Nazarene, or Los Tres Amores
and the favorite, Ave Maria by Franz Schubert, for the procession of Our Lady of
Sorrows.
88 89
Women have contributed to the permanence of Holy Week in Guatemala, being the
bearers of the images of the Virgen de Dolores or the Virgen de la Soledad (Our Lady
of Solitude) or those in charge of dressing the images for the processional procession - a
ritual in which some people have participated throughout a lifetime -, or the thousands
who have generated extra income to their homes with the production and sale of food
and decorations typical of the time.

In fact, they are who, from the invisibility of the domestic space, constitute a
fundamental factor for the reproduction of this cultural expression. In effect, the
experience of Easter Week begins to be lived in the process of primary socialization,
which occurs within the family, where principles, values, and symbolic representations
belonging to a particular system are learned, which are sustained in the affective and
emotional dimension and which are materialized in the daily life of social practice.

This affective dimension is, surely, one of the most important elements for the
reproduction of this manifestation since it is from there that boys and girls of many
places in Guatemala, including those where the population is mostly natives, begin to
identify themselves with Holy Week, from the hand of their fathers and, above all, of
their mothers, who many times without realizing it, build identity and guarantee the
continuity of this cultural expression.
 Holy Week: Intangible Cultural Heritage
of the Nation

According to the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage, “intangible cultural heritage (ICH), the living heritage, is the crucible of
our cultural diversity and its preservation a guarantee of ongoing creativity” which is
expressed, in areas such as the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, and
skills that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as an integral
part of their cultural heritage, including traditional music, social practices, rituals and
festive events, and craft techniques.

The definition also states that the ICH:

90
* It is transmitted from generation to generation;
* It is constantly recreated by communities and groups according to their environment,
their interaction with nature, and their history;
* Provides to communities and groups a sense of identity and continuity;
* Promotes respect for cultural diversity and human creativity;
* It is compatible with existing international human rights instruments;
* Fulfills the imperatives of mutual respect between communities, groups and
individuals, and of sustainable development.

ICH is traditional while remaining alive. It is constantly recreated and its transmission
is mainly oral, its depository being the human mind and the human body the main
instrument for its execution or incarnation and it is often carried out collectively.

Social customs, rituals, and festive events are habitual activities that structure the life
of communities and groups, being shared and esteemed by large segments of them.
Their significance emanates from the fact that they reaffirm the group or community
identity of those who practice them and can be performed in public or in private...
they are conditioned by worldviews and by perceived histories and memories and
vary from simple gatherings to multitudinous celebrations and commemorations; they
usually take place on special dates and in special places. Festive events take place in
freely accessible public spaces.
 Holy Week, in addition to its religious-commemorative role, is a practice that brings
together particular social sectors, where the multiple material expressions are driven
by feelings, one of the constitutive elements of the intangible cultural heritage. Here
consists perhaps one of the crucial deficiencies in the studies on the subject, which have
focused on the material expressions and not on the knowledge of the individuals, their
deep motivations, or the shared subjectivity that moves the offering and penitence.

Holy Week in Guatemala is a rite of worship, commemoration, and expiation, rich

in culinary traditions, detailed by Ofelia Déleon, and in expressions and material
elements, such as the extraordinary clothing -the cucuruchos-; it keeps alive traditional
craft techniques -another area of the PCI- such as carpet making, which would also
have pre-Hispanic roots.

Of course, Easter Week has Spanish origins, but in Guatemala as in Colombia, Peru,
or Mexico it acquired particular features, which prove the dynamism of the intangible
cultural heritage, which reflects in each place the character that its bearers want to give
it, according to their social and economic environment, even natural, their history and
92 their vision of the world. The cultural wealth of the world is its dialoguing diversity 93
and each culture is nourished by its own roots, but it only develops in contact with
other cultures, as UNESCO affirms, adding that this living heritage, called intangible,
confers on each of its bearers a sense of identity and continuity, since they appropriate
and constantly recreate it.

Three expressions of the Holy Week in Guatemala should be highlighted: the

imagery, the music, and the adornment of the platform, the sculpture, as has been
indicated, found its culminating point in the woodcarvings of the Nazarenes and is still
reproduced in the work of the contemporary carvers and sculptors.

The funeral marches are unique in their genre because following European canons,
Venetian for more signs, as Celso Lara has established as well as Spaniards using
instruments of that cultural tradition. They present in Guatemala an unusual character
and dramatic force, achieving a unique interpretation of the pain of the Passion and
constituting a genre that has been cultivated by authors and musicians both, ladino
and indigenous, as Carlos Seijas exposes in the article of this book, where he details
the case of Sumpango, Sacatepequez.

Likewise, the processional platforms, especially those of Guatemala City and La

Antigua Guatemala, must be highlighted, which for their size and laboriousness
constitute an expression that is not found in Seville (Spain), Michoacán (Mexico),
Ayacucho (Peru) or Popayán (Colombia), cities also famous for their Holy Week.