Holy Week in Guatemala is celebrated with street expressions of faith, called processions, usually organized by a "hermandad". Each procession of Holy Week has processional floats and steps, which are often religious images of the Passion of Christ, or Marian images, although there are exceptions, like the allegorical steps of saints.
History
The Catholic fervor that currently exists in Guatemala has almost magical and mystical dyes due to the syncretism between the Mayan religion and the Catholic doctrine; it combines elements dating from the old American cultures and from Catholicism imposed by the Spanish in the Colonial era.
Syncretism appears in subtle factors such as figure drawing of a butterfly on the sawdust carpet for a Christ procession, because the butterfly was more than a mere insect for the Maya. It symbolized the Sun -one of their most important deities- and also represented life and the afterlife. That image does not appear anywhere in Holy Week activities held in Spain.
Pre-columbine era
To understand the current Guatemalan Holy Week one must go back to the religion of the Maya, where there were amazing coincidences that perhaps helped the Catholic religion fit more with the beliefs of Native Americans. One of these similarities is that indigenous Guatemalans used a palanquin to transport wealthy citizens and rulers.
For the natives it was not difficult to understand or accept the existence of the Holy Trinity because for them, the creators of this world were three, known by Mayan scholars as "G1", "G2" and "G3"; neither was to assimilate Virgin Mary, because they associated her with Ixchel -the moon, creative life- mother.
Holy Week in Medieval Europe
Holy Week was created in the Council of Nicea -set up by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in the year 325 A.D.- because in that council it was decided when to celebrate Passover and how to calculate the date for the celebration. Subsequently, the Order of the Knights Templar promoted the praise for the Passion of Christ. After the disappearance of that order, -close order fourteenth century - the Franciscans were dedicated to preserve the traditions that had been acquired over time; they were the ones who developed the Via Crucis, one of the most representative aspects of the Holy Week festivities.
The first liturgies were celebrated only among religious enclosed in churches, and sinners were not admitted. Later they evolved into processions where people took to the streets to express their guilt.
Bourbon Reforms
In 1765 the Bourbon reforms were published by the Spanish Crown, which sought to recover the real power over the colonies and increase tax collection. With these reforms, specific trade regulators were created to control the production of alcoholic beverages, snuff, gunpowder, playing cards and cock fights. The Royal Treasury auctioned annually some trade regulators and then bought them, thus becoming the owner of the monopoly of a certain product. That same year, four sub-delegations of the Royal Treasury were created in San Salvador, Ciudad Real, Comayagua and León and the political and administrative structure of the Captaincy General of Guatemala changed to 15 provinces.
In addition to this administrative redistribution, the Spanish crown established a policy to diminish the power of the Catholic Church, power that until then was virtually all over the Spanish vassals. The policy of reducing power of the church was based on the Enlightenment and had six main points: Decline of Jesuit cultural heritage Trend towards a secular and secularized culture Decidedly rationalist attitude Precedence of natural science over religious dogma Severe criticism of the role of the church in society, especially the fraier and nun monasteries. These laws sought to limit excessive economic power of some brotherhoods, their large number, the lack of administrative and fiscal control by the authorities and public manifestations of piety, the latter listed as signs of backwardness and fanaticism, especially those of Holy Week.