We found the dead man lying on a couple of
sheepskins, in the centre of a mud-walled and mud-floored room.
"No
useless coffin enclosed his breast," nor was he wound in either sheet
or shroud. There he lay, fully attired, even to his shoes. Four
tallow candles lighted up the gloom, and these were placed at his
head and feet. His clammy hands were reverently folded over his
breast, whilst entwined in his fingers was a bronze cross and rosary,
that St. Peter, seeing his devotion, might, without questioning,
admit him to a better world. The scene was weird beyond description.
Outside, the wind moaned a sad dirge; great bats and black moths, the
size of birds, flitted about in the midnight darkness. These, ever
and anon, made their way inside and extinguished the candles, which
flickered and dripped as they fitfully shone on the shrunken features
of the corpse. He had been a reprobate and an assassin, but, luckily
for him, a pious woman, not wishing to see him die "in his sins," had
sprinkled Holy Water on him. The said "Elixir of Life" had been
brought eighty miles, and was kept in her house to use only in
extreme cases. The poor woman had paid the price of a cow for the
bottle of water, but the priest had declared that it was an effectual
soul-saver, and they never doubted its efficacy. Around the corpse
was a throng of women, and they all chattered as women are apt to do.
The men, standing around the door, talked of their horse-races,
fights or anything else. For some hours I heard no allusion to the
dead, but as the night wore on the prophetess of the people came
forth.
If my advent among them had caused a stir, the entrance of this old
woman caused a bustle; even the dead man seemed to salute her, or was
it only my imagination - for I was in a strangely sensitive mood - that
pictured it? As she slowly approached, leaning heavily on a rough,
thick staff, all the females present bent their knees. Now prayers
were going to be offered up for the dead, and the visible woman was
to act as interceder with the invisible one in heaven. After being
assisted to her knees, the old woman, in a cracked, yet loud, voice,
began. "Santa Maria, ruega por nosotros, ahora, y en la hora de
nuestra muerte!" (Holy Mary pray for us now, and in the hour of our
death!) This was responded to with many gesticulations and making of
crosses by the numerous females around her. The prayers were many and
long, and must have lasted perhaps an hour; then all arose, and mate
and cigars were served. Men and women, even boys and girls, smoked
the whole night through, until around the Departed was nothing but
bluish clouds.
The natives are so fond of wakes that when deaths do not occur with
great frequency, the bones of "grandma" are dug up, and she is prayed
and smoked over once more.
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