Other food and drink associated with the holiday, but consumed year-round as well, include spicy dark chocolate and the corn-based drink called atole. You can wish someone a happy Day of the Dead by saying, “Feliz día de los Muertos.” The pan de ánimas of All Souls Day rituals in Spain is reflected in pan de muerto, the traditional sweet baked good of Day of the Dead celebrations today. La Calavera Catrina was then adopted as one of the most recognizable Day of the Dead icons.ĭuring contemporary Day of the Dead festivities, people commonly wear skull masks and eat sugar candy molded into the shape of skulls. The 1910 etching was intended as a statement about Mexicans adopting European fashions over their own heritage and traditions. His most well-known work, La Calavera Catrina, or Elegant Skull, features a female skeleton adorned with makeup and dressed in fancy clothes. In the early 20th century, the printer and cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada incorporated skeletal figures in his art mocking politicians and commenting on revolutionary politics. The most prominent symbols related to the Day of the Dead are calacas (skeletons) and calaveras (skulls). Ofrendas can be decorated with candles, bright marigolds called cempasuchil and red cock’s combs alongside food like stacks of tortillas and fruit. In turn, the living family members treat the deceased as honored guests in their celebrations, and leave the deceased’s favorite foods and other offerings at gravesites or on the ofrendas built in their homes. During this brief period, the souls of the dead awaken and return to the living world to feast, drink, dance and play music with their loved ones. On the Day of the Dead, it’s believed that the border between the spirit world and the real world dissolve. This inspired the contemporary Day of the Dead practice in which people leave food or other offerings on their loved ones’ graves, or set them out on makeshift altars called ofrendas in their homes.Įl Día de los Muertos is not, as is commonly thought, a Mexican version of Halloween, though the two holidays do share some traditions, including costumes and parades.
In Nahua rituals honoring the dead, traditionally held in August, family members provided food, water and tools to aid the deceased in this difficult journey. Only after getting through nine challenging levels, a journey of several years, could the person’s soul finally reach Mictlán, the final resting place. Upon dying, a person was believed to travel to Chicunamictlán, the Land of the Dead. The Aztecs and other Nahua people living in what is now central Mexico held a cyclical view of the universe, and saw death as an integral, ever-present part of life. The roots of the Day of the Dead, celebrated in contemporary Mexico and among those of Mexican heritage in the United States and around the world, go back some 3,000 years, to the rituals honoring the dead in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
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