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RIGOR-MORTIS FESTIVAL

EXCERPT FROM EUROTRIPPING ©JR DAESCHNER

Rigor Mortis

As in Portugal, the principle of divine quid pro quo is alive and well in the Spanish province of Galicia.


Folks in the backwoods village of San Xosè de Ribarteme believe that St. Martha, the hard-working sister of Lazarus, can bring the dead back to life-or, more accurately, bring the living back from the brink of death.


After all, it was while talking to Martha that Jesus declared: 'I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'

So on her feast day-the 29th of July-this mountain hamlet hosts a very special event known as The Festival of the Near-Death Experience or simply The Procession of Rigor Mortis.


Thankfully, this doesn't involve a bunch of stiffs testifying about tunnels of light; what it does involve is truly unique.


People who've had a near-miss-a real life-or-death illness or accident-give thanks by donning a funeral shroud and lying in an open casket to be carried around the village in the annual Procession of the Coffins.

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