A la negrita de los Ángeles ya no se le festeja como antes

Abstract

This article is a testimony lived by the author and wants to remember and rescue a religious festivity done in the past with great euphoria and that is not done now as before. The festivity was celebrated in the Los Ángeles neighborhood in San José at the end of August of every year. This festivity had the purpose of honoring a similar statue of “La Negrita” (the Little Black Woman) or Our Lady of the Angels as the one existing in Cartago. The festivity included a novena; a serenade done the night before the main day of the celebration and a procession in the morning of the main day of the celebration. The serenade started at night and lasted sometimes even at the dawn of the following day. This serenade consisted of the performance of groups of “mariachis” (musical groups interpreting Mexican traditional songs), folkloric dances, “trios” (groups of three musicians) and soloists who sang religious or popular songs to the Virgin Mary. The procession was the walk of the statue along the main streets of the neighborhood, but to do that, the statue was taken from the main altar of the chapel and placed in a base beutifully decorated with flowers that was carried on shoulders. The streets which the statue passed along were decorated as well with ballons, papers, paints, plants and others. During the procession, the cart was carried by firefighters, policemen or others and it was accompanied by female children dressed as “jardineras” (children with beautiful dresses and with basquets full of colected petals of flowers taken from the gardens) who walked and threw flowers away, and by children dressed as angels and carried on shoulders too. In the procession, it was also common to see parades of high school students and bands.