Guatemalan Funeral Traditions

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Guatemalans follow many traditional Catholic customs regarding death and funerals. When a person dies, there is a sense of urgency to prepare and bury the body. Shortly after a death, someone arrives to prepare for a burial by bathing and dressing the recently lost. Most Guatemalans select and purchase wooden coffins as their resting places prior to their deaths. Village carpenters rely on coffin purchases because their construction serves as the highest volume of the carpenter’s incomes. For the offerings and the burials themselves, Guatemalans combine religious and superstitious aspects in funeral services.

Mourners traditionally bring candles and rum to the funeral. The candles help mourners to see through this difficult time, while the rum allows them to drown out the grief that they experience in the absence of the recently lost. Specific guidelines exist for acts of mourning, such as screaming, weeping and lashing out. Unless the departed happens to be a child, mourners may openly mourn those lost as they are being laid to rest.

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Similar to their Italian counterparts, Guatemalans possess many superstitions about the souls of the departed. One superstition insists that crying for a recently lost child prevents a swift trip to heaven for the soul. Mourners at a burial will instead kiss handfuls of dirt and throw them in honor of the person being buried. Another funeral rite that echoes an Italian tradition is that Guatemalans will also bury prized possessions alongside those who have been recently lost. Guatemalans believe that invisible fluttering doves represent the souls of those recently lost, therefore, the tradition of burying treasured items reassures mourners that the souls of the recently lost will not return to haunt the people in the village.

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For further reassurance that supernatural forces are satisfied with the souls of the departed, funeral procession leaders carry standards with pictures of white skulls and crossbones against black backgrounds. Guatemalans also throw water at the graves, both to ensure that they remain solidly packed and to ward off werewolves or other dark forces that might be interested in the remains.

Along with these superstitious beliefs, Guatemalan funeral traditions also include a heavy dose of Catholicism. There are various rest stops during a funeral procession where the village priest may offer prayers. Funerals for the majority of Guatemalans usually have four stops when the party leaves the house—the doorway, the yard, the entrance onto street and the first street corner. Additional stops for prayer are given when a village elder or his wife dies. At each rest stop, mourners will customarily place pennies on the coffin. These offerings lead to the priest saying additional prayers and allow him to purchase necessities for the ritual, such as incense. Those who contribute the pennies, however, believe that the money symbolizes the purchase of a guaranteed release of the souls from purgatory.

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