In Cotacachi, the spaces of civic participation are: The Assembly of Cantonal Unit (AUC), Council of Development and Administration (CDG) and Intersector Committees, in which participate the organizations and the citizenship in a direct way and/or through their representatives.

The CDG is the executive instance of the Assembly of Cantonal Unit. One of its responsibilities is the execution of the resolutions taken in this space. It is integrated by the UNORCAC, Neighborhoods Pre-federation, Intag Parochial Meetings Council, Women representatives of the three areas, childhood and cantonal youth representatives, artisans, Municipality of Cotacachi Local Government; in total, 16 members.

This imperfect experience of citizenship construction begun in the Cotacachi canton, has allowed the trust of the citizenship and institutions that better the processes. It is as well as IBIS-DENMARK is constituted in one of the first organisms that signs an agreement directly with the CDG in December of 2001, to execute the CONSOLIDATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC AND INTERCULTURAL ADMINISTRATION PROJECT, with a duration of 10 months. However we cannot ignore the political will of the Municipality of Cotacachi Local-Government and of the UNORCAC that contributed to the subscription of the agreement.

"The operation of the CDG has consolidated participation of the democratic citizen of the indigenous organization in the local development, and has strengthened the process of intercultural relationship among the territorial actors of the Canton: Andean communities of the town Kichwa, urban neighborhoods and peasants of the subtropical area". It is erected in the objective of the project.

The Holy Week constitutes the celebration which is visualized the inter-culturality of the people that inhabit the Canton. Regrettably as time went on, it was losing its real content, ending in distorted practices and even in social pathologies. Reason for which the Commission of Culture of the Cantonal Assembly is working in the formulation of politics allowing to recover and to revitalize the different cultural manifestations of the ethnoses: indigenous, mestizo, and black; for which information has been gathered by means of surveys.

This work is put into consideration of the organizations, institutions and citizenship, aspiring that the same ones contribute to activate the discussion and investigation that has come to less, and allow us to be project ourselves into a human development with identity.

Dr. Patricia Espinosa
PRESIDENT OF THE CDG

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Since the colonial time or the sixteenth century, two different cultures merged in America to give origin to a new cosmovision made up of aboriginal and european elements. An indigenous society with a practice of rituals not only related to the cycles of human life and nature, but also with the necessity of strengthening relationships and social values. It assumes and recreates this new way of conceiving the world and a range of symbols are expressed in the everyday, sacred things.

The Holy Week is a Catholic ritual of religious manifestations that were introduced in the Spanish conquest to America. It imposed new symbols that recreated aboriginal rituals.

In a new world where the language hindered the communication, the conquerors transferred to America theatrical representations of religious episodes to secure the evangelizing processes. Also, they regulated the participation of the natives (processions), invested personages (gentlemen) and delegated functions (brotherhoods) Caillavet 2000.

Thus, the Holy Week was constituted in a religious party which historically the indigenous society was first, and later on the mestizo society. They expressed in their celebration a group of symbols and sacred beliefs that exhort the spirit of devotion and energizes social relationships of coexistence.

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The aboriginal societies before the Spanish conquest manifested social practices with a sacred dimension. To celebrate the pass over from an age to its next age, it meant to recognize and to point out in the members of a community a sexual stage, the loose hair in this case was an important expression of femininity. Caillavet 2000.

In Cotacachi, the ritual step of the femininity can be evidenced with the presence of the "guioneras" (guiders) in the Holy Week. Women that pass to the age of the fertility. This celebration is bound to the spring equinox, time in which the nature also demonstrates its fertility, the plants flourish, the first seeds are born, it means that it is the time of the life. It is interesting to find in the celebration of the Holy Week the persistence of the cult to the femininity in the indigenous society.

The women that are guioneras by their parents' will, say that they are "PASANDO GUIONERA", it means that they are celebrating the step from an age to another. For this reason they also call them TAUNADORAS, because they take in their hands a banner, script or banner that, although, it not be the cane (tauna = cane) of the adults, it is the badge that helps them to guide their step. To "PASS GUIONERA" is to celebrate with solemnity in front of their town their woman condition.

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By the middle of the seventeenth century the religious party of the Holy Week is consolidated with the practice of the religious processions, for this, it was necessary to reply to the interior of the religious party organization, the political-administrative structure of that time.

Thus, the Spanish crown delegated functions in order to administer a founded town, a founder, a regent, and it differed subjected gentlemen, the religious party of the Holy Week, for its organization, replies the same delegations, founder, regent, and slaves. By this form and that of the brotherhoods, it has surrendered cult and custody of a sacred image.

In Cotacachi, at the present time, the indigenous communities still conserve these representations in the organization of the Holy Week. In pre-hispanic times each Ayllu possessed a huaca (God) for its adoration. Today each indigenous community surrenders cult and devotion to a Catholic image.

FOUNDER- It is that one to whom the church took charge the custody of a saint or who voluntarily assumed it. This role could also be assumed by a woman. In this religious party of the Holy Week the woman can be a FOUNDER.
The FOUNDER'S position has a high social prestige. This will allow him/her to demonstrate his/her capacity to share and to redistribute resources in the community during the religious party of the Holy Week.

REGENT- The person that goes to the hill in search of sacred plants; rosemary, laurel, to adorn and to purify the altar of their image.

SLAVES- They are the musicians, prayers, singers, and pipers; men who load their adoration image platform.

GUIONERAS (GUIDERS)- The more part of them are adolescent women, who dress in traditional suits which include silk handkerchiefs and hats. They guide and accompany the step of their sacred image with a banner called script. It is made of chonta, dressed or adorned with silk handkerchiefs of diverse colors, whose end carries a metal cross, symbol of the Catholic religion. Under this script they group to other "guioneras". They are also called "taunadoras" (kichwa word).

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From the beginning of the eighteenth century, the colonial period, the mestizo society was being born in Cotacachi. The church ruled in some way the relationships of the social classes, Spaniards, Mestizos and Indians. In the religious parties and in considering the Holy Week, the church institutes the formation of brotherhoods, congregations, and slaveries for the religious cult.

At the present time in the Holy Week almost all of the indigenous communities have been constituted in their saints slaveries, and in the mestizo society they persist from principles approximately from the 19th century. The Slavery or Lord's Slaves, are well-known as the Sacred Barons and the Slavery of the Virgin Dolores. To be a slave, in some cases, it is necessary to voluntarily accompany to the passthrough of the higher slaves who carry on their image platform, and in other cases, it means to accept the hereditary responsibility of parents or grandparents. To be a slave means to transmit and to demonstrate the love and the devotion to the Lord and to Dolores's Virgin.

The Lord's Slaves are in charge of completing liturgical rites like the cleaning of the feet, the seven words and the descending. For this moment each Male Saint has a mission to complete, to take out the nails of the hands and feet of the crucified Christ and to carry it in order to show it to the town. After this, three women slaves of the Lord shroud Christ's body and they keep it in the sepulcher. On the other hand, the slaves of the Virgin Dolores accompany her in the ritual of María's Loneliness, carrying especially the platform with the Virgin of Dolores on Saturday night. This expression of gestures and attitudes instituted since the time of the colony allow us to revive and to strengthen the faith of a Christian town.

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Following the Catholic calendar, previous to Palm Sunday and the Holy Week, the Council is celebrated on Friday. For the natives, this day is identified with the name of "Dispidi Puncha" (Day of the Farewell of the Lord). In the Catholic religion the meaning of the Friday of Council is the rememberance of the political plot to prosecute Jesus. For the natives it is Jesus' farewell with the Virgin.

In the indigenous communities, the theatrical representation of a religious episode of Jesus' life summons to the encounter among seated communities, where in the colonial time, it was determined as lands of the common (Community of San Pedro), and seated communities, where, in the colonial time they were kingdom lands (Communities of Ashambuela and Piava). Between prayers, songs, and images of embrace of the two images, the celebration of Holy Week begins.

Religious congregations conformed by mestizo women, like the one of the Virgin Dolores, one of the oldest images in Cotacachi, they travel through the streets of the city praying Via Crucis.

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The "Saviour Triumphant Entrance in Jerusalem" is a religious episode that is celebrated on Palm Sunday. For the natives this celebration implies more, of the Catholic religious connotation that has been recreated, to the sanctifying of the nature's bloom. For that reason, in Palm Sunday it is necessary to bless laurel, rosemary, flower of corn, fields, and to give thanks to God and to mother earth for the generosity of their first fruits. The conservation of these plants in the housing of each indigenous family will bring the abundance and will liberate them of all danger.

"San Salvador" is an image of Jesus brought approximately by the middle of the eighteenth century, by a Spanish family that was residing in Cotacachi. In function of the cult of this image, Palm Sunday takes place under the priostes system. In this case the natives visited the house of the Spanish prioste on Saturday night to celebrate with food, songs, and music of flutes, the eve of Palm Sunday.

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From Wednesday until Holy Friday the night processions are carried out. In these days the indigenous communities go out of their places with the saint or image of their devotion to walk around an urban perimeter that surrounds the main church.

These processions are instituted in the seventeenth century when the church rules the exit of the Indian brotherhood in the night, and in the day the Spaniards. These are considered the space of community encounter that express the necessity to continue strengthening social relationships of familiarity and reciprocity.

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The greatest day of religious expression through the procession of midday. In her, indigenous and mestizos converge as slaves of the faith sharing a previously ruled space. Lord's Slaves, the Slaves of the Virgin Dolores, Maria Magdalena's Slaves, Saint Peter's Slaves, Saint John's Slaves..., accompanied by guioneras, musicians, regents, and founders mark the religious step of the Holy Week.

Each ethnic group being expressed with their characteristic way of conceiving the world and their faith. Holy Friday, day of solidarity with Christ's death, for that reason, the natives make the Huaccha Caray in that day.

Also, in Cotacachi, the religious scene of the Via Crucis is still conserved through the CHRIST'S LIVING FRAME. The historical practice of traveling through the main streets of the city is still practiced.

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A celebration of the happiness, of the flourishing, and of the resurrection takes place in the indigenous communities, the founder's house, and the interior of the Lord's slaves organization.

Easter Sunday is called Jatun Pascua. It is within indigenous conception to give food, because God and the earth offer the first fruits. As you can see, this appreciation doesn't exclude the natives thinking about the significance of the resurrection from that of the Christian conception "resurrection of Christ, nourishment for a new possibility of Life". Rather, they have resemblance and recreate the two conceptions.

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The party of the Holy Week and its relationship with the nature allows to express a material manifestation related with the food. The Fanesca, food of indigenous and mestizo, elaborated with diversity of fresh products, corn, peas, chochos, beans, sambo, zapallo, sambo's seed and vegetables for their decoration. It is the festive plate that is favoured in the family reunion, and in order to elaborate and savor it on the table without lacking the traditional desserts, like fig candy and rice with milk.

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Consolidation of the Democratic and Intercultural Administration Project.
Agreement: CDG of the Assembly of Cantonal Unit and Ibis-Denmark
Cotacachi - March 2002

García Moreno and González Suárez Telf.: 593-6-915200

• COMMISSION OF CULTURE OF THE ASSEMBLY OF CANTONAL UNIT
• MUSEUM OF THE CULTURES
• INVESTIGATION: CARMEN HARO LÓPEZ
• REVISION: RAFAEL GUITARRA (President UNORCAC)
  

• TECHNICIAN EQUIPMENT OF THE PROJECT:
• ARTURO CEVALLOS. OFFICIAL IBIS-DENMARK
• EDWIN ECHEVERRÍA. PROJECT COORDINATOR
• ANTONIO MORALES. PROJECT PROMOTER