The "Seña" on Spy Wednesday

The Liturgical Arts Journal has a handsomely illustrated article about this custom in the cathedral of Quito in Ecuador at Vespers on Spy Wednesday. As Lucas Viar points out his article although it survives in Quito and three Venezuelan cathedrals it was once more widespread in Latin America, including Lima, of which there are photographs of the  discontinued ceremony, and derives from the cathedral in Seville. That was for a long period the mother church of New Spain. Its customs travelled across the Atlantic, and thus what appears to be a fascinating, not to say remarkable example of fourteenth or fifteenth century piety has survived but upon a different shore.

The article can be viewed at The "Seña" on Spy Wednesday

A friend who spent a gap year teaching in Quito told me about this ceremony and I was pleased to be able to share the article with him when I found it.