Religion and the social order: disposal of the dead in San Miguel Aguasuelos, Mexico

Resumo

It is argued in this essay that the disposal of the dead in San Miguel Aguasuelos involves a double exequies whereby the body and the soul are disposed separately in two ceremonies that have previously been confused as one. The ceremonies for the body last two days at most and include the wake and the burial. The ceremonies for the soul are more complicated and comprise a “novenario” (nine days of prayers), “cabo de año” (a replica of the “novenario”) and the near national feast of “Todos Santos”. In the wake, burial, and ceremonial meals that accompany funerals, a contrast is manifested between the eagerness of earth to eat corpses, and the care of mourners not to show themselves as human flesh eaters. Funerary rites seem to have developed independently from church and state control as a consequence of the indigenous population having taken advantage of the chronic antagonisms between them.