STRANGE EASTER CUSTOMS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 14 June 1930, Page 9

STRANGE EASTER CUSTOMS

An Easter ceremony of the Yaqui .Indians in Mexico is strange. YearS ago Spanish missionaries penetrated the Sonora desert, where "warriors feared to tread. Finding themselves unable to converse with the Indians, they ’ delivered their message in sign language. To-day, at Easter time, the Yaquis re-act the same story, distorted by their own barbaric conception of it until }t is but a savage burlesque of the Passion Play. In the Manzo settlement at Nogales, the Christ was represented by a cheap rag doll, garbed in brilliant coloured draperies, and cradled in a wicker basket beneath a thatched roof. The ceremonies lasted from Good Friday until after Easter Sunday. During that time the Indians neither ate nor slept, refreshing themselves only with mescal. The native conception of the life of Christ was that of a continual warfare with Judas. ' To make the odds harder for Him, they had six assistant Judases, selected from the young braves who had committed the most sins during the current year. “We have several,” explained an old Indian to Mr Harry L. Foster, author of “A Gringo in Manana Land,” “because my people could not respect a Saviour who allowed Himself to be licked by any one man. “The Judases appeared in startling devil masks, and for three days they capered before the Infant, contorting their semi-naked bodies, howling like fiends, poking Him with sticks, spitting upon Him, kissing Him in mockery and challenging Him to come and fight. About the cradle the women of the tribe sat cross-legged upon the ground, wailing a strange Indian hymn that rose and fell in plaintive minor key. A tom-tom pounded .monotonously. Night descended, and tlio fires threw weird fantastic shadows upon the reddened mountain sides. Hour after hour, day after day,, the barbaric orgy continued until on Easter Sunday the tribe rose in defence of the Christ, seicd the Judases, and carried them to the fire, where they pretended to burn them. ' f ter wards they carried the image of the Saviour in mournful procession to a little grave behind the village. “It was a ridiculous travesty upon religion. Yet one could not laugh. There was a solemnity in the faces of these people as they followed the rag doll to its burial place. Many of the women were weeping. The men bared their heads, and there was true reverence in the dark, savage eyes.”