San Andrés Sajcabajá:
The municipio of San Andrés Sajcabajá is located in the department of El Quiché, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Guatemala City. Each year on Good Friday, this community is the setting for an unusual ancient tradition that evokes the fervor of the community. Here, penitents known as gateadores (crawlers) make their way through the main streets of the town on their knees as an offering of repentance and redemption.
At the beginning of their pilgrimage, the gateadores come out from the church at the center of town and offer a prayer. Each penitent’s face is covered, and each wears a metal crown of thorns on the head. In addition, each carries a circle of thorns in the middle of the back to prevent the penitent from standing upright because of the pain that would be caused. Each gateador will be assisted by people who will place rugs along the penitent’s pathway. The gateadores pray in front of each Station of the Cross that has been placed along various streets. Each crawling penitent will perform this traditional task of faith year after year, because each has pledged to do so for a minimum of seven years.
Los Gateadores:
One possible explanation for the reasons behind this crawling penance is that it began with the Spanish Conquest, when colonizers from Spain forced the indigenous peoples to act out the passion and death of Jesus. According to those who believe this explanation for the custom’s origin, it later became a tradition that the villagers have continued to reenact year after year, recalling Jesus’ tortuous path to his death at Golgotha.
It Origins:
On the contrary, some suggest that the beginnings of this tradition might be found in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Maya. There it’s said that, before the creation of human beings like us – the hombres de maíz or “men of corn” – people were made of wood, without reason or consciousness, and because of this, they forgot their gods and escaped, wandering the world on all fours with no clear direction. By praying at each of the Stations of the Cross, the gateadores are reliving the creation (and evolution) of the hombre de maíz, who came to exist after the wooden beings. And there are still others who say that the tradition is a syncretic blend of the two beliefs.
Whatever the true origins of this tradition, each year on Good Friday in San Andrés Sajcabajá, you can be witness to this unique and ancestral demonstration of faith, repentance, and redemption.
