Sumpango Giant Kite Festival

Kites for the dead

Sumpango is a town in the Guatemalan department of Sacatepéquez. Every year on 1 November, All Saints’ Day, its people gather at the football field beside the cemetery for a contest of giant kites, judged on creativity and on flight. Families remember their dead by sending multicoloured kites into the sky. A local legend tells that evil spirits used to invade the cemetery on this day and disturb the good souls resting there; on the elders’ advice, the townspeople flew pieces of paper against the wind to drive the intruders away, and the good spirits were left in peace. The rattle of the kites’ fringes and tails is still said to keep bad souls away from the town.

The festival was recognised as cultural heritage of Guatemala in 1998, and in 2024 UNESCO inscribed the technique of making the giant kites of Santiago Sacatepéquez and Sumpango on its Representative List; UNESCO dates the tradition of making and flying the kites to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 2023, when bad weather forced a postponement, the festival was held over two days for the first time and drew more than 100,000 visitors.

Months of work

About sixty groups, some 2,700 people, build the kites. The largest measure from 5.5 to 20 metres across and take months of work — hours every day, sometimes whole nights. Each group first decides the message its kite will carry, often about unity, faith, respect for tradition or Mother Earth, then draws a scale sketch before building the frame and the full-size design in tissue paper. The frame, made of cane and tied with hemp, rope or wire, is assembled on the night of 31 October; a cloth tail and paper fringes give the kite its balance in the air.