As holiday season nears, New Mexicans ask: Farolito or luminaria?
Luminarias or farolitos? It’s the perennial December question in New Mexico. With the arrival of Advent, New Mexico becomes aglow in small brown paper bags filled with sand or rocks, and a votive candle placed at the base of the sack. These lanterns warm the nights and souls of visitors from all over the world during this season.
From La Bajada and Albuquerque to all points south, they are called luminarias, which means illumination from the Spanish word iluminar.
That makes sense, since these tiny flames bounce light off adobe walls and dirt trails, producing a soft glow that seems to drift from ages past, connecting current generations with ancestors, rituals and traditions.
But to the Spanish speaking people of Northern New Mexico, luminaria means “bonfire,” and these lanterns are properly called farolitos, which means “little lantern” from the Spanish word for lantern, farol. (A more formal definition would be the perpetual light before the Blessed Sacrament in Catholic Churches in Spain, Mexico, New Mexico and throughout the Roman Catholic world.)
When and where the practice started is unclear, like much of New Mexican culture. It is folk history, unrecorded, as if it sprung out of the earth. But there are clues.
The Moors of Spain were said to have used lanterns to light the streets of great Muslim cities like Cordoba and Granada. Chinese lanterns may have made their way to Manila, then onto ships bound for Mexico, finding their way north on the Camino Real to far-off New Mexico during the colonial period.
Americans made a crucial contribution with brown paper bags in the mid-1800s, resulting in the beautiful lanterns we know today.
Luminarias, in the strictest sense, are bonfires made up of pieces of wood stacked about three feet high. Since the days
humans were able to harness the power of fire, bonfires have been used to light the darkness and warm the cold. They are universal to all peoples. Shepherds in the cold regions of Spain used bonfires to warm themselves on cold days and nights.
Bonfires also could be found near church altars in medieval Spain to light and warm during Mass.
Some pueblos light bonfires on rooftops; others light them on the ground during the Christmas season. This tradition may go back to colonial times as one of the means of converting puebloans, or it may be much older. In 1748, a Franciscan priest described a celebration in New Mexico commemorating a new Spanish king, writing “there were many luminarias that night.” He most certainly meant bonfires.
In some New Mexico communities, luminarias/bonfires are lighted the nine evenings before Christmas during the Christmas Novena. Others light luminarias to illuminate the path for solemn Catholic processions. In mountain towns all over Northern New Mexico, luminarias light the way to Midnight Mass.
Symbolically, the luminarias lit the way for Los Reyes Magos, the three Kings searching for their new king.
Who knows when the word farolito morphed into luminaria in the Rio Abajo region? It isn’t unusual for words to change and take on new meaning in communities. When did Alburquerque lose its first “r” to become Albuquerque? We may never know when or why, but the discussion is always lively.
Albuquerqueans swear to the ends of the earth the small paper bag lanterns are luminarias. Northerners take the same oath that they are farolitos and luminarias are bonfires. The war of words does not seem to be going away any time soon. Perhaps, when it comes to this brilliant New Mexican tradition, it is best to leave debating behind, and join with communities in enjoying the warm, soft glow of paper lanterns lighting the way for all New Mexicans during this joyous holiday season.