Understanding the essential things you need to know about this ancient Mexican tradition
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| Playa Mia's Artist Dannielle on a Day of The Dead them |
Halloween is an American tradition that has been adopted in
Mexico and serves as a preamble to the celebration of the Day of the Dead or
"Dia de los Muertos" (deeah deh
luss mooehrttuss).
Even though the two celebrations have their origin in life after death, they
are completely different. The Day of the Dead is not a Mexican version of
Halloween. While Halloween fears the
dead, Mexicans celebrate with them and set "altares" (shrines) rather than tombs.
The Day of the dead is actually a two-day celebration as it is ancestrally believed that the souls of
the deceased return to Earth every year on these two days. The first day,
November the 1st is for the souls of the
children, and the 2nd is devoted to honoring
the souls of the adults. For that, the road back home is marked with
cempasúchil flowers, candles and the smell of copal incense. The feast is made
with the favorite food and drinks of those who were once among us.
The Day of the Dead is a three thousand year tradition whose
origin is the Aztec myth that souls walked the path of death and returned to
earth before they reach the Mictlán or sacred place of the dead.
Rife with symbolism, the Day of the Dead is a celebration of
life, a tradition that passes from generation to generation. The UNESCO has acknowledged
it as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
To appreciate and understand a little bit better about
Mexico’s most colorful tradition, here are the essential things you should know
about the “Dia de Muertos”.
Altar
“Altar” is the Spanish
for shrine. People use to place a table
or any other suitable structure at home to set the
offerings to honor the deceased ones. The family gather before this
altar to pray, eat, recall memories and "share" time with their loved
ones. Altars are profusely decorated with flowers, food, religious images,
pictures and pre-Hispanic elements such as the four elements, water, earth,
wind and fire, this is why you will always see candles, water, clay pots or
quicklime crosses and colorful banners
of "Papel Picado", the streams of cut-out tissue paper flags
representing the wind.
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| Altarfor the Day of the Dead |
Food
Mmmm… yummy! Concerning the Day of the dead, food occupies a
preeminent place over the other elements present on an altar as the whole
family will share the meal. They prepare the favorite dishes of the one honored
in the altar. Tamales, tacos and "mole" are usual. Mole is the
closest to a national feast dish, it is made with a variety of ground dried
chiles and chocolate; it might sound really weird to the uninitiated, however,
it's glorious.
In Cozumel, the Maya culture rules, and Hanal-pixán is Maya for "meal for the dead"
The star of that meal is the pib, or
better THE PIB. It is a large kind of
tamale (the size of cake pan). It consists
of a thick corn dough crust filled with precooked chicken pieces seasoned with annatto; the broth left is thickened and then poured into the crust along with the chicken
pieces, raw tomato slices, and
hard-boiled eggs. Filled to the rim, the crust is then covered with a lid of
the same dough. Afterward, It is
thoroughly wrapped in banana leafs and
placed into an earth oven to smolder it for
hours; simply delicious, it is not hard to understand why it is a favorite for
the living and the dead.
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| PIB making |
"El Pan de Muerto" or <the bread of dead> is
a paramount element of the season, it is about a pound loaf of bread which is decorated with "bones",
"tears" and a "skull" made
out of the same dough. Usually, a ball of
dough at the top of it represent the skull and four femora like bones make a cross and in-between the bones a teardrop-like piece
of dough complete the decoration, everything is varnished with a lay of
battered eggs and then topped with sugar. Every sweet fluffy bite of it is a
piece of heaven and yet that's not all.
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| Bread of the Dead, a delicacy for the living ones |
Warm freshly made chocolate is the unsplittable companion to
a piece of "Pan de Muerto". We
are not talking about cocoa powder, but actual roasted-chocolate seeds ground to a paste-like
dough mixed with sugar which is then bring to boil in milk or water. In some
other regions with more entrenched indigenous traditions, fresh grounded cooked
corn is added to the concoction along
with brown sugar, vanilla, cloves, anise,
or cinnamon to make "atole" or
"champurrado".
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| Chocolate making |
A special mention is deserved to the "Calaveritas",
no altar element is likely wider known abroad that the iconic colorful sugar
skulls which are also made with chocolate or amaranth seeds glued with honey. Typically a small banner on the forehead bears
the name of the honored dead. Little versions of it are used as presents for children and grown along the
season.
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| Mouth-watering sugar skulls |
While pumpkins make
wonderful jack-o-lanterns in the States, in Mexico
they make a delicious pumpkin dessert known as "Dulce de Calabaza", consisting of rough-cut
pieces of pumpkin cooked in a syrup made out of
brown sugar cones, and cinnamon; it is a must try.
Is that all about food? A resounding no is the answer. This is not but the tip of the
iceberg. Hundreds of regions and towns have their own traditional dishes for
the occasion. This is without mentioning the iconic beverages of Mexico such as
Mezcal, Tequila, and beer which are
present in every party along the year and the "Muertos" day is not an
exception.
Flowers
Flowers is not a minor topic on "Dia de Muertos", the main performer of
this celebration is the Aztec marigold or "cempasúchil", or flower of
the four hundred petals, whose smell is believed to attract the dead and its
yellow color evokes the sun, whose light illuminates the path of the soul. In
many regions of Mexico, an arch frames the altar, and it is profusely decorated
with flowers, it alludes the entrance to the underworld. The hot purple cockscomb flowers (“Terciopelo”) represents mourn and spiritual recollection.
Some towns elaborate intricated
designs of extraordinary beauty with petals of different colors, to decorate
the path from the main church to the cemetery to mark the way to the souls.
Complete communities participate to pay for and make them due to the importance that these rituals represent to their loved departed ones.
the white flowers such
as chrysanthemums (“Crisantemos”) and baby's breath (“Nube”) that represent purity and love.
Traditionally, white bouquets of "Crisantemos" are used to decorate the tombs of deceased children or "Angelitos" (angels).
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| Aztec marigold or "Cempasúchil" grower |
History
The Day of the Dead is celebrated on November 2, the date that coincides with the Catholic
celebration of the faithful departed, same that had its origin in the France of
the fifteenth century and that the Spanish conquerors brought with them in the
s. XVI. Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures celebrated in August a cult of the
dead presided over by a deity called Mictecacíhuatl or Lady of Death. Both
customs converge inevitably, syncretizing the deep roots that this festival has
today in the Mexican tradition.
The Aztecs practiced two important festivals: one for children called Miccaihuitontli, which was
celebrated on August 8 according to the
records of the first friars, and the one for adults (Hueymiccailhuitl) which
close the festivities 20 days later. In-between the two dates, the Aztecs
presented offerings to their dead and offered penances and purifications.
The Spaniards, on the other hand, used to go to the
cemeteries and deposit bread, wine and flowers from the Day of All Saints, that
is to say from a day before the Day of the Faithful Departed and prayed in the
place to appease the deceased as some thought that on that day the souls
wandered the earth and could take them with them. The offerings were presented
on an altar and candles were set to guide the dead towards the altar.
The Aztec tradition of venerating children and adults was
not eradicated by the Spaniards when converting them to Catholicism, however by
papal recommendation, the celebrations were made to coincide with the dates of
All Saints and the Faithful Dead, on days 1 and 2 November in the Spanish style
instead of the separate parties of the Aztec tradition. Since then it is
considered that day 1 is the day of the souls of children and day two of those
of adults.
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| Mictecacíhuatl, the Lady of Death |
As we have seen, the celebration of the Day of the Dead is a
rich amalgam of history, cultures, customs, colors,
and flavors, which inspires artists, photographers,
and scholars to document in one way or another this endless party. Museums and
institutions hold exhibitions in Mexico and abroad. It seems ironic, but
without a doubt, the celebration of the Day of the Dead continues as alive
today as it has been the last 3000 thousand
years.
