The Politics of Death: State Funerals as Rites of Reconciliation in Porfirian Mexico, 1876-1889

In 1876, the Revolution of Tuxtepec raged in the Mexican countryside, producing more war dead for families to mourn. The timely arrival of General Manuel González on the battlefield at the hacienda of Tecoac (Tlaxcala) forced Federal Army General Ignacio Alatorre to surrender to the rebels on November 16. Without an army, President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada went into exile and the forces of General Porfirio Díaz entered Mexico City unopposed. Widespread melancholia continued through December. The journalist "Juvenal" (Enrique Chávarri) wrote about the gloomy outlook in the capital, where no serenades or social gatherings rang in the new year. Instead of patronizing restaurants, peopleflocked to churches to pray for a better year.¹

The nation hardly embraced Porfirian rebels as a liberating army. Since Díaz usurped power after a decade of constitutional successions, he lacked political legitimacy. The leading English language newspaper referred to Díaz as a "failure," his revolution "desultory," and his movement soon to be set to a "hasty flight."² The general faced difficulty raising money from "voluntary" loans; the Mexico City aristocracy limped in with a few thousand pesos each, but more sizable donations came from a mysterious woman whose fortune derived from the city's largest brothel.³ El Monitor Repúblicano compared the first Díaz administration to the botched hot-air balloon launches of Mexican aeronaut-in-training Joaquín de la Cantolla y Rico: "the descent of Cantolla seems like nothing compared to the decline in the public men of our country."⁴ Reflecting public skepticism about his right to govern, the press referred to Díaz as General rather than President. Regional oligarchs withheld support for Díaz. Cabinet officer and Supreme Court resignations proliferated. Generals Mariano Escobedo and Sóstenes Rocha rebelled in attempt to restore Lerdo. Nor did foreign nations instantly recognize and extend credit to his regime. In 1878, Díaz's presidential address, which traditionally highlighted the annual achievements of the republic, was among the shortest on record. He devoted the first half to the "frequent difficulties" with the U.S. and began the second with the reassuring statement: "In a nation like ours, which has been subject to frequent political convulsions, the state of the public treasury is always an embarrassment."⁵ And if it has any significance as a social indicator whatsoever, the capital city was going to the dogs; police destroyed 11,627 strays in the second quarter of 1879 alone.⁶

Yet in 1881, the chronicler who lamented the dreary mood in 1877, observed a different downtown scene. Theaters and cafes were closed, but "it seemed as if the exorbitant and compact multitude was headed for a fireworks display." People were "so joyful and content to go to the free funeral ceremony of Arista," where they could listen to the music of Verdi and Meyerbeer. Juvenal likened the night-time atmosphere on Calle San Andrés to a verbena, or street party. People had set up peanut-stands, earthenware pots of buñuelos (fried pastries), and tables of tortas (sandwiches). The cries of food vendors mixed with solemn funeral marches. Thousands crowded the entrance of the Palacio de Mineria to view the funeral chapel of ex-President Mariano Arista. The writer described the multitude as "the great bedlam, essential in such circumstances, which forms part of our national customs. . . . whomever fell, fell; that ocean of human heads began to get rough; the ebb tide rose, swelled, [and] then came the thunderstorm and tempest; they pushed and knocked the señoras to the ground, they crushed and bruised them; we were, in the end, in perfect confusion, just as we are under the lights of El Carmen or La Merced; at the tandas [one-act plays]; at the fireworks displays; just like at all of...