How is the Festival of the Dead celebrated in Mexico? How Mexico celebrates Day of the Dead Day of the Dead in Mexico art

On November 2, Mexico celebrates one of the most unusual holidays in the world - Dia de Muertos.

Photo: Ivan Diaz / Unsplash

The cemetery was visible from afar, a couple of kilometers away. We left the Mexican town of San Luis Rio Colorado, located on the border with American Arizona, already dark, and all the way outside the windows only the harsh Sonoran Desert loomed black in complete silence. The lonely necropolis outside the city limits today, on the Day of the Dead, looked like a real island of life, illuminated by floodlights and surrounded by cars; From behind the fence came the sounds of non-funeral music, the screams of children, laughter, barking dogs, and even, it seemed, the clinking of beer bottles. (Actually, why be surprised if we also had a case of beer in our trunk?)

November 2 found me visiting Mexican friends in a completely non-tourist place. In the north of Mexico, which is considered more Americanized than the south and center, there are no urban carnivals on the occasion of the Day of the Dead. But traditions are observed: on November 1, “Day of the Angels,” when deceased children are remembered, all the children of San Luis lined up outside my friends’ house, it seems, the family arranged tricky-tricky, the ritual of treating children to sweets, which Mexicans borrowed from Halloween, slightly adjusting its original, difficult-to-pronounce name treat-or-trick. The women appeared in the traditional image of Katrina, the symbol of death, for the Day of the Dead - in black dresses and hats with a veil, with faces painted to look like skulls (it should be noted that special makeup for this occasion in Mexico is made of very high quality - it was possible to wipe off the “death mask” only in the morning ).

The next day, a friend suggested we go together to the cemetery - her friend’s father died a month ago, and he was going to celebrate the Day of the Dead there. My friend and I knew each other only casually; he didn’t speak English at all, and I spoke Spanish very poorly, but it was stupid to refer to terrible internal awkwardness on such a holiday. Despite the fact that the thought of dancing on graves still gave me a stupor, I wanted to pass this test of openness to foreign cultures.

Photo: Maria Zhelikhovskaya

The tradition of celebrating the Day of the Dead in Mexico is rooted in the pre-Columbian past and is closely connected with the culture of the peoples of Mesoamerica - the Olmecs, Toltecs, Aztecs, and Mayans. All of them were united by a peculiar cult around death: there were no cemeteries in the usual sense, and the dead were buried directly under residential buildings. This practice literally brought the living and the dead closer together: the graves were not walled up, relatives regularly “visited” the dead and brought them offerings. The deceased were perceived as intermediaries between the world of life and death.

The Aztecs believed that these two hypostases were natural forces that set the world in motion, necessary components of regeneration. After all, in order to get food, it was necessary to kill an animal or plant - which means that death gave life.

The Indians believed that a person had three souls, each of which could go to the afterlife, turn into a divine force, or remain between two worlds to give strength to surviving loved ones and loved ones.

Many of the Aztec rituals honor the dead, such as the veneration of the death goddess Mictlancihuatl, who was depicted as a woman with a skull for a head, the burning of incense, and offerings of food and gifts to the deceased ofrendas— have become an important part of Day of the Dead celebrations. But, of course, in its modern form, this holiday took shape as a result of a mixture of pre-Columbian and Spanish Catholic practices, which, paradoxically, harmoniously complemented each other. For example, the Indian image of death in the form of a skull was perfectly superimposed on the popular theme of religious Spanish painting Danza Macabra(“Dance of Death”), in which death was depicted dancing with the living. The Spaniards encouraged Indians to perform rituals to honor the dead on Catholic holidays - All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, which were celebrated on November 1 and 2 (before that, Indian celebrations in honor of the dead took place in August).

At the beginning of 1900 The authorities of the already independent Mexico declared the Day of the Dead an official holiday in order to unite the nation against the backdrop of prevailing political divisions. So the fiesta, traditional for the south of the country, spread throughout its territory and eventually began to attract hundreds of thousands of tourists to the country. Ten years ago, in 2008, the Day of the Dead was inscribed by UNESCO on the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Photo: Maria Zhelikhovskaya

Trying to mentally put all the known Spanish words of sympathy into more or less coherent phrases as we walked out of the parking lot, I experienced a strange mixture of fear of other people’s grief and my own hypocrisy. Eight years ago, my own father suddenly died, and the memories of the depression that did not leave me for a whole year after that did not fit well with the thoughts that in such a state it was possible to communicate with curious people and see a holiday around. The San Luis cemetery was really fun: before we found our friend, we had to make our way through armfuls of flowers, whole norteño orchestras and a lot of people at the graves - they were talking loudly, eating, drinking. Our friend was sitting in a large company of relatives and was in every sense tipsy. They began to hug us tightly, immediately poured us beer and put tamales on our plates.

Photo: Maria Zhelikhovskaya

“If you don’t light a candle for a dead man, he’ll have to set his own finger on fire to find his way home,” says a popular belief among the Indians of southern Mexico. Dia de Muertos- this is not just a reason to remember the dead. It is believed that on this day the deceased come home to visit their relatives - and they, in turn, should take proper care to ensure that the return, albeit temporary, becomes easy and pleasant. For this purpose, altars with photographs of deceased relatives are built in homes, and in some cities in squares and cemeteries. They are decorated with great imagination, decorated with flowers - pink celosia, white gypsophila, red carnations and bright orange marigolds inherited from the Aztecs. cempasúchil. Their petals are used to make a path to the altar from the threshold of a house or yard, which will show the right path for the deceased. Offerings are placed on the altar - ofrendas.

Traditionally, the altar should contain four elements: water, to quench the thirst of the deceased during the long journey from the kingdom of the dead of Mictlan; fire (candles) to illuminate the path to earth; the wind, which is symbolized by garlands of colored carved paper papel picado, to create coolness, and uniting the dead with the living, the earth that food represents. Usually this is a sweet yeast "bread of the dead" pan de muerto, tamales - Mexican “dumplings” stuffed with meat and corn flour, boiled in corn or banana leaves, atoll hot corn drink, fruit, mole chocolate sauce, and sweets in the form of sugar skulls. However, on the altar you can find almost everything that the deceased loved, including Coca-Cola cans, cigarettes and baseball T-shirts! Incense is also part of the tradition, and since the time of the Aztecs, copal, a resin secreted by tropical trees of the legume family, has been used for this purpose.

Photo: Maria Zhelikhovskaya

But still, the main and most replicated symbols of the Day of the Dead are an artistic depiction of a skull, which is called a calavera, and Katrina, a skeleton in a woman’s dress and hat. These images, considered folk, actually have an author - Mexican cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada. It was he who turned the image of the skeleton into a work of art, drawing calaveras in the images of people, including politicians, for magazines and newspapers. In 1910 Posada printed a lithograph entitled La Calavera Garbancera- "Elegant skeleton." The drawing showed a lady ashamed of her Indian roots, dressed in French fashion and with heavy makeup to appear whiter.

In 1948, Diego Rivera, who considered Posada his inspiration, painted his famous mural “A Sunday Night Dream in Alameda Park,” dedicated to the colonial history of Mexico, in which he quoted Posada’s satirical drawing, giving his heroine the name La Catrina(in the slang of that time - the name of an expensively dressed rich man). Since then, Catrina and the calavera have become one of the most popular images of Mexican identity.

Despite the fact that the main Day of the Dead tradition is a visit to the cemetery, which turns into a party, different states and cities have their own customs. A carnival has recently been held in Mexico City, and the largest altar in the country is being built on the university campus and the local Indian saint, the child pilgrim, is being glorified Niño Pa. Oaxaca is famous for its tradition calenda- a street procession with puppets, dancers and music. They dance in Michoacan La Danza de los Tecuanes- “Dance of the Jaguars”, depicting the hunt for these animals, and La Danza de los Viejitos— “Dance of the Little Old Men,” in which teenagers dressed as old people first walk with their backs bent, and then suddenly jump up and begin to move energetically. And the Purépecha Indians, who inhabit the north-west of this state, prepare for the holiday several weeks in advance: young guys, tatakers, they go, often illegally, to plantations to dig up marigolds or to the forest to cut down trees to build altars in village squares. The town of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, hosts a colorful four-day festival La Calaca, dedicated to skulls, and in Guadalajara they organize a festival at the Belen cemetery and it seems that every single local resident dresses up as Catrinas! In Chiapas, in the village of San Juan Chamula, where the Tzotzil Indians live, the least assimilated after the conquest, they organize a festival K'Anima, during which locals ring a church bell, believing that this will attract the souls of the dead, and then go to the cemetery to play harps and guitars. A festival is being held in San Sebastian, Yucatan state. Mucbipollo- this is the name of chicken cooked in an earthen oven in a sauce made from tomatoes and cornmeal.

But the most extravagant custom is practiced in the town of Pomuch in the state of Campeche, which is inhabited by Mayan Indians. Here, three to four years after the funeral, the dead are taken out of their graves, and on the eve of the holiday they literally wash their bones. This activity takes almost a day, then the remains are put into wooden boxes and taken to the cemetery, where there is a special place for their storage. On the Day of the Dead, they are taken out, placed on the altar, wrapped in napkins with beautifully embroidered designs and the names of the deceased, and offerings are placed next to them.

Photo: Maria Zhelikhovskaya

Midnight passed, but the fun in the cemetery did not subside. Still, Mexican syncretism works in an amazing way. The traditional Spanish stoic attitude towards death, the concept of the sadness of earthly existence and the benefits of suffering, never took root here. Mexicans even call their deceased loved ones diminutively - muertitos. In a country where the Inquisition has failed, it is not customary to challenge death to a duel; here they would rather pat her on the shoulder, drink tequila with her and go on to enjoy life.

Guests came and went, and the grave of our friend's father was overgrown with a pile of plastic plates and cups. The slabs were separated from each other only by curb stones, and this created the impression of a large communal feast. Along the path, children roller-skated, screaming furiously, obscure Spanish speech blended with the music, and at some point I found myself tapping my feet to the beat. My father, who always joked under any circumstances, would probably have patted me on the neck and smiled. And in general it already seemed that both of them - both our friend’s father and my own - should be sitting somewhere nearby. At the next “table”. Drink beer, joke, laugh and not be afraid of the language barrier.

And my soul suddenly felt unexpectedly light.

Día de los Muertos) is a holiday dedicated to the memory of the dead, held annually on November 2 in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. According to legend, these days the souls of deceased relatives visit their home. The tradition dates back to the Mayans and Aztecs, who brought gifts to the goddess Mictlancihuatl and built walls depicting skulls - tsompantli. The celebration calendar coincides with two Catholic holidays - All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). Traditions associated with the holiday include creating private altars to honor the deceased, including sugar skulls, verbena, the deceased's favorite foods and drinks, and visiting the grave with these gifts.

For the Day of the Dead, cemeteries are decorated with ribbons and flowers, and the roads to the homes of the deceased are lined with candles by their relatives so that the deceased can find their way home. Day of the Dead is a day to celebrate life.

Origin of the holiday

The Day of the Dead began to be celebrated in the territory of modern Mexico by ancient peoples, such as the Olmecs and Mayans. According to scientists, rituals associated with the veneration of the dead were celebrated 2,500 - 3,000 ago. In the period before Spanish colonization, local residents often kept real skulls of the dead in their homes - as a kind of family heirloom, they were often displayed during various rituals, they were supposed to symbolize death and resurrection.

During the Aztec Empire, a holiday similar to the Day of the Dead was celebrated in the ninth month of the Aztec calendar, which falls in modern August. The Aztecs celebrated this holiday for a whole month, during which the goddess Mictlancihuatl, the goddess of death, was revered. In modern mythology, this goddess corresponds to the symbol of Katrina. In many areas of Mexico, this holiday is celebrated over two days: on November 1, they honor dead children and babies, which is also called Angels Day (Spanish. Dia de los Angelitos). November 2, Day of the Dead (Spanish) Dia de los Difuntos) venerate all adult dead people.

Cultural and religious significance

Many of those who celebrate this holiday believe that on the Day of the Dead, the souls of the dead can visit living relatives and friends. On this day, people visit cemeteries to communicate with the souls of the dead, they build altars with photographs and relics on the graves, and bring the favorite drinks and food of the deceased. All this is done in order to encourage the soul of the deceased to visit the living. Sometimes celebrations take on a cheerful tone when relatives of the deceased remember funny or funny facts from the life of the deceased at the gravestone.

Celebrating the Day of the Dead varies from region to region. As a rule, they prepare for the holiday throughout the whole year, when little by little they collect things that should be on the altar of the deceased. During the celebrations on November 1 and 2, relatives decorate the graves of the dead with flowers and fruits. Very often, special flowers are used in decorations on graves - orange marigolds, which, according to legend, attract the souls of the dead. In Mexico these flowers are called "Flowers of the Dead" (Spanish. Flor de Muerto). On Angels Day they bring toys for children and sweets. For adults, they most often bring tequila, beer and other alcoholic drinks.

Literature

Octavio Paz. All Saints' Day, Feast of the Dead // Aka. Poetry. Criticism. Erotica. M.: Russian Phenomenological Society, 1996, p. 22-35.
Ray Bradbury . All Hallows' Eve, Sugar Skull

Notes

Links

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “Day of the Dead” is in other dictionaries:

- (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) a holiday dedicated to the memory of the dead, held annually on November 1 and 2 in Mexico. According to legend, these days the souls of deceased relatives visit their home. The tradition dates back to the Mayans and Aztecs, who brought gifts... ... Wikipedia

Day of the Dead: Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) is a holiday dedicated to the memory of the dead, held annually on November 1-2 in Mexico. Day of the Dead (Babylon 5) is an episode of the 1998 series Babylon 5. See also... ... Wikipedia

Day of the Dead has the following meanings: Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday in memory of the dead. Day of the Dead (Babylon 5) episode of the 1998 TV series Babylon 5. Day of the Dead (film) horror film by George Romero ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Day of the Dead (meanings). Day of the Dead TV series Babylon 5 ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Vampire (meanings). Vampires: Day of the Dead Vampires: Los Muertos ... Wikipedia

Day of the Dead (film, 1985) This term has other meanings, see Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead Day of the Dead ... Wikipedia

Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) is a holiday dedicated to the memory of the dead, held annually on November 1 and 2 in Mexico. According to legend, these days the souls of deceased relatives visit their home. The tradition dates back to the Mayans and Aztecs, who... ... Wikipedia

- (eng. Day of the Dead): Day of the Dead (film, 1985) horror film, USA, 1985. Directed by George Romero. Day of the Dead (film, 2008) horror film, USA, 2008. Directed by Steve Miner. See also Day of the Dead 2: ... ... Wikipedia

Mexicans are a special people. Who else, if not the Mayan ancestor, would think of turning the memory of the dead into a holiday, and even into the most popular holiday in the country? On the "Day of the Dead" people drink, dance and have fun in Mexican cemeteries, so is it any wonder that skeleton carnivals take place?

The roots of the tradition of celebrating the Day of the Dead holiday go back to 2500-3000. The celebration took place in the ninth month of the Aztec calendar. But since the Spaniards joined the “Day of the Dead”, the holiday was moved to the end of October - beginning of November. Today the holiday also begins to be celebrated on October 31st. On this day it is customary to remember dead children. For this reason, the first two days of the holiday are called "Day of Little Angels." On November 1 and 2, adult deceased people are already commemorated.

On the Day of the Dead, people take to the streets of Mexico dressed as female skeletons called Catrina. Colorful street processions take place in different ways. In some parts of the country they take place in the form of funeral processions - people organize gloomy torchlight processions. In others, people prefer to have fun - singing, drinking and dancing.

In the evening, people go to cemeteries where their loved ones are buried. In a humorous tone, Mexicans communicate with the souls of the dead. Then the fun begins in the cemetery - people drink, eat, dance, and also tear their clothes and sprinkle ashes on their heads. In the morning, the interlocutors of the deceased go home.

The main symbol of the holiday is the skull. People are also willing to buy gloomy lanterns and treat children to creepy-looking candies. This Mexican tradition is reminiscent of Halloween.

The holiday attracts tourists from all over the world. In 2004, "Day of the Dead" was recognized by UNESCO as a heritage of humanity. The holiday is mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records - in the same year, students built a wall of 5,667 edible skulls.

The last post about the history of Katrina was a kind of excursion into the ancient history of Mexico and ended in 1947, and the next important date in the creation of the modern holiday was the 1960s, because it was at this time that the Mexican government, for cultural and political purposes, decided to make the Day of the Dead a national holiday and spread the tradition throughout the country.

The fact is that this holiday originally in Mexico was of great importance only in its southern parts, as well as in neighboring Belize and Guatemala, where the ancient Indian civilizations of the Mayans and Aztecs once existed.

Moreover, this holiday was connected to such an extent with local customs that even its local names could be different. In the Yucatan Peninsula it was called Hanal Pixan (Hanal Pixan in the Mayan language "The path of the soul through the essence of food"), in the Michoacan mountains it was called Jimbanqua, and in the states of San Luis Potosi, Hidalgo and Southern Oaxaca they used the name Xantolo ). But in the north of Mexico, where the Indians were more like North Americans, that is, nomads, the Day of the Dead was somehow not particularly popular and was not celebrated.

In the 1960s, as we know, the colonial system collapsed in the world, countries around the world gained independence and national identity.

And although Mexico was already an independent country at that time, there may have been some problems with national identity.

Personally, it seems to me that the Mexicans did not want to look like the descendants of barbaric savages, as the Spaniards once described them. Mexicans wanted to be seen as descendants of a centuries-old civilization with their own roots, cultural identity and traditions.

And some national holiday or holidays could become the basis for such an idea about Mexican civilization that unites the country.

Apparently, Mexico's Independence Day was not enough, and the Day of the Dead was associated with the ancient Indian civilization that lived in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards and had a distinct cultural background going back centuries. And it was declared a national holiday.

And now this is the favorite national holiday dedicated to the memory of the dead, on which, according to legend, the souls of deceased relatives visit their home. In order to welcome them as cordially as possible, families build altars in honor of deceased relatives, both at home and in the cemetery, and decorate them with sugar skulls (let me remind you that among the ancient Aztecs, the skull of the deceased was often kept at home, as the home of the soul TONALLI, which was responsible for love and fire, this was discussed in the previous part), the deceased’s favorite foods and drinks, candles, toys and flowers, primarily orange marigolds.

Sugar skulls

Decoration of a grave in a cemetery

In terms of significance and money spent, this is the most important Mexican holiday of the year; families often spend all their earnings in a couple of months to build a decent altar, which will not be embarrassing, and which will show dead relatives who come to visit how they are remembered and remembered in the family. love.

Altar for the deceased

There is also a tradition in Mexico, at least in villages, of dressing in the clothes of the deceased and smearing one’s face with white paint, so that a deceased relative who comes to visit does not feel too “different” with his skull instead of a face. And fancy suits are often called "Dapper Skeleton" or "Elegant Skull", which is why these words are now synonymous for Katrina.

Altar for the deceased

It’s also popular to organize parties with compars.

Comparsa is a group of amateur artists, singers, musicians and dancers in the Spanish and Latin American world who take part in some kind of folk festivities, often some specific carnivals.

Comparsa on stilts during Dia de Los Muertos celebrations

As I already wrote in a previous post, on the Day of the Dead in Mexico it is popular to invent and read literary calaveras - comic poems - epitaphs in honor of the dead. In addition, Mexico is a country of mariachi and very beautiful music. So in Mexican culture there are a huge number of songs sung especially for the Day of the Dead, just as in English-speaking countries there are a huge number of songs sung especially for Christmas.

And since I have taken it upon myself to introduce people here to Mexican culture and this particular holiday, I will post some of the most famous of these songs performed on the Day of the Dead.

The author of the song La Llorona (The Crying Woman) is unknown, but it was created somewhere on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. The song tells a story of love and pain in a style typical of the Mexican Revolution.

The story of La Llorona refers to the legend of the Mexican goddess Chihuaatl, who, just before the arrival of the Spaniards, knowing the horrific future that awaited her Mexican children after the Spanish conquest, wept loudly on the walls of Tenochtitlan, and her cry was heard

The song La Bruja was written by José Gutierrez and the Ochoa brothers and is about an unmarried woman who tried to find a man and get him. Behind this song is the legend of a woman known as the "Witch of Huasteca", very popular in Veracruz.

The song "El día de Muertos" or "Day of the Dead" very well conveys the idea of how the Indians viewed death, talking about the pain caused by unrequited love. This is one of the most popular romantic melodies in the song books "pireris", which is always performed on holidays

The song "La Calaca" ("Skeleton"), which was written by José Hernandez and immortalized by Amparo Ochoa, talks about what happens in Mexico City's largest cemetery, the Pantheon Dolores. It narrates various events taking place around death and death. The Mexicans have an expression se lo (la) llevó la calaca - the calaca/skeleton took him, which means that the person died, death took him.

The song "Viene la Muerte Echando Rasero" talks about how skin color, race, religion, age or anything else does not matter in the face of death, death will come to each of us and in the end we will all be there.

Well, these are the popular songs that are sung at folk festivals in Mexico during the Day of the Dead celebrations.

In most villages and small towns in Mexico, the comparsa are just a group of locals without any eye-popping theatrical or vocal talents. This is a pure folk festival with artistic performance at the amateur level.

However, there are tourist places in Mexico where comparators have been made more professional and commercial precisely in order to attract tourists. In particular, one of these very famous places is the city of Oaxaca, where the performance of the compars is called a festival.

And this is what a comparsa looks like in the city of Tempoal de Sánchez

These two videos are traditional compars performances. That is, traditionally, no special parades or processions in a special column to the cemetery or somewhere else. In the end, visiting a cemetery is a personal and family matter; people don’t march there in a column. Stage (square in the city/village center) for performances, folk dances, folk costumes.

So where did the tradition of a carnival parade led by Katrina come from?

A reckless celebration, pervasive fun and thousands of the living dead filled the city - nothing surprising. This is Mexico celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

Everything is turned upside down. Night will become day, the cemetery will become the most popular place in the city, the living will dress up as the dead, and the dead will come to life.

Historically, Mexico has a completely different attitude towards death than the Europe we are used to. Death is not the end for them, but the continuation of life in another world. The dead are not remembered here, but are greeted with joy. After all, this is the only day when beloved relatives who have left this world can visit them.

Dia de los Muertos: history

Celebrating the Day of the Dead with its traditions goes back to the ancient Aztecs and Mayans. Their belief system was strongly associated with the rituals of death and resurrection. Even before the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the Aztecs kept the skulls of relatives in their homes and used them in symbolic ceremonies.

In the summer, for one month, a revelry was organized in the form of a series of bloody sacrifices, thereby paying tribute to the dead, the afterlife and its patroness - the goddess Mictlancihuatl.

Already to the first conquerors of Mexico it seemed as if the Aztecs were mocking death in their rituals. The rituals were considered blasphemous. The indigenous people of Central America were forcibly converted to Catholicism, but their traditions were not so easily eradicated. Of course, we managed to abolish blood sacrifices and reduce the monthly revelry to 3 days. But replacing joy with sorrow, and the skull (one of the main symbols of Day of the Dead) with a cross, did not work out.

When is Day of the Dead celebrated in Mexico?

They tried to fit the pagan holiday into the Christian canon as much as possible. Dia de los Muertos was previously celebrated on the 9th month of the Aztec calendar, but it was moved to November 1-2, when Catholics celebrate All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Sometimes they start celebrating it earlier, on October 31st.

Dia de los Muertos is a national holiday in Mexico, so these days are considered holidays and schools and businesses are closed.

Nov. 1- Day of the Little Angels (Día de Angelitos), when departed children and infants are honored.
November 2- Día de los Muertos itself, when deceased adults are remembered.

Day of the Dead Traditions

According to Mexican beliefs, it is believed that the dead continue to live in the afterlife - Mictlan, and death is only a transition from one life to another. And a year after death, the deceased return to their homes to feel the joy of life, see relatives and friends, and get what they loved.

In large cities, preparations for Dia de los Muertos take place several months in advance. Schools, institutes and local communities are starting to make masks, costumes, and life-size puppets. The musicians rehearse daily. Altar designs are drawn up, truckloads of freshly cut flowers are ordered.

Altar and offerings

The altar of yellow marigolds is a symbolic door between worlds, which is designed to help souls find home. The flower itself is often called the flower of the dead - flor del muerto. There should be an altar in every home. In recent years, they have even been installed in squares, schools, shops and restaurants, hospitals, hotels and airports.

Gifts are laid at the altar: flowers, candles, tamales (a dish made from corn flour), fruits, toys for children, alcohol for adults. Mandatory attributes are water, since the spirits are thirsty after traveling, and special sweet bread of the dead (pan de muertos).

Women spend the whole day preparing the food that the deceased loved most. In the houses, a bed is made for the deceased to rest on. Friends and relatives gather together for a joyful meeting with the deceased.

Skulls, skeletons and more

On the eve of the Festival of the Dead, store shelves are filled with miniature skulls, skeletons and coffins made of chocolate, clay or cardboard. In shop windows they often stand in pyramids, vaguely reminiscent of Aztec tzompantli - walls made of skulls of the vanquished, as a symbol of the inextricable pair of death and life.

Skulls and skeletons are everywhere: in windows, doors, on the streets, painted on clothes, walls and asphalt. They often smile and are made in bright, cheerful colors. They may even give you a skull or a coffin with your name on it, don’t be surprised - it’s from the bottom of their hearts. They are usually given as gifts to relatives and friends. And children can generally enjoy these lollipops in the shape of skulls.

Calavera Catrina

The skeleton, dressed in rich women's clothing with a wide-brimmed hat, is also one of the constant symbols of the Day of the Dead. Some believe that this is what the goddess Mictlancihuatl would look like now. But in fact, this symbol came from an engraving by artist José Guadalupe Posada - La Calavera de la Catrina (1913). The artist sought to show that the rich and successful are also subject to death. But one way or another, over time, the image of Katrina firmly became part of the Day of the Dead paraphernalia.

Engraving: José Guadalupe Posada

A visit to the cemetery is the culmination of the holiday

Parking lots near the cemetery are occupied for kilometers around, and people flock to it in a dense stream.

The graves are being put in order. They are strewn with petals, wreaths and bouquets of yellow marigolds, decorated with candles, and they bring the deceased’s favorite food and drinks, as well as his photographs. There is also a picnic and dancing to mariachi music.

A night trip to the cemetery is not a sad event, but a long-awaited meeting with family, an opportunity to spend time with them, and at the same time have fun, eat well and drink with family and friends. Near each grave there is a family idyll. Men chat, women bustle around snacks, older relatives tell funny stories from the life of the deceased, children play in costume, and babies sleep in their parents' arms.

Parade of the Dead

And yet, the tradition of intimate nighttime gatherings in the cemetery is more likely to be characteristic of residents of small towns and villages. But in large policies, they are increasingly organizing a real carnival.

In Oaxaca de Juarez, Dia de los Muertos is celebrated on a grand scale. This is a city of dancing skeletons, colorful skulls, brass bands and mariachis.

The city, deserted during the day, suddenly becomes filled with traveling orchestras towards nightfall. Classical and folk instruments create an incredible musical mix of motifs that will raise the dead from the grave, and make the living dance all night long.

Long processions of mummers and just onlookers gather behind the orchestras - this is the so-called comparsa. Surprisingly, such a procession arises spontaneously and has neither a clear route nor a schedule. At any time you can join the dancing crowd and make circles around the city in a musical frenzy.

Carnival is everywhere. But the mind-clearing madness will go away at first light on November 3rd, until next year.

Regional differences

Nowadays, the scale of Day of the Dead celebrations in some places in Mexico overshadows Christmas. But traditions often vary from region to region. We will remember them only briefly.

IN Oaxaca de Juarez give preference to carnival processions.

IN Valley of Mexico- decoration of altars and houses of the deceased dominates.

IN Pomuch city They still observe traditions more typical of pre-Columbian culture. Here, every year, the remains of their loved ones are exhumed and cleaned of flesh, and in subsequent years, wiped. The next video should not be watched by the faint of heart..

Near Tlahuac in Mexico, rural folk traditions have been preserved. It is here that you can see one of the most brightly decorated cemeteries.

IN Ocotepeque They arrange a huge number of sacrifices. And from the houses where people died over the past year, a road lined with flowers leads to the cemetery.

Halloween and Day of the Dead

Both of these holidays are held almost at the same time, and at first glance they have many similarities. Both Halloween and Day of the Dead originated from early cultures and were later mixed with Christianity. Also, both are based on the belief that these days the dead return to the world of the living. The paraphernalia with symbols of death is also very similar. But that's where the commonalities end.

Halloween is more about the fear of death. The holiday is replete with negative characters: demons, witches, vampires, zombies and so on. Masks are worn so that evil spirits mistake the living for their own and do not harm them.

And the Day of the Dead is more about love for loved ones, the joy of meeting the dead, and their veneration. In Dia de los Muertos, death is something to be celebrated, not feared.