While the women of Santa Catalina were building their giant female effigy to burn for the 2025 new year, they were already discussing and planning this year’s 2026 muñeca. For them, the Burning Woman project is such a fun creative endeavor, they can’t help thinking ahead to the details for the following year.
A Modern Myth
This modern day myth that they’ve been building every year puts a huge spin on the typical Panamanian tradition of burning a life sized effigy at midnight on the 31st. As it gets closer to the holidays, these scarecrow-looking dolls (muñeca literally translates to doll) start to crop up along the side of the road throughout the entire country.
The burning of effigies has been carried out in many cultures throughout the world. The burning of Judas, of kings at carnival, and the wicker man by the druids are traditions that continue, or have morphed and changed, adopted by new culture, for example, Burning Man.
The Panamanian version of this fire ritual more resembles the European custom of creating politicians or public figures to burn as a symbol of public disapproval, especially if the person committed a crime which could not or would not be apprehended. Typically, clothing is stuffed with dry leaves, or grass, along with some fire crackers and then topped off with some sort of head be it a coconut, paper mache, or a brown paper bag. Whatever they create, the burning signifies a purification. It’s out with the old, and in with the new!
A New Spin to the Panamanian Tradition
Starting in 2019, female residents of Santa Catalina began to put a giant sized spin on this Panamanian tradition which they call Burning Woman. Inspired by the work of Mavis Muller’s Burning Basket Project (an interactive ephemeral art project) and her visit to Santa Catalina in 2020, a group of women continue to build and create an interactive ritual of their own. After the Christmas holiday these ladies come together at the Estero Beach with lumber, power tools, a wide spectrum of skills, and ideas to begin planning, constructing, and the gathering of materials. Every year, they build the frame of a giant sized female effigy using lumber and driftwood leaving her center hollow to fill with dry materials to set a flame. Her exterior is carefully woven with local sticks and plants.
She is assembled and adorned with greenery and flowers the day of the 31st. It is female hands that build the Burning Woman, but everyone is invited to add their own special adornment. Paper and string is provided to write your gratitudes, hopes, dreams, dedications, or the things you wish to release into the ethers when this temporal art sculpture is burned at midnight.
Burning Woman Celebration
The Hotel Oasis & Surf Camp has held a long standing tradition of hosting a New Year’s Eve party at the Estero Beach with a DJ and an elaborate firework display when the clock strikes twelve. This is where you can also take part in the Burning Woman celebration, which for all the time and effort they put into creating her, leaves people stunned that they will set her on fire. This, her creators say, is one of the things this project teaches us… impermanence; the art of letting things go.
These women have come to see Burning Woman as a messenger, who when set on fire, has the ability to carry our collective hopes and prayers for our future and the future of this planet into the ethers. As people from all different countries and cultures gather around her and focus on this one thing, her story, and the new year, they are united by this moment and touched by this experience. Normally, about five meters tall, Burning woman calls attention to intentionality for the coming year in a big big way.
Starting December 26th, you can see the building process of Burning Woman at the Oasis Beach Bar at Estero Beach. The theme for this year’s Burning Woman will be the element of air, and will resemble a winged bird-spirit. You are invited to lend a hand and/or to weave your own messages and magic into her being on the 31st and to watch her come alive at midnight.
Thanks to:
Michelle Miller
www.heartfirstseries.com
🇵🇦+507 68805365