48 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAX NATURAL HISTORY 



clothes and high silk hats, accompanied by the band in full 

 dress uniform with red silk pompons in their caps, visited 

 the churches and shrines. In the evening the figure of 

 Christ was led to trial escorted by Roman soldiers. 



About eleven o'clock on Good Friday morning the pro- 

 cession of Christ bearing the cross left Carmen church and 

 went to San Nicolas. At that corner it was met by a second 

 procession of Veronica, St. John, Mary Magdalene and the 

 Virgin. As the two processions met, the first halted, the 

 figures in the second bowing to the Christ, until the Virgin 

 was opposite when the Christ and his mother bowed to each 

 other. Then she turned and took up her station beside him. 

 A long pause was made here while an impassioned and fiery 

 sermon was preached from an open-air pulpit. Then the 

 processions moved onward and the Crucifixion followed. 

 The burial took place about four o'clock, when the figure 

 was carried through the streets in a gold-trimmed glass 

 coffin accompanied by a dozen little girls as angels, holding 

 ribbon streamers and followed by the Virgin in a magnificent 

 black velvet robe spangled with silver. The coffin was put 

 into a space in the altar of San Nicolas. 



The church bells were of course silent from Good Friday 

 to Sunday, but on Good Friday the small boys carried — 

 and frequently sounded — wooden rattles like an old- 

 fashioned watchman's rattle, sticks that they clapped and 

 beat together and a noisy device consisting of a board with 

 a number of iron loops or rings fastened at one point only. 

 The board was turned and twisted quickly from side to 

 side making the metal rings flap up and down. These 

 various rattles were the only noises permitted on Good 

 Friday. 



It should be noted also that no one rides horseback on 

 Good Friday. Costa Ricans never do and for a foreigner to 

 ride on that day is to run counter to deep-seated conventions 



