BY AMANDA MOSES
Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is a time of year where fami-lies remember those who’ve passed away for two days (November 1st and November 2nd), celebrating life and death with various offerings.
Traditionally celebrated by those with Mexican heritage, Dia de los Muertos was originally practiced by the Mayans, Aztecs, and other Indigenous People to stress the significance of death as a natural part of life. This holiday is said to be a time where the spirits of the dead return to earth to spend time with their families.
Historically, the Aztec worshiped the goddess of death who they believe protected those who’ve passed away. In the 1900s this was personified in a painting by Jose Guadalupe Posasa, where he paint-ed a large skeleton figure with a flowery hat entitled, La Calavera Catrina. This figure was immorta-lized in a mural by Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera depicting La Catrina in “Dreams of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park.” Decades later La Catrina became the symbol of Dia de los Muertos.
To commemorate this occasion, families create an “offrenda,” which is an altar where photos, favorite foods, yellow marigolds, candles, and skulls (calaveras) made of clay, wood or sugar are placed in me-mory of the departed. The skulls represent the deceased family mem-ber and usually has that person’s name engraved on it, while the bright, yellow marigolds are a sig-nificant part of the holiday because it is said that its fragrance is what help guide the spirits back to earth for the two-day event.
There are three different seg-ments when celebrating Dia de los Muertos: at midnight on November 1st families honor the spirts of the children with Dia de los Angelitos for a full day by placing toys, photos and candy on their offrenda. The following day at midnight is Dia de los Difuntos where families remem-ber the spirits of the adults who passed way with a night of story-telling, drinking, and games. The culmination of this holiday includes a public celebration where com-munities come together with their faces painted like skulls visiting ce-meteries, where they place flowers and gifts on the graves.
Photos by Amanda Moses
