The Day of the Dead in Mexico: What’s it all about?
Posted by Ted Campbell
In Mexico, a country full of color, tradition and flavor, the Day of the Dead stands out as especially colorful, traditional and flavorful. Rooted in Pre-Hispanic practice and caught up in the trick-or-treat influence of Halloween, the holiday is a chance to honor deceased relatives with an altar in the home, dress up as an elegant skeleton, and sample the best of Mexico’s artesanal candy.
The Day of the Dead takes place on November 2, but it’s celebrated several days or even several weeks before, especially when there’s a long weekend like this year. While it’s one of the most public holidays in Mexico, in many ways it’s also the most personal. Besides costumes and outdoor events (more on those below), perhaps the most interesting part of the holiday is that people visit the cemetery where their loved ones are buried.
They clean it up, adorn it with flowers, and even may spend the night there, eating, drinking, playing music, and remembering their loved ones.
“We don’t cry. It’s a celebration,” says Pedro, a guitarist and music teacher. His family decorates their relatives’ graves with candles, photographs, and orange flowers. They sing songs, tell stories, and inform their dead relatives of all that’s new in their lives.
The Ofrenda (Altar)
Another more personal manifestation of the Day of the Dead is an altar that families set up in their homes. Called an ofrenda, in it they place photographs of deceased relatives and some of their favorite foods, including cigarettes and alcohol if the person liked them. It’s as if the relative will come back for a visit and the family wants them to feel welcome again.
Not only families do this, but places all over Mexico. Here’s an ofrenda from the university where I work:
Day of the Dead Parade
In Spectre, the most recent James Bond movie from 2015, they give a highly stylized view of the Day of the Dead. In the first scenes of the movie, you see a big parade with lots of noise and action and people running around in colorful dresses and skull makeup. Apparently the Mexican government spent a huge amount of money to get the scene included in the movie, and the skeleton character even made it onto the cover:
In an example of life following art (or art following art?), the first Day of the Dead parade, called the Paseo de las Animas, went down the same city streets on Saturday, October 29 in Mexico City. Along with floats of skulls and big colorful monsters called alebrijes, it included 1,000 actors in skeleton costumes and makeup. (The skeleton, called catrina for women andcatrin for men, is the iconic figure wearing a suit or a flowing gown).
A big catrin figure in Toluca, State of Mexico:
Feria del Alfeñique in Toluca
The Mexico City parade might be new, but displays, events and markets selling Day of the Dead specialities occur all over the country leading up to the holiday.
The Feria del Alfeñique in Toluca, the central Mexican city where I live, is a great place to sample all the flavors and soak up the atmosphere. (Alfeñique is a type of sugar candy).
In the Portales, an outdoor mall of arches in the center of town, hundreds of vendors sell all kinds of candies, decorations, and skeleton figures for the Day of the Dead, either to try right there or put in your family altar.
No altar would be complete without calaveritas, the colorful candy skulls. They represent the dead relative, whose name you can have drawn on the forehead in sugar.
You can get candied everything, including all kinds of vegetables and fruit, like limes, pumpkin, and nopales (cactus leaves). Here are some tempting bananas:
I especially enjoy the little skeletons doing their various jobs.
Outside the fair, people in elaborate costumes accept money to pose with you for photographs.
So if you want to experience the Day of the Dead but without the enormous crowds of a parade or the late night in a cemetery, come to Toluca for the Feria del Alfeñique. It’s an easy bus ride from the Observatorio metro stop/bus station in the west of Mexico City. Once you get to the Toluca bus station, take a “safe taxi” (taxi seguro) to centro, downtown.
And look out for this guy:
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