The Ñatitas of La Paz: a Sunday between calaveras
The glowing eyes of the pumpkins have barely gone out, the flowers begin to slowly wither over the graves, and a hideous witch's hat flies forgotten the streets of La Paz. They have finished the Feast of All Saints and verbena, squeaky Halloween impostada. Farewell to the dead until next year?, How long after these days together with reverential and sad death? At all, in Bolivia especially in a city like Peace, sordid and magical, merciless and surprising, spiritual and pagan at a time, the feast of All Saints held off the beaten, And it begins when official Catholicism and Americanized kids dissolve. A week later the Feast of Ñatitas and the indigenous majority of the city is thrown to the cemeteries to hold a festive banquet in the macabre and the main guest is death. Welcome to one of the biggest shows of the World.
the indigenous majority of the city is thrown to the cemeteries to hold a festive banquet in the macabre and the main guest is death
Once the newcomer to La Paz has managed to get used to pleasant sensations such as having to walk dragging a pair of steel balls, Your lungs are reduced by half despite gorging on coca tea, or the fact that climbing a ladder causes desire to throw you down and mourn. These and other effects are endearing in some visitors causes altitude sickness or altitude sickness (La Paz is located 3.600 meters).
Once passed, and those accustomed to tour the city and the most picturesque and economic way to do this is without doubt "Mobility". Private vans that travel all over. For only un Bolivia (10 cm euro), I find myself embedded between two gigantic Aymara women and the mountain of papayas that they take to the market. Two boys are shouting the tour and lung exhibit so much power that his "Miraflores Villafátima" just bones taladrándote. The rickety van laboriously climbs the ramps that descend from the imposing caldera that shapes La Paz while spitting and welcoming an endless stream of passengers.
Beside me sits a man with a hat pulled down over his eyebrows and jacket Sunday best. Jealously guards what at first seems like a kind of fishbowl. It captures my curiosity and opens her arms to show me what finally emerges as a Urn. Inside the skull of an impenetrable eyes are fixed on me.
-¡Es Aurelia Chura!, ¡Mi mama!- I presented my seatmate smiling.
When you reach the Main Cemetery of La Paz, located in the neighborhood Villafátima, a whirlwind of color and music engulfs us. Hundreds of Aymara swirling desperately waving their ballots before a parish priest cassock is spreading holy water on these, mumbling litanies in Aymara and Castilian. Joseph Mamani, that's the name my new friend, offered to guide me through the cemetery after Aurelia has received its attendant blessings.
When you reach the Main Cemetery of La Paz, located in the neighborhood Villafátima, a whirlwind of color and music engulfs us. Hundreds of Aymara swirling desperately waving their ballots before a priest
The show is fabulous: hundreds, thousands of skulls on display proudly, almost lazily against the scorching sun Andean. Locked throughout the year in the homes of their owners, the week after the feast of All Saints is the time, their families and taken out of the polls, the cover of coca leaves and tell who will listen the story of their lives. “Here you can contemplate my father Marco Choquehuanca, loved to eat a good meal and fake rabbit silpancho!”. "This is my brother Romualdo how he liked the shop loves tragoaún little walk through the caves of El Alto, still loves to be a little walk through the caves of El Alto!"" My mom Paula illuminated the life of morenada throw their little dances!”. And, in effect, his diligent and attentive son has hired him a whole band of traditional Bolivian music whose members perched on a grave unbridled one song after another. And even the skull of the late Paula seems to sway to the beat of your favorite music.
The tombs and graves are covered by entire families with their colorful mantles, they eat, drink and dance in perfect communion with their ancestors. Little by little, new cigar, in the blackened teeth of the ñatitas, as an offering. I buy a packet of the local brand Derby red and I am handing out cigarettes to some imperturbable smokers already faced with the harmful effects of tobacco. The image straight out of a campaign by the Ministry of Health, but here far from frightening, relatives held every puff of their deceased impossible.
The party continues under the impressive backdrop of some of the steepest peaks of the Andean Cordillera., as Illimany or the Huayna Potosi. Families celebrate with their ñatitas as a member of the immediate family and some babies frolic among the skulls. I can not help but think of the radical difference to our relationship with death. Sadness, distance and alienation symbolized by the burial, is here transformed into joy, celebration and naturally. Which in many, of first, may seem a macabre display, It is not - in the Andean worldview accustomed to religious eclecticism and the duality of the soul- more than a celebration of life through acceptance and opposition to the death.
I sit next to Joseph and his mother Aurelia Mamani, and after offering her a bag of coca Natita and a cigarette in Derby chat with our neighbor. Roman Garcia, tell me, has a small fruit stand in the Tambo on Rodríguez Street, expects the offerings to its Natita help your child to finish his law. Intrigued asked if the skull belongs to a family.
-No, in, in! Of course not, I've bought!
-But you can buy ñatitas?
-Sure, if you know that grave as I said look-winks-. This is called Amilcar, is a law student who died doing the race!I hope to help my son with exams , I had a hard time getting it.
Still shocked by the conversation, I continue the party until late in the afternoon when I say goodbye to José.
-Good continuation of the party! What about the rest of the year where he keeps his mother, Joseph?
-As at home in its box just next to the TV, It colgadísima with novels!
I leave the cemetery and look for mobility to give me back the cauldron maze of La Paz. Even I get to throw one last look that freezing the memory and …I could swear the bottomless eyes of Aurelia just me a wink of mischief!
Comments (5)
Cult of skulls to remember the dead
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[…] Cult of skulls to remember the dead https://www.viajesalpasado.com / the-natitas-of-the-peace-a-Sunday-e… by VaP. nothing […]
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Bernardo Gonzalez
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I lived there too the. It is as spectacular as this article has. Great memories of that time and this trip.
Bernard
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Noeli
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Impressive history of manners.
It has to be special to see all these families celebrating this way the dead.
As you say, Enrique, nothing seems to have to see his concept of the dead lay off and recall with which we have around here.
I have so much time dreaming about going to Bolivia to see the Salar de Uyuni…
Greetings
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Noeli
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I just missed seeing the movie Blackthorn (I love westerns) to know that this country deserves a trip 😉
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Enrique Vaquerizo
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Noeli , the ñatitas, is an amazing show. And Bolivia a spectacular country well worth a visit or lost years there. I hope you post soon on the Salar de Uyuni.
Greetings
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