ciadoncha; ¡cuántos recuerdos - Webpages at SCU - Santa Clara ...

participants value the most of this phase in life is the solidarity that exists during these
moments. The climate does not matter, whether it rains or snows. The church is always
full of neighbors during a funeral.
To me it also appears very important to leave evidence of the customs and
tradition that there are in relation to death, since this is also changing with modernity.
Some participants remember how in the town in the past, when someone was
really sick, the priest was called so that he could go give the sick person the Holy Oils.
Upon dying, the corpse was prepared in the house and there it was watched until it was
buried the next day. Almost always it was the family who came to the house and the rest
of the town attended the mass and the burial.
Today, the dead are not watched over in the town. Today, it is customary to take
them to the funeral homes of the city of Burgos. The funeral homes are in charge of
preparing the corpse, the announcements that come out in the newspapers, the mass and
the burial.
In our family, for my husband’s father’s death I remember that the administration
of the funeral home in Burgos told us we could go rest because they would close the
room where the body was exposed and to return in the morning for a mass that would be
celebrated for all the deceased that were in that place, which would take place in the
chapel the following morning. I will never forget the words of one of my sister-in-law’s:
“How am I going to leave my father alone now. I am only going to have him for a few
more hours.” All of us were filled with such profound emotion and loyal thought that we
gave her all the reason. We watched over my husband’s father all night and we prayed
and remember with much pain the best moments that he had given us. That night of
watching was like rendering him a homage of gratitude for all that he had done for
everyone. The next day we took him to mass and to burry him in Ciadoncha.
Like in most part of the western world, morning is shown with the color black;
contrary to the oriental world where it is shown with the color white. At the burials,
relatives go dressed in black and also are accustomed to sending crowns or flower
wreaths that are carried by youth and children up to the cemetery. After the burial, only
close relatives accompany the deceased’s family nucleus to the house.
Until the 70s, mourning was very strict. For a husband, wife, mother, father or
children, a rigorous mourning was maintained for two or three years. This consisted in
constantly wearing black clothes and avoiding going out to the street. One participant
shared this with me when she explained the mourning that she experienced for her
mother’s death in the 40s and 50s. When they were able to go outside, they still had to
continue wearing black, especially widows. Today, this has changed a lot It is no longer
customary to wear black for such a long time and no one is restricted from going out to
the street.
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