A woman places a cigarette on a ñatita in the General Cemetery of La Paz on November 8, 2024, on the occasion of the annual celebration of the Fiesta de las Ñatitas in Bolivia.
AIZAR RALDES
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For more than three decades, every November 8 in Bolivia, Carmen Rejas arrives at the General Cemetery of La Paz accompanied by Ana and Susana, two unearthed skulls that she adorned with flower crowns to celebrate the Fiesta de las Ñatitas.
The “ñatitas” – as they call human skulls – are venerated in this predominantly Catholic city in a rite that combines ancestral indigenous traditions with the Christian religion.
Susana was a friend of Rejas’s family. Ana helped raise the two children of this 67-year-old pastry merchant, who keeps their skulls in her home.
“Before, in this place, those from the mayor’s office would remove all kinds of ‘ñatitas’. They were for adoption. If you wanted, you could take one,” he remembers.
In Bolivia, remains deposited in temporary niches are exhumed every five years if no one claims them. They are cremated, buried in mass graves or donated.
“We simply ask for them” before they throw them away, she says about the skulls of her friends, whom she asks to take care of her family.
There are devotees who also tell AFP that they have obtained them by desecrating graves or buying them clandestinely.
Women sit next to ñatitas (human skulls) in the General Cemetery of La Paz on November 8, 2024, on the occasion of the annual celebration of the Fiesta de las Ñatitas in Bolivia.
AIZAR RALDES
Although the festival has an uncertain origin, it is presumed to be indigenous. Its devotees believe that the skulls protect their homes and that is why they must pay tribute to them in the cemetery once a year, on the occasion of the celebrations of the dead that extend throughout Latin America in November.
Attendees offer them flowers, coca leaves, cigarettes, food and live music.
The mayor of La Paz, administrator of the cemetery, has also arranged dozens of unearthed skulls for this celebration, Érika Andara, executive director of municipal cemeteries, told AFP.
In 2008 the Catholic Church condemned this cult because it was not in accordance with Christian faith and actions. But the crowd has imposed its beliefs, while still demanding a religious blessing.
Dentist Edgar Santos, 54, shows the heads of José María and Alexandra.
He got the first one when he was young in Achocalla, 50 minutes from La Paz, for his university studies. “Early one morning my brother and I went. We took the skull out of an empty niche,” he explains.
The second was bought by his daughter, a dental student, for $100.
“Today cemeteries have more control (…) At this time it is difficult to obtain these skulls,” says Aranda, director of the cemetery.
