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Playing Dead for a Day in Gratitude for Being Spared

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RisingWorld

3 Views • Aug 04, 2017

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Playing Dead for a Day in Gratitude for Being Spared
3, 2017
SANTA MARTA DE RIBARTEME, Spain — Inside a small church in this tiny Galician village, Pilar
Domínguez Muñoz adjusted her dress, put on her sunglasses and stepped into her coffin.
Ms. Domínguez Muñoz was among nine people who took part in the extraordinary funeral ritual, celebrated every
July 29 in Santa Marta de Ribarteme, a village of a few hundred residents perched high in northwestern Spain.
that Last year, I was in my coffin and she was in her wheelchair, with both ankles broken,
Karina Domínguez said that I know some people think we’re crazy, because even my mother told me so when I decided to take part a few years ago,
Ms. Domínguez Muñoz kept one arm dangling from her coffin, to clutch the hand of one of her pallbearers.
In fact, 11 people were scheduled to join this year’s procession,
but two coffins stayed behind in the church, including a small white coffin that had been saved for a child.