Descanso

Descanso is a place of rest, “a cross placed at the site of a violent, unexpected death, in memoriam" (link). Driving in Mexico you can't miss them – small (and not so small) homemade crosses, shrines and memorials to those killed in highway accidents. Roadside memorials are are often clustered around dangerous curves.

Dangerous curve on the Transpeninsular Highway

Roadside crosses belong to a long tradition of public memorialization of private grief (Everett 2002) and are found in many countries, including Chile, where they are known as animitas (link), Ireland (link), the U.S. Southwest (link) and Canada (Belshaw and Purvey 2009), but they are rooted in the Hispanic culture (link). During Spanish colonization of the Americas, people that died along the way were buried and the sites were marked with crosses sanctifying the ground. Descansos in New Mexico date back to the 1700s (Everett 2002).

Along the Transpeninsula Highway near San Antonio

In scholarly terms, a roadside cross is an icon (Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross), an index of the accident that occurred at that place and a symbol of physical death followed by spiritual rebirth (Everett 2002).

Near Bahia de los Muertos

In parts of the U.S. without a tradition of roadside memorials, some people view descansos as an intrusion into their personal space or a violation of the separation of church and state (link).

Along the Transpeninsular Highway near San Antonio

I've photographed descansos in several countries and usually feel uneasy about it because of the personal nature of the grief they represent. But these are public memorials meant to be viewed by passing motorists. Here’s what David Nance, a professional photographer who published images of descansos, says about the act of photographing them:

I had some reservations about using these intensely personal phenomena as the subject of a photographic study. Roadside memorials represent a very private experience, and part of me felt that it was an invasion of sorts to focus on the expression which grew out of that experience and to record it in photographs to be viewed by unknown strangers. At the same time, though, roadside memorials reside in an extremely public space: the side of the public way. There is also something in roadside memorials that seems to embrace this public aspect: it is a nearly universal feature of such memorials, that they face the highway. As private as they are, they clearly evidence the understanding, and indeed the expectation, that they will be seen by the passing stranger (link).

Along the Transpeninsular Highway near San Antonio

In the end, descansos make us focus on the unpredictability of death by accident and remind us to drive with caution, an especially useful reminder for driving in Mexico.

Along the Transpeninsular Highway near El Triunfo

Belshaw, J. and D. Purvey. 2009. Private Grief, Public Mourning: The Rise of the Roadside Shrine in British Columbia. Anvil Press, Vancouver. 160 p.

Everett, H.J. 2002. Roadside crosses in contemporary memorial culture. University of North Texas Press, Denton. 145 p.