Federico Stories

On November 3 rd , 1658, there was a massive eruption in the San Salvador Volcano. The residents of the surroundings didn't expect it. The volcano had been inactive for centuries. Even the local Amerindians were shocked by such a catastrophic event. They thought this would be the end of their lives. What nobody knew is that at the top of the volcano, a battle was happening. Saint Jerome and the devil were fighting. The devil wanted to erase every Christian, living in the surroundings and Saint Jerome wanted to protect them. Saint Jerome had been chosen as their protector. After several hours, Saint Jerome stopped the devil, but at a great cost. The large majority of the most Christian town was gone for good. The lava covered the entire town. Saint Jerome from heaven guided the residents of the destroyed town to a new location. They called it, Nejapa which in Nawatl means, "River of Ashes." In this place, they started a new life, and they called this eruption, 'El Play...

Some elders from Dolores say that many moons ago, some people found a Virgin of Dolores’s statue (figure 1) in the Plains of San Cristóbal next to the banks of the Sisicua River. Where they found it, the people called this town, Puebla Nueva of Titihuapa or La Puebla Nueva. They considered this statue, a miracle, and a message from God. That’s why they built a small temple to honor her presence. Figure 1. The Virgin of Dolores.  ¹ Years later, the priest of the town those days requested the inhabitants to move the statue from La Puebla because he said that the Virgin didn’t like where she was.  This suggestion motivated the town to move the statue from the banks of the river to the place it occupies from 1781 to today,  Our Lady of Sorrows Parish . However, there is a second version and the most accepted one, especially by the Catholic Church. Some people accidentally found a statue of the Virgin of Dolores. They discovered it not so far from the current lo...

In 1908, a few people found some human bones that belonged to a two meters tall woman. In those days, the location of the bones was called San José, but today is known as the Giant Hill. However, from these bones, nothing is known. People assure some scientists took the bones to be examined in another country, but the results were never known. The mayor in those days, Santiago Mata, commissioned Naftalí to elaborate it and sculpted the face in wood and painted it. Then he formed the body so that a person could get under it and make it turn so that it would seem that it danced. The finding caused a stir among the inhabitants and led to the creation of a popular myth that ended up becoming the legend of “the giantess of Jocoro” (figure 1). Figure 1. The g iantess of Jocoro. A story that over the years has given way to the development of an extraordinary doll that is accompanied by a court of masked men. It goes out to dance through the streets of the municipality every Febru...