What are the reasons the alfombras are created?
Known as “la elaboración de alfombras” (elaboration of carpets), the traditional construction of alfombras was brought to Guatemala by the Spanish during its conquest in the 16th Century. For the participants, the creation of the alfombras symbolizes their devotion to their faith.
What are alfombras in Semana Santa?
These special alfombras, the Spanish word for “rugs/carpets,” are elaborate street decorations made of colored sawdust, flowers or flower petals, pine needles, sand, rice, or even fruits or vegetables. Holy Week, known in Spanish as “Semana Santa,” is the week preceding Easter.
What is a sawdust rug and where would you find it?
Sawdust carpets (Spanish: tapetes de aserrín) are one or more layers of colored sawdust, and sometimes other additional materials, laid on the ground as decoration. Sawdust carpets are traditionally created to greet a religious procession that walks over them.
What is an Alfombras?
One of its most striking aspects are the carpets — or alfombras — that adorn the processional route. The carpets are painstakingly made by hand. Ranging in designs from biblical scenes to popular soccer teams, alfombras are often created a single spoonful of sawdust at a time.
What are alfombras of Guatemala?
Alfombras are sawdust carpets that are used as street decorations, most typically during religious processions and ceremonies. If the idea of sawdust being used for decorative purposes sounds somewhat uninspired, the end result is typically anything but.
When can you see the alfombras in Guatemala?
Exploring Guatemala’s Vibrant Easter Tradition Each year, Antigua covers its streets in intricate alfombras, or carpets, during Semana Santa in preparation for the city’s processions on Good Friday.
What is unique about Semana Santa in Guatemala?
The Spanish tradition of Semana Santa (Holy Week) arrived with the Spaniards to Guatemala in 1524. Almost 500 years later, Guatemala holds one of the most elaborate celebrations in the world. Holy Week is the week leading up to Easter Sunday, commemorating the passion, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What is the happiest day of Semana Santa?
Which day of Semana Santa is the happiest and most joyous day? How come? Easter Sunday is the most joyous day and celebration because it is the day Jesus has risen. The processions tend to be really happy this day and people are in joyous, celebratory moods.
Why is Semana Santa so important?
Semana Santa is the Spanish celebration for Holy Week leading up to Easter, which dates back to the 16th century when the Catholic Church decided to present the story of the Passion of Christ in a way that the layperson could understand.
Why do Spanish penitents wear hoods?
Capirote are worn by penitents so that attention is not drawn towards themselves as they repent, but instead to God.
Why do Spanish Catholics wear hoods?
The hats, which remind some of Klu Klux Klan costumes, are said to date back to the Spanish Inquisition when prisoners were made to wear them in public as a form of humiliation. The faces are covered so as to allow the penitent sinners to hide their identities.
What do Nazarenos carry?
candles
What is the job of the penitentes?
Los Penitentes were perhaps best known for their songs of worship, called alabados, and for their ascetic practices, which included self-flagellation in private ceremonies during Lent, and processions during Holy Week which ended with the reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday.
How many Nazarenos are in each procession?
The Processions. There are up to three pasos in each procession. The pasos dedicated to Jesus use figures of wood, wax, and wire to depict scenes from the Passion, and are usually covered in gold.
What is a Penitente in Spain?
: a member of a religious society of Flagellants in Spanish-American communities of the southwestern U.S. (as New Mexico) who practice self-whipping and other forms of penitential torture particularly during Holy Week.
What Is A Morada?
: a meetinghouse or chapel of the Penitentes knees growing numb on the stone floor of the morada— R. V. Hunter.
Why was this group given the name of penitentes?
The penitentes formed as a way to keep the faith alive because parish priests rarely made it to these secluded villages. When New Mexico became part of the United States in 1848, the Catholic Church began to “Americanize” and suppress these societies, with their Old World songs and their practice of self-flagellation.