Unfortunately, the grave diggers kept uncovering not the worm eaten bones of the delinquent dead, but mummified bodies.
Here in this closeup Ms. Aguilar can be seen with her hands clasped in prayer or maybe in a fist.
“The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. ...
In efficient capitalist societies they remove the unsuccessful from the neighborhoods of the better off almost as quickly as they remove the dead. In Guanajuato, city officials also wanted the indigent dead out of the municipal cemetery.
The insolvent individuals displayed in the Guanajuato Mummy Museum died in the cholera epidemic of 1833. To prevent them from communicating their disease they were hastily interred.
To curtail a premature internment the rich sometimes had a cord strung through a hole drilled into their caskets. If they pulled the cords, bells mounted outside their tombs would ring. It is from these affluent tombs, not from the boxing ring, that we got the phrase, “saved by the bell.”
Recently, this 150 year old exhibition of accidental mummies was rebuilt as a modern museum.
“It is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love.” — Octavio Paz
The stiffs were leaned up against the interior walls of a nearby building and the curious were charged a few pesos to view them. These deadbeats did not have to be trashed now that they were able to earn their keep.
Unfortunately, not all of those so quickly removed were dead. Ignacia Aguilar, the furthest off mummy, was found to have turned herself around in her casket and banged her head against its walls.
It was in the 1860’s that the city began to tax their dead and trash the remains of those from whose relatives they could not collect the payments due.
An American photographer, who doesn't expect to be ringing any bells when he's gone, considers his end. (thanks to Aliz for taking this shot).