Yucatan Mayans Clean Exhumed Bones to Welcome Spirits of the Departed Lisa J. Adams - Associated Press
go to original November 1, 2013

One of the skulls displayed post-cleaning (Atlas Obscura)
 
POMUCH, Mexico - For dozens of Mayan Indians in this village on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the last days of October are devoted to cleaning the bones of the dearly departed.

Mexicans honour the dead on Nov. 1 and 2 with meals, songs and prayers both at home and at cemeteries. But Pomuch and a handful of other Mayan communities dotting Yucatan's Camino Real Alto region are believed to be the only places in the country, and perhaps the world, where people clean the bones of the dead.

... Modern-day Maya in the Camino Real Alto initially treat death much as other Western cultures do, by burying their dead in coffins. But after three or four years, they remove the remains, dry the now-separated bones in the sun and scrub them clean with a soft cloth or small paintbrushes.

Although no one knows precisely when it began, the custom is thought to date back to the pre-Hispanic era.

Read the rest at Edmonton Journal

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