Celebrating Day of the Dead. What exactly is this about? Is it about the dead or about life? Knowing little of this holiday in Mexico but familiar with pictures of people dressed as skeletons and skulls; when a friend’s daughter was getting married she decided the theme would be Day of the Dead. It was curious and led to asking questions. Day of the Dead is really a party of life! Having only written about Halloween it was natural to look at Day of the Dead.You may think that both holidays are about the same but Day of the Day could last about a week on the end of October into the first days of November. Actually Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos is nothing like Halloween aside from these few listed similarities of putting on a costume, having fun and occurring close to October 31.The beginnings can be traced back to preHispanic times when skulls are kept as trophies and exhibited during rituals as a symbol of death and rebirth. This festivity was celebrated on the 9th month of the Aztec calendar-beginning of August and lasting a full month and was dedicated to the god “Lady of the Dead”. The preHispanics thought of death as a extension of life. Life was deemed just a dream simply in death were they truly alive. The Spanish saw this ritual as sacrilegious and attempted to stop it. This failed to work so the Spaniards altered the day to correspond with the spiritual days of All Saint’s Day (November 1) and All Soul’s Day (November 2). This worked out for all people and continues today as the main occasion days for Day of the Dead.
Day of the Dead is a celebration of death as being a transition from one life to another. The souls do not die but reside in Mictlan, an exceptional host to rest. This is just a different level were they stay until they can go back home and visit; communication can exist between the living and the dead through the festival of Dia de los Muertos. It’s not a mournful occasion but a cheerful colorful celebration and death takes on a friendly happy expression.
This is commemorated differently in Mexico and also in places in the United States. Families will save throughout the year to build an altar committed to their loved ones. To offer a celebratory look altars are embellished with papel picado (tissue paper) that is cut in intricate designs and hung around the altar. The altars can have items placed on them that the dead loved the most while they were living. Marigold flowers and copal from trees, have fragrances that is believed to invite the spirits home. Drinks are put on altars to satisfy the thirst of the dead after their long journey; salt is regarded as the spice of life and is a staple that needs to be left on the altars and sugar skulls merit the deads’ sweet spirit. Burial plots will be decorated with flowers; toys for the children and bottles of tequila for the adults will be left at the graves. People celebrate by dressing up, visiting and partying.
Children (los angelitos) are remembered beginning at dusk October 31, adults remembered the next evening (November 1) and on November 2, All Soul’s Day, church is in order to pray for all. Essentially, Halloween is to scare the spirits away and back to where they came. Day of the Dead is to bring the spirits home to visit. It is a happy celebration of life and new beginnings and applies well to being the theme of a wedding.
Hopefully, this will show Dia de los Muertos and Halloween are really not the same whatsoever. There is other information not touched upon but please peruse them for your own edification and enjoy the fun and good times for both these celebrations.
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