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The Cremated Catholic: The Ends of a Deceased Guatemalan

University of California, Berkeley.

After a Guatemalan migrant worker living in northern California was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a highway one night, his family requested that his body be sent back to his native village in southwestern Guatemala to be mourned and buried according to traditional Catholic custom. But the County morgue confused this deceased individual with another Latino and cremated his body before it could be shipped. This article analyzes the cultural, psychological and economic ramifications of this accidental cremation. Although permissible within the Catholic Church, the cremation caused enormous suffering to the family of the deceased as well as to the dead man's soul. At the same time it generated potential financial windfall not only for his relatives, but for lawyers and the present author.

Key Words: cremation • death • Guatemala • law • migration • religion • ritual

Body & Society, Vol. 7, No. 2-3, 111-120 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X0100700206


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