Dealing with Death as Bolivians Do

In the last year I’ve lost a lot of wonderful people way too early. Recently, malaria meds have been forcing me to face these deaths, turning my dreams into sometimes funny, sometimes frightening montages of my departed friends. It’s as if Pedro Almodóvar is camped out in my mind. Volver meets Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, with a little bit of Guillermo del Toro thrown in for good measure.

Since such macabre subjects have been on my mind, I though I’d give another little anthropology lesson about a different death ritual, Ñatitas. It’s is an Aymara tradition, rooted on the altiplano and in La Paz, celebrated in conjunction with the Day of the Dead.

Every year, on November 8th hundreds of people flock to the cemetery, carrying human skulls. They are crowned with flowers and offered cigarettes and coca leaves. Sometimes they sport sunglasses, other times sombreros. People serenade them and light candles and at the end of the day a priest says a mass over the skulls.

People take their skulls home and put them in places of honor for the rest of the year. Aymara believe that each person has seven souls, and that one of these souls stays with the skull. Thus, they must be treated well. When they are respected ñatitas will bring luck, protecting people from harm and their houses from thieves. Mistreated, a ñatita can bring misfortune to a family.

Personally, I’m more inclined to believe that having a human head in your house scares off most would-be burglars. I also find it funny that while most ñatitas are family members, others are bought in the black market, or unearthed from abandoned graves. People will make up names for their ñatitias, making them a part of the family.

Thanks to Martin for this photo of a ñatita, which means pug-nosed in Spanish.