Up until the mid-20th century in Spain, a tradition survived that might have been Bronze Age in origin: the cencerrada.

It occurred when a widow or widower announced their intention to re-marry. This being frowned upon, the whole village would gather and play loud musical instruments and bang pots and pans, while pregones or “public announcements” were made. These were insulting verses and songs intended to discourage the marriage.

Supposedly the horns and conches that made the ruckus were intended to represent the spirits of the dead wife or husband, announcing their objection to the marriage.

From Norman Lewis’s A Letter from Ibiza:

“The cencerrada in its mildest form consists in a party of neighbours collecting to keep the newly-weds awake all night on the first night of the marriage by a raucous serenade played on guitars and accompanied by the blowing of conch shells and the beating of tin cans. When a breach of custom has been unusually shocking, the cencerrada may be prolonged for four or five nights and draw hundreds of participants from other parts of the island. An atmosphere of hysteria prevails and obscene verses are improvised and screamed under the windows. At this point the civil guard usually arrives, and the violence and bloodshed start.”

From Gerald Brenan’s South From Granada:

“Widows in particular so dreaded the publicity that they rarely remarried; instead, if they came from poor families and had no position to keep up, they simply went to live with their man. They were then spared not only the horn-blowing and the pregones but also the dreadful noise and tumult that greeted these couples when they came out of church and which went on round their house and bedroom window all night.”