Via Dolorosa

Every year, in the colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, the "sorrowful way" of Good Friday is recreated by a path of colored sawdust and flower petals. Along this road several hundred people take turns carrying a ponderous mahoganybier. Indians from the surrounding countryside come to observe the spectacle of townspeople garbed in Biblical and Roman military uniforms. although some elements from this kind of procession have been borrowed by the Maya villagers, the contrast between the Spanish formality of this urban Via Dolorosa and the syncretic, lively, Indian festivities such as those in Tajimoltik could not be more striking.