It Consists,
According To The Wealth Or Piety Of The Housewife, In Expensive
Crosses, Beads, And Pictures Of Saints Decked
Out with costly care;
or, it may be, but one soiled lithograph surrounded by paper flowers
or cheap baubles of
The poorer classes; but all are alike sacred.
Everything of value or beauty is collected and put as an offering to
these deities - pieces of colored paper, birds' eggs, a rosy tomato or
pomegranate, or any colored picture or bright tin. Descending from
the ridiculous to the gruesome, I have known a mother scrape and
clean the bones of her dead daughter in order that they might be
given a place on the altar. Round this venerated spot the goodwife,
with her palm-leaf broom, sweeps with assiduous care, and afterwards
carefully dusts her crucifix and other devotional objects with her
brush of ostrich feathers. Here she kneels in prayer to the different
saints. God Himself is never invoked. Saint Anthony interests himself
in finding her lost ring, and Saint Roque is a wonderful physician in
case of sickness. If she be a maiden Saint Carmen will find her a
suitable husband; if a widow, Saint John will be a husband to her;
and if an orphan, the sacred heart of the Virgin of Carmen gives
balsam to the forlorn one. Saint Joseph protects the artisan, and if
a candle is burnt in front of Saint Ramon, he will most obligingly
turn away the tempest or the lightning stroke. In all cases one
candle at least must be promised these mysterious benefactors, and
rash indeed would be the man or woman who failed to burn the candle;
some most terrible vengeance would surely overtake him or his family.
God, as I have said, is never invoked. Perhaps He is supposed to sit
in solitary grandeur while the saints administer His affairs? These
latter are innumerable, and whatever may be their position in the
minds of Romanists in other lands, in South America they are distinct
and separate gods, and their graven image, picture or carving is
worshipped as such.
When religious questions have not arisen, life in those remote
villages has passed very pleasantly. The people live in great
simplicity, knowing scarcely anything of the outside world and its
progress.
At the Feast of St. John the women take sheep and lambs, gaily
decorated with colored ribbons, to church with them. That is an act
of worship, for the priest puts his hand on each lamb and blesses it.
A velorio for the dead, or a dance at a child's death, are
generally the only meetings beside the church; but, as the poet says:
"'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout
All countries of the Catholic persuasion,
Some weeks before Shrove Tuiesiday comes about,
The people take their fill of recreation,
And buy repentance ere they grow devout,
However high their rank or low their station,
With fiddlling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masking,
And other things which may be had for asking."
Carnival is a joyous time, and if for only once in the year the quiet
town then resounds with mirth.
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