Photos: Easter in Quito, Ecuador

Culture

Mar 31

Catholicism is still a full-contact sport in the Ecuadorian capital.

Quito’s colossal Virgen de El Panecillo statue sits atop a hill where a temple to the Inca sun god Inti once received human sacrifices. El Virgen still observes bloodshed from her high post as Inti once did, but today it comes from the willing faithful, commemorating the one sacrifice meant to undo them all. It is Holy Week, and Catholicism is still a full-contact sport in the Ecuadorian capital.

Groups of dedicated penitents—not priests or monks, but members of fraternal lay orders—called "Cucuruchos," for their cone-shaped hoods, march through the city on Good Friday. The Procesión Jesús del Gran Poder marks the height of Easter festivities, beginning at noon in the Plaza de San Francisco and tracing a circuitous route before arriving at the cathedral a few blocks away. The purple hoods of the Cucuruchos, reminiscent of a certain US extremist group, always alarm a few uninformed gringos, but they take on a certain humor in the guise of a medieval dunce-cap: the curious headgear was originally assigned as penance during the Middle Ages. Passersby were encouraged to berate the wearer who was obliged to sit in the church yard until his sin was expiated.

Despite bands playing festively amid the press of the crowd, the normal background din of nearly three million souls becomes hushed as the Cucuruchos pass the high walls and narrow alleys of the colonial capital. The quiet seems to expand outward from the old city as the usually unconscionable traffic wanes and locals head home to await the resurrection, satisfied that the only deference they need give Inti comes in the form of a sturdy parasol.

Processions of this type trace their roots to medieval flagellants (famously parodied in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). These men, however, are quite serious in their purpose. They walk barefoot through the rolling, cobbled streets of the old quarter in somber reverie. Groups of two or three carry statues of saints, heavy wooden beams, 100-pound crosses, or each other as exhaustion takes hold in the thin air of the Andes. Bare feet burn on the pavement. At 9,000 feet up, the UV index is reliably 10/10. On top of the punishing heat, locals can be seen whipping themselves with stinging nettles, or in one notable case, a cactus, in homage to the Passion.

As with similar Holy Week rituals in the Philippines and elsewhere, it can be tempting to gawk at the self-flagellation and bloodsport of it all, but the reminder that even boring old Catholicism can still demand real stakes of its adherents may cause some useful reflection among the Cucuruchos’ more bookish, lapsed, or otherwise squishy co-believers from points north.

These photos are from 2013, before every phone had a ten-megapixel camera, taken across Easter weekend in Quito, Ecuador.