ABSTRACT
In March 2001 quarreling broke out at a municipal meeting in the town of Cotacachi, Ecuador among members of the festival organizing committee for Semana Santa, or Holy Week. The argument revolved around the production of the Stations of the Cross, also known as the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows—the Catholic dramatization that depicts Jesus’ ascent to Golgotha to be crucified on Good Friday. Municipal interests focused on the Stations of the Cross as a major urban tourist event. Urban mestizo actors had traditionally performed the representation as part of the procession on Good Friday. In 2001, however, the director of the troupe of actors was sick and unable to assume the responsibility. This opened a window of opportunity for indigenous catechists to propose a performance of the cuadros vivos, the “living portraits” of the Via Dolorosa, for the general public with a script in Quichua, the language spoken by Otavalan indigenous people in the highlands of northern Ecuador. In response to municipal misgivings that this rendition would not appeal to tourist expectations, the catechists stated that for them this was an act of faith and not tourist production. Catholic priests were caught off guard by this moral conviction on the part of the indigenous catechists. Perhaps sensing a challenge to the Church’s moral leadership, one priest went so far as to characterize the insertion of indigenous elements in the Catholic tradition as irreverent, and threatened to report the other priest to the archdiocese if he supported the catechists. The discussion came to an impasse.
