Marigolds and Mariachis Mark an Elaborate Farewell

XOXOCOTLAN, Mexico

Rusty red dirt arched through the air, landing by the shovelful on the wooden coffin. A mariachi in tight black pants lifted a trumpet to his lips, unloosing a plaintive wail.

It was 5:15 p.m. in the Municipal Pantheon, Xoxocotlan's beloved, ancient cemetery. Time to say goodbye to Juan Pedro.

A little girl in a frilly orange dress skittered through the thickening crowd, bouncing onto a scuffed concrete grave, fiddling with a tall, rusted cross, laughing out loud. A scruffy boy with mischievous, dark brown eyes shoved his brother, then raced away.

No one shushed the children. Not the men clustered at the head of Juan Pedro's coffin, not the women balancing armloads of fresh-cut flowers a few steps away. They just smiled wanly and watched the pile of dirt grow over Juan Pedro.

"You're going, my angel," the lead mariachi sang mournfully, stretching to hit the high note. "You're leaving, leaving my soul injured and a heart to suffer."

By 5:25, Modesto Nolasco's mustache, a gloriously shaggy Fu Manchu, glistened with beads of sweat. He pressed his spade into the soil, shimmied the blade and launched another scoop of earth onto his older brother.

Juan Pedro Nolasco once drove taxis in this town 30 minutes outside the city of Oaxaca, a tranquil, dusty spot called "Ho Ho" in the local lingo. Nolasco, who died at 55 from diabetes complications, never made much money. But he liked his mescal, the super-powered liquor made from agave, and he loved his wife, Rosario, the only mourner dressed in black on this overcast afternoon.

Marigolds scented Rosario's day of mourning. The cemetery was full of them, bright and lovely in the gathering dusk. So often, Rosario had slept in the cemetery with hundreds of others to honor their dead relatives; now she was returning to send off a husband.

The people of Xoxocotlan know how to say goodbye. Their burial rituals stand out even in this southern Mexican state so obsessed with the dead. Ethnologists come here to marvel at their devotion and the offerings placed on each grave: mangoes for the deceased grandfather who loved fruit, syrupy stewed pumpkin for the child with a sweet tooth, candy skulls for everyone.

Juan Pedro's brothers and cousins finished covering his casket by 5:30, and Nolasco stepped back into the crowd, giving way to the widow and her girlfriends.

The women fluttered about Juan Pedro's fresh grave. Rosario decorated it with a sheath of "roosters' crests," brilliant purple flowers that feel like thick, luxurious velvet to the touch. Her friends cascaded marigolds and lilies onto the mound, spreading the flowers so thick that the dirt disappeared from view.