SANTA MARTA DE RIBARTEME, Spain — Inside a small church in this tiny Galician village, Pilar Domínguez Muñoz adjusted her dress, put on her sunglasses and stepped into her coffin.

Her daughter, Uxía, watched anxiously as pallbearers hoisted her mother onto their shoulders. But Ms. Domínguez Muñoz seemed to rest peacefully as they paraded her through the streets to the sound of a brass band.

She was, after all, perfectly alive. So was her daughter. But then, that was the point.

Ms. Domínguez Muñoz was among nine people who took part in the extraordinary funeral ritual, celebrated every July 29 in Santa Marta de Ribarteme, a village of a few hundred residents perched high in northwestern Spain.