Step 4: Mourning
Dublin Core
Title
Step 4: Mourning
Description
During the Colonial time period, public mourning was often frowned upon. Due to a high risk of illness or infection, lack of medicine, and high contamination, death was relatively more common than it is now. Public grief was unpopular, and funerals remained small, however funerals and memorials are the closest link to colonial spanish Catholicism.
Collection Items
Women Mourners
The Aztec culture embraced public grief. Certain women were employed to cry and grieve with the families who had lost a loved one. It allows both the family, and the community, to grieve and move on. This “ritual weeping” was described by Dominican…
Aztec Ritual Weeping
These women were mostly hired to mourn the death of kings and noblemen who were killed in battle, which would have been common at the time. However, these women also wept for ‘lesser’ families as well. Grieving was public and a very extended time for…