Salt Rugs

Last year El Zachador and Yaneth showed me pictures of the salt rug they’d made during Semana Santa (Holy Week).  They live in Sonsonate, out west, the center of the salt rug tradition in El Salvador.  On Good Friday people take colored salt out to the street and make paintings with it, of Jesus on the cross or carrying it, the Divine Child, the Holy Family, the Holy Spirit (as dove), or whatever else they come up with.  The rugs in Sonsonate are detailed and quite beautiful. 

 

Last year I didn’t see any salt rugs in my village, although there was one crude sawdust rug.  They only recently started doing the full gamut of Easter ceremonies here in the caserío a few years ago, and they’re still developing them.  Every Friday during Lent there’s a procession through the Stations of the Cross, then several during Semana Santa, and a big one on the evening of Good Friday.  For this, the main procession, people made salt rugs this year!

 

To depart from rugs for a moment, I’ve realized that Latin American communities are set up according to a sacred geography.  In the center of town, of course, there’s the church with a park in front of it.  But somewhere along the edges of town there’s almost always a little chapel called El Calvario—the Calvary, or Golgotha, the hill where Jesus was crucified.  Sometimes the neighborhood around El Calvario is named after it.  During the Vías Crucis, the Stations of the Cross processions, the people make small altars for each station along the way from the church to El Calvario.  Thus they symbolically turn their own community into Jerusalem, with Calvary on the outskirts.  Here in my community I realized I live right next to El Calvario, which is no chapel, but rather a tiny knoll with a giant mango tree on it and three crosses at the tree’s base. 

 

My neighbor Niña Fermina takes responsibility for keeping the area around our mango tree Calvario swept and neat for the Friday processions, which I helped with.  And when I found out she was planning to make a salt rug for the Good Friday procession, I got really excited.  It turned out, though, to be more of a multimedia performance art rug than a simple salt rug.  I helped make it, following directions and being amused by the aesthetic arguments between Niña Fermina and her son. 

 

The central piece was a drawing of a dove done by a kid, which doesn’t show up well in the photo, although you can see the rays of brown salt extending out from it.  Above were mountains and water made with colored salt and green wood shavings.  Below it said “Christ / Light of the World” in red salt.  Scattered around were flowers and designs of soap foam.

 

 

Here we see the multimedia performance art rug in its full glory, with sparklers blazing and a walkway lined with flaming alcohol-soaked salt mounds, ready for the procession’s arrival.

 

Here is the centerpiece of the procession: Jesus lying in a tomb-like box, lit up from within, for some reason carried by the shortest men in the community (perhaps to afford a better view inside).  The guy in the black shirt is Chiky, whose name I like because it’s the name of a delicious brand of chocolate-enrobed cookies.

 

 

There were other salt rugs at most of the other Stations of the Cross.  Below is one example.  The text reads, “I am the bread of life.”  The level of elegance and expertise isn’t up to Sonsonate standards, but it’s a pretty exciting tradition to start in the community!  And perhaps the giant expenditure of salt will encourage the cooks here to go easier with it in their meals.