Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/299

 Folk- Lore Scrap-Book. 287

unhappy Cyrenian, who was performing a penance of no ordinary kind. The sun darted down perpendicularly on the back of his exposed head, which he kept bent downwards, maintaining the same posture the whole time without flinching or moving. Before the sermon was over, we could stand the heat no longer, and went in under cover. I felt as if my brains were melted into a hot jelly. We emerged upon hearing that the proces- sion was again moving towards the pulpit, where it shortly after formed itself into two lines. In a few moments a man with a plumed helmet, mounted on a fiery horse, galloped furiously through the ranks, holding a paper on the point of his lance, — the sentence pronounced by Pontius Pilate. His horse bolted at the end of the lines, and occasioned a laugh amongst the spectators.'

" Yesterday afternoon precisely this same scene was enacted. The horse, ridden by the pregonero, or crier, Manual Rivas, performed just the antics described by Madam Calderon, and there was the same hilarity amongst the spectators. But the part of Simon of Cyrene, instead of being taken by an old man ' with hair as white as snow,' was enacted by a really good- looking youth of the name of Cruz Rivas.

" The open-air religious display is quite contrary to the law, but the mat- ter is compounded beforehand, as the Mayor of Cayoacan informed the ' Herald ' representative, by payment of a fine of twenty-five dollars. Du reste the affair is quite innocent, and it is to be regretted that the laws lay their ban on it.

" There is a generic resemblance among the representations of the Pas- sion enacted on Good Friday in the neighboring villages. An image of the Saviour, dressed in a purple velvet robe, crowned with thorns and bearing his cross, is carried on a platform round the churchyard, sur- rounded with Roman soldiers, Jewish priests, and crowds of the faithful bearing lights. On the same platform with the Saviour are the Cyrenian, a part taken yesterday by a young boy, Cruz Rivas, dressed in crimson and white, and a little girl representing an angel. The part of the latter was represented yesterday by a child of the name of Manuela Mariscal, who was dressed in white muslin, with silver gossamer wings. She held her handkerchief to one eye, as if grieving over the sorrows of the Re- deemer, while with the other she calmly surveyed the crowd. A kind relative walked alongside, shading this little angel with a parasol. In front of the procession walked two bands, the first performing the monotonous music of the indigenous race, consisting only of the beating of the drum and the piping of the chirimia, the second rendering modern selections in excellent style. Only these selections were somewhat incongruous. For example, after the pathetic scene where Jesus meets his Mother, the band yesterday struck up the well-known two-step, the 'Washington Post.'

" Apolonio Rivas, the manager of the representation and one of the most substantial residents of Coyoacan, kindly gave the text of the sen- tence to the ' Herald ' representative. The following is the translation of a part : ' I, Pontius Pilate, President of Lower Galilee, and governor under the Roman Emperor, do judge and sentence Jesus of Nazareth, as

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