Luminarias and farolitos: the lantern tradition of New Mexico and beyond

Every December, plazas, churches, homes and businesses across New Mexico glow with luminarias, called farolitos in northern New Mexico. In Spanish, luminaria means “illumination” and farolito means “little lantern.” The lanterns are brown paper bags part-filled with sand and holding a lit tea candle or small votive. A New Mexican newspaper described the scene on January 2, 1864: as natural darkness set in, the whole city and suburbs lit up with a blaze of light.

Two names, one argument

Luminarias were not always paper bags. Before the square-bottomed paper bag was patented in 1872, people lit small stacks of piñon bark and dry wood as bonfires along roadways. That is where the dispute over names comes from. North of Santa Fe, “farolito” is the paper lantern and “luminaria” is the small woodpile fire; south of Santa Fe, New Mexicans call the paper lanterns “luminarias.”

Roots in the Rio Grande Valley

The tradition may have begun in 1590, when the men of Gaspar Castaño de Sosa lit small bonfires to guide a scout back to camp. Pueblos took up luminaria customs during Spanish colonization, and some are still practiced. Picuris Pueblo holds a torchlight procession and traditional dances on Christmas Eve. Acoma Pueblo lines the road into the pueblo with over two thousand luminarias every year. In New Mexican Catholic tradition, luminarias and farolitos were lit only on Christmas Eve, to symbolically guide the Holy Family on their journey.

A wider family of lights

The winter solstice is the darkest time of year, so lights and lanterns have been part of winter holiday traditions for hundreds of years. Lantern customs tied to religious celebrations appear in Simbang Gabi in the Philippines and in Las Posadas and the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Catholic communities across Latin America and Spain. The common thread is the influence of Spanish colonization and its effort to blend Roman Catholic Christmas traditions into local cultures and winter customs.

Luminarias are also used outside New Mexico and outside winter holidays. On January 19, 2021, President-elect Biden held a memorial ceremony at the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., where four hundred luminarias were lit for the 400,000 Americans who had died in the first twelve months of the pandemic. The American Cancer Society uses luminarias to honor people who have died of cancer, are fighting it or recovered, and sells memorial luminarias to raise money.

Luminarias used for a COVID-19 memorial in January 2021. NPS photo.

Today

Across New Mexico, neighborhoods coordinate to light their luminarias together. Plastic and electric versions are more accessible and reusable for people starting their own tradition, though purists say electric lanterns cannot match the glow of a real flame.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Luminaria Traditions," https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/luminaria-traditions.htm; rewritten in hubnx's own words.