Fiesta de las Ñatitas
Human skulls kept in Bolivian homes as protectors of the household, given coca and cigarettes through the year, and carried each 8 November to the General Cemetery of La Paz to be crowned with flowers and blessed by priests whose Church does not recognise the practice.
Field Guide Entry
What a ñatita is
A ñatita is a human skull kept in the home and treated as a member of the household. The word is Andean Spanish for little pug-nosed one, a reference to what a face loses. Aymara belief holds that a spirit with its own character and preferences stays attached to the skull and extends protection to the family that looks after it, and the care is specific: coca leaves, cigarettes lit and left to burn down, alcohol, sweets, flowers, sometimes a woollen cap against the cold of the altiplano. Some ñatitas are inherited relatives. Others came from cemeteries, medical collections or excavations, and their keepers speak of them as individuals with names, tastes and moods.
The eighth of November
A week after the Catholic All Saints period closes, owners carry their ñatitas to the Cementerio General of La Paz. They arrive in cardboard boxes, glass cases and carved wooden shrines, bedded on flowers and fitted with sunglasses, knitted caps and jewellery. Recent years have drawn crowds in the region of twelve thousand. Priests bless the skulls, bands play, and the day runs long. The Catholic Church has never recognised the practice, its clergy take part anyway, and nobody present appears to find the contradiction difficult.
A city practice
The pull is to read this as an ancient rite that survived. The devotion does have deep Andean roots, but the festival in the form a visitor sees grew through the twentieth century, as Aymara families moved from the countryside into La Paz and brought their dead with them into an urban Catholic calendar. It is one of the newer things in this archive.
Visiting Information
The Cementerio General is open year-round and repays a walk on any day: it is a dense city of tiered niches with glass fronts, flowers and small personal objects. The Fiesta de las Ñatitas falls on 8 November, when the skulls are brought in and blessed, and that is the one day the devotion is publicly visible at scale.
La Paz sits at roughly 3,600 metres. Arrive a couple of days early and take the first day slowly, because a long festival day on foot at that altitude is punishing if you have just flown in. Keepers are generally glad to talk about their ñatita and to have it photographed, and the courtesy is to ask the keeper first. Bring cash, and something small to offer if you are invited to.
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