LOS AÑOS VIEJOS
New Year in the Galapagos Islands

Story and Photos by Vivienne Mackie

A unique tradition in Ecuador peaks on December 31st. Starting with the Day of the Innocents on December 28th, the entire nation symbolically prepares to enter a new year by burning human figurines in the streets. These are stuffed dummies (called “Años Viejos” or “Old Years”) constructed with paper, sawdust, wood and firecrackers, which are paraded before they are burned. The figures are very symbolic: Burn out the old (and perhaps bad) and make way for the new.

A local lady explained: “Even though public or famous figures are burned (often real bad people, such as ones characterizing Osama bin Laden) it’s not like a voodoo doll---it’s not that you’re killing or wishing to kill THAT person like in voodoo. You’re just using him as a symbol of bad.”

Other local and international politicians and famous personalities or movie characters of the past year are also represented, such as Spiderman. The dummies often have fireworks inside, so they send out crackers and sparks. This can be a fire hazard and in Quito and other big cities it’s officially banned to have fireworks inside. On big streets in Quito, people are not allowed to burn them on the street either---a fire hazard, and the tar can melt and cause pot-holes. But, often people don’t listen anyway.

We were lucky enough to experience New Year on the island of San Cristobal in the Galapagos Islands and to have first-hand contact with these special dummies, which are a big tradition here and very popular. The locals call them ‘puppets’ or ‘dolls’ rather than dummies.

DECEMBER 30:

I walked around the town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, on San Cristobal, and saw some finished dummies, and many in the making. The people make a standard wooden frame with dowels. They then stuff the legs and arms with wads of newspaper, and begin to wrap layers of newspaper and glue, like paper-mâché.

Generally people buy the heads ready-made, and add the body. We saw a couple of shops selling heads---almost always male heads, usually red with black hair but some have black faces. Our local friend Tania said some modern people are complaining about this gender issue. But, on New Year’s Eve we did see some displays with both male and female figures. Some figures have the paper-mâché painted, some are covered with layers of colored plastic paper, others have clothes, which are sometimes burned and sometimes removed before burning.

One group was busy making three figures for the local fishermen’s union. They were working on the union president, who will have a black head. His body will have real clothes, and they were putting on denims while we were there. The actual president came out and posed with his head for me---very proud of his figurine!

At the elementary school the kids had their own ‘año viejo’ figure that day, as there’ll be no school on 31st. The little kids all paraded out into the concrete playground, many of them carrying their blue-clad dummy on their shoulders. The teachers told us it represented the school director. Attached to the chest was a placard saying “Goodbye Cruel World” (in Spanish), with words about the director. The kids were enormously proud, giggling, laughing, waving to us. The dummy was placed in an open round concrete container and, after a couple of kids beat it and punched it hard, a teacher lit it. Punching the dummies is very common, apparently. Smoke appeared, then little flames, before it burst into flames. What fun! The kids all clapped and cheered.

DECEMBER 31ST

We saw more and more dummies as the day progressed. Fishing and diving were popular themes, as were local politicians. Some shops/houses have just one or two dummies, but some set up fairly elaborate displays, like a little stage setting, telling a story of some kind. For example:

--a flower framework with a bull and matador, and people watching the bull fight;

--an Andean music group (which earlier had actual Andean people in costume performing);

--a woman massaging another woman (their message mentioned Teletubbies, I wonder why?);

--the police display outside the police station was huge, including a plane and a man parachuting out. Later Diego, a local professor, explained the significance; it was linked to a huge scandal that recently opened up in Ecuador involving a wealthy man, and the police and military;

--many of the local politicians or local characters are very fancifully and realistically done, on a moped, sitting with a beer, or with ‘friends’.

The interesting thing is that, in the final setting, each dummy/group of dummies now also had a couple of big sheets of paper above or next to it, with a story about, or by, the person represented, and another with a testament of what they believe, have done, will do.

NEW YEAR’S EVE CELEBRATIONS

Locals Tania and Lucy, told us “It’s a wild time”, and we found that to be true, but a lot of fun. Many events only begin at midnight, so people are drinking and dancing all night.

In the early evening most of the shops were still open and A LOT more people than usual (including many indigenous people in their costumes) were parading and looking at the displays of “años viejos”.

Men, dressed as women in black, play the old year’s “widow” role, in the streets, or going from house to house and shop to shop, crying and asking for money for the old year’s (dummy’s) funeral, or for candies.

Around 11:15pm the streets were very busy and the sense of anticipation and expectancy very high. We decided to wait by the police display, thinking they’d burn the dummies in situ. But, of course not, as that could be a fire hazard. So, what they do is carry the dummies to some central places---street intersections, or the middle of the pier--- and make a big bonfire. We watched the one on the pier---started by the police---and it was fascinating; more and more dummies were brought and piled up and in the firelight they almost seemed like real bodies. Palm fronds that were part of the display were also brought, so some of the bonfires got huge!

The town was dotted with blazing bonfires, with different colored flames depending on the paper, paints, and glue used.

As the bonfires died down people lost interest and began to gather at the main town square (next to the school where we saw the kids burning their dummy) where there were seats and bleachers around the edge, a stage set up for musical performances, loudspeaker music, and vendors of food and drink. Large balloons in different shapes and with burning tails were let loose to sail off into the sky---we wondered about that fire hazard!

We stayed to watch some of the dancing and the start of the first show, “Miel” (the Honey Girls), and headed for bed around 2am. Many of the locals stayed out all night, so things were very slow the next day!!