The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-26
"HOT TIME"ASA FUNERAL MARCH
Some Peculiarities of Burials Wit
messed In the Southwest.
New York SUM


I'm the hotel at Santa Fe last summer
| the notes of brass band playing the
tune Marching Through Georgia. with
| great vigor, called me to the window,
said = New York tourist who recently
returned from New Mexico and Califor-
| MIA 1T was a Mexican funeral process
/ sion that l saw, advancing toward the
plaza, The mourneds followed the hearse
on foot, and in advance marched the local
Mexican band. As it reached the plaza
the band changed its tune to There II Be
Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,
and to this melody the procession moved
| across the public square on its way 10
Campo Santo. The expression of all the
moUrners was grave and decorouS. and
some of the people on the plaza uncovered
their heads as the procession passed. This
marching TO music was the ume-honOred
Mexican way of showing respect to the
dead A New Mexican friend explained
TO me that the musical repertory OF the
band being limited to three or four pieces.
it was necessary TO make the same tunes
do duty at funeral, merrymakinS, or
q political meeting.
"On passing the ancient Indian village
OF Iseta on my way by train down the
Rio Grande, man described TO me the
funeral of an Indian chief that he wit
messed there. The body. laid out in state
in the open air before the church, was
wrapped from head to foot in gay colored
ribbons, and was watched by a band of
warriors attired in the ancient war dress
of their tribe with feathers, beads and
antique weapons. Three musicians of the
tribe, with tOm-tomS, sat on the ground,
beating time to doOrouS chanting which
they kept up while the guard OF honor
joined in the refrain. All the people OF
the town were dressed in holiday attire
in preparatiO for the procession and
burial, which, though conducted under the
rites OF The Roman Catholic church. We're
to have many features peculiar to the
Indians, VeStgeS of the heather customs
OF their ancestors. The ceremonies con-
cluqed with u funeral feast. for which
bread tOrtillas. mutton. native wine and
aguardiente had been provided in prOfu-
sion.
In the quaint New Mexican town of
Mesllla, with its great willow trees. vine
yards and broad irrigating canal winding
along the main street. through the plaza,
/ heard the church bell changing loudly
one day at noon. Il was for the funeral
of young child and the procession was
just entering the plaza. Four brown
skinned girls, bareheaded and gOwned in
white, with flowers in their hair. held each
a corner of board swung between them.
On this the body lay, under a white cloth
strewn with. flowers. Behind them walked
six or seven women and half-grown chill
dren. The bell continued to clang until
the procession entered the church where
the simple burial service was to be per-
formed. After that the body would be
sandbank which was the burial ground
for the commoner sort of Mexicans-an
uncertain spot for a final resting place /
for the sands shifted with the wind. and |
the capricious Rio Grande in one of its |
sudden changes of channel might wash |
away or cut through at any time Inc |
MeXicans make no mourning over the I
death of infants. believing that they at 4
once enter upon Il happy future existence /
as angelitos-little angels"