The Tañarandy Festival And The Jesuits Of Paraguay

ASUNCION – Some 15,000 handmade candles and lanterns illuminated the main Holy Week procession in Paraguay, an event that takes place annually in Tañarandy, a small town some 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of Asuncion.

The Tañarandy Festival, or “procession of lights,” reenacts the Stations of the Cross, with groups of uniformed men – known as “estacioneros” – carrying a cross and praying and singing mournful songs at each stop.

The procession, which marks the end of Good Friday observations in Paraguay and attracts hundreds of visitors and tourists, covers a stretch of three kilometers (1.85 miles) through town to a chapel.

The event, which begins annually in the wee hours of Friday morning, this year was notable because it coincided with the 400th anniversary of the founding of San Ignacio, the municipality where Tañarandy is located and the spot where the Jesuits built the first of their missions – small cities known as “reducciones” – in 1610.

For the occasion, more than 100 young people performed a reenactment of the founding of the mission and showed how the Jesuits coexisted with the local Indian population of the region.

The event featured a baroque harp concert and a dance performance put on by the local ballet, while a replica of the main altar of the region’s oldest church was among the props.

In another of Friday’s celebrations, the residents of the village of Remanso, near Asuncion, gathered again this year at daybreak along the banks of the Paraguay River for a “purification” (?) ritual.

One participant, Diego Figueredo, said that he attended this year with his two daughters and his wife to immerse himself in the waters of the Paraguay and receive a blessing from a priest, a ritual mainly practiced by area fishermen.

Good Friday is commemorated with fasting and comes a day after Paraguayans mark the Last Supper with a feast that typically consists of roasted meat and abundant quantities of chipa, a popular local bread made with manioc or corn flour.

The streets of Asuncion, meanwhile, have been practically deserted over the past few days and most shopping centers closed, since in the days prior to Good Friday many residents of the capital travel to the interior of the country to visit family members.