Cinnabar miners coming back

Special to the Avalanche

After 65 years, the cinnabar miners of Terlingua continue to come back to the old Ghost Town to celebrate Dia de los Muertos and their early life there.

Perhaps 350 returnees are expected to bring food, music, photos and family for the weekend of Oct. 26-28.

Friday night - Oct. 26 - festivities kick off with a welcome speech and a series of past and present Terlinguites playing music for one another.

The first groups will sing a song written in the 1940s, a corrido, commemorating the death of their cousin in the mercury mine in Study Butte from a dynamite explosion.

Saturday events start around 10 a.m. with tours to San Vicente and Terlingua Abajo, both within Big Bend National Park. Scientists and archaeologists will exchange information about the communities in the area.

Most of the returnees will participate in a Ghost Town tour; the guide will describe the mine's historical context, while past Terlinguites add stories and anecdotes of their lives.

The afternoon will entail cleaning up the graveyard and decorating for the evening.

Around 5 p.m. Saturday, the barbecue begins at the graveyard where past and present Terlinguites bring food. The bonfire starts at 7 p.m. The waxing full moon rises around 7:30, and the traditional Mexican singers start to sing a cappella during a candlelight vigil around 8 p.m.

By 9, everyone will have started up toward the Boathouse Bar where the Pinche Gringos will perform ranchero dance music under the stars.

Sunday morning consists of a Catholic Mass in the Santa Inez Church within the old town of Terlingua. Before Mass, participants will sing old Spanish hymns collected over the years.

Participants are coming from such places as Washington state, Virginia, Alpine, Carlsbad, Tucson and Odessa. For many, their parents came to Terlingua in the 1910s and 1920s during the Mexican Revolution.

These miners return with educated children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have professional jobs mostly, and drive down to the event in fancy SUVs. They sing, dance, cry and hug.

And they get to show their progeny the one- and two-room rock houses they grew up in, sans water or electricity.

Local Terlingua children will have two different jobs over the weekend:

One age group, from both the Terlingua and San Vicente school within Big Bend National Park, will be mapping the graveyard and interacting with the returnees in efforts to put names on the graves.

Another set will be mapping the Terlingua Ghost Town and putting names on the ruins. Interaction is the key.

Everyone is invited to this celebration of Terlingua.

Admission for the weekend is $10 per person, $7 for returning Terlinguites and children under 15.

Please bring a covered dish for Saturday's barbecue and participate in the event with us.

For more information, call Cynta de Narvaez at 432-371-3127. You can also find more information at www.terlinguahomecoming.com.

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