Laying the Dead to Rest--Again

Family members gather around the tomb as the bones of a cherished son are gently removed and washed with whiskey and champagne. After two days of hard drinking and prayer, the remains are put back into the tomb to join ancestors.

For generations beyond remembering, the Wayuu Indians of northern Colombia and Venezuela have performed this rite--the reburying of the dead. But the ritual, which has evolved to include a Catholic Mass, is fading from their dry, wind-swept land as most of the 300,000-member Wayuu nation take on the ways of modern society.

Anthropologists say the Wayuu hold the ceremony to prevent the souls of the dead from having to eternally wander the Earth. But the members of the Paz clan had trouble explaining the tradition when they gathered in this desert town near Venezuela’s border with Colombia to rebury one of their own.

Many family members said the ceremony--performed for a 29-year-old father of four who was slain nine years ago--would be their last.

“Most of us are professionals now,” explained Anelsy Paz, a sister of the dead man. “I think this is the last time.”

Tradition prohibits mentioning the name of the deceased once his or her body is exhumed, and some family members asked journalists who were invited to the ceremony to respect the custom.

The ceremony began before dawn, because the old women who guard the traditions say the dead don’t like daylight. But it took hours for all the relatives to arrive, and the tomb wasn’t opened until well after sunrise, after the last four-wheel-drive vehicle pulled into the cemetery.

A cousin, a dental hygienist from Maracaibo, was chosen to clean the bones. She began by downing a shot of whiskey, and then another.

“I have to be drunk. That’s not new--that’s traditional, the way they always did it,” said Floriana Paz, lifting a blue paper surgical mask with a latex-gloved hand.

The women, many wearing long, loose dresses called mantas, others in tight jeans and low-cut blouses, gathered around as Floriana went to work. The men hung back, some wearing cowboy hats, with pistols tucked into their belts, standard gear in the lawless frontier region. They pulled bottles of whiskey from a pickup truck to keep the liquor flowing.

As the casket was pulled out of the tomb, the dead man’s mother wept, covering her face with a scarf. The remains were sprinkled with whiskey and champagne, the drinks he had enjoyed.

Anthropologist Wilder Guerra says the Wayuu believe the reburial, usually performed a decade or so after death, reunites the dead with their ancestors.

Floriana Paz carefully stripped the remaining flesh from each bone, though she was a bit vague on the meaning of the ritual.

“It’s a beautiful tradition,” she said. “But we’re very Westernized; I was married to an American. We don’t live this way anymore.”

Her task was gruesome because the body had been treated with formaldehyde before its Catholic burial and was still partially preserved.

When she finished the cleaning, the bones were packed into a marble box. The older women, many in their 70s and 80s with wrinkles carved into suntanned faces, gathered around the box for what the Wayuu call the “Second Sob.” Weeping in a ritualized singsong, they covered their faces with towels, washcloths and scarves.

Children scooted in and out of the group, laughing and playing, oblivious to the ancient ritual. The younger women and all the men stood at a distance and watched.

The marble box was taken to the family ranch and placed on a flower-strewn altar in a thatch-roofed pavilion.

The oldest women sat vigil, some weeping over the box. Others chatted quietly in Wayuu, exchanging family gossip and recalling the days of bride prices, when a Wayuu groom had to come up with enough cattle and gold to cover the cost of maintaining his widow if he died.

A Catholic priest came to celebrate Mass.

About 400 friends and relatives turned out for the two-day feast at the ranch. Twenty women cooked regional specialties, including stewed goat and mutton, homemade cheese, plantains and yucca, and a dish made from cow’s blood. Out of respect for the dead, there was no music, but the gathering was kept well lubricated with whiskey and beer.

Traditionally, the woman handling the bones is not supposed to sleep or eat for 48 hours, or even hold her own drinking glass, in order to avoid contamination from the spirit she has awakened.

Anelsy Paz, the dead man’s sister, had spent three months preparing for the gathering, mostly out of respect for her ailing 72-year-old mother, Dionisia Paz.

“I wanted to do this before I died,” the older woman said. “My daughters wouldn’t have done it after I go. This is over now.”