The Giant Kite Festival 2011 Sumpango

THREE DAY CULTURAL FESTIVAL TO SUMPANGO for THE DAY OF THE DEAD

After months of research and many visits to Sumpango in order to learn more about the Kachiqel  Mayan tradition of Los Barriletes Gigantes, the Giant Kites, it was truly a pleasure to bring a small international group of travelers to Sumpango for Dia de los Muertos.  We met up with Julio Asturias in Sumpango’s central park.  All around us vendors were selling marigolds which would be used to decorate Sumpango’s cemetery.  As in Oaxaca, the scent of the marigolds is believed to guide the spirits home for their fleeting reunion with the living.

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Julio led us to the large hall of the municipal building where some of los barrileteros, the kitemakers, were continuing to work on their mammoth creations. In addition to the months of work which had already gone into the kites, many of the groups worked all night long for this last week before the festival, cutting tissue paper and gluing sections of their kite together.  The kites
would be mounted on bamboo the next day.  Already they were spectacular works of art, made entirely from tissue
paper and glue.  It was fun to meet up again with the members of Corazon Juvenil and this time to be able to publish
photos of their design as well as to see how they had progressed!

This spectacular 16 meter kite, featuring an enormous owl and many details of birds, is the work of group Ruk 'ux Ulew.  Jaguar detail from 16+ meter kite by group Tzumpan

Thus inspired, we headed to a school where we could make our own very small kites under Julio's tutalege.  Unlike los barrileteros, we did not need to work on our hands and knees.  And of course  when we were finished, we had to test our kites from the roof of the school.  

After a delicious warm breakfast with our host family, we headed to Sumpango's cemetary to witness the decoration of the graves in preparation for the arrival of the spirits.  In addition to the scent of marigolds, frankensense is also burned over the graves.  A few children were flying kites in the cemetary as well.

The campo where the giant kites are displayed and those 6 meters and under are flown is immediately adjacent to the cemetary, so it was an easy walk to the larger grounds of the kite festival.   As the day progressed, literally thousands of people would crowd into this area.  But because we were staying with families in Sumpango we were able to see the kites more clearly.  We were also able to witness the awesome task of erecting the kites on the enormous bamboo poles which were specially selected by each group to support their kite.

Some of the giant kites don't survive the attempt to mount them on poles.  Even Julio's group, the innovative Happy Boys, were unable to display their largest kite.  It had rained the night before, the so the kite was damp.  When the group attempted to secure it to the poles, the kite paper split.  Julio said they would be able to repair it using tissue paper in time for an upcoming exhibition at Rio Dulce.  Those kites which were mounted constituted a dazzling, almost overwhelming display of creativity, color and meaning.

Throughout the day, the "smaller" kites, those 6 meters and under, were flown.  The day was not overly windy and more intricately crafted kites crashed to the ground, with a grown from the crowd, than actually became skyborn.  Still a few managed to take to the heavens and stay there.  In an area next to the compo, many other people tried their hands at flying smaller kites.

Certainly after this day I will never think of tissue paper or kites in the same way.  We stayed on the festival grounds while other tourists got into buses and waited for hours in traffic.  The post kite festivities included a concert beneath the cresent moon.  Julio's wife Wilma and their 2 year old daughter, Jacqueline Rosemary, joined us.  The next day we returned to Antigua after bidding a fond farewell to our host Sara, who had so graciously housed us and cooked for us during our journey.