Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-06-02
In YUCATAK.
DESCRIPTION OF A CAMPO SANT0
AND RITRrAI. oUeIUMS.
Strange Manner OF Disposing of the
Dead-Inhuence Of Their Pres
ence Upon the Living.


ence Upon the Living.
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD UNION. !
MERIDA, May is, 1883.
We recently visited rural campo saato
cemetery and saw horrors enough to
keep me month in that intangible COM
plant called the blues" 1t was bare,
bleak square on a sandy hillside, inclosed
by an adobe wall. Having been conse-
Grated by the Church, none but good Cath
olics can be inferred therein-for which
circumstance l felt deeply thankful, since
it prevents my bones from being added to
its miscellaneous collection, whatever may
befall us in Yucatan.
There is no gateway or other entrance
to the Gods acre" except by climbing
over the wall-and the dead must be
hoisted in in the same manner. On Jump
ing over, / nearly landed in half-dug
grave, which the workmen had abandoned
because they found a stone, and with char
acteristic laziness preferred to dig another
hole rather than remove an obstacle. At
the head of each low mound was a wooden
cross. and on the arms of nearly every
cross was perehed skull or two.
Inone corner was a second inclosure, which
contained bushels upon bushels of human
bones, piled in heaps, bleaching and
bhstering in the sun. A grave was being
dug, and we watched the process. The
Indians used q crow-bar and machete, scoop
ing out the loose earth with their hands.
Proceeding lower down, they filled their
hemp-fber aprons with the dirt, and
scrambled to the top with it. Now and
then the crow-bar would enter something
with a cracking and tearing sound-pass-
ing through a skull Then the Indians
would take it out in their hands, examine
and comment upon it, and generally iden-
tily it has having belonged to some
friend or neighbor. If the bones belong
ing with it are easily obtainable they
lifted them out respectfully and laid them
together on the pile in the charnel-h house.
1t seemed as if every skull in the yard
had once sat upon the shoulders of an
acquaintance, so many did they identify,
Us part of the late Don Juan or Don Jose,
or senorita somebody. One cadaver was
DIOuEub ulf-tlldl vi Il MOIudll-On LHH
bones Of which flesh still adhered. dried
like mummy. Why, in Heavens name,
when there is 50 much unoccupied space
all over that country, they continue piling
dead people on top of each other from
generation to generation, none can tell
but such seems to be the custom all over
Mexico and Central America.
We waited while for the funeral pro-
cession. Finally it appeared, consisting
largely of women, most of them carrying
candles and singing in soft-yoweled Span
ish the appropriate hymn;
''Que bonito es ell mundo!
Lastima es que 20 me muera.'
e How beautiful is the world
What pity that l must dIe.''
They halted outside the Enclosure and
did not attempt to enter. The corpse, that
of a young woman, was coffinless and
wrapped in zarape, head uncovered, and
feet sticking out, was carried on a rude
barrow, made of two long poles with cross
pieces. 1t was hoisted over the wall and
the body was carefully laid upon the
ground beside the grave, while the be-
reaved husband measured with sticks. first
the length of his late companion and then
her sepulchre. The grave not being quite
it out to suit his own views of comfort.
Then he helped to lower the body into it,
and himself arranged the head with a lit
tie pillar under it. The poor dead face,
with its wide-opened eyes turned up to the
sky, yet showed signs of uncommon beauty,
but bore an agonized expression, as if hor-
rified at the thought of death. We learned
that she was barely 20, and had left a
week's-old infant.
After tucRing the blanket closer over
the hands that were folded on her breast,
the husband sprinkled few handfuls of
earth upon the bare face until it was
covered from sight, after which he turned
away and the Indians rapidly filledup the
grave. Probably within a week, or a
month at longest, the new-made widower
will take another spouse to his home-not
that he did not love his wife and mourn
her early death, but because he must have
a woman in the house to cook his meals
and wash his clothes and attend to the
motherless infant.
Near the village Of Nohiacal, far in
the interior of Yucatan, the campo santo
adjoins the church, and its great charnel-
house connects directly with the convent
perhaps to keep thoughts of death per-
petually before the melancholy sisterhood.
All around its halls are ranged rows Of
skulls, they grin along the arms of every
cross, and at the top of pillar which
forms the abutment of the staircase wall is
huge vase piled full Of the same CHASTITY
relics
Within the Enclosure is promiseuous
assemblage of human bones, piled several
feet deep. All along the inner walls,
hanging by cords, are baskets, boxes and
bundles, containing skeletons-each parcel
appropriately labeled. Everywhere may
be seen fragments of smouds and dresses,
shoes that have dropped from feshless
feet, wOmen's combs and other adorn-
ments, arms, legs and trunks, to which
dried flesh still adheres, and scores of
skulls with hair clinging to them-some
of them the long beautiful tresses of
women.
Inside the church the horrors do not
cease. The floor is a series of trap-doors,
each door covering vault filled to the
brim with former citizens of Nohiacal.
Near the altar is a glass case, in which re-
pose the bones of lady, bright and clean,
as though newly polished. The arms and
legs are laid at the bottom, the ribs dis
posed regularly in their natural order, the
skull and cross-bones in front. She was
the wife of former Alcalde, and we are
told that the good husband arranged her
remains thus neatly himself, and during
his lifetime appeared to derive much
pleasure in paying her these strange at
tentions. At the side of the case is a
board, painted black, upon which appears
a poetical inscription lin Spanish, of
course,) composed ty the husband Trans
lated it reads as follows:
"Stop, mortal
Gaze at yourself in this mirror
And in its pale reflection
See your own end
This eclipsed crystal
Had br.llancy and splendOr;
But the dreadful blow
OF a fatal destiny
Fell uDOn Manuela Carrillo-
Who was born in the year 1889, in Nohiacal,
married in the same village. in lS0S, to Veto
riano Machia1o. and died in August, 1885, after
union of twenty-five years aged Al. de i'm
plOres Your prayers
1t is said that the widower wrote several
more stanzas; but the blackboard not being
big enough to hold them the rest were lost
To the world