What Is the Burning of Zozobra?
The Burning of Zozobra is a cultural tradition held annually in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Each year on the Friday before Labor Day, tens of thousands of people gather at Fort Marcy Park to watch a 50-foot marionette called Zozobra, or Old Man Gloom, burn to the ground. The tradition started in 1924 and has taken place without fail every year since.
The Mythology of Zozobra
Will Shuster: The Man Behind the Monster
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Will “Shus” Shuster was born in 1893 in Pennsylvania. He fought in World War I and was sent to France, where he was gassed by the Germans. When he got home, his doctor told him he had only a few months to live, or he could head west and try to extend his time. Shuster moved to Santa Fe and lived for 45 more years.
Shuster had a degree in art, and in Santa Fe he became part of Los Cinco Pintores (the five painters), a group of artists partly responsible for Santa Fe’s growth into the art colony it is today. Los Cinco Pintores, or “five nuts in a hut” as some locals called them, lived off each other’s successes. When one of them sold a painting, they all lived off the proceeds until someone sold another.
Christmas Eve, 1923
On Christmas Eve of 1923, Shuster sold a painting he had been working on for five months. He told his friends they should celebrate by spending the money on tequila and dinner at the newly opened La Fonda. They shouldn’t worry about what the next year was going to bring. They all agreed.
Shuster recorded in his diary that he was upset with his friends because, despite him treating them to a night out, they were in a gloomy mood. So he gave each friend a piece of paper and demanded they write down what was bothering them. He took the candle on the table and lit the papers on fire. They all got kicked out of the restaurant and ended up laughing together on the curb.
This was the beginning of the idea of symbolically burning away what is weighing you down.
From Inspiration to Creation
In April of 1924, Shuster traveled to Mexico and witnessed a Good Friday celebration in a Yaqui community, where a five-foot effigy of Judas was paraded through town, berated, and set alight. Between the Christmas Eve paper burning and the Mexican effigy tradition, Zozobra was born.
Shuster built the first Zozobra that year: a six-foot effigy that burned in his backyard at a party for Los Cinco Pintores and their circle. He wanted a ritual tied to the fall season, when many cultures and religions mark cycles of renewal and rebirth. But to start fresh, you first have to destroy the old.
That was the mythology Shuster built around Zozobra. Old Man Gloom is the physical embodiment of the negative energy that humans put out into the world. He is invited to the Santa Fe Fiesta as the guest of honor, but it is a trick. The celebration is not to honor him but to destroy him with the positive energy created by the crowd of visitors. That positive energy is channeled through a Fire Spirit who uses it to build fireworks and a waterfall of flame. It is not guaranteed that Zozobra will fall. It is the crowd’s job to bring enough positive energy to help the Fire Spirit defeat him.
Zozobra circa 1938
How Zozobra Got His Name
Shuster didn’t want an English language name for his creation. He went to his friend E. Dana Johnson, editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, and together they opened a Spanish-English dictionary. They looked up the word “gloom” and found “zozobra,” which also translates to “anxiety” and “being shipwrecked.” Shuster thought the word captured everything the effigy was meant to represent, and the name stuck.
Over the years, Zozobra has also been called Old Man Gloom, Old Man Groucher, King of Gloom, and New Mexico’s Boogieman.
The First Public Burning, 1926
The first public burning of Zozobra took place on September 2, 1926, and was described that day in the Santa Fe New Mexican. According to the newspaper, a procession led by the Conquistadores Band marched from vespers at the Cathedral to the open lot behind City Hall, where Zozobra stood twenty feet tall in ghastly silence, lit by green fires. The band played a funeral march while Kiwanians in black robes circled the figure.
When City Attorney Jack Kennedy read Zozobra’s sentence and fired several revolver shots at the effigy, the green fires changed to red, the surrounding bonfires were ignited, and a match was applied to the base. Fire leaped up in a column of many-colored flames, and fireworks exploded from the figure. The crowd threw off their black robes, revealing bright costumes underneath, and joined a parade of harlequins with torches dancing around the fires as the band played “La Cucaracha.” The newspaper reported it drew the biggest crowd of merrymakers the city had seen in years.
The Fire Spirit
The Fire Spirit is Zozobra’s arch-enemy and the embodiment of the crowd’s positive energy. Dressed in a flowing red costume and headdress and armed with blazing torches, the Fire Spirit dances at Zozobra’s feet, taunting him before the final burn.
The role was originated by Jacques Cartier, a former New York City ballet dancer and local dance teacher who performed it for 37 years. Cartier talked about the physical toll of decades spent dancing with fire at the base of a burning effigy. He noted that the idea of Zozobra grew out of a group of Santa Fe thinkers who met monthly, calling themselves the Society of Quien Sabe, where membership was based on how well you could spin a yarn.
In 1970, Cartier was succeeded by one of his students, James Lilienthal, who performed the role for more than 30 years before passing it on to his daughter. Today, the Fire Spirit is performed by Santa Fe native and dancer Helene Luna, who will be passing the torch to Than Povi Martinez for the 2027 burn.
From Backyard Effigy to 50-Foot Marionette
Shuster’s creation has grown from a six-foot backyard effigy to a towering 50-foot marionette. Made of wood, wire, and cotton cloth and stuffed with bushels of shredded paper (which traditionally includes obsolete police reports, paid-off mortgages, and even divorce papers), Zozobra is one of the world’s largest functioning marionettes. He can wave his arms, move his head, and growl ominously at the crowd through his gaping mouth.
Shuster personally oversaw the construction of the Zozobra figure for decades. In an interview, he commented on one reason for his continuing interest in the annual tradition: the look on the faces of children as they watched this monster, who might have stepped out of a fairy tale, go up in smoke. He said that reaction was the reason for Zozobra, that Old Man Gloom appeals to the childish fancy in all of us. It is, he said, a scene from a fairy tale of our own making.
Tio Coco
Old Man Gloom has an elusive and equally grouchy cousin named Tio Coco, whom he summons to attend parties when he is unable or unwilling to make an appearance. Tio Coco was first introduced in 1940 at the request of Warner Bros. Studios for the premiere of the movie “The Santa Fe Trail,” starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Ronald Reagan. Tio Coco later appeared as the guest of honor at the Convention of the Southwest District of Kiwanis International and in the 2021 season of The Bachelorette.
Shuster’s Legacy
The Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe became officially involved with Zozobra in 1963. On June 19, 1964, Shuster assigned all rights, title, and interest in Zozobra to the Club, which retains exclusive copyright and trademark to the effigy and images. The Kiwanis Club has faithfully continued the tradition as its primary annual fundraiser, with net proceeds donated to nonprofits that support children in New Mexico. For more about the Kiwanis Club’s mission, history, and community impact, visit the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe page.
The Zozobra ritual endures, providing the same release that creator Will Shuster described in a note to a friend after the 1924 burning. He wrote that after the flames consumed the effigy and the embers faded into the starlit Santa Fe sky, the group stood together, unburdened. In the ashes lay the worries of the past year.
Our commitment to our historic tradition is unwavering.