Holy Week in Guatemala
There are many different traditions in a country that might define its culture. For example, there are religious traditions, family traditions, and ritual traditions. Traditions are beliefs and customs that are transmitted from generation to generation since the creation of the certain society. In the case of Guatemala, there was a mix of cultures many years ago, which led to the culture we share today. Guatemala’s original culture was the native’s culture, but after the arrival of the Spaniards, the cultures got mixed. The Spaniards made the natives adapt to their religion which was the Catholic religion. Today Guatemala is also a very religious country in which most of the habitants are Catholics. That is why when holy week comes every year, a lot of people use that event to demonstrate their religious devotion. But at the same time besides being the obvious time for affirming ones religious beliefs, it is a time for people to get together and forget about things that might bring them apart and have some quality time with the family and friends.
The main holy week celebration takes place in the city of Antigua Guatemala, which means old Guatemala. Antigua is a colonial city that still maintains the baroque architecture in the buildings built back in the 18th century and also does still have the same streets made out of rocks. But what makes holy week in Guatemala so unique is the effort that people put into celebrating holy week. And in this city specially is where the clash between Indian and Spaniard religions happened many years ago. This is why in this city the most important event are the processions. Processions can be described as parades, but in this case they are religious parades. The processions consist of a significant ...