An Ancient Ritual Comes to Life in Nandaime, Nicaragua: Holy Wednesday Flagellants

Holy Wednesday, Nandaime Nicaragua

                                   

The person in the photo above may look like a street thug, but he actually is a participant in one of the most unique Holy Week events in Nicaragua and you will not read about this event in Nicaragua guide-books. Nandaime hosts one of the most original interpretations of Holy Week rituals on its streets  the Wednesday before Easter, Holy Wednesday. This day, to all appearances, looked like a normal day in this small town in the Southwest of Nicaragua town about a half-hour outside of the lovely colonial city of Granada.  

Add caption

The town was quiet, but there was an atmosphere of anticipation and people were lined up along the steers waiting for something.

One tour brochure had stated that at Noon on Holy Wednesday, the church bells ring and "people start making a lot of noise". It turned out that the noise was a part of something a whole lot bigger and extremely interesting.

Santa Ana church, Nandaime, Nicaragua

Santa Ana church, Nandaime, Nicaragua

Above is the town's church, peaceful with its courtyard empty.  Yet, the rest of Nandaime was anything but peaceful that day.  Minutes before, at noon, the church bells had rung 

and a crowd of costumed people, mostly young, had taken off from its courtyard brandishing whips. One can be seen below taking a rest.  The crowd's objective was to hit (and I can personally attest, not lightly) anyone one in their path or anyone they could lay hands on. 

Holy Wednesday Participants, Nandaime Nicaragua

Holy Wednesday participants, Nandaime Nicaragua

The armed horde made two rounds of the town's streets streets and at 12:30 sharp they returned to the church yard and it was all over.  Costumes were removed and there was no more whipping.  The whole event lasted exactly one half hour and despite the seeming free-for-all atmosphere, was very structured and ritualized. 

Yard of Santa Ana Church, Nandaime Nicaragua

The Tools:

Whip used Holy Wednesday, Nandaime Nicaragua

Whip used Holy Wedneday, Nandaime Nicaragua

Whip used Holy Wednesday, Nandaime Nicaragua

The Flagellantes:

Medieval Spanish Flagellante

Self-whipping has existed within various religious groups since ancient times as a personal practice of penance for sins.  Around the 11th century in Europe it became more wide-spread and popular as a form of penance within the Catholic church and was taken up by radical factions within the church, later to be condemned by the church as heretical and banned by many rulers.  These groups of flagellants in Medieval Europe would march en masse through the cities whipping themselves, and bleeding as a public show of piety.  It was a popular movement that cropped up throughout Europe particularly in times of famine or plague; it was believed that self-mortification purged sins.  

The resemblance of this Nandaime participant to the Medieval flagellant above is unmistakeable, with the exception that he had not been whipping himself, but everyone else he could get to. Despite the excitement and laughter, the roots of this celebration are quite profound.

Holy Wednesday participant, Nandaime, Nicaragua

On a much smaller scale, processions of hooded flagellants are still a feature in Mediterranean Catholic countries and in Latin America. Penitential practices are often tied to the church season of Lent, of which Holy Week is a part. Nowadays they are more often symbolic than the out and out self-mortification of former times; the Holy Wednesday event in Nandaime is one such instance. Likely, flagellation was once practiced more openly in the area, and the low-level, time-limited whipping that is a part of Holy Wednesday is a cultural memory of these events. 

Nandaime's Holy Wednesday whipping spree is an accepted part of the towns' culture and more or less taken for granted by the people there as a fun event.  Everyone seems to have a lot of fun with it despite the occasional painful hit.  Although it may look like wanton aggression to the visitor, it is very ritualized and religious in nature.  It begins in at the church with church bells and ends there as well. 

Holy Wednesday in Nandaime is an enactment of the ancient flagellatory practices with a twist- the participants are not whipping themselves, as in the old times, but are whipping everyone else; everyone, willing or not, gets to participate in the penitential activity.   Holy Wednesday in Nandaime is both a remembrance of the old penitential practices and a modern parody of them that stands the old practice of self-flagellation on its head. It is unclear whether or not the mostly young participants in the Holy Wednesday melee are aware of its origins.

Christ After Easter: Cristo Resucitado video

Although Easter, which was on March 31st this year, seems far away and the last of the jelly beans are gone, for the Church it is still the season of Easter until May 19, the feast of Pentecost.  Christ has been resurrected and has not yet given the gift of the Holy Spirit and ascended.  During this time on the altars of all Mexican churches, you will see the figure of Cristo Resucitado, literally Christ resuscitated, the resurrected Jesus. 

Las Monjas, Merida, Yucatan

Itizimina Church, Merida, Yucatan

San Jeronimo, Tlacachohuaya, Oaxaca

There is a very specific and special liturgy throughout Mexico in which the entombed Christ is resurrected.  You can view this liturgy as performed in a church in Merida, Yucatan at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMzCIxbLHWA . (clickable link).  As you will see in the video, at one point in the ceremony the figure of Cristo Resucitado is rushed to the front of the church in a burst of light, symbolizing the Resurrection.

Jesus of Mexican Holy Week

NOT MEXICAN JESUS

The middle-American Protestant Jesus is a generic image-  a nice, kind man perhaps surrounded by children or holding a lamb.  There are also images of the crucified Jesus with details spared and the resurrected Jesus clothed in light. However, the in-between Jesus- tried, beaten and tortured and then crucified is typically left to the imagination, apart from a few cinematic departures. 

The Mexican iconography of Jesus, particularly in the statues that are present in all churches, is very specific. - There are several "types" of Jesus that are related to different episodes in Holy Week, the days before Easter in which the story of the Passion unfolds.
These images are as follows:

• Jesus Nazareno
• Jesus whipped and tortured
• Jesus Crucified
• Santo Entierro 
• Jesus waking
• Cristo Resucitado

Jesus Nazareno, in English, Jesus of Nazareth is the living Jesus who has been arrested by the Romans, tried, beaten and later crucified.  As described in Scripture he is dressed in a purple robe with a crown of thorns on his head.  Some statues of this type have Jesus wearing a purple cape instead and show him seated after he has been scourged by the Romans.  Here are two examples:

Okutzcab, Yucatan, MX

San Bernardino de Siena Church, Xochimilco, MX

 In the figure of Jesus as the Man of Sorrows, He is portrayed in wearing a purple cape, rather than a robe:

San Bernardino de Siena Church, Xochimilco, MX

There is another variation, Christ at the Pillar, which shows him standing by a pillar during his scourging:

Mision San Francisco de la Espada, San Antonio, Texas

Campeche, MX

Jesus Crucified is the Jesus on the Cross after He has been executed:

Valladolid Cathedral, Valladolid, Yucatan, MX

Santo Entierrro, or Christ buried is present in all the Mexican churches that I have seen and is on view throughout the year, but actively used in Good Friday liturgies.  This is a representation of Christ in the Tomb that is also used in Spain in the Good Friday processions.  It is not seen in the US except in churches of Mexican heritage, such as in the missions of San Antonio and similar places.  The "tombs" are generally glass coffins of varying styles and complexity.  Here is my very favorite:

San Miguel Arcangel Church, Mani, Yucatan, MX

At 9:30 pm Good Friday night the Santo Entierro you see above is carried in procession to the cemetery in the town.  All of the Santo Entierros are carried in some sort of procession on Good Friday, although the times and routes of the processions differ. Here are a few more examples:

Cathedral, Valladolid, MX

Cathedral, Puebla, MX

There is a very interesting variant of Santo Entierro that I have seen only in New Mexico; 

this is Santo Entierro waking, as seen below.  If you look closely at this photo  (it is clickable), you can see Jesus' eyes are opening and that his hand has moved slightly. 

Santa Cruz, New Mexico

There is another representation of Jesus that will be  new for visitors from the US.
This is Cristo Resucitado, or Christ after the Resurrection.  Whereas in this country and most of Western Europe, the Risen Christ is show as a luminous human being, in Mexican iconography, there is a very specific representation of the Risen Christ that, historically, is derived from the Roman statue of the Apollo Belvedere. In the photo directly below, Cristo Resucitado is seen standing on top of his empty tomb. Notice the raised arm position of this representation of Christ.

Las Monjas, Merida, Yucatan

Itzimina Church, Merida, MX

The photo directly above was taken during a wonderful Good Friday Night service during which Christ is actually "resurrected" in a burst of light (strobe lights in this case).  This liturgy is done all over Mexico and is amazing to witness.  The Cristo Resucitado statue which you see in the lower right hand of the photo was rushed to the front altar area during the time when the church courtyard, where the service was held, went from total darkness to the burst of light which I described.  

There are other images of Jesus such as the  miracle-working Black Christs. However, these are not directly connected to Holy Week and will explored in a future post.