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A head for the old ways

Bolivians wed ancient customs to Catholicism as they bring skulls for good luck to Mass.

LA PAZ, Bolivia - It's a tradition people outside Bolivia might find creepy: Families perch human skulls on altars, revering them and asking them for protection and good luck.

On Tuesday, the skulls were gussied up and taken to cemeteries, where the families crowned them with flowers and filled their jaws with lighted cigarettes.

The chapel in La Paz's main cemetery was filled with hundreds of people jockeying to get their skull, or "natita," in a good position for a special annual Mass. Thousands more people gathered outside.

"I was scared of them at first, but now I realize I was scared because I wasn't taking care of them," said Shirley Vargas, who brought two skulls she calls Vicente and Maria to the Mass. "Now I keep them in my room with me. I love them a lot, and they have helped our family when we've had problems."

Milton Eyzaguirre, an anthropologist, said Bolivians are now more willing to bring out their skulls than before.

"People are bringing back the idea that we're not separated from the dead ... but that life and death are always connected," said Eyzaguirre, a curator at La Paz's Museum of Ethnography and Folklore.

The tradition reflects the force of pre-Hispanic belief in this poor country, whose population is majority Indian; the Roman Catholic Church has chosen to recognize this and other non-Catholic traditions as a way of retaining its own influence.

On Tuesday, people of all ages entered the chapel carrying skulls in fancy glass boxes or on silver platters. Others used plastic bags, shoe boxes or baskets. Most of the skulls were decorated with bright knit caps, cotton wool in the eyes and crowns of red roses and hydrangeas.

Vargas said she got her skulls from a medical student. She believes they helped her father recover from a chronic back problem.

The ancient Andean belief is that people have seven souls, and one of them stays with the skull, Eyzaguirre said. This soul has the power to visit people in their dreams and provide protection.

[Last modified November 9, 2005, 00:40:17]