THE NIGHT OF THE DEAD

The Night of the Dead PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

In small, barren, treeless plots throughout Arizona, Pimas and Papagos gather on November 2nd, All Souls' Day, to honor their dead. Each of these scattered Indian cemeteries may be only an acre of land fenced by barbed wire, swept clean by the desert winds, and covered at night with the mantle of the sky. Here those who have gone sleep in crudely marked graves.

Celebrations for the dead are held in many parts of Arizona on this evening, notably at San Xavier del Bac Mission near Tucson; at St. John's Mission, south of Phoenix; and at St. Francis Mission, east of Scottsdale.

I spent the day and evening with Mrs. Juan Leonard, Pima Indian, from St. Francis Mission. Years ago, she buried a daughter of 20, who died of tuberculosis. Collecting her grandsons, we drove to the cemetery early in the morning. There, she and the boys joined other Indians, who had been preparing their families' graves since sunrise. After whitewashing the crosses at the heads of the mounds, the Indians placed colorful wreaths of crepe paper flowers, made by the family the previous week, on the arms of the crosses. Meanwhile, the small children picked minute weeds from the grave as the adults swept the mounds with a broom, hardly more than a brush branch.

This Indian method of honoring the departed dates back to an autumn evening almost a thousand years ago in Cluny, France. The dreaded Black Plague was scourging Europe, killing almost two-thirds of the population. The brilliant and beloved abbot of Cluny, named Odido, came across the bodies of two starved little boys in the countryside. Several days later, in the quiet of his monastery, he beheld a vision of the souls in purgatory. Moved by the suffering of these souls, he ordered his monks to pray for them. This devotion spread throughout the Christian World and entered our own Southwest with the coming of the brown-robed friars who accompanied the conquistadors.

Father Eusebio Francisco Kino in 1691 founded San Gabriel, at Sobahpuris. After the death of the Great Apostle to the Pimas in 1711, missionaries did not return to Arizona for twenty years. The next hundred years were filled with bloodshed and revolts. The Pimas killed many priests and drove the others out in their uprising of 1751, which was followed by the expulsion of the Jesuits from this territory in 1767 by the government of Spain. Destruction and desolation came to beautiful San Xavier del Bac at the hands of the hostile Apaches in 1768. The Franciscans were forced to abandon their work in Arizona by the Mexican reforms of 1824 and, once again, the crosses and churches, eroded by the desert elements, toppled into decay and ruin. It was during this absence of the friars for many years in the Southwest that the Indians modified the old Christian custom of All Souls' Day and interspersed some of the pagan habits of their forefathers.

The Papagos incorporate the same basic ceremony as the Pimas but variations are found in the different Papago villages. The visitor may find hymns being sung in the Papago tongue and/or the village orchestra playing. In some villages new clothes are hung in the graveyard on All Souls' night for those who have died within the last year, the family returning the next morning to collect these garments. In all Papago villages food is placed in the feast house for the departed. After the prayers in the graveyard, the villagers return and enjoy the feast since the dead did not eat it.

By the time about fifty people have gathered, darkness has fallen. The opaque sky is pierced only by the sharp points of candlelight dancing faintly on the worn crosses. The people kneel on the dusty ground in a crude semicircle before a large central cross. One of the men, dressed in levis and faded denim jacket, comes forward and with sincere humility begins to lead the rosary "I believe in God. ." His voice is as clear and fresh as the air around us, yet it has the power and pride of a great people behind it. The Our Father followed by the Hail Mary continues on with the group answering in that rhythmic, sing-song tone peculiar to the Indian. The heavens are ablaze with a million stars and the desert breeze brings the chilly nip of autumn air and extinguishes many of the candles. Still the voices intone, ". pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." They pray for some one hundred and ten loved ones hidden from their view. Beneath one-third of those candles, twinkling as on a child's birthday cake, are youngsters under the age of twelve-ravished by tuberculosis, rickets, malnutrition. The soft, spontaneous petitions cease as quietly and undirected as they arise. The people file silently into the night, leaving only the desert and the heavens to keep watch with the flickering, dwindling light of the candles.

There is little, if any, other difference between these two tribes in the manner in which they celebrate this feast. After the cleaning and preparing of the graves during which crosses are festooned with strips of brightly colored crepe paper, the cemetery is deserted. Small groups of the darkskinned people start the long dusty walk home where they toil at their daily chores until dusk. As the sun balances on the horizon, casting long shadows from the crosses across each parched mound of dirt, the families return to the cemeteries. Candles are placed by the family at the head and foot of the graves of their loved ones. In hushed voices mothers urge their children to stand by their side and not scamper across the raised mounds.