Semana Santa
Guatemala’s Hidden Saints and Public Processions

By Toni Dabbs

Semana Santa has been called the biggest holiday in Guatemala, the most beautiful religious celebration in the Americas, and the largest Holy Week observance in the Western Hemisphere. Beginning on Palm Sunday and continuing through Easter Sunday, it is best known for its colorful religious processions.

Processions in Antigua

Although Semana Santa is celebrated throughout Guatemala in even the smallest towns and villages, the biggest festivities take place in the former capital city of Antigua, where processions were held as early as the 1500s. After a massive earthquake destroyed much of Antigua in 1773, the government decided to move the capital to Guatemala City and ordered the removal of all important religious relics and art from Antigua’s churches to those of the new capital.

To prevent significant religious statues from being taken away, Antigua’s cofradias (religious brotherhoods, usually devoted to specific saints) took their statues from the ruined churches and hid them, worshiping them in secret for generations thereafter.

Most of the cofradias disassociated themselves from the Catholic clergy to become lay brotherhoods, called hermandades. These organizations grew in power and influence during the 19th century, despite an 1872 presidential decree outlawing them. In the early 20th century, the government lifted the ban on cofradias and hermandades, and the brotherhoods revived the tradition of displaying their long-hidden saint statues in Holy Week processions.

Today, Antigua’s Semana Santa processions feature huge platforms, called andas, on which religious statues are mounted. The first platform, holding a figure of Christ with a cross, is carried by 60 to 100 men, called cucuruchos, dressed in purple biblical clothing. This is followed by a platform with the Virgin Mary, born by women wearing black mourning.

The same people often carry a particular float year after year, but bearer shifts are open to everyone weeks in advance of a procession. All bearers pay a small fee to the church for the privilege, and the money is used to dress the saint in richly textured fabrics and decorate the float with flowers.

Many bearers are doing penance and seek atonement by carrying the heavy platform. Bearers generally take turns, because a procession can take hours to complete its course.

Purple bows tied onto window ironwork mark a parade route, with temporary carpets covering the cobblestone street below. The handmade carpets, called alfombras, display detailed pictorial and geometric designs made of flower petals, pine needles, dyed sawdust and colored sand.

Hundreds of parishioners will work overnight to create an alfombra often several blocks long in front of a church or along a procession route. In addition, people who live along a route create their own alfombras on the street in front of their homes.

The feet of the bearers destroy these elaborate but fragile works of art as the procession passes. Spectators sometimes collect flower petals or pine needles touched by a procession, believing that they possess healing powers. For the most part, though, the remains of the carpets are swept away during the night, leaving no trace.

Antigua’s best processions take place on Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

Cult of Maximon

In the highlands of Guatemala, a curious holdover from the time of hidden statues and the country’s ban on cofradias persists. This is the cult of Maximon in the town of Santiago Atitlan.

Although of unknown origin, Maximon is said to be a manifestation of the Mayan god Mam, who reigned over the five day period between the end of one year and the beginning of the next and who was represented as a wooden doll dressed in human clothes. When Catholicism was superimposed over Mayan beliefs during the 16th and 17th centuries, Mam became integrated with St. Simon. His name is a combination of max, the Mayan word for tobacco, and Simon. For this reason, he is represented with a large cigar between his lips.

The Santa Cruz cofradia is responsible for taking care of the wooden statue of Maximon, which spends the year "hidden" in the home of one of its members. Pilgrims and even tourists have no trouble finding Maximon, though. He is seated in a place of honor in his attendant’s home, surrounded by flickering candles and burning incense, offerings of cigarettes, cusha (corn alcohol) and money at his feet. Followers visit him to ask his help in resolving health, love, family and economic problems. It is considered a serious breach of ettiquette to come and leave nothing.

On the Monday of Holy Week, the statue’s attendant carries it to the shore of Lake Atitlan, where Maximon’s clothes are washed on two specific boulders, as they are once a month throughout the year. The attendant bottles the water wrung from the clothes and gives it to followers, who consider it an antidote to sadness, fear and witchcraft.

The next day, the new attendant for the coming year collects the statue’s clothes and ceremoniously dresses Maximon before assembled members of the Santa Cruz cofradia. The statue’s attire includes both traditional highland Guatemalan and European clothing, with numerous silk scarves and a couple of felt hats.

Newly clothed, Maximon is presented gifts by cofradia members and is placed in a small chapel, where he remains until after 3 p.m. on Good Friday. He then is carried on the shoulders of his new attendant to participate in a Semana Santa procession. As he leaves the chapel, a giant rattle creates a deafening racket, and outside, a sea of men wearing straw hats parts to let him through.

In the Semana Santa procession, Maximon is positioned behind the statue of Christ but before that of Mary. After being paraded proudly through the streets of Santiago Atitlan, he is conveyed to the home of his new attendant, where he will spend the coming year receiving visitors.

Toni Dabbs is a regular contributor to The Cultured Traveler