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Lighting the Way to Bethlehem: New Mexico's Farolitos and Luminarias
| Article
# : |
20042 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1992 |
3,000 Words |
| Author
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Martha Oehmke Loustaunau
Martha Oehmke Loustaunau is a sociologist at New Mexico State
University in Las Cruces. She writes on health care,
gerontology, social policy, and cultural issues, particularly
in the Southwest. |
Noche Buena. Christmas Eve. he weather is mild, almost warm, not uncommon for December in southern New Mexico. The sky becomes a huge sheet of deep blue velvet, dusted by icy sparks that glitter and wink over the desert landscape. As night advances, tiny soft golden lights begin to appear across the land, as if in answer to the heavenly display. People are lighting the luminarias. In the northern part of the state, where snow blankets the high mesas and the sharp air is rich with the scent of pinon, people begin to light the farolitos.
Though the names are different, the customs are the same. Quite literally, farolito is Spanish for "street lamp"--or, in this case, a small lantern usually made with a No. 10 brown bag that is turned down twice around the top for stability. Filled with a cup of sand and cradling a small votive candle, the farolito typically is placed atop a wall, around a flat roof, or along streets and byways. Luminaria has a similar meaning, "that which lights the path or the way," but the translation is more general because the word also is used, especially in the north, to signify large bonfires. These neat stacks of pitchy, fresh-cut pine, crosshatched in squares, look like small, roofless log cabins from two to five feet high.
Though terminology can be a point of contention--indeed, the question is hotly debated between northern and southern New Mexicans--the custom itself is a point of unity. To make matters more confusing, a 1935 article in the New Mexico Historical Review refers to the lights as luminarios, using the masculine "o" ending instead of the feminine "a."
No matter what the debate, all New Mexicans can agree that the festival lights serve an important function during the Christmas holidays. They reflect local heritage--tied to old Mexico and to Spain.
Many Beginnings
The roots of the custom of the luminarias and farolitos lie buried in antiquity. J. Paul Taylor, a state representative from Las Cruces, has made knowledge of New Mexican history a lifelong pursuit. He notes that the origins go back to the Spanish conquest. He explains that the Franciscans who went into Mexico to educate and convert the Indians used the luminarias as a teaching tool. They built bonfires along pathways and on top of the flat roofs of adobe (mud brick) churches, which symbolically guided Mary and Joseph on their journey to Bethlehem for the birth of the Christ
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