What Is It?
El Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a holiday of Mexican origin made to commemorate the dead. It is commonly celebrated on November 1st and 2nd (the first being for infants and children, and the second for adults), but is at times said to start on October 31st (being when the souls travel to the living realm). The Day of the Dead celebrated today may have Mexican origins, but it was actually a combination of the Aztecs’ own Day of the Dead and Christianity’s All Souls Day and All Saints Day. The reason that the El Dia de Los Muertos that is celebrated today came to pass was because of the Spanish’s attempt to convert the Mesoamerican natives into Christianity. This included getting rid of their holidays and traditions, which also meant getting rid of their Day of the Dead, but they failed. The Spanish ended up moving Day of the Dead to 2 days, November 1st and 2nd. The combination of the pagan and Christian religions blur the line of whether or not the holiday is Christian. People currently debate over these using facts like churches having Day of the Dead altars and talking about how the Bible includes that God does not allow practices like inquiring the dead.
How Is It Celebrated?
The traditional Mexican Day of the Dead is generally seen as a day where people have altars set up to celebrate their loved ones who passed away. The altars are usually assumed to have sugar skulls, sweet bread, flowers like cempasuchil, papel picado, candles, pictures, personal items, incense, and food that the one who passed away enjoyed. It is also generally believed that there are many festivals, at least in big cities, where people dress up as skeletons and dance away. These beliefs are not unique to only the US, people from smaller cities or towns also believe this, with the addition of sawdust carpets. I myself am one to believe this, and although it is true to some extent, it isn’t true everywhere. This is shown in an interview with Sara Concepcion Tirado, where she says she does “make an altar” and dress up, “I try to disguise myself as La Catrina,” she specified, but then she mostly spends her time “Going to the garden to listen to stories, sing, and tell stories myself.” Sara lives in the town of Tarimoro, Guanajuato, which is a small city, so the celebrations aren’t as big as the cities in Mexico. Even so, she believes that Tarimoro isn’t the only town that has people who do this.
I myself haven’t participated in the Day of the Dead in a way that is seen as the traditional Mexican way. What I do during these days is prayer with my family. However, when it comes to school, my class usually made “Papel Picado” during Elementary School, which is a colorful pierced paper which is hung, used to show the fragility of life. In addition to this, I’ve made sugar schools once in my Middle School Spanish class. During High School, we have more freedom, so we usually did what we wanted, which typically includes Papel picado and an altar.
COCO
By: Juan Lopez