Bolivians Celebrate Ñatitas Festival with Adorned Human Skulls

The annual festival in La Paz blends pre-Columbian traditions with Catholic influences as devotees seek favors from the skulls.

Hundreds of Bolivians participated in the Ñatitas festival, bringing human skulls adorned with flowers to the municipal cemetery of La Paz.
The festival is rooted in Andean customs and involves asking the skulls for protection, health, money, and love.
Devotees decorate the skulls with sunglasses, hats, and place them in glass urns or decorated shoe boxes.
The practice dates back to pre-Hispanic times when skulls were kept as trophies and displayed to symbolize death and rebirth.
Anthropologist Milton Eyzaguirre notes that in Andean culture, death is intertwined with life and is associated with the natural cycle of growth.