Holy Week Processions in Spain and New Spain: 

The Case of Huejotzingo.

 

                                         Susan V. Webster

                                   University of St. Thomas

 

[NOTE: 

In some instances the original images Dr. Webster presented at the conference were not available at the time of posting this paper, and similar images from the Institute's collection have been temporarily substituted. All Images presented here are copyright protected and may not be reproduced by any means for any purpose with written permission from the owners of the images.]

The visual elements of this paper are still under construction, in the meantime please see Mural Art page for images of Huejotzingo, Huaquechula, and San Juan Teitipac.

 

SLIDES:  Holy Week                                         Holy Week

During the middle ages, the Spanish celebration of Easter was confined to official liturgical observances held inside the church on Easter Sunday and the two days following.  However, during the 16th and 17th centuries, the celebration of the week preceeding Easter, Holy Week, rose to widespread public prominence and attained virtually unparalleled heights of visual impact and splendor.  Day and night from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, processions of hooded penitents filed out of churches and chapels, carrying life‑size polychrome wood sculptures through streets of the cities in commemoration of the events of Christ's Passion.  Holy Week continues to be one of the most important religious celebrations in the Hispanic world‑‑and here we're looking Holy Week processions in Seville in 1990.

 

SLIDES:  Holy Week penitentes                        Goya disciplinantes 

The rituals and processions of Holy Week were not sponsored by the church;  rather, they were almost exclusively the work of the laity.  The organizers, patrons, and participants of the Holy Week processions were the local penitential confraternities.  The confraternities were groups of average citizens, both men and women, who banded together in devotion to a particular aspect or moment of the Passion of Christ.  During Holy Week, the confraternities organized and enacted their penitential processions though the city along distinct, individual routes.  One of the primary functions of the procession was expiatory, and thus all members wore identical tunics and distinctive pointed hoods with eye holes cut in them, which divested them of their social and worldly status and rendered them equal and anonymous in their public penance.  Some members participated as flagellants, some lit the way with torches or long candles, and others carried crosses, banners, and the sculpted images.

The earliest Spanish images of penitential processions that I know of were painted by Goya in the late 18th century.  Here we're looking at a Spanish procession with flagellants, and you can see, towards the back of the procession, sculptures of the Virgin and the Crucified Christ being carried on platforms.

 

SLIDE R:           Santo Entierro 

Larger cities could support numerous penitential confraternities.  For example, in Seville, by 1600 there were over 30 such groups that processed through the streets during Holy Week. The sculptures carried by a given confraternity reflected its unique advocation.  For example, the confraternity of Jesús Nazareno, held its procession on Maundy Thursday bearing an image of Christ Carrying the Cross.  On Good Friday, the confraternity of the Vera Cruz carried an image of the crucified Christ, while that of the Santo Entierro processed with a sculpture of the dead Christ.  In a city with large numbers of confraternities, each significant moment in Christ's Passion could be represented by a different brotherhood.  However, in smaller towns and villages, one or two confraternities would often mount a series of processions throughout the week, with one group commemorating a sequence of related events, for example, the crucifixion, the descent from the cross, and the burial.

 

SLIDES:  Vera Cruz procession                             Vera Cruz sculpt.

The processions of Holy Week were not official church events, and in fact the church tried to control, censor, and suppress them at various times.  The numerous and well‑attended public processions perturbed the secular clergy, in particular, who undoubtedly felt threatened by the tremendous popularity of a parallel, competing liturgy performed solely by the laity.  The regular clergy, on the other hand, often fostered and even instituted certain types of penitential confraternities.

Throughout the Iberian peninsula, the earliest documented penitential confraternities are those of the Vera Cruz.  Many of these brotherhoods were established during the 14th century, and their origins are almost invariably linked with the Franciscan order.  In Seville, for example, the oldest penitential confraternity is that of the Vera Cruz, and it was founded in the local monastery of San Francisco in 1380.  This confraternity maintained a private chapel in the monastery, where its sculpture was venerated throughout the year, and members of the Franciscan order often accompanied the confraternity in its Holy Week procession.

Again, here we're looking at the Gothic sculpture carried in procession by the Sevillian confraternity of the Vera Cruz during Holy Week in 1990.  I would love to be able to show you what the penitential processions actually looked like in the early modern period;  however, I know of no visual images that document the appearance of such processions in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries.  For Spain, we must rely on textual descriptions alone in order to reconstruct the appearance of the processions.

 

SLIDES:  Teticpac gen. view                      Teticpac procession

Imagine my delight, then, when I first came across a series of murals representing Holy Week penitential processions in three sixteenth‑century Mexican monasteries.  Two of them are located in Franciscan monasteries, and a third appears in a Dominican establishment (we're seeing the Dominican murals here on the screen).  In each case, the penitential murals occupy a very different part of the monastery.  Although none of the murals can be firmly dated, they are generally believed to have been painted in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.  To my knowledge, these murals are the earliest representations of the penitential processions of Holy Week in the Hispanic world.

At the Dominican monastery of San Juan, Teticpac, in the state of Oaxaca (which we see here on the screen), a very elaborate penitential procession is painted on one of the long side walls of the portería.  The murals are quite detailed and painted in a refined style that suggests some measure of formal "European" training.

 The procession is organized in two registers that are joined on the far right.  In the upper left, the head of the procession is about to enter a portal‑‑it is led by two young boys and several black‑garbed penitents carrying banners and standards.  They are followed by  rows of penitents, arranged in groups of three, that carry the Arma Christi, or instruments of the Passion, and are guided by a friar.  None of the penitents in this mural are flagellants‑‑they do not engage in any type of self‑mortification.  

 

SLIDES:  detail of friars                                     detail of Sto. Entierro

The second half of the procession continues on the lower register, where it has just exited a portal.  Groups of secular figures bring up the rear of the procession, and before them appear people dressed as the Virgin, Mary Magdalen, and, seemingly, St. John the Evangelist (who, with his gola, looks strangely like a member of the Spanish nobility‑‑but he is clothed in a long "historical" tunic).  These figures are preceded by eight rather opulently attired friars carrying a bier on which is placed a sculpture of the dead Christ wrapped in winding cloths.  Another group of friars lead the platform, one of whom swings a censer, sanctifying the space through which the image of Christ will pass.

 

SLIDES:  left side wall long view                            Descendimiento

On the back wall of the portería is the portal that leads to the cloister, the form and appearance of which is quite similar to the portals depicted in the murals.  Directly above this portal is a scene of the descent from the cross, which is performed by Dominican friars.  This scene is actually the origin of the procession, for, after Christ was lowered from the cross, the procession with the sacred body, known as the procession of the Santo Entierro, traditionally took place.

 

SLIDES:  Huaquechula gen. view                                 side view               

A second set of penitential murals are located in the Franciscan monastery of San Martín, Huaquechula, in the state of Puebla.  They decorate the side walls of an altar niche in the upper cloister.  Here we see hooded penitents clad in black and white tunics engaged in flagellation.  Some of the penitents carry crosses and candles.  The processions move toward the back wall of the niche, where there may once have been a scene of the descent from the cross represented, however now it is so damaged and overpainted as to be illegible.

 

SLIDES:  Huejo facade                                     Huejo church interior           

To my mind, the most interesting of the three penitential murals is located in the Franciscan monastery of San Miguel, Huejotzingo, in the state of Puebla.  The monastery at Huejotzingo was one of the first four Franciscan establishments in New Spain, and thus can provide important information regarding the earliest practices of the order.

 Here, the penitential procession is given a place of great prominence and importance:  it is painted inside the church, and extends along the central section of the south wall of the nave.  When I first visited this monastery, I was intent upon examining these murals because I thought that they could illuminate my work on the penitential rituals of Holy Week in Early Modern Spain.

However, as I looked at the murals, and walked through the church and the atrio, I began to suspect that the murals actually formed one aspect of a larger, coherent iconographic program that was designed to reflect and reinforce the rituals of Holy Week.  Furthermore, it seemed plausible that the decoration of certain areas of the monastery was organized in a logical sequence that reflected the order in which the ritual activity occured.  My presentation today will identify both the participants and the specific type of procession being performed, and will trace the ritual sequence of events as it is reflected and informed by the pictorial and sculptural decoration of three major "public" areas of the monastery:  the penitential murals inside the church, the Porciúncula, or north door of the church, and the posa chapels in the atrio, which we will see shortly.

SLIDES:  full view mural                                          Descent mural

            In the course of resoration during the early 1980s, INAH conservators uncovered a series of murals along the north and south walls of the nave.  The murals had been covered by layers of whitewash, except for small areas protected by side altars.  Like much of sixteenth century art and architecture of New Spain, these murals were likely executed by indigenous artists under the direction of Spanish friars.

The south wall mural represents a penitential procession composed of black and white hooded figures, some of which are flagellants, whipping themselves in expiation of their sins.  At the rear of the procession, a series of sculptures are being carried on platforms, including a dead Christ (Christo yacente), The Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalen.

 

SLIDE L:  Good thief

The murals on the north wall, directly opposite the penitential procession, are clustered around the north door, or Porciúncula.  A scene of the Descent from the Cross performed by Franciscan friars and attended by numerous penitents appears atop the doorway, as though the portal itself forms the hill of Calvary.  Depictions of the two thieves appear below, on either side of the Porciúncula‑‑one of them is presently hidden from view by a side altar.  These scenes, too, are attended by numerous hooded penitents.

 

SLIDES:  Porciuncula ext.                                          det. shield

It is surely no accident that this mural of the descent from the cross frames the Porciúncula, and that elements of the doorway's exterior decoration also include Passional imagery.

Here we see the Franciscan shield with the five wounds, and shields flanking the portal that contain crosses ringed by crowns of thorns and pierced by nails, together with the keys to the heavenly Jerusalem.

The linked floral crown of the architrave corresponds to contemporary descriptions of ephemeral triumphal arches made of flowers created by Christianized natives for their processional routes.

SLIDE L:  Posa chapel close up                                  Calcog. posa

Interestingly, elements of the linked floral crown around the architrave of the Porciúncula once also crowned the top edges of the four posa chapels in the atrio, though much of this decoration has been damaged.

SLIDE R:                                                                                posa facade 

The decoration of the posa chapels is almost uniformly Passional in nature:  each chapel has 2 facades decorated with angels carrying instruments of the Passion [the crown of thorns, the column, the whip, etc.].  One of their functions must have been related to the commemoration of the Passion celebrated during Holy Week.

The formal and iconographic relationships between the decoration of the posa chapels, the Porciúncula, and the penitential murals suggest that the three areas are functionally linked in terms of ritual.

 

SLIDES:  s. wall murals                                         s. wall murals

When I began to research the history and function of these areas of the monastery, I found numerous contradictions and inconsistencies in the literature.  For example, the figures in the mural procession are identified as friars by some, yet we know that there were no more than 4 or 5 friars present at this monastery at any one time.  Some authors have stated that no lay confraternities were active in Mexico until the late 17th and 18th centuries;  however, documents that I encountered in the archives of Puebla clearly establish the presence of a penitential confraternity active at Huejotzingo in the 16th century.

SLIDES:  Posa during Corpus                                   Posa Corpus

The claim has been made that the posa chapels were only used as stops in the procession of Corpus Christi.  It seems clear from the documents, however, that the posas had multiple uses.  For example, they functioned as areas where the men, women, and children of the town could be instructed separately, and they served as individual chapels under the care of the four cabeceras or principalities of the town.  I would add that they also served as stations in the penitential processions of Holy Week.

SLIDES:  Porciuncula                                        Detail of shield

Regarding the Porciúncula, some authors claim that this north door was used only once a year on the day of the Jubilee of the Porciúncula, when a plenary indulgence was granted to all those who entered it.  However, both Kubler and McAndrew suggest that the north door, a common feature of Franciscan monasteries in Mexico, was intended for frequent use, hypothesizing that it was specifically made for use by the indigenous population.  Certain elements of the iconography of the north door at Huejotzingo are specifically passional, while other parts of its imagery might be considered indigenous, such as the stylized floral motifs.

SLIDES:  penitential mural                                       North wall

The only published interpretation of these elements at Huejotzingo to adopt a more contextual approach was written by Elena Gerlero de Estrada.  She attempts to organize the decoration of the church murals and the posa chapels into a related iconographic program and to trace a ritual sequence inside the church.  My contribution here is to add to her interpretation and amend it in certain areas, based on my knowledge of Spanish prototypes and on documents discovered in the archives of the diocese of Puebla.

According to Gerlero de Estrada, the procession begins on the south wall of the church, and ends on the north wall with the scene of the Descent from the Cross.

She identifies the participants as members of a Confraternity of the Santo Entierro, since confraternities of this name traditionally carried a sculpture of the dead Christ in their penitential processions.

In my archival research, I have found no documents to indicate the existence of a confraternity of the Santo Entierro active at Huejotzingo in the 16th century.  Moreover, confraternities of this type were generally associated with the Dominican Order, while confraternities of the Vera Cruz were traditionally founded by the Franciscans.  In Spain, the vast majority of confraternities of the Vera Cruz are directly associated with the Franciscan Order.  The Franciscans were devotees of the True Cross, protectors of monuments in the Holy Land, such as the Holy Sepulchre, and practiced an extreme devotion to penitence and the Passion of Christ.  These characteristics are reflected in the nature of the penitential confraternities they fostered, such as the Vera Cruz.

SLIDE L:  close‑up Huejo escudo             Seville Vera Cruz escudo

Indeed, the confraternity members depicted in these murals, both those in white and those in black, wear the traditional escutcheon of confraternities of the Vera Cruz:  a green arboreal cross on a white ground.  The artist of these murals obviously took great care to represent the escutcheons clearly and in detail.  The colors are discernable upon close inspection of the murals, but are too faded to be visible in photographs.

If we compare the escutcheon of the Confraternity of the Vera Cruz of Seville, we can instantly see the similarities.  Here we're looking at their Rule Book, dated 1631; 

SLIDE R:                  Vera Cruz Confrat members

and here is an illumination from that rule book with confraternity members wearing the escutcheon.  As I mentioned earlier, the Sevillian confraternity was instituted in the Monastery of San Francisco in the 14th century, and clearly expresses its links to the Order through the incorporation of the five wounds, the Franciscan emblem that is found in decorations throughout Huejotzingo. 

I have located documentary evidence of a confraternity of the Vera Cruz active in Huejotzingo at least as early as 1592.  These documents clearly state that the confraternity was founded in the Monastery of San Miguel, and that its members included both Spaniards and natives, with the natives comprising the vast majority.

SLIDE:  south wall calcography        shot of beginning of process

It is interesting, however, that this confraternity of the Vera Cruz is enacting a procession of the Santo Entierro‑‑carrying a sculpture of the dead Christ in procession.  In all likelihood, the Confraternity of the Vera Cruz simply extended their role from that of carrying the crucified Christ in procession, to include the following processional sequence of carrying the dead Christ.  As I mentioned earlier, this was not at all unusual in Spain, especially in smaller communities where one or two confraternities would enact several related processional sequences of the Passion during Holy Week.

We can follow the persons and order of the procession:  it opens, as was typical, with the mayordomos in front, followed by candlebearers dressed in albs, and members carrying banners with crosses on them. 

SLIDE R:           central part of procession

The procession then breaks into three rows of penitents.  The outer rows are the flagellants, dressed in typical white penitential garments, their faces covered by hoods.  Some whip themselves, some carry rosaries or crosses, and some are accompanied by smaller figures, undoubtedly children, who also engage in flagellation.  Like the Spanish confraternities of the Vera Cruz, these figures wear the knotted cord of St. Francis, which is made prominently visible.

According to Gerónimo de Mendieta, a Franciscan friar who was present at Huejotzingo in the early 1580s, New World processions were typically divided into three rows, the men on one side, the women on the other, and the priests or friars in the center.  These central figures cannot all be friars, but a friar does appear behind the platform of the dead Christ.  Here, the central row of figures do not engage in flagellation;  they carry the instruments of the Passion, the Arma Christi:  the lance, the ladder, the dice, the veil of Veronica, the column, etc.   

Toward the end of the procession, members in black carry the sculpted images of the dead Christ, Mary Magdalen, another female figure, likely Mary of Egypt (?), and St John the Evangelist consoling the Sorrowing Virgin.

Among the books of inventories and expenditures of the Confraternity of the Vera Cruz at Huejotzingo, which I found in a local archive, is an inventory of 1649, that lists the following items:

"‑5 banners, four of them black with white crosses and one purple

‑All of the attributes and instruments of the Passion of Our Lord that go out in the procession on Good Friday

‑One St. John the Evangelist carved in the round with jointed arms placed on his processional platform with his alb and red silk cape and wig, with a black frontal (for the platform)"

The absence of the more sacred images of the Virgin and Christ suggests that these sculptures belonged to the friars and were kept in the monastery where they were used as devotional images throughout the year.

SLIDE R:                                                North wall

As I mentioned before, Gerlero de Estrada believes the procession begins here on the south wall and ends on the north wall above the Porciuncula, where the the Descent from the Cross is depicted.

In terms of narrative sequence, this reading does not make sense, since the Descent from the Cross must occur before the dead body of Christ is carried in procession.  I believe that the iconographic and processional sequence begins here on the north wall, and that the location of this mural over the Porciuncula serves as a marker of ritual activity. 

SLIDES:  Xpo de Arcos                      detail of knees

In 16th‑century Spain, the extra‑liturgical ceremony enacting the Descent from the Cross was traditionally performed by penitential confraternities using sculptures of Christ, the Virgin, and St John the Evangelist, [among other variable images].  The sculpture of Christ was equipped with articulated arms, so that when it was descended from the cross, the arms could be moved down to its sides when it was then carried in procession as the dead Christ.  We're seeing a sixteenth‑century Spanish sculpture here from the town of Arcos in Andalusia, whose articulated shoulders and knees are covered with leather to hide the hinges.

SLIDES:  Xpo Huejo                              Xpo Huejo long view

These sculpted, articulated images of Christ are ubiquitous in Mexico.  This sculpture, which clearly has articulated shoulders, is located in the Church of the Monastery of Huejotzingo in a glass sepulchre, appropriately placed directly below the penitential mural on the south side.  It has been repainted so many times that, without closer analysis, it is difficult to determine its date.

SLIDE R:  Xpo Tlaxcala

The neighboring Franciscan Monastery at Tlaxcala also has an image of an articulated Christ which is presently displayed on its processional andas, or platform.  This sculpture dates from the 16th century, although the andas may date somewhat later.

SLIDE R:                                                                    Huejo Calvario scene

In Spain, the Descent Ceremony was typically, though not exclusively, performed by the Confraternity of the Santo Entierro.  The Sevillian Abbott, Alonso Sánchez Gordillo, has left us with a marvellously detailed description of a Descent Ceremony performed by the Confraternity of the Santo Entierro in Seville during the late sixteenth century.  Abbot Gordillo describes the scene as follows:

"Every year at midnight the scene of the crucifixion was erected on a small hill outside the confraternity's chapel.  [They set up] the image of the crucified Christ, accompanied by the two thieves, and at the foot of the cross [they placed] the images of Holy Mary, St John the Evangelist, the Magdalen, and the two Maries with some candles, so that at the appointed hour, when the people arrived to see the spectacle, they were struck with great reverence and devotion . . . and then the sermon of the descent was read as four priests raised ladders against the cross, and two of them climbed the ladders to perform the descent of the body of christ our lord . . . pulling out the nails and winding long towels around the body of Christ to support it, and with much reverence and devotion they lowered the Holy Body, and placed it in the lap of the image of the Virgin . . . the priests wrapped the body in winding sheets there, and later it was carried in procession by the confraternity members from the outdoor location of the calvary to the chapel of the confraternity. . .  the body and image of Christ [was carried] on some very beautifully adorned and outfitted andas, and was placed on the altar."

Confraternity inventories provide incontrovertible evidence that the Descent Ceremony was performed at the monastery of Huejotzingo by a confraternity of the Vera Cruz.  Again, in the inventory of 1649, we find the following:

"‑Firstly, the Holy Sepulchre of the Holy Christ of the Descent

‑Two wigs of the Holy Christ of the Holy Sepulchre, one that he has on, and the other that is among our belongings

‑One large towel made of a decorated fabric with which the Holy Christ is descended on Good Friday

‑One winding cloth of embroidered canvas with which the Holy Christ is bound"

SLIDE L:  Penitent murals

Returning to the Abbott Gordillo's description, he recounts the order of the Sevillian procession, which includes many of the same elements that we see here at Huejotzingo:  the mayordomos and candle bearers, the banners and standards with crosses, and 10 priests carrying the symbols and attributes of the Passion who walk side by side with the flagellants (though here, the figures in black are more likely the junta, or governing board of the confraternity).  In Seville, the dead Christ was carried by priests under a black palio, or canopy (like that which we see here), followed by sculptures of the Virgin, St. John, and the 3 Maries.

In Seville, this procession went out the main door of the confraternity's chapel and through the city, culminating at the Dominican Monastery of San Pablo, where it entered the church through the main doors, and exited the church through a side door to the cloister.  In the cloister garth was a sepulchre into which the body of Christ was placed.  On Easter Sunday the image of Christ was placed upright in the sepuchre, and the confraternity came and joyously reclaimed it, carrying it in triumphal procession back to their chapel.

SLIDES:  plan of Huejo                                                  North wall

Based on Spanish accounts of the Descent Ceremony and its related penitential procession, together with evidence that this ritual was practiced at Huejotzingo, it seems possible to suggest a reconstruction of the ritual sequence of events that occurred at the monastery during Holy Week, or more specifically, on Good Friday.  [Follow along on maps]

The ritual was initiated with the Descent Ceremony, which I believe was performed outside of the monastery, on the north side of the church beyond the Porciuncula.  The mural of the Descent Ceremony, located inside above the north doorway acts as a visual marker, reflecting and reinforcing the ritual that took place immediately beyond.  This location is logical, since the north sides of monasteries were often reserved for the cemetery, an appropriate location for the ritual.

The Descent Ceremony was performed by friars, as we see represented in the mural, with the confraternity members in attendance, while the text of the Descent was read. 

SLIDE L:                 Porciuncula

The sculpture of the dead Christ was then carried in procession by the friars into the Church‑‑ through the Porciuncula‑‑which is apposite, since it represents the gateway to the Heavenly Jerusalem.  The door is also, as we have seen, adorned with Passional iconography.

The procession then moved into the church and to the altar, where the body of Christ was placed, and a sermon was likely delivered.  A 17th century copy of the rules of the Confraternity of the Vera Cruz at Huejotzingo suggests that a sermon is exactly what took place at this time.  The section regarding the penitential procession specifically states that, "in order to attend to the spiritual consolation of the naturales [among us] we ask that they be informed before going out in procession by a sermon in the Mexica language as has always been done, and for this work the friar is to be given some recompensatory gift."

 

SLIDES:                        south wall mural   

This pause at the altar inside the church would be the first of five stations made in honor of the five wounds, the traditional processional format for confraternities of the Vera Cruz.  Inside the church, the procession was then formally organized in the manner that we see on the south wall mural and, mirroring the directional movement of the penitents in the mural, it proceeded out the main door of the church and into the atrio.

SLIDES:  Posa chapel                                                  Posa chapel

The posa chapels must have been used as processional stops, since their decoration is uniformly passional in nature.  We know that they were used for the sacramented body of Christ in the procession of Corpus Christi, why not also for the physical body of the dead Christ on Good Friday? 

The posas are equipped with visual cues that mark the direction of processional approach.  On only one side of the pyramidal top of each of the posa chapels does there appear the skull and crossbones.  Not only an appropriate funereal symbol, it represents the bones of Adam, referring to Christ as the Redeemer whose death on the cross provides salvation from the curse of original sin.

The presence of this motif on only one side of the posas, suggests that the procession must have approached from that direction.  The procession thus exited the church, and turned right to move counterclockwise around the atrio.  As the procession paused inside each chapel, the body of Christ would likely have been laid on the interior altar block and incensed, in the same way that the eucharist was incensed and adored during Corpus Christi processions.              Prayers or psalms might have been said, and then the procession would continue to the following posa, where the ritual would be repeated.  The similar treatment of both the sacramented and the corporeal body of Christ would have made the symbolic relationship between the two abundantly clear for newly‑indoctrinated indigenous participants.

Passing through the following two posa chapels, we are only left to conjecture as to what might have occurred next.  We do know that the sculpture of Christ was deposited in a sepulchre, since it appeared in the Confraternity's inventory.  Yet where was that sepulchre located?  In the cloister, like the Spanish prototypes?  It is worth recalling that the penitential murals at Teticpac are linked to a portal in the portería that leads from the atrio to the cloister (and Teticpac also has four well‑preserved posa chapels), and the murals at Huaquechula are also located in the cloister.

SLIDES:  altar niche                                                      altar niche

It seems likely, then, that one of the altar or testera niches in the cloister at Huejotzingo, some of which are decorated, like the posa chapels, with angels holding instruments of the Passion, may have served as the location of the sepulchre‑‑and thus the penitential procession culminated in the cloister. 

 

SLIDES:  South wall murals                                     North wall