Dias de Los Muertos or
Days of the Dead (not to be confused with the SciFi original movie
All Souls Day: Dia de Los Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrating deceased loved ones and ancestors.
Each year on November 1 and 2 natives create
elaborate altars laden with flowers, Calaveras (hand crafted skeletons), foods, sweets, and drinks enjoyed in life by the deceased to lead the spirits back to the correct homes. The most basic of altars include at least these three items:
- Water - to quench thirst and for purification.
- Salt - to season the food and for purification.
- Bread - to represent the food needed for survival.
In Mexico, there is a belief in three stages of death:
The first death is when the body ceases to function.
The second death is when the body is buried into the earth.
The third (and most definitive) death is when there is no one left alive to remember the deceased (sounds like the saddest of deaths to me). It is during the second phase that the dead are celebrated with the
Dias de Los Muertos festivities.
Dias de Los Muertos is also a time to
tidy up the gravesites of loved ones and there are often family reunions held in the cemetaries where the dead are spoken of, sung to, and remembered fondly. Some family members spend the entire night in the cemetary and in the morning, after having lived through to see another day, claim their victory over their fear of death.
Another custom of Dias de Los Muertos is in the baking of a bread called
pan de muerto or the bread of the dead. Typically this bread is either molded into bone shapes or in some regions into the shape of humans and called animas (souls). Sometimes these breads have actual bones or tiny toy skeletons baked right into them.
Anyway you look at it, the Mexican tradition of
Dias de Los Muertos demonstrates a culture which rather than avoid the subject of death, embraces it, has fun with it, and lets it know that they are not afraid.
