The Day of the Dead combines the European Catholic traditions of All Saints' Day with Aztec rituals.
The tradition was born in southern Mexico over three thousand years ago with the first celebrations of deceased souls. When the Spaniards arrived many years later, they tried to stop the celebration as it did not align with their own beliefs. But nothing they tried could stop the love and enthusiasm that the indigenous people had for this day, and over time, the date thrived and evolved.
As people move to different parts of the world, the Day of the Dead has been recognized beyond Mexican borders. It has received particular attention in the United States thanks to the extensive media coverage it has received and a growing population of Mexican origin.
Despite its name, the Day of the Dead is not a day of mourning, but of joy. Essentially, the day acknowledges death as part of the human experience. It seeks to honor the lives of the deceased so that they may return for a day and awaken from their eternal sleep to share food, drinks, and celebrations with their families.
Some of the traditions are: setting up offerings, decorating with skulls, and preparing the pan de muerto.
Altars are traditionally created inside homes, in cemetery graves, and more recently, in public spaces and museums in Mexico and the United States. These public altars showcase the art of making altars for the Day of the Dead and celebrate loved ones in the process.
During the preparation of the altar for the deceased, some people set up an offering that includes food and other favorite personal items of the deceased, as well as their photographic portraits. Having these items arranged allows loved ones to feel rejuvenated after their long journey.The Saint is known to adore cigarettes!
The offerings also include:
Copal, or traditional incense (dating back to pre-Hispanic religious ceremonies in Mexico).
Marigold flower, or calendula (sometimes other types of flowers are used).
Religious items, such as a crucifix or an image of theVirgin of Guadalupe.
The four elements of nature: earth, wind, water, and fire, in various forms, often include a clay pot or a cauldron (earth) and candles (fire).
Offerings tell you a lot about the deceased family members and what they enjoyed on Earth.
The Saint is known for adoring cigarettes!
Skulls
Skulls can be seen everywhere during the Day of the Dead, from candies to paper mache creations to decorate homes and altars. Some skulls bear the names of deceased loved ones written on their foreheads to remember them.
The meaning of the skull and skeleton today is to honor the ongoing nature of life, to joyfully laugh at death, and to accept it as part of our daily existence.
Sugar skulls
The skulls, another Aztec tradition, are made of pressed sugar skulls and water with the name of the deceased written on their forehead. The skulls are colorful folk art skulls, decorated with colored paper, icing, beads, ribbons, and feathers. They are a reminder of the cycles of life.
Death penalty
The bread of the dead is an important element of the offering and is highly valued and appreciated during this festival. The round shape of the bread represents the human body, while the long shapes placed on the bread represent the limbs and the round knot in the center represents the skull.
There are different varieties of pan de muerto. Some are made with anise, others with orange extract and zest; some are covered with sesame seeds, and others with sugar. Legend has it that the bread dates back to the pre-Hispanic era and could have replaced the human sacrifices originally required by the Aztecs to honor the festival.
Day of the Dead today
Since the migration phenomenon has separated many families from the graves of their ancestors and the cemeteries where processions took place and altars were erected, the Day of the Dead celebrations have changed a lot over the years. There has also been controversy in some communities about the increasing commercialization of the holiday.
One of the main figures of the "Dias de los Muertos" is theSanta MuerteShe is also celebrated throughout the year and is the subject of a real cult. The representation of death in Mexico was present long before the Spanish invasion: the Aztecs worshipped Mictlantecuhtli, and his wife Mictlancihuatl, gods of death reigning over Mictlan, a kind of realm of shadows.
The human skull was very frequently used in Aztec ceremonies and cults. During the Spanish invasion, Catholic culture, with its many memento mori, succeeded the Aztec representations by assimilating them. This blend of two cultures now gives the skeleton and skull figure its status as a national and identity symbol.
The Holy Death
The cult of Santa Muerte appeared during the 20th century in Mexican prisons.
It would be linked, among other things, to the worship of the Catrina and Mictecacihuatl. It originates in Mexican prisons, among criminals who have lost all hope and are rejected by the Church. Among the followers are people who regularly risk their lives (and later those who have risked it and survived, such as women who have had difficult pregnancies, etc.) and who are part of a neglected part of the population, composing a kind of sub-society... an underground society, as was the Inframundo, the "beyond" of the Aztecs and Incas... who therefore worship the Holy Death, Santa Muerte. Because if life is holy, death must also be holy.
The openly popular cult of Santa Muerte is relatively recent. The Saint has been prayed to for a long time, but she remained in the shadows, and relatively little is known about her exact origins. It was not until the 1960s that this cult became truly public. And it was only in 2001 that the first statue of Santa Muerte was erected in Mexico in the Tepico neighborhood. This sudden craze can be explained by the fact that Santa Muerte is the patron saint of the desperate, the marginalized: she is invoked against accidents, violent deaths, and attacks. She is a saint who accepts all believers, without judgment. She is therefore considered the most honest and pure saint.
The Santa Muerte is the result of a deification linked to danger and violence, and for this reason, the statue was erected in Tepico, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Mexico. The Santa Muerte is notably the patron saint of gangs. Despite the very strong vitality of its cult, and its ease in crossing all kinds of borders, the Santa Muerte is condemned by the Catholic Church, for several reasons. Indeed, the Church does not appreciate that a skeleton that is not a martyr or a recognized saint is venerated: it is death that is venerated, not a human figure. This type of cult is too imbued with pagan cultures and beliefs for the Catholic Church to accept it. Furthermore, the cult of the Santa Muerte does not require intermediaries: there are no priests, no churches, and the altars are located in the street. It is celebrated today in the street, and attracts many followers every first day of the month. Enriqueta Romero, also known as Doña Queta, was one of the first, in 2001, to set up an altar in the image of the Saint, which quickly became a place of pilgrimage, then a real "pantheon". She had the idea to set up this ritual when she was offered a life-size statue of the Santa Muerte. She then dressed it, put a wig on it, and accessories to feminize the skeleton as much as possible.
Since then, La Niña Blanca has been embedded in the wall of her house, facing the street, each month wearing a different outfit. Moreover, the change of outfit is a celebrated occasion with the faithful. Generally, the statue holds a scythe in one hand and a globe in the other; but her accessories can also be a scale, an hourglass, or an owl.
It is therefore both a private cult (one can have an altar at home) and a public cult, which is openly displayed. As a result, it is a cult that is difficult to control, especially since the Saint is not devoted to a specific task and does not perform "miracles". She provides various services related to the daily life of Mexican residents.
This brings her even closer to the pagan gods condemned by the Church.
However, some aspects of the cult of Santa Muerte are similar to the cults dedicated to Catholic saints: the clothes with which the Saint is adorned, the processions, the donations in money and in kind, the symbols associated with the Saint are elements that can be found in the Catholic Church. However, Santa Muerte is surrounded by an aura of sulfur: the donations in kind from the inhabitants are not the ex-votos offered to other saints. In the case of Santa Muerte, one can see on the altars cigarettes, drugs, sweets and chocolate, alcohol, jewelry... The potions and recipes associated with her cult are too close to sorcery rites to be accepted by the Catholic Church, which also condemns the "Dias de los Muertos" as heretical and pagan manifestations. One may wonder if the fact that the cult is popular especially among the marginalized in Mexican society is not one of the reasons for the condemnation of the cult by the Catholic Church (although Santa Muerte is venerated by many Catholics). With the high poverty rate in Mexico, the cult of Santa Muerte is a reality: tired of believing in saints who are quite far from their everyday concerns, the marginalized and forgotten of Mexican society decide to revive a more popular, more accessible cult, with a saint closer to them.
The Catrina (or Cavalera Catrina, or Cavalera Garbancera). The figure of the Catrina continues to influence Halloween make-up, tattoo enthusiasts (whom we will talk about later), and pop-surrealist artists.
The "catrina" is derived from the Spanish "catrin", which refers to a person who is elegant and tastefully dressed (this term also refers to a kind of dandy in Mexico). This skeleton figure, dressed in a large hat with ostrich feathers and styled in the European fashion of the 1900s/1910s, is recurrent in Mexican iconographic tradition, and today in Western culture.
The West, however, forgets, through the reinterpretations of the Catrina it uses, that she is first and foremost a caricature, and therefore, a symbol of rebellion (unless this function unconsciously transpires, and contributes to the success of the Catrina outside of Mexico).
The first representation of La Catrina is due to the Mexican engraver and illustrator José Guadalupe Posada in 1910. He was influenced by Manuel Marilla, also an illustrator, who was himself inspired by European danse macabre. It is notably for this reason that La Catrina has a skeleton figure and therefore a memento mori function.
She reminds us that even the richest must die one day, just like the European medieval macabre dances. La Catrina is indeed a "garbancera". The term refers to indigenous women selling or eating products made from chickpeas ("garbanza" and "garbanzos"), despising their social class and origins, and copying European customs and fashions in order to access a higher social status. The revolution being linked to the rediscovery of the pre-Hispanic heritage, especially Aztec, of the Mexicans, they adopted skeletons and skulls as national symbols, and therefore also La Catrina as a symbol of the cultural independence of Mexicans against European "imperialism". La Catrina is therefore both a symbol imbued with religious origins (macabre dances), but also a symbol of counterculture and culture.
popular, like Santa Muerte.