WASHINGTON (RNS) — Ubaldo Sánchez kneels on the street beside his 15-year-old nephew, Kevin, spreading colored sawdust to create a bright blue sky above the figure of Jesus. Since 5 a.m. on this Good Friday (March 29), Sánchez, his family and other members of his Maya Mam community have been working in the shadow of the Catholic Shrine of the Sacred Heart, constructing a vibrant “alfombra de aserrín,” or sawdust carpet, filled with Catholic and Maya imagery.
After the 80-foot-long alfombra is completed about two in the afternoon, some of the 20 or so Indigenous Maya artists, who call themselves Guate-Maya, stayed to guard its perfection until sundown, when a Good Friday procession walked over the carpet, blending the sharply contrasting colors and sweeping that perfection away.
Sawdust carpets are made throughout Guatemala and other parts of Latin America. In Guatemala, they are constructed every Sunday during Lent and for Holy Week processions. Alfombras are a tradition of Sánchez’s Mam people, an Indigenous group from southern Mexico and Guatemala’s western mountains, consider, and he brought the art with him when he came to the U.S. more than 20 years ago.
The history of the alfombras is not well documented, said Yolanda Alcorta, an expert in Latin American art who often collaborates with Sánchez, noting that a 16th century Spanish priest ordered the burning of much of the Maya’s written records. But different theories link the art form to both Mayan traditions of sprinkling flowers before rulers and other traditions brought from Spain.
Julia Sánchez, from left, Mariela Marroquin and Kevin Cabrera-Sánchez help create a sawdust carpet, or alfombra, in Washington, D.C., Friday, March 29, 2024. (RNS photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)
Julia Sánchez, Ubaldo’s sister, said bringing her three U.S.-born children to make alfombras is an important way to connect them to their heritage, in addition to practicing other Maya traditions like playing the marimba.
“The creative work of the group Guate-Maya is a tremendous blessing every Good Friday,” said the Rev. Emilio Biosca Agüero, the pastor at Sacred Heart. “Good Friday is such an intense day, thinking about the passion and the death of Christ, and the beauty of this alfombra is reminding you that the story doesn’t end there.”
The alfombras reveal “the greatness and beauty of sacrificial love and the glory of the imminent resurrection,” said Biosca. “There is hope even in the midst of suffering.”
While about 90% of the parishioners at Sacred Heart, in D.C.’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, speak Spanish, Guatemalans make up a minority of Latin American parishioners among large groups from El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico, Biosca said. The parish also serves parishioners who speak English, Haitian Creole, Vietnamese and Portuguese.
Artist Ubaldo Sánchez pauses while working at Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington, D.C. on Good Friday, March 29, 2024. (RNS photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)
During the creation of the alfombra,