Now that All Souls’ Day is approaching, there’s more bustle than ever in San Mauro, and the cemetery doesn’t look like a sad place for a while. It’s more of a place to walk and even celebrate loved ones. This municipal cemetery is the largest in Pontevedra and its surroundings. There are those who say it is The cemetery with the most pantheons in Galicia: It is possible to count up to 1,064. However, in the square, one of the most modest places in the city, where no one had been buried for decades, the city council made an exception in 2009 for two people whose bodies were not claimed by anyone. approximately Guan Qu and Kung Zun, both Chinese citizens, who shared an apartment in the city of Lérez and were killed just a day apart.
The investigation remained unsolved due to insufficient evidence and the fact that the two victims were laid to rest in the San Mauro municipal cemetery. Francisco Abuín, gravedigger and passionate historian of the late Pontevedra, and José González, director of the Concello cemeteries, say that an interesting phenomenon occurs in one of the graves: from time to time Someone leaves takeout containers and Coca Cola cans on the gravestone. The victims’ families do not know who he was because they did not come to collect their bodies and were therefore never repatriated.
In any case, Chinese celebrate Qingming Festival in AprilThis is similar to All Saints’ Day, but they also burn incense sticks and bring food offerings to deceased loved ones. Soft drink cans and food containers unearthed in these graves also resemble this tradition, but this tradition is repeated here from time to time.
Other forgotten dead
José González explains that January is the month with the most funerals. I wonder, last year, when there were almost forty registrations in January due to the pandemic, this was a historical maximum. However, there are fewer deaths between October and November. The manager walks the streets of the cemetery from time to time and He discovers that someone left flowers on a grave he thought was forgotten.. He points out authentic mausoleums and famous tombs, such as that of Perfecto Feijoo, whose noble materials have been eroded by moisture and the passage of time.
“People forget that niches become the property of the city council and the privileges have expired.” They haven’t “opened the melon” yet, but The grave concessions left over from the 1950s will soon begin to be completed, and then maybe we should contact our grandchildren. If they can’t be defeated, we’ll have to see where those bodies will be dumped. But although the oldest tombs at San Mauro date from the early 20th century, they did not begin to claim the Council’s ownership of the niches. And González points out to some that “no one has visited since the eighties.”
full of flowers
Like every year at this time, Plaza de A Ferrería is filled with flower stalls for All Saints’ Day. Isabel Vello comes from Campelo to sell loose flowers: first of all, chrysanthemums and roses. Roses, mostly red and pink, are slightly more expensive than other flowers (these are one euro fifty cents, the others are one euro fifty cents). He explains that just like other florists raise their prices because they order from outside, he is able to continue with affordable prices because he has a greenhouse at home. “We couldn’t bring centers due to bad weather conditions like in previous years, so I sold nearly seventy of them directly at home.”
María Isabel Vaqueiro, one of A Ferrería florists seen this October, says: Prices remained more or less the same as last year: For example, a pack of carnations costs ten euros. As for the already prepared centers, the price range is much wider: it varies from 12 to 40 euros, depending on the type of flower and the size of the composition.