Por favor habla despacio.

Semana Santa (Holy Week)

Palm Sunday

We kicked off Holy Week with Felipe´s favorite pastime... shopping! Chichicastenango (a 3 hour shuttle ride from San Pedro) is the home of the largest open-air market in Central America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichicastenango
Next to the market is the 400-year old church of Santo Tomás. It was built atop a Pre-Columbian temple platform, and the steps originally leading to a temple of the pre-Hispanic Maya civilization remain venerated. K'iche' Maya priests still use the church for their rituals, burning incense and candles. In special cases, they burn a chicken for the gods. Each of the 18 stairs that lead up to the church stands for one month of the Maya calendar year.

Santiago la Laguna - Maximón

The Wednesday of Holy Week we took a boat to the village of Santiago to see the procession of Maximón. Maximón is a folk saint with expensive tastes in alcohol and cigarettes (I´ve included information from wikipedia below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim%C3%B3n

Maximón (pronounced maa-shee-MOHn) is a folk saint venerated in various forms by Maya people of several towns in the highlands of Western Guatemala. The origins of his cult are not very well understood by outsiders to the different Mayan religions, but Maximón is believed to be a form of thepre-Columbian Maya god Mam, blended with influences from Catholicism. It has been suggested that the name Maximón is a combination of Simón and Max, the Mam word for tobacco. The legend has it that one day while the village men were off working in the fields, Maximón slept with all of their wives. When they returned, they became so enraged they cut off his arms and legs (this is why most effigies of Maximón are short, often without arms). Somehow he became a god following this, perhaps he was possessed by the god prior. Where Maximón is venerated, he is represented by an effigy which resides in a different house each year, being moved in a procession during Holy Week. Worshippers offer money, spirits and cigars or cigarettes to gain his favour in exchange for good health, good crops, and marriage counseling, amongst other favours. The effigy invariably has a lit cigarette or cigar in its mouth, and in some places, it will have a hole in its mouth to allow the attendants to give it spirits to drink. The worship of Maximón treats him not so much as a benevolent deity but rather as a bully whom one does not want to anger. His expensive tastes in alcohol and cigarettes indicate that he is a very human character, very different from the ascetic ideals of Christian sainthood. Devotees believe that prayers for revenge, or success at the expense of others, are likely to be granted by Maximón.^[2]An interesting aspect of Maximon in the town of Santiago Atitlan is that of the lure of Maximon's laundry water. During the year preceding Easter week when Maximon's clothing is washed, the waste water is saved and distributed to local shop keepers. These vails of gray, waste water are then sold to locals. The idea is that when sprinkled around the threshold of the shop doorway, the waste water will entice customers into the shop to make a purchase.

The procession of Maximón goes through Santiago´s crowded market. That day the market was crowded with people selling fowl. Traditionally the families kill and clean their chickens or other fowl on Wednesday of Holy Week in preparation for the traditional lunch on Thursday afternoon.

The pre-Good Friday parade of children from the Catholic school

Before school lets out for the holiday, the children in the Catholic school parade through the streets... it´s a smaller version of the Good Friday procession below, but it still brought out the guys with guns!

Good Friday

My teacher Andrea informed me about all of the beautiful alfombras (carpets) made for the procession on the morning of Good Friday. She advised that I take photos at 7am before the streets were too crowded...she was right, of course. The entire route of the procession is covered in these alfombras, which are made the night before and the morning of the procession from sawdust, maize, fruits, vegetables, leaves, pine cones, old egg cartons, feathers, flower petals, etc. The route is about three city blocks. There are a few shots below, but you can see more here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kqt77kvmjffsfzk/MiCP--LZrB/Alfombras¨