A controversial Lima tradition where pallbearers are always black - 'Beyond the question of racism or prejudice, I think it is simply a question of employment'

AP

Pallbearers put on white gloves as they prepare to handle a coffin during a burial in Lima.

LIMA, Peru — Elegant in tuxedos and white gloves, the six black pallbearers silently and gracefully remove the mahogany coffin bearing a Lima tire magnate from his mansion. They slide it into the Cadillac hearse that will parade Jorge Reyna's body through the Chorrillos district where he was once mayor.

The pallbearers are in the job precisely because of the color of their skin, a phenomenon unique to this South American capital that was the regional seat of Spain's colonial empire for more than three centuries. In fact, prominent citizens such as Reyna, a widely respected, charitable man of indigenous origin who died at age 82, request black pallbearers for their funerals.

"He planned his funeral and wanted it to be elegant," said Reyna's widow, Clarisa Velarde.

Blacks routinely bear the caskets of ex-presidents, mining magnates and bankers to their tombs in Lima. The peculiar tradition exists neither in provincial Peruvian cities nor in other Latin American countries with significant black populations such as Brazil, Panama and Colombia.

It is not a profession chosen by Lima's blacks but is rather thrust upon them by a lack of opportunity, say Afro-Peruvian scholars. And racism remains so deeply ingrained in Peru that many don't consider the practice discriminatory.

AP

Recently washed white shirts and gloves, worn by black pallbearers, dry in the garden of the leader of a group of pallbearers in Lima, Peru. Blacks are all but absent from Peru's business and political elite and although slavery was abolished in 1854. Only about 2 percent of Peru's blacks go to college and census-takers don't even count them.

"Beyond the question of racism or prejudice, I think it is simply a question of employment," said Jose Campos, a leading Peruvian black studies scholar and vice rector of the National Education University.

For 61-year-old Armando Arguedas, who like his fellow pallbearers never finished elementary school, it's simply a job.

"Some people are friendly," he said of those who employ him. "Some don't even say thank you."

Black pallbearers were even used for the recent funeral of the wife of former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

"We were never treated better," said Arguedas. "The family members thanked us and paid us triple."

Blacks are all but absent from Peru's business and political elite and although slavery was abolished in 1854, only 2 percent of Peru's blacks go to college. Afro-Peruvians are consigned largely to manual labor including as field hands in sugar cane plantations along the nation's Pacific coast.