Fwd: RE: [Aztlan] Day of the Dead - Maya Style

[David Hixson]

--- Larry Miller <lmiller at umassd.edu> wrote:
> The practice of reburial and the use of ossuaries
> was commonplace in Judea 
> in the pre Roman and Roman periods.

We archaeologists often get caught up in the "where"
and the "when" of traditions such as this - trying to
find the oldest source (much like sports fans with
their stats).  However, I think we need to bring this
topic back to the Maya area, and ask the more
important (and most elusive) question: "why".

Granted, the use of ossuaries (usually located within
the church cemetery) was widespread in European folk
catholicism at the time that catholicism spread to the
new world.  However, before the conquest, the Maya
were also very accustomed to exhuming and handling
their deceased family members - since they were most
often physically incorporated into the family home.

When the Spanish priests forced the Maya of the
northern lowlands to abandon household burials for
cemetery burials, the Maya adapted by embracing the
tradition of a family ossuary.  Often these ossuaries
are shaped like houses or churches, and the bones are
not placed within the miniature structure's main
"room" (which is used as a shrine) but instead beneath
the floors.

The exhumation of the bones is generally done on the
anniversary of a death.  The time between death and
reburial is a ritual period when family members are
encouraged not to cry or overly mourn, since the soul
of the deceased is still in this world and has not yet
passed to gloria.  Mourning will only cause the soul
to linger and not make its final journey.

In this way, as noted by researchers studying
secondary burials in Borneo, the flesh is a metaphor
for the soul.  The time it takes the soft tissue to
decay is approximately the time that the soul is
believed to stay near his/her family home.  When the
final journey to gloria is nearly complete, the bones
can be cleaned, brought home for their final feast
(Hanal Pixan) and then placed beneath the floor of the
surrogate house at the edge of the graveyard.

So, as I was saying when I first posted on this
subject, sanitation and crowded cemeteries have little
to do with this tradition.

-Dave


 
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