The Day of the Dead celebrated at the beginning of November each year is one of Mexico's most famous fiestas. The details may differ slightly from one community to another, but the ceremonies generally include the placing of toys and streamers on the graves of children and favorite foods, drink, candles, flowers and even personal effects on the graves of adults. Also, skull-shaped sweets, papier-mâché skeletons and pan de muerto (bread of death) appear at this time. Entire families decorate graves, prepare altars and stand vigil during the night. On the following day, family, friends and neighbors share food left for the spirits of the departed. For the Tarascan Indians of Janitzio in the Lake Patzcuaro region of neighboring Michoacan, the highlight is the Night of the Dead during which the bells toll at midnight summoning the spirits to arise from their graves and briefly join the living once more. On the morning of November 1st, mothers and siblings gather to remember departed children. Ceremonies for departed adults follow.
The Night of the Dead ceremony at Janitzio is open to tourists, but most Day of the Dead ceremonies are private affairs involving only families and close friends. To the casual observer, the emphasis on death may seem to run counter to most "western" or Christian views on the subject of life, death and the life hereafter. To understand what it all means, we must look at the historical background.
All saints Day (November 1st) originated in AD 608 when Pope Boniface IV converted the pantheon at Rome, to the Church of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs. Formally instituted in AD 835, this Catholic celebration also became associated with Halloween on the evening of All Saint's day, October 31st. All Saints day, November 2nd, a day of prayers for the souls of the faithful departed, originated in Abbey of Cluny in AD 998 in France and Italy. It is also known as the "Day of the Dead".
Long before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztecs had developed a series of elaborate ceremonies based on the Mesoamerican Calendar, a complex time system incorporating both secular and religious elements. According to the Aztec Calendar, the year had eighteen months of twenty days, each with a period of five unlucky days at the end of each year. In Tlaxochimaco, the 9th month, they celebrated Micailhuitontli, the "Feast of the Little Dead", in preparation for the "Great Feast of the Dead", twenty days later in commemoration of the adults. This took place in Xocoti Uetzi, the 10th month, which featured the ritual setting up and knocking down of a huge decorated pole, the Xocotl. According to the Gregorian calendar, the first celebration was on August 8th, the second on August 28th.
Writing in the later half of the 16th century, not long after the Conquest of Mexico-Tenochitilan in 1521, the Dominican Friar, Diego Duran, noted, with considerable dismay, that the Indians were still making offerings of chocolate, candles, fowl, fruit, seeds and food on All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Upon inquiry, the good priest learned that the people had simply changed the traditional dates for their Feasts of the Dead to correspond to the Catholic religious calendar and so escape the censure of the Franciscan and Dominican friars. The tradition continues to the present day.
The Spanish missionaries sought to destroy the religious practices of the Aztec, Maya and others by gradually assimilating and eventually absorbing them into the predominant Catholic religion. They achieved only partial success as the present intermingling of Christian (Catholic) with indigenous beliefs and customs in the "Day of the Dead" ceremonies clearly shows. In fact, the Catholic Church itself enabled the Indians to preserve their religious beliefs and practices under a new guise.
The two belief systems clashed from the very beginning. The friars could see nothing but idolatry and superstition in the native religions. The Aztecs, however, had a definite concept of an afterlife, distinguishing at least three main levels: Mictlan, the Place of Death, Tlalocan, Home of the Tlalocs or Rain Gods and Heaven itself, Home of the Sun. The manner of death, rather than mortality determined the level to which the deceased went. Slain warriors and sacrificial victims for example, went to the highest heaven as "Warriors of the Sun". Therefore, the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice and emphasized death rituals. As the personification (ixiptla) of Xipe Totec, the "Flayed God", the Aztec priest danced in the skin of the sacrificed victim to symbolize the emergence of life out of death.
The Day of the Dead continues a practice dating back to ancient Pre Hispanic times. The emphasis in Christianity and in Mesoamerican religion may differ, but the basic purpose is the same and accounts for the continuing mystery of death in the world for the Mexican People.
