Man in Mexico Exhumes His Dead Mom's Body After Dreaming She Was Still Alive

By Mary Webber First Posted: Apr 28, 2022 07:12 AM EDT

A man in Mexico exhumed his dead mom's body, put it on a cargo tricycle, and took it through the streets of a town in Quintana Roo on Thursday night.

Authorities said Wilbert Puch Hau, 47, took his dead mother back to their home in the Maya community of Noh-Bec in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto as he believed that she was still alive.

According to Mexico News Daily, Hermelinda Hau Mis had recently died, and the 70-year-old mom was buried in the community cemetery.

Noh-Bec mayor Aurelio Aguilar Hernandez reported that someone had entered the town's pantheon at around 10:40 p.m. Thursday, desecrated a tomb, and exhumed a body.

Witnesses said Puch Hau claimed to have had "a revelation" that his mother was only sleeping, which prompted him to dig out the recently buried body.

Puch Hau's 81-year-old father, widower Longimo Puch Chuc, admitted to the police who went to their home that his son exhumed his wife's body.

Longimo also said his son told him that he had a dream that his mom was still alive. Other family members spoke to Puch Hau and told him he was mistaken. They persuaded him, saying he could not keep his dead's mom body.

At around 1:20 a.m. on Friday, the body was returned to its coffin and reburied. Relatives sealed the tomb. Longimo did not pursue any complaint against his son for the theft of the body, El Universal reported.

Bodies Exhumed in Mexico

Eustaquio Pech Ku, a public attorney for indigenous issues, said the state Attorney General's Office had received a complaint from police.

Pech Ku noted that the act could be probed "as a crime against respect for the dead and against the rules of burial covered in the criminal code of the state."

In 2015, Mexican authorities investigated whether forensic officials illegally transferred some 150 bodies from morgues to two mass graves.

Morelos state prosecutor's office has started the investigation after the release of a video showing forensic officials in white protective suits exhuming bodies in the village of Tetelcingo, ABC News reported.

At that time, Morelos chief prosecutor Javier Perez said they would review whether the forensic officials acted within the protocols required by law.

Mayans in Mexico Bring Out Dead in Intimate Graveyard Rite

Grieving Maya Indians in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula cleaned the remains of their late loved ones during a unique annual family reunion with the dead.

According to Reuters, the tradition dates back centuries. After three years in the grave, families in Pomuch exhumed their dead and transferred their dried bones and skulls, often with hair attached, to wooden crates on permanent display in open funeral niches.

Families gather every year in a two-day ritual preceding the November 1 and November 2 Day of the Dead festival at the painted tombs to replace the boxes' embroidered cloth linings and give the remains themselves spruce up.

According to the beliefs of the Pomuch people, the dead are believed to be "purified" during the first three years after their death. They are then dug out and welcomed back as highly respected members of extended families.

One theory suggests that villagers may have begun exhuming their dead for sanitary reasons after they were faced with an overflowing cemetery.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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