All In The Neighborhood Are Invited To The Dance Which Takes
Place That Evening Around The Corpse.
At a funeral the Pai walks
first, followed by a crowd of men, women and children bearing
candles, some of which are four and five feet long.
The dead are
carried through the streets in a very shallow coffin, and the head is
much elevated. An old woman generally walks by the side, bearing the
coffin lid on her head. The dead are always buried respectfully, for
an old law reads: "No person shall ride in the dead cart except the
corpse that is carried, and, therefore, nobody shall get up and ride
behind. It is against Christian piety to bury people with irreverent
actions, or drag them in hides, or throw them into the grave without
consideration, or in a position contrary to the practice of the
Church."
All Saints Day is a special time for releasing departed ones out of
purgatory. Hundreds of people visit the cemeteries then, and pay the
waiting priests so much a prayer, If that "liberator of souls" sings
the prayer the price is doubled, but it is considered doubly
efficacious.
A good feature of Romanism in Paraguay is that the people have been
taught something of Christ, but there seems to be an utter want of
reverence toward His person, for one may see a red flag on the public
streets announcing that there are the "Auction Rooms of the child
God." In his "Letters on Paraguay," Robertson relates the following
graphic account of the celebration of His death:
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