Fiestas de la Vida

Devotion and Ritual in Mexican Folk Art

Day of the Dead




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The celebration known as the Day of the Dead in Mexico is steeped in duality, for not only is it a time for remembering the dead, it is a time to celebrate life. The first two days of November, known as All Saints' Day (Dia de Todos los Santos), and All Souls' Day Dia de los Muertos), are central to this religious holiday, one which has both pre-Hispanic and Christian origins. To the Aztecs, death signified not an end but a phase in a constant cycle. In the fall of each year, they celebrated two feasts for the dead, one in memory of the souls of dead children, the other honoring the souls of the adult departed. Following the Conquest, these Aztec days were integrated with the Catholic mourning rituals introduced by the spanish friars, creating the folk-religious holiday known today in Mexico as the Day of the Dead.

fiestas imageTraces 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.

 

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For more information contact John Spiak at spiak@asu.edu



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