Mexico Unexplained: Day of the Dead, an Overview
In Mexico the holiday is called Día de muertos or Día de difuntos. The back translation in the United States is Día de los muertos. It is celebrated in the beginning of November but just because it’s at that time of the year and involves happy skeletons, this holiday has nothing to do with zombie movies, devil worship or voodoo and it is NOT the “Mexican Halloween.” The only thing in common that traditional Day of the Dead has in common with Halloween is that it is syncretic, that is, it blends older pagan beliefs with Christianity. There have been some Halloween elements that have crept into the holiday from the North, but that has only been recent, with the flow of returning migrants and the overpowering nature of American culture in the age of globalization.
The original basis of the holiday dates back possibly thousands of years and is rooted in the pre-Hispanic cultures of central and southern Mexico. The Aztecs were the most dominant civilization in central Mexico when the Spanish first arrived and throughout their vast empire they honored the goddess Mictecacihuatl, informally known as “Lady Death” at the beginning of the summer. The celebrations included human sacrifice and individuals constructed altars to honor the dead primarily by giving offerings of skulls made of a mixture of corn meal and animal blood. The Spanish knew they could not wipe out these traditions entirely, so they moved the Lady Death celebration so that it aligned better with the Catholic calendar and thus the new Day of the Dead was born on All Souls Day and All Saints Day. The more indigenous the community, the more of the older traditions were kept. The more European the community, the more traditionally Catholic the celebrations. This remains to this day throughout central and southern Mexico. It’s important to note how regional this holiday is. The largest states in Mexico – Sonora and Chihuahua – have no history of this holiday because the Aztec Empire did not extend that far north.
Day of the Dead celebrations vary from place to place but there are some common threads and themes across Mexico. A few days before the holiday people start to build altars or ofrendas in their homes to honor those who have passed. There are a lot of books out now on Day of the Dead and the books usually show elaborate altars that take up most of an entire room that have cost a fortune to build. That’s a little over the top for most Mexican people. The average ofrenda is pretty simple and includes some basic elements: a table cloth to make it nice, mementos of loved ones such as personal keepsakes and photos, religious iconography including statues and pictures of the saints or Virgin Mary, and flowers. Depending on availability, the flowers are usually a Mexican variety of marigold, in the vernacular called cempasúchil, or any other flowers that are in season or available. On the two days that make up the holiday incense is burned at the altar, usually from the copal tree, and the incense combined with the smell of the marigolds is supposed to produce a mild “high” in the inhaler. Also closer to the holiday, food is placed on the altar, usually the favorite foods of the person who has passed in addition to special foods prepared specifically for the holiday. All of this is done so that the deceased will feel welcome enough to return to earth on these few days to be with loved ones.
Day of the Dead is huge for crafts. Nowadays muertos crafts are plentiful online and are available year-round. Deep in the heart of Mexico, however, the best crafts are made in October, right before the holiday. The crafts are sold to people who are going to use them to decorate their altars or their homes and they come in various forms. Some are long-lasting and some are ephemeral, and only meant to last a few days, like the cut tissue paper strands called papel picado. Clay happy skeleton figures are meant to amuse the spirits, and entertain the living. These crafts take as many forms as the artist creating them can imagine. Another major craft whipped up right before the holiday is the sugar skull. In Mexico they are made of sugar and egg whites. Because of the fear of salmonella poisoning, in the United States people use meringue powder instead of raw eggs. The skulls made with egg whites always have a dull shine to them, unlike the meringue powder version which tend to look like just big blocks of sugar. Sugar skulls are not meant to be eaten. They are nice to look at and give off a sweet smell for the spirits. The whole tradition of sugar skulls was introduced to replace the Aztec skulls of cornmeal and blood. Alfeñique is the name of this kind of sugar craft and originated among a religious order in Sicily a few centuries before the Aztec conquest and was brought to Mexico by the Catholic clergy. While sugar skulls are not to be eaten – they are as hard as a brick – there are special foods available in the marketplaces that one can actually eat. Chocolate skulls and lollipops are common and can range from plain to extra fancy. There is also pan de muerto “dead bread” that is served at this time. It’s typical of Mexican pan dulce in that it really isn’t that sweet and it’s not really that distinctive.
Depending on the town, there may be religious processions that lead to the church and are followed by a mass. Many of these religious celebrations are followed by all-night vigils in the cemeteries that are often very festive with food, drink and music. Tourists are often surprised to see how the holiday is celebrated differently in different towns. Day of the Dead in Pátzcuaro, for example will be different from the same holiday celebrated in Oaxaca or Veracruz.
Day of the Dead celebrations are relatively new in the United States, in fact one would be hard pressed to find any celebration that dates back to before 1995 anywhere, even in the places like the Southwest with large Mexican immigrant or Mexican-American populations. As an example, Day of the Dead was a relatively new import to the Phoenix area in the late 1990s. At that time most of the Mexican-American population, over 90% had roots in the border state of Sonora which had no tradition of the holiday. So, a lot of the people who started celebrating the holiday had no family history of celebrating it, and in some cases that meant hundreds of years of their family being Mexican and having no history of celebrating Day of the Dead. The popularity of Day of the Dead seemed to rise with the popular Latino consciousness that was just taking off in the 1990s and a lot of Latinos were drawn to Day of the Dead as a sort of cultural expression. Most of the people of Hispanic origin who started celebrating the holiday in the 1990s got most of their information off the internet, like anyone else curious about it. In an age when cultural sensitivity has bred the term “cultural appropriation,” it is quite ironic that Mexican-Americans themselves would be adopting a cultural tradition from Mexico that they had no experience with. Part of the definition of culture, however, is that it is shared among people. Proof of this is the exponential growth of the interest in this holiday in the United States over the past decade or so. With increased immigration and more Latino cultural awareness in the US, the holiday is sure to grow over time.
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