Children's Wakes

Velorio del Angelito

Background

One of the aspects of Andes culture (which extends to South America in general, and even parts of Spain) that is most foreign to those living in Anglo-American society is that of the festive wake. When a child dies, there is no quiet remembrance after the fact. Instead, a party — sometimes a very wild party — is held. Alcohol is served, and singing and dancing permeate the atmosphere. The child is crowned (a tradition which extends back into antiquity), and sometimes even brought from house to house throughout the community. This may seem macabre, and even of dubious taste, to other Western cultures. For that matter, it may even seem strange to many Westerners that infant mortality is something which occurs often enough to develop its own specific tradition, but that is the reality of life in some rural parts of Central and South America. What is important to know is that behind the festive wake is a strong religious, philosophical, and logical foundation that has been established for centuries.

Within the Northern Andes of Ecuador, the rite is called “wawa velorio,” which is a term that syncretically mixes the Quichua word for “baby” (wawa) with the Spanish word for burial or wake (velorio). The ritual takes on other names in other cultures, such as velorio del angelito or baquiné — the latter being the name given to it by those in the Caribbean. The reason behind the celebration is that according to their interpretation of Catholic doctrine, because a baby is pure and cannot have sinned, he or she automatically goes to heaven as an angel. The Quichua bring their native religion into the mix by referring to their destination as “the Sky,” which has broader connotations in their pre-Catholic society. While other people — ranging from good to the criminal — must go through varying degrees of purgatory, by which they are redeemed and purified in order to enter God’s company, the angelito (little angel) is spared such trials and tribulations simply by their baptism.

Bárbara Martinez writes about the importance of the veloria tradition as a vehicle for the progression of death as a process and as a social phenomenon. Separate from biological death, social death is the acceptance by the community of the loss of the individual who has died. Sometimes it happens before a person dies. In the Quichua communities, they have signs established for when a person is about to pass. In other instances, sometimes if someone does something reprehensible, they have undergone social “death” because everything in their interpersonal relationships has changed. In the case of the velorio del angelito, the death of a child changes the social structure, and the celebration helps soften the blow and ease the transition into the new state.

Art

Various artists have interpreted the festive wake in their works. Even some within the cultures where they occur deride the occasion as simply an excuse to party. A few portray it as chaotic and embarrassingly uninhibited. In "El Velorio" by Francisco Oiler y Cestero, the participants eyes are grotesquely wide-open, and have a glazed-over look to them. Their smiles appear forced and frightened, not at all a product of genuine celebration. People are jumping and drinking (one man bottoms-up with his mug), while a morbid tallow-colored deceased baby lies on the table. Ironically, the living children appear neglected, sitting crying in the corner, isolated from the raucous celebration occurring in the rest of the room.

Meanwhile, some paint an opposite, and just as partial, picture. Gustave Doré depicts a very somber party in his etching, with the mother weeping next to her child. There are musicians playing, but there is no fervor, and no one appears to be celebrating. Part of the difference may be that the celebration he is capturing is occurring in Spain rather than South America.

One more example is Arturo Gordon's interpretation of velorio, which is in a style more akin to impressionism. People's expressions are unclear, and his painting does more to evoke a feeling of home and family than an opinion on the velorio. Gordon's art depicts what is, rather than what he interprets it to be.

Either way, art is interesting in that it is only one person’s impression of the event, not the reality or the typical trends of behavior. In all likelihood, there was an atmosphere of sadness and loss at these celebrations, but on the other hand, the celebration was probably still the overwhelming force that kept people awake from dusk until dawn. Some who may not have been particularly attached to the child or the family may have gotten carried away, but it seems impossible that those close to the child weren’t to some degree just trying to keep a stiff upper lip.

Music

Among the Quichua, harp music is an important element of their rites for a child’s passing. In Worlds of Music, John M. Schecter narrates the evening he followed a Quichua harpist to a wawa velorio. The harpist plays two kinds of pieces of music: one called a vacación, which is wholly instrumental and has a free-flowing feel, and one called a sanjuán. Schecter contrasts the vacación from the sanjuán, another Quichua genre of music which is characterized by a strict meter, and which includes a vocalist (called a golpeador). The sanjuán is played through most of the night as a piece for people to drink and dance to, but the vacación is played at the beginning of the wake and when people gather around the departed child to keep demons and evil spirits at bay.

The sanjuánes which Sergio plays are of light subject matter; they are pop songs. He spends the night shouting to people, encouraging them to dance. In a sense, he is the one keeping the party going all night long. He finally plays a lament for the mother as she says goodbye to her child one last time in the morning. After a cathartic night of passion, it is time for the process of death and grieving to continue. The celebration of their child’s ascension to heaven is complete, and now, at least in a sense, life can go on.

Martinez, Bárbara. “Death as a Process: An Anthropological Perspective.”Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 18, no. 9 (2013): 2681-2689. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1413-81232013000900023&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en

Schechter, John M. “Divergent Perspectives on the Velorio del Angelito: Ritual, Imagery, Artistic Condemnation, and Ethnographic Value.” Journal of RItual Studies 8, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 43-84. http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=4eff756e-1ed4-44d0-bb9c-095c983d3469%40sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=128

Schechter, John M. "Latin America/Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru." In Worlds of Music, edited by Jeff Todd Titon, Timothy J. Cooley, David Locke, David P. McAllester, Anne K. Rasmussen, David B. Reck, John M. Schechter, Jonathan P.J. Stock, and R. Anderson Sutton, 415-471. Belmont, CA: Schirmer Cengage Learning, 2009.