Every autumn since 1924, about 20,000 people turn out in a field near the center of Santa Fe to burn Old Man Gloom, otherwise known as Zozobra. It's the unofficial opening of Fiesta week in the city. Zozobra is a 49-foot-tall marionette made of paper and stuffed with everyone's "gloom" from the past year. (People can write their "gloom" on pieces of paper, submit old photographs, bills, etc, and they get dumped into the puppet.) Zozobra is taunted with fire dancers, has...
more »Every autumn since 1924, about 20,000 people turn out in a field near the center of Santa Fe to burn Old Man Gloom, otherwise known as Zozobra. It's the unofficial opening of Fiesta week in the city. Zozobra is a 49-foot-tall marionette made of paper and stuffed with everyone's "gloom" from the past year. (People can write their "gloom" on pieces of paper, submit old photographs, bills, etc, and they get dumped into the puppet.) Zozobra is taunted with fire dancers, has fireworks launched at him, and thrashes around, moaning. A bit disturbing, but the seasoned crowd seems unaffected--even the kids--and continuously chant, "Burn him! Burn him!" And burn him they did. The ashes rained down on us as we were leaving the field, little bits of burned up gloom from the year past...
Fiesta Week ended with a candlelight procession from the Cathedral of St. Francis up to the Cross of the Martyrs, a single white cross that sits on a terraced hill overlooking the city of Santa Fe. Mariachis were playing, people were chanting, an endless stream of people quietly processing with only candlelight to illuminate them... a beautiful sight on a beautiful night.
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