In the heart of the old Collection neighborhoodthe streets keep secret centenarians and the shadows seem to whisper forgotten stories, a legend persists in the memory of its inhabitants.
Legends that according to the historian and professor of the School of History of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, Walter Gutiérrez Molina “They arise and reproduce because there is a need to reinforce a message that is often not written, but has only been repeated.”
This book based on the book For the old neighborhoods of Guatemala City of Celso Lara Figueroa It is the history of the penitents of the collection, a procession of souls in penalty that, they tell, claims to those who dare to look straight ahead, taking them with them to a destiny of which there is no return.
The Penitents of the Collection
Every first Friday of the month, The residents of the collection neighborhood shuddered for fear and uncertainty. Strange noises invaded the streets: dragged steps, unintelligible murmurs and an atmosphere that froze the blood.
No one could explain exactly what really happened, but fear appeared at every step in the corners, squares and the temple of the neighborhood. It was the first Saturday of April and the conversations in the bakery Hopethey revolved around those sounds that disturbed everyone’s dream.
The neighbors commented with each other their experiences, thinking of requesting again to Fray Julián, the priest of the convent, who blessed the streets of the neighborhood, but the Fray’s response was the same ”What happens is that they have the black conscience of so much sin, And that’s why they can’t sleep peacefully”However, no one believed that explanation, because even the most devotees claimed to hear the noises.
José, the son of Nía Tana, returned home after working as a telegraphist in Sololá. His mother and cousin Luis told him about the mysterious sounds that disturbed the neighborhood. Although skeptical at first, the seriousness with which they spoke to him intrigued him. This is how he armed value and decided to wait on the night of the next Friday to discover the truth by himself.
The waiting of the first Friday became long. Heavy Oppressive. Until the night of the feared day finally arrived. The first Friday in May.
After the time of the souls the streets of the neighborhood were left lonely. Not a dog. Not a firefly dared to be present amid the heavy darkness. Closed doors and windows. Nía Tana had improvised an altar in the corridor of the house in front of which he prayed, along with his son and his nephew, a rosary to free them from the evil of the night.
At the end of the prayer, Nía Tina ordered them to lock themselves in their respective rooms. José’s bedroom was adjacent to the dining room, the street door was relatively close. I could leave without anyone noticing it.
He did not want to go to bed, preferred to wait, with growing impatience, the noises that were so rumored to hear.
I would not know what time began to receive strange noises from the street. Le pareció que eran pasos. Footsteps that crawled in the cobblestone of the street, accompanied by an unintelligible murmur. Everything was repeated as they had told it. The heartbeat accelerated. He felt the body and heavy legs like lead, but making a great effort he joined, he left his bedroom and trying to make the least possible noise, he opened the door. What he saw stopped him. A cold sweat covered his body. The legs refusing to hold him shook him nervously.
He had no strength left to faint, what he observed was a column of penitents dressed in black habits walking slowly … very slowly.
They wore lit candies whose flames remained motionless, despite the wind. The penitents prayed with hollow and choppy voices:
“Ingemisco, Tanquam Reus;
CUlpa Rubet Vultus Meus;
SUplicanti Parce, Deus … “.
One of them, one of the last to be exact, stopped in front of José and handed him a candle, telling him: “Have brother, care a lot. Next Friday you will have to return it to me”. José, terrified, took the candle and fell unconscious to the ground.
The next day, Nía Tana found him lying near the door, with a eaten bone instead of the candle. The fever consumed him, and although Fray Julian visited him and tried to comfort him, José could not explain what happened.
They still tell the neighborhood of the collection that the young man remained semi -infonscious and without pronouncing the rest of May. On the night of the first Friday of June, José, in a state of delirium, got out of bed. He took the bone, believing that it was the candle, and went out. There, the procession of penitents reappeared.
With the candles in the hands one by one were parading before him, until the penitent lasts stopped by his side. One carried two candles and the other entwined hands as a sign of the recollection. Este dijo a José:
“Brother, I come for the candle that gave you to keep.”
José lay the bone.
“This is nothing more than a bone, brother,” said the penitent. Have you lost the candle?
The young man shook his head, without being able to articulate word.
“I gave you a candle,” the penitent continued. And you return a bone! You have lost the candle, right? Then you will have to come with us to look for her.
And saying this, he took it by the hand. While he wore him with a black habit, the other penitent gave him one of the candles he held.
“Come on, brother,” he said.
And the new penitent joined the ranks of the procession that had stopped. They began to walk again. The courtship, slow but very slowly sink into silence.
At dawn, the neighbors discovered that José had disappeared. The bone had also vanished. Nía Tana and Luis, disconsolate, moved to the San Gaspar neighborhood, unable to withstand pain and fear.
Fray Julián blessed the streets and officiated a mass for José’s soul, but the mystery was never resolved. Years later, some elders in the neighborhood still swore, on the nights of the first Friday, the steps dragged and the prayers of the penitents, remembering the disappearance of José, who never returned.
What is the story behind this legend?
“The neighborhood of the collection was a place that historically was located on the limit of the city of Guatemala,” says Gutiérrez, who places the setting of this legend in the early twentieth century, possibly before the 1917 earthquake, when the neighborhood maintained its own traditions.
“Existen registros de que el barrio tenía sus propias procesiones, como la del Santo Entierro —documentada desde 1829— o la del Nazareno —hacia 1850—”, tradiciones que, con el tiempo, habrían sufrido alguna disrupción. This break would have given rise to the legend, considering the penitents as an organization with a sense of unwavering belonging: if someone enters, it does not come out.
From there comes the reference of the young man who was “won” by a penitent.
Thus, the legend mixes supernatural terror with a dark community loyalty, where pain and devotion are intertwined without escape.
According to the older neighbors in the neighborhood of the collection, who have had the misfortune of seeing the penitents describe them as chained figures, dressed in old caps similar to those of religious processions, some even scourging, which evokes an image of extreme suffering.
And you, had already heard this legend?