New Year Glow

At dawn, still simmering is last year's remains . . . My hope is a glorious 2019 for all!


"I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post mortems; and remember, no one can get the jump on the future." 
~ Carl Sandburg


Backstory: One of Cuenca, Ecuador’s most dramatic traditions is the year-end burning of dummies. When the clock strikes midnight, thousands of dummies will be set ablaze in city streets. Many more will burn earlier.


Most dummies, called año viejos because they represent the old year, are made of cloth and filled either with sawdust, ground cardboard, straw, or leaves. The dummy faces are masks representing everyone from presidents, city councilmen, and cartoon characters to wayward family members. Most of the masks are paper maché and hand-made and sell for $2 to $5 at many locations around town.


The dummies’ stuffing occasionally contain firecrackers and Chinese rockets which are set off during the immolations. These sacrificial offerings do not go gently into that good night.


Many of the dummies are works of art, but foreigners who want to rescue one from the pyre for their living rooms should choose carefully. Some dummies are filled with vegetable matter or even barnyard manure and tend to make unsavory house guests.


The dummy tradition dates back more than a century but its origin is largely a mystery. Although it is often claimed that the Ecuadorian practice began in 1895 in Guayaquil, following an epidemic, when the dead were burned in large pyers, others say the tradition goes back further, to the early 1800s in Cuenca.


Several history books report that the practice combines ancient Andean ritual with Spanish rites of the 1700s, most likely connected with the Feast of St. Joseph. Although it began in Ecuador, the tradition was spread, reportedly by Catholic priests and monks, to other Latin American countries.


The meaning of the event seems simple enough: out with the old and, we can assume, in with the new. The dummies become the embodiment of disappointments, pain and frustrations from the old year, and the burning the symbolic catharsis and purification. For good measure, many celebrants jump over the burning or smoldering dummies three times at midnight.


Resource: Cuenca High Life