‘It’s Like Renewal’

The start of the elaborate burning ritual – in which the doomed marionette, as usual, was teased by dancers and torches and flashes of fireworks before he was set on fire – was put off for about an hour, until well after 9 p.m., because of what were announced as problems caused by wind.

To a soundtrack that sounded like a high-tech industrial version of Middle Eastern rhythms, Zozobra finally came crashing down in flames about 9:50 p.m.

Earlier in the evening, vendors sold bunny ears, devil horns and magic wands as revelers jotted down their “glooms” on slips of paper before the 50-foot puppet was ignited. The written worries became part of the fire that consumed Zozobra.

Many of the concerns of this year’s burning crowd were about health problems. Zozobra’s fiery fate is supposed to relieve fans of the stress and strain of the past year.

Santa Fe native Elizabeth Martinez flew home from Denver to char her worries, slipping her gloom into a box underneath a red tent helmed by KBAC disc jockey Lisa Clark.

“There’s nothing like the feeling after you burn Zozobra,” Martinez said. “You feel cleansed of all that negative energy.

“I dropped out of school because of my daughter,” she explained. “My first daughter passed away. My job’s really bad right now.”

Bill Friedman, a Santa Fe resident for 37 years, brought along a friend from El Paso.

“I’m a cancer survivor,” he said. ” I just found out I’m in remission. I (banish) cancer forever.”

“I can remember when it was a nice, quiet crowd 37 years ago,” he mused as he gazed at the huge throng.

Friedman and his wife quit coming to the event some years ago after someone threw a rock at her, hitting her in the leg.

“I think it was the last time the motorcycle crowd was here,” he said as uniformed police mingled on the outskirts of the gathering.

Mary Lou Estes drove up to Santa Fe from Ruidoso.

“This is my husband’s birthday,” she said. “We came last year. I’ve lived in New Mexico since 1969, and we’d never come to Zozobra until last year. I had breast cancer 2 1/2 years ago. I’m a survivor. It’s very cathartic for me. Last year, I put all my cancer energy in (the box), and it was gone. It was a release.”

Nine-year-old Maya Holder of Santa Fe was seeing Zozobra in person for the first time. She was ready to forget her troubles.

“He’s weird-looking,” she said. “He’s got really big ears.

“I’ve always watched it on TV,” she added. “I asked my grandparents and they brought me. My brother broke his leg. My grandfather got sick and was in the hospital.”

First-timer Diorly Stierwalt of Ruidoso clutched her breast cancer medical files while she waited in the gloom box line. She recently finished radiation treatments. She said she hoped tossing the evidence into the box would assuage her worries.

“I keep trying to let go and let God, but I keep taking it back,” she said.

Alicia Annala, also of Ruidoso, brought her blood work records for her lupus treatment to have them torched with Zozobra.

“I also had my car stolen,” she said, ” and there’s a letter to the man who stole my car.”

She also had a note from a friend to add to the box.

“She has a letter to her rapist. It happened 25 years ago when she was in college. So she’s letting it go.”

Janet Lowe, also of Santa Fe, wrote “cancer be gone” and a prayer for her daughter’s job search.

“I think there’s something very primitive,” she said of the rite. “It’s a primitive release of emotions.”

‘Important ritual’

KBAC’s Clark said the gloom line buzzes as the countdown to incineration gets near.

“They get upset when they miss getting their glooms in the box,” she said. “This is a very important ritual.

“Last year, I had a woman bring her gown from her last chemo. All the doctors and nurses signed it. I’ve had people bring the ashes from their dearly departed.”

Luis Lucero came all the way from Spain. This marked his third trip to Santa Fe. He loves the Spanish influence and seeing his mother’s name –– Cordova –– on a street sign.

“In Barcelona, we have something like this in the solstice of summer,” he said. “We burn furniture. It’s something like burning the past. It’s like renewal.”

Sylvia Martinez Johnson hoisted her own stuffed Zozobra replica atop a tripod like a beacon. She had stuffed a cream sweater with a pillow and sculpted a papier-mâché head onto a Styrofoam ball. The mini-Zozo’s scalp sprouted red feathers.

“I make one every year because we need to meet our friends and they can’t find us,” she said. “He’s gained a lot of weight and his neck is longer. Every year, we change the color of his hair.”

Mae Jeffries of Pensacola, Fla., came at the behest of an old college professor friend.

“We have Mardi Gras and everybody’s crazy for Mardi Gras,” she said. “This is better because you burn” something.

Zozobra is staged annually by the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe as a kickoff to the Santa Fe Fiesta. All the proceeds go to local charities.

Santa Fe artist Will Shuster invented Zozobra in 1924 as a counterpoint to the fiesta in what was a private ceremony at his home. His inspiration came from the Holy Week celebrations of the Yaqui of Mexico, who burn an effigy of Judas stuffed with firecrackers. Shuster and newspaper editor E. Dana Johnson came up with the name Zozobra, defined as “anguish, anxiety, gloom” or in Spanish for “the gloomy one.”