Death traditions in Mexico | Surviving Mexico

More than 83% of Mexicans are Catholic. Catholic mourning customs will add to the expense of the funeral whether you have a casket or an urn as your final resting place. If el difunto (dead person) isn’t Catholic, but the family is, expect a Catholic funeral.

As the host or hostess, you’ll need to provide refreshment for the attending mourners as the familiar representative of the deceased, both during el velorio and the subsequent novena. The most common food is pan (sweetbread) served with cafe de olla (coffee made in a large pot) or tequila for the male attendees. Usually, mourners that have come to pay their respects bring sugar or styrofoam cups or even alcohol along with their condolences and floral arrangements to help offset the cost. Nonetheless, there is a cost and depending on what you serve and the number of attendees, it could be a nice chunk of cash.

La novena (9-day prayer session) is usually not as well attended. The family often divides up the host responsibilities to provide some sort of nourishment for those that attend. The woman who is in charge of the prayers during the novena, and it is always a woman, must also be taken care of. She may refuse money but a gift of some sort is appropriate.

After el velorio, the body is often taken to church for the misa (mass). Although Pope Francis exhorted the Catholic priests to not charge for the requiem for the dead, it isn’t a free service here in Mexico. The la misa de difuntos for my brother-in-law costs $300 pesos and then whatever was collected when the collection baskets were passed among the funeral attendees.

If the body will be on display during the mass, it is announced as la misa con cuerpo presente (mass with body present). This is the most common situation. If the person died en el norte (in the United States) then the body may not have arrived yet. Or if there were some unforeseen delays, the body may have already been buried before the mass.

For instance, if the church was unavailable for the funeral because of a prior booking, then other arrangements may need to be made. The misa for my brother-in-law couldn’t be held in a timely manner because the festivities of Revolution Day were taking place. His misa and burial were able to take place just before the mandatory 48 hours. Mama Vira’s funeral service was moved from the church in front of her house to the church in the center of town for similar reasons, overbooking and all.

There are different levels of service provided by the church, but I don’t have a price list since it often varies from church to church. My mother-in-law was provided the basic service, which was, well basic. However, when my teacher friend Rene died, being a pillar of the community and all, his many relatives and friends paid for a more lavish funeral service. The entire church was redecorated just for the funeral, like they do for weddings. There was music. The service was about 40 minutes long, praising his virtues. Of course, the service was standing room only in the church and the crowd spilled out and filled la plaza, so there’s no surprise that the extra effort was taken.

The church isn’t done with you or your wallet yet. At the one month anniversary there is the misa del mes (one-month mass) which includes another service with a minimum “voluntary” donation of $300 pesos.

Then at the one year anniversary there is the el primero luctuoso (first year of mourning) with another yet mass. In our area, it’s common to take out a half-page newspaper spread to announce the time and place of the celebration. After the mass, attendees receive a recuerdo (souvenir) which of course you pay for. Each subsequent year has another mass, el segundo luctuoso, el tercer luctuosos and so on, for perpetuity, or as long as someone is paying for it.

If you happen to belong to a religion that makes up the other 17% of Mexico, there are still services to pay for, but it might not stretch out for years to come.

Typically, a person dies, his or her body is taken to a family member’s home or the funeral home for the viewing. Mass is the next morning with burial following. As my mother-in-law’s body was not released until late afternoon, and the entire family, my father-in-law and his children, were required to report to the Public Ministry Office the following day at 11 and were there until late afternoon again, they felt that they hadn’t had time to properly mourn, so she was returned to the house for a second night mourning after mass. (See Viewing and Wake)

The altar of El señor de Escapulitas Catholic Church in Moroleón

Mass was scheduled at 9 a.m. in the morning so that the family could be at the 11 a.m. hearing. The funeral car came to pick up the body and we walked from the house to the church, El Señor del Escapulitas for mass. The sons and my father-in-law stood with the casket in front of the altar during mass. The daughters stayed with their families in the first few pews. My son and I knelt when everyone else knelt, stood when everyone else stood and said amen when everyone else did. I can’t say that the mass was in any way personalized from what I understood. Nothing about her life was mentioned, just the solemnized intonations of ritual prayer. My mother-in-law’s co-workers from the Presidencia came along with a good group of teachers from the school I was working at.

I, unfortunately, experienced another death later in the year when my friend, el maestro (teacher) died. The mass said over his body was an entirely different affair. The Padre (priest) spoke about the fullness of his life and quoted beautiful and hopeful passages from the bible. There were music and singing. And when his coffin left the church, the masses that had gathered in the Centro gave el maestro (teacher) a standing ovation. My mother-in-law’s funeral paled in comparison.

So I asked about the differences in the misas (masses) and found out that the church offers levels of services, at different prices. The basic package was what my mother-in-law was given, very little personalization. The deluxe package costs more, of course, but has the spectacular effects of el maestro’s (teacher’s) services.

We walked back to the house behind the funeral car after mass. The plan was that my mother-in-law’s body was to spend one night in town and the second night in La Yacata, however, the town children protested due to the fact that there wasn’t running water or electricity in La Yacata. So her body stayed in town. Although it seemed to me that my mother-in-law wouldn’t have minded the lack of services anymore, the convenience of the mourners kept us in town. This cause general confusion and attendance was scanty at best the second night, most having believed the body to be already interred or to be in La Yacata.

To top it all off, R arrived the morning of the second day to have me sign papers for the lawsuit from Chuchi. So there I am, outside in the blazing sun, reading the 3 page paper (because it just wouldn’t do to sign and not know what you are signing) that stated that 1) Chuchi was not president at the time he made the contract and therefore not legally representing La Yacata 2) the pozo perforation is outside the boundaries of what is legally registered as La Yacata and 3) no water rights were ever purchased that would make a pozo a legal possibility. (See Demanda 1 and Demanda 2).

My husband and I went out and bought 12 rotisserie chickens to feed the family and group of mourners that stayed throughout the day. We also bought more flowers so that everyone would be able to leave a flower when we took the body for burial.

Tradition requires that the body not be left alone or the soul the deceased might be offended but the second evening, through the pure exhaustion of the family members this was allowed to happen unintentionally. There also must not be any cleaning up. The multitude of mourners left their Styrofoam cups and napkins littered about, but we were not to sweep. All the trash had to be picked up by hand until after the novena, since sweeping would be an insult to the soul, a way of saying that it was unwelcome here.

Having very little rest, the family and mourners drank some coffee for energy before the long walk to the panteón (cemetery) the following morning. As it is outside of town limits, but within a stone’s throw of La Yacata, often the funeral home arranges for public transport from mass to the cemetery, but as we had gone from the church back to the house the previous day, we were about half the distance already.

Another small band of mourners joined us for the walk from the house to the cemetery that morning. I didn’t think to bring an umbrella for shade and so ended up with a headache and slight sunburn. Our walk brought us past the courthouse. Not one guard was outside, perhaps warned to stay inside, as the sight of a uniform might enrage the mourners. But from the windows, they could watch us as we passed and take a good long look at what “one of their own” had done. (See On Life and Liberty)

At the cemetery, the casket was placed in an open pavilion and opened for one last viewing while the crypt was prepared. At this point, physically and emotionally drained, her daughter P fainted. She was moved to the shade and rubbing alcohol was applied to her face until she came around.

The children were distraught and took turns caressing and kissing her body. I told my son that we would look, say our goodbyes and he could leave a flower with her body but that he should not touch her skin. I didn’t want his last memory of his grandmother to be of her cold dead flesh, but of the warm embrace she gave him in the hospital when she said “My niño” (her special endearment for him) before slipping into a coma. (See Parenting Challenge–When someone dies)

When the crypt was prepared, the sons carried the casket over the uneven ground, past the plots, to the corner where rows of crypts had been built. The casket was slid into the middle row #19, about at eye level. The cemetery workers bricked up and patched the hole while we looked on, again in the now midday sun. I am surprised we didn’t have more casualties from heat stroke. The wreaths were stacked against the wall and the flower arrangements placed nearby. And that was that. Nothing doing but to go home.

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Tag Archives: Death traditions in Mexico

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