Deeply embedded in the dark mysteries of the history of Mexican life is a famous festivity that compares with no other, popularly referred to as Dias de Los Muertos or Day of the Dead. This ritual, adapted from pre-Hispanic traditions, has become a memorable day when families get together in memory of the dead and in recognition of the fact that life does not stop at death but is instead a continuous process that extends into the afterlife. Traditionally, this feast celebrated in honor of the dead and the children took place at a combined celebration in honor of Huitzilopochtli, a god of war, and Mictecacihuatl, a goddess popularly referred to as lady of the dead. After the Spaniards conquered Mexico, they tried to influence this festivity by introducing Christianity and moved the celebrations from the traditional month of July/August to early November such that the festivity got swallowed up in the Christian All Saints’ Day. But the Mexican style of celebrating the Day of the Dead still entails a peculiar Mexican view about death (Standish & Bell 50).
The Day of the Dead, a feast celebrated in honor of the souls of departed loved ones, dates back to the 16th century, and its origin has been linked to the European colonial conquest of the Americas. Even though this feast is celebrated in several other places worldwide, the Day of the Dead is much more associated with Mexico than any other place and strongly symbolizes Mexican ness. In the U.S.A, the holiday is celebrated as a symbol of either Latino or Mexican ethnic identity. To the faithful followers of this popular holiday, this day is a sacred event, and the whole ceremony is directed towards honoring, recognizing, and even creating a forum for spiritual communion with the dead. Through this ritual, those involved expect to satisfy the emotional and alimentary needs that are associated with departed souls. The celebrations involve all, including children who are supposed to learn how they will honor their parents in death. This is because celebrants involved in the act of providing for their dead ones expect the same kind of treatment to be accorded to them after they die (Brandes 6-8).
Beyond any kind of doubt, the Day of the Dead has been rated as Mexico’s most distinguished or popular holiday. It is also referred to as Souls Day or el Dia de Animas in Spanish (Brandes 6). This feast has its origin in the Roman Catholic’s All Saints and All Souls holiday that is observed on the 1st day of November. Roman Catholic tradition required the faithful to observe special masses in honor of all saints and souls in purgatory on November 1 and 2, respectively, but the day of the Dead has over the centuries become a very elaborately celebrated holiday. These special masses were celebrated as far back as the 11th century but later became permanent feasts in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar (Brandes 6). While All Saints’ Day on November 1 is devoted to the remembrance of children, All Souls’ Day on November 2 is celebrated in memory of adults. The feasts are today celebrated in Roman Catholic communities worldwide, including Mexico (Standish & Bell 52).
According to popular sources, All Saints Day was established by Pope Boniface IV in the 7th Century, and in the 9th Century, Gregory III shifted the celebrations from the month of May to the month of November. Later in the 11th Century, November 2 was set aside as All Souls Day in an effort to assist departed souls in purification. When Spain occupied Mexico, these two feasts were combined into one feast, although honoring the dead remained a much more important ritual among the indigenous people than the Catholics. But both belief systems intersected in their common belief in the afterlife and the responsibility and skills they shared in communing with the departed (Matovina & Estrella 74). The artistic displays, cemetery vigils, special drink, and food offerings, and the home altars that mark Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico, however, reflect folk celebrations that are much different from liturgical requirements for a holiday (Brandes 7).
The Nahua of central Mexico, who make up the main cultural group, had traditions in honor of the dead by the time Spain conquered Mexico. They had rituals characterized by special flower and food offerings, communal feasting, as well as elaborate ceremonies such as overnight processions and visits to the graveside. During the 16th Century, Catholic rituals practiced among the Spanish in honor of the dead shared some characteristics with indigenous Mexican rituals (Matovina & Estrella 74). The Nahua, however, observe an extra day referred to as el Dia de los matadors or el dia de los accidents in honor of those that have died unnatural deaths. This feast is not recognized in the Vatican Calendar (Brandes 8).
Even though Mexicans, like any other society, had their own mortuary rituals prior to Spanish colonial conquest, considerable interaction and exchange between the two powers gave rise to the Day of the Dead (Brandes 6,13). Through colonization, there was a considerable exchange of technology, ideas, and products that had a profound influence on both Europe and the Americas that altered the people’s way of life and thinking. Subsequently, the Day of the Dead was irreversibly transformed. Sweets and other types of candies that have been widely used in All Saints’ Day celebrations in European countries are common in Mexican celebrations as well. This casts doubt about the pre-conquest roots for the Day of Dead celebrations in Mexico. A later contact between America and Mexico introduced the feast into the United States of America (Brandes 13,31).
Flowers, food, and candles have since days of old been important ingredients in marking the feast, with bread being the most widely used offering in these rituals. Since the origins of the feast, bread offerings have continuously been carried to the tombs and also distributed among the poor, crippled, and the clergy. Sweets were also very common in both Europe and its colonies during the Day of the Dead celebrations (Brandes 30-31).
Among the items placed beside the graves are special meals constituting drinks, food, colored tissues, and even cigarettes. Bright flowers and fireworks are also common. At home, special altars are erected upon which candles are lit, and incense is burned in honor of the spirits of the dead (Standish & Bell 51-52). A special type of bread also referred to as the bread of the dead in America or Pande Muerto in the Spanish language, is baked and eaten on this special day. In Mexico and several parts of the South Western U.S.A, this special bread plus several other edibles are placed in the special altars erected in churches, homes, public buildings, and business premises and is also served to visitors. This is also a time when family members gather at local cemeteries and engage in a grave and tombstone cleaning ritual. Flower petals strewn along the way are believed to guide the spirits of the dead back to the homes for the celebrations. It is a popular Catholic belief that spirits of dead relatives return to spend some good time with their former families. The day is virtually a family day in which family members narrate stories about past events as a way of sharing with the spirits of departed loved ones (O’Gorman & Faulkner 21-23).
Today, the Day of the Dead celebrations involve more people and cover a wider scope of social classes than ever witnessed before. Contrary to the popular expectation that this is a solemn feast, the day is characterized by humorous expressions, amusement, and lightheartedness. It is even more humorous to note the importance attached to sugar in these celebrations. Mexican bakeries and market places are full of sweetened bread for sale as well as other sweet products such as amaranth seed dough, sugar paste sculpted in different shapes such as skeletons and skulls as well as chocolate (Brandes 12). Children are encouraged to play with the decorative skeletons while adults enjoy eating the sugar-made skulls that are often engraved with people’s names. There is also a lot of fun derived from writing obituaries of prominent townspeople and reading them out loud. A mass for the departed souls follows on the next day. By marking this day, people are reminded about the close link between life and death, and the fun associated with the celebrations is meant to help dispel any fear of death (O’Gorman & Faulkner 23).
Paying homage to the dead is a common practice worldwide, especially in the Catholic communities, but the festive mood in Mexico during these celebrations makes visits to this country very distinctive. Festivities to mark this day are, however, varied in different regions and the religious aspect of these celebrations is more evident in rural festivities than in urban ones. Mixquic, a once-famous farming community but which is now part of the larger Mexico City, is very famous for its festivities on this day and has become a major tourist attraction. The day’s importance as a major tourist attraction is raising the fear that this kind of popularity may gradually erode cultural authenticity or contaminate the original purity of traditional beliefs and customary behavior (Brandes 12).
To help preserve the traditional aspect of Day of the Dead festivities, municipal governments in numerous towns and cities encourage competitions for best mounted and decorated altars. As a result, altar competitions have become a regular part of the celebrations, and in towns like Oaxaca, there are adverts discouraging any foreign elements in the erection of these altars. This is a clear indication of how much the Mexicans wish that the Day of the Dead celebrations would remain a traditional Mexican affair. The competitions are also a clear indication that the Day of the Dead is gradually being transformed from a family celebration to become a community event. In Oaxaca City and other Mexican regions, churches both Protestant and Catholic have joined the effort of municipal authorities in trying to preserve the purity of this day’s events (Brandes 126).
In the United States, the Dias de Los Muertos celebrations attract more seriousness in Los Angeles than in any other place. Angelinos have been reputed to spend the whole of October preparing altars and sugar skulls for the celebrations. The feast is marked with color and pomp as many people carry bouquets of the bright orange marigolds, which they place on the offenses or altars prepared for the dead. There is a widespread belief that the pungent smell and bright color will serve the purpose of attracting the spirits of departed ones. There are forgiving words to help in reconciliation for those whose life has been plagued by violence and drugs. Aztec dancers popularly referred to as Danzantes, beat their drums to notify the crowd about the oncoming processions. They also offer incensed thanksgiving prayers towards all four cardinal directions. The livings gather together on Cesar Chavez Avenue in a procession to honor their departed ones. These festivities have increased during the past few decades, a clear indication of the broad social impact the feast has had on Latino-American society (Matovina & Estrella 69, 72).
From colonial times to the present, the Day of the Dead has displayed some form of economic gain, considering the variety of items such as figurines and toys that are on sale to mark the day’s celebrations. As a result, skeleton and skull iconography has given rise to a thriving industry in artisan crafts. Newspapers are also involved in widespread advertisements to popularize the themes that are entailed in these celebrations. The flower industry has also largely benefited from these celebrations, with farmers, middlemen, and florists reaping considerably in economic gains (Brandes 127-128).
A lot of money and time is invested in preparations and actual festivities for the Day of Dead holiday. In due course, the day has been transformed to include creative energy, poetry, and the display of artistic products. Although the items used in these celebrations humorously display a death theme, a holiday set aside to celebrate the death, and the dead has ironically turned into day creativity and the very affirmation of the beauty of life ( Brandes 6,7).
Dating back to colonial times, celebrations to mark the Day of the Dead have provided a platform of world cultural interpretations in which Mexico has stood out as a unique, culturally distinct, and discrete society, regardless of the dominance that the United States and Spain have had over this nation for a long time. The Day of the Dead is indeed symbolic of Mexico the way Halloween is symbolic of the United States and has united Mexicans, both rural and urban, in a common religious and cultural celebration. Politics has mingled with religion and culture to bring out a day that has greatly contributed to the national identity of Mexicans (Brandes 117).
Although Christianity tried to dominate traditions in these feasts, indigenous practices in honor of the dead have survived and still mark the celebrations. Throughout Day of Dead festivities, European Catholic practices and traditions combine with pre-Christian traditions to produce an event full of color and so much pomp (O’Gorman & Faulkner 23). Christianity has mingled with tradition in one major worldwide event. The Day of the Dead celebrations of modern times is, therefore, both old and new (Matovina & Estrella 76).
Works Cited
Brandes, Stanley H. Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Matovina, Timothy M and Estrella Gary R. Horizons of the Sacred: Mexican Traditions in U.S. Catholicism. New York: Cornwell University Press, 2000.
O’Gorman, Robert T and Faulkner Mary. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Catholicism. Phoenix: Alpha Books, 2003.
Standish, Peter and Steven Bell M. Culture and Customs of Mexico. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004.