The Mummies of Guanajuato -- Powerful Memento Mori

     A most unusual museum crowns the top of Trozado Hill in Guanajuato, Mexico. It's collection of objects - mummified human corpses - serves to provide funds for Social Assistance in the city, and as a powerful memento mori for Catholics.

     The most famous tourist attraction of this part of the country, the museum is located above the municipal cemetery of Santa Paula. Visitors enter along a row of shops selling all types of tourist trinkets; wandering vendors smilingly offer candy mummies. Ghoulishly, children munch these sugary "recuerdos" as they wait for admittance. A halloween atmosphere with a delicious anticipation of fright prevails. Long lines of tourists queue up for the tour.

     Inside, a guide begins an interesting spiel in Spanish as the group passes by the glass cases containing 118 mummies whose bodies were exhumed between the years of 1865 and 1979.

     "Here you see the smallest mummy in the world," the guide says, as he points to the tiniest of the museum's inhabitants. "This lady was found sitting with her newborn child; this medical doctor is the first of the mummies. Not all the mummies have come from our cemetery; some have been brought from Celaya."

     As round-eyed children and anxious adults follow him, gazing face to face with these powerful reminders of life and death, the guide continues telling the traditions and legends of Guanajuato through the stories of the mummies. These frame a fantastic world in our imagination. He tells of the virtuous baker's wife found hanging. Her brutish husband, arrested and executed for the crime, protested his innocence to the end. No one knows the truth; the only marks on the body were those of the rope. The story of the unfaithful woman buried alive fascinates everyone. The most recently discovered mummy is half mummy, half bones. The faces of some of the adult tourists begin to pale. They seem grateful to spy the free restrooms near the exit.

     With the exception of one who appears to be laughing, most of the mummies have their mouths open as if they were screaming. The guide carefully explains that this is caused from a natural muscle movement during the process of rigor in an unembalmed body. Observers loose his words. The mummies seem to have a black scream frozen in their mouths, telling of the obscurity of death and recording their trip among the fleshless ones.

     Several times, through signs and the words of the guide, visitors are reminded that the mummies are working hard for the children of Guanajuato. All the proceeds from admissions and from the sale of postcards, t-shirts, and booklets in the museum gift shop, go to the city's poor children through the medium of municipal social works. Somehow, this makes things seem better, less gruesome. After all, these mummies are just doing a job.

     In their glass enclosures, most of the mummies recline with a soft pillow under their heads. Some are sitting or standing, and others bear signs that speak a philosophical message. One corpse is shown in its coffin. It's thought-provoking inscription reads: "This is how you see my life; this is how I see the truth."

     Wall displays between the glass cases call forth contemplation and amusement. One set of photographs vividly displays "Los Angelitos" (the Little Angels.) When a young child dies in Mexico, there are certain rituals connected with his death and burial. Many people believe that the souls of these innocent little ones immediately join the angels in Heaven. The child is dressed as a little angel or saint, crowned with a crown of flowers and laid on a beautifully decorated bier. A painting or photograph is then made which the family keeps on its home altar in remembrance of its own little "angelito." Next to this display is a case of some of the smallest of the mummies. One is dressed as Saint Martin de Porras. Another wears a well-preserved crown of flowers.

     Truly, the mummies of Guanajuato are powerful memento mori. They remind us that the pain of death is combined with our joy at the hope of life everlasting. Our loved ones do not die; they live again in God. It is through the crucifixion that we see the bountiful promise of the resurrection. Because He lives, we too shall live. •