Silver Wedding Quince

Death of an infant in Oaxaca, Mexico

How different religious customs merge

Alvin Starkman MA, LL.B.

Daniel Perez Gonzalez was a beautiful baby. His parents Flor and Jorge thought so, my wife Arlene and I agree about. Few are able to share our safety, but because we were among the very few to see him alive. Daniel was born in one of Oaxaca-known clinics. I welcomed him in the world along with Arlene, our then 13-year-old daughter Sarah, and Daniel's abuelita (grandmother) CHONAS. From the womb, the nurse passed our newest extended family member into three sets of anxiously loving arms — CHONAS's, those of his big sister Carmela (Sarah's closest friend in Oaxaca), and then Sarah.

We have a long and colorful history together, my Jewish family in my former hometown of Toronto and my devoutly Catholic family here in Oaxaca. CHONAS Our comadre and matriarch of her family. Not six months earlier, she and her grandchildren had shouted Mazel Tov at Sarah's Bat Mitzvah in Toronto. Over the years we have raised many a glass Mezcal at milestone birthdays including quince años (Fiesta when A young girl reaches the age of fifteen, with similarities to the Bat Mitzvah), we have eaten matzoh together Passover in Toronto and we have welcomed many a Christmas, New Year and Dia de Muertos together in Oaxaca.

But it was Daniel's death that reinforced for me, through much laughter and many tears, the profound irrelevance of cultural differences in the light of universal rituals surrounding death.

On the day of his birth, it was easy to imagine that Daniel's life would unfold as Sarah's. 8 pounds, and with a head full of black hair, baby so very healthy. Like my wife, Flor's pregnancy had been full term. Like Sarah, Daniel was born by Caesarean section; and Sarah, his mother's umbilical chord was wrapped around his neck, causing temporary respiratory failure and need a few days in an incubator. But we do not worry, his father and cousin both obstetricians with connections in the Oaxacan medical community. He would have the best post-natal care available, and we would dance at his wedding one day.

But then their paths diverged. After two days of life we mourned little Daniel's death, breathing difficulties, his coffin in CHONAS living room, with family, friends and Compadres.

Between birth and death came a crazy-quilt of just-in-Mexico experiences that resonate with my memories of the mourning process my Canadian family had undergone when my father Sam died A few years earlier.

Most Oaxacans accept that death hits you at home — literally. Daniel left the hospital in a white, ornately-adorned satin-lined coffin, not tied to a funeral home, but for the living room of the family compound. Once he was firmly on a table covered with fresh linen, with a large silver crucifix behind him, my Compadres Javier and I were sent to the Mercado de Abastos, to buy white gladioli and flower arrangements. This was a far cry from the gloomy talk of formal arrangements at Toronto's Steeles Memorial after my father's death.

In this passionate and expressive country, even death rituals incomplete without the drama of shouting and accusations. At the cemetery I learned that Daniel was to be buried in a little grave-like pit top Tia Lolita, his great-great aunt who had died in 1990, which was layered over a second cousin who died in 1982. But when we met with the manager to ask the man, el presidente, at Lolita's grave just hours after Daniel's death, we were advised that annual fees had been paid for ten years. Much shouting ensued, but ultimately, after a heated debate, El Presidente was successfully "pint", as was his right, thousands of pesos for arrears of government taxes and administrative fees — plus around 1000 pesos in the likely event that Daniel would require a Boveda (literally a vault, the rebar reinforced concrete slabs designed to keep the grave residents in a proper configuration). And we still had not happened. Only when CHONAS had presented sufficient historical documents to convince everyone that she had actually the necessary authority to bury Daniel together Lolita were the appropriate certificate and receipts issued.

Back at home CHONAS mourners were started to arrive. Shortly after, Jorge and I dropped from 150 various pan dulce, to be used to delve into the traditional hot chocolate served to those participating in such gatherings. I then experienced another profound frisson of déjà vu. The notably slower pace of Oaxaca's mañana community was gone. With efficient dispatch, CHONAS and family turned home to a mourning chamber, providing necessities such as chair rentals, and ordering participants off to kitchen duty. During CHONAS roof I traveled back in sometimes to my mother's kitchen, crowded with friends and family I had not seen in years, just after my father's funeral. I could hear my mother's friend Rayla organization that would bring what meals into our home during shiva — week in mourning following the burial of a Jew.

Then there was the inevitable tragicomic moments. When I held my father's eulogy, I could not resist telling a story about him, referring to a shared moment that involved passing gas. In Mexico, the black humor of death even more visceral. When CHONAS and I went back to the cemetery to ensure that preparations for the funeral was well underway, we found El Presidente and his assistant half feet down, the top concrete slab of the vault — along with a portion of a human jawbone. CHONAS were furious and began shouting, "there may Tia Lolita! "We came up with many theories about the mystery bone, all revolving around the amorous activities of the dead, not repeated in this newspaper. That kept us going, until we finally came across the skull of Tia Lolita, still covered with the traditional fine headcloth to avoid mosquito bites. We ended up a few years back a second had been buried with Lola. The mystery of the extra jawbone solved. Here in southern Mexico, multiple burials in the same grave, sometimes at different levels, and at times involving the removal of bones after several years of non-payment of fees may occur. In any case, agreed to return for a handsome gratuity El Presidente to clear a place for Daniel's CAJITAS and hide Lolita's head and any other bones in a sack at one end of grave opening. The funeral will take place the following day, not unlike the consignment to which Jews bury their dead — but very different from the traditional adult Oaxacan death custom characterized by several days of prayer, visitation and other rituals prior to burial, similar in purpose and function of the Jewish period of shiva after the funeral.

Later that evening back at the house, we listened to a cassette recording of nursery rhymes. Although we in the Jewish tradition is not permitted music during mourning, these tunes seemed appropriate. Arlene tenderly put a little rattle beside Daniel, in accordance with local custom. A young woman led a 20-minute prayer, strikingly similar in nature to the Kaddish or mourners' prayer in a shiva home. So more food — a rich mole negro with bolillos, tortillas, salsa — and more prayer. When the padre finally arrived late, there was the obligatory humor about priests; someone joked that he had just proved for a meal.

By the following afternoon, we were placing a bountiful exhibition of flowers into the back of a pickup. Javier and I took the final photographs of the child, and then Jorge submitted son in the back of a 1980s white station wagon, on his last travel.

The cemetery ritual combined the continued awareness of my own Canadian experiences with Mexicana. A few soft prayers, a couple of handsful land situated on top of the coffin, and incongruously our two congenial cemetery workers placed the concrete slab back between the remaining parts of the lid of the box, then mixed and applied cement to seal Boveda. Reminiscent of Jewish behavior CHONAS asked Javier and I to assist with the shoveling of earth, then invited all home for comida.

Back at the house, there was no music. Idle chatter took its place. Finally, when most people had left, and only the bare white altar and the slow-burning candles, mourners remained, Arlene and I decided to go downtown for a walk, sad and emotionally drained, but strangely comforted. After a Oaxacan funeral for a Catholic baby, I felt exactly as I did the first time I walked outside after arising from my father's shiva.

About the Author

Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sites, is a consultant to film production companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ) .

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