![\"Image](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/04\/peni.jpg\")
<\/a>images by Juan Carlos Guijarro Moreno<\/a><\/h6>\nOnce upon a time there was a blogger who started writing about Spanish culture and sharing things she thought that could be interesting for people learning her language. So she wrote about her city, some typical expressions and sayings, literature, cooking sometimes and obviously about different holidays and festivities from her country. One of her posts was devoted to the celebration of Easter in Spain, which as you know is a very religious festivity. She shared some pictures, one of them of a traditional penitent, and to her shock and surprise she received several comments and messages asking about the penitents\u00b4 clothing, can you imagine why? Because some of her readers mistook them for Ku Klux Klan members!<\/p>\n
That\u00b4s the reason why I want to talk about the origin of part of this strange garment: the capirote. This pointed hat is part of the uniform of some brotherhoods that go in processions during the Holy Week. It is a long conical hat that covers the face and the neck of the penitent and leaves two holes for the eyes.<\/p>\n
In times of the terrible Inquisition, condemned people were forced to wear a sambenito (a penitential garment similar to a scapular) and \u00a0alike hats made of cardboard in public actos de fe (acts of faith), as a sign of penitence and humiliation. Curiously enough, they were allowed to hide their faces as they seek for forgiveness and confronted their sentence. Depending on the sin and its gravity, the sambenito and the capirote would be decorated with different paintings, from crosses of different colors to demons or flames.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, people are not burnt at the stake nowadays, but penitents still keep this clothing as symbol of grief and repentance, and the shape of the capirote is considered to be their attempt to rise towards heavens. Could you\u2026?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hab\u00eda una vez una bloguera que comenz\u00f3 a escribir sobre cultura espa\u00f1ola y a compartir cosas que pensaba pod\u00edan ser interesantes para gente aprendiendo su idioma. As\u00ed que escribi\u00f3 sobre su ciudad, sobre dichos y refranes, literatura, a veces sobre cocina, y por supuesto sobre las distintas festividades de su pa\u00eds. Uno de sus posts…<\/p>\n![\"pe\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/04\/pe-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a> So remember: as chilling as it can be to face one of these penitents in the middle of the night, don\u00b4t be afraid, they are just sinners mourning.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/04\/pe-350x350.jpg\")