Traces
of duality also exist in regional Day of the Dead celebrations.
In urban centers it has been modified to appeal to tourist tastes,
while its solemn, devotional nature is preserved in rural areas,
where it remains a form of family reunion for the living and the
dead. In villages all over Mexico, ofrendas, or offerings,
of candles, fruit, flowers, food, and drink are prepared for the
enjoyment of the returning souls of the dead. This movable feast
is then taken to the cemeteries, where the living commune with the
dead, bringing offerings of the delicacies they enjoyed in life.
Families congregrate in cemeteries to clean the graves of loved
ones, dressing them with incense burners fullof smoking copal and
heaps of orange marigolds, or cemasuchules, the Aztec flower
of the dead. Mariachis stand nearby, gently serenading the souls
of the departed. It is a time when the living and the dead exist
side by side, one reminding the other of the impermanency of life.



