Kite Festival

Celebrated to honour the memory of the departed, it blends together both pre-Hispanic and post-Hispanic cultural elements. Rooted in Latin American Indigenous culture, it emanated from the belief that it was disrespectful to mourn the dead–whose memory was kept alive. According to belief, the souls of the departed visited the members of their community to spend a day with them. The flying of kites was to enable these visiting souls to locate their descendants. On the day of the festival, wisps of pine incense swirl through cemeteries brimming with natives of the Guatemalan towns of Santiago Sacatepéquez and Sumpango: brilliantly hued kites swirl in the sky above a slice of heaven on earth!