Some are in costumes, some just want free candy, but they are all cute. Nancy and I went to The Cheeky Monkey and along the Malecon to pass out candy. We had dinner on the third floor and wound up tossing most of it to the crowds below. My camera is not good at night so there are no shots from the balcony, but the crowd scene was just below our balcony There were thousand of people. I have never seen so many before, they even had some floats and the pirate ship sailed down to set off fireworks. At the main square there was a brass band in the gazebo with couples dancing around it.
The origin of the festival began as a pagan ritual to honor and remember the dead practiced by the Mayans and Aztecs. Then it ran for a the whole month of August also celebrating the end of the harvest. The Spanish priests hated anything pagan, but cleverly changed the date to coincide with the Catholic All Souls and All Saints Days. All cultures seem to have some form of it. In Japan it is called Obon where they also do altars in the homes and then float candle lit lanterns down the rivers. Of course skeletons and skulls here are most popular. Today they make skulls out of sugar and decorated with icing, usually with the name of a deceased relative on it and then they eat it ! In the time of the Aztecs they used real skulls (I don't know if they tried to eat those or not).
Mexicans are obsessed with death, skulls and skeletons probably going back to their early pagan beliefs. I once went to the Mexican Museum of Art in Long Beach and was struck with the fact that about half the paintings featured death, destruction and lots of skulls. The most prominent figure for El Dia De Los Muertos is La Catrina. She is a very elegantly dressed female skeleton with a large plumed hat. She was supposed to have been originally created by a 19th century cartoonist who was trying to lambaste the very rich of Mexico. You will see her everywhere and always with the large hat.
The official flower for the holiday (and it is a real Holiday, possibly the most celebrated in Mexico) is the marigold. The orange color is supposed to attract the souls of the dead. You will find small potted marigolds all over town. I do not know if it is by design or not, but all the plants seem to die within a day or two. No display or altar is complete without the half dead flowers.
It is not a day of mourning at all, but a celebration with lots of eating and drinking (everything in Mexico is a party). It is to remember the dead by telling jokes about their lives. The first day is for infants and children, called the Day of Angels. The second day is when the souls of the adults are to appear. Tradition says that if the living do not honor the dead, then they will come back to haunt them and wreck havoc with their lives. Besides the sugar skulls, they make and eat a sugar and egg bread called Bread of the Dead. Everyone thinks that corn is the staple of Mexico, but having lived here for three years I think it is sugar and salt.
Great care is taken of the cemeteries during this time. All of them are carefully trimmed and cleaned, many graves are freshly painted, and the marigolds are everywhere. I had to see it, but no one was sure how to get there. My coffee lady told me the green Versaille bus and I followed her advice. No problem I told the driver I wanted to go to El Panteon (which really means vault) and he indicated where I should get off. As I walked up the street I could not believe the carnival atmosphere (not what you would associate with dead bodies). There were at least one hundred vendors and stalls set up, selling food, drinks, flowers and trinkets (I guess for the dead). Sure enough the cemetery looked wonderful with all the decorations and flowers. You can tell some belonged to very rich families. I am also told that it is full and will not take any more bodies. In Paris at the Pere La Chaise, they bury six to seven bodies on top of each other all in same small crypt. Every culture has a few weird things about it. Mexico is no exception. If you are thinking about a trip to Mexico, I would highly recommend the end of October.
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I love your writings and this one was of particular interest to me. It always amazes me to see the Cemetery here in the bay area decorated with flowers all the time. I was also surprised to see relatives having a picnic on the grave plot all during the year. Outside the church in Hayward I notice them selling things like food and trinkets all the time. The church has a huge population of Mexican's at that particular one. We love to visit old cemetery's and look at the dates and especially the ones that have large crypts with several family members in there, dating way back. They do not permit that in many places now. Your explaining their motives was interesting to me.
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