Day of the Dead in Mexico
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS in MEXICO
I adore Mexican Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead traditions and I continue to try to learn about them and about Dia de los Muertos, past and present. The pictures I'm sharing here were taken in the Yucatan, in 2010, 2013, and in Michoacan in 2001 (below). Dia de los Muertos traditions both vary and share commonalities across the different regions of Mexico. In both places I have visited, people construct altares, or altars, to memorialize the dead. And in both places people groom and decorate graves and gather at cemeteries to commemorate lives of the deceased. In both places traditions are practiced by and for people who live there, but visitors are not turned away. In certain ways Dia de los Muertos has become increasingly amplified for visitors, which is good for a tourist economy, but a cause of concern for people protecting the authenticity of Dia de Los Muertos. During Dia de los Muertos some events are held in public for the community at large. Some traditions presumably always were practiced privately at home, among families, and this continues. In the overlap between publicly and privately held events lies the potential that outsiders may infringe upon the birthright of people for whom Dia de los Muertos is a sacred holiday with inherent religious meaning.
Whenever I take pictures of people I try to ask their permission. I have taken rather few pictures as I traveled in Mexico not because anyone said no, but because I did not feel a need to capture everything, and I preferred to relish experience. That said, above are a couple of pictures taken in the open air market in Merida: traditional Day of the Dead flowers wrapped in newspaper and traditional sugar candies, including calacas, or skulls, and calaveras, or skeletons. Below are some pictures taken during the exhibition of altars in the zocalo of Merida, Yucatan. Men are constructing pole huts the day before the exhibition of altars. By morning the following day people from surrounding villages have created offrendas, or offerings, inside the huts according to the particular ways passed down through generations in their communities. This is in the Mayan Yucatan, and the name for Dia de los Muertos in the Mayan Yucatan is Hanal Pixan.
I adore Mexican Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead traditions and I continue to try to learn about them and about Dia de los Muertos, past and present. The pictures I'm sharing here were taken in the Yucatan, in 2010, 2013, and in Michoacan in 2001 (below). Dia de los Muertos traditions both vary and share commonalities across the different regions of Mexico. In both places I have visited, people construct altares, or altars, to memorialize the dead. And in both places people groom and decorate graves and gather at cemeteries to commemorate lives of the deceased. In both places traditions are practiced by and for people who live there, but visitors are not turned away. In certain ways Dia de los Muertos has become increasingly amplified for visitors, which is good for a tourist economy, but a cause of concern for people protecting the authenticity of Dia de Los Muertos. During Dia de los Muertos some events are held in public for the community at large. Some traditions presumably always were practiced privately at home, among families, and this continues. In the overlap between publicly and privately held events lies the potential that outsiders may infringe upon the birthright of people for whom Dia de los Muertos is a sacred holiday with inherent religious meaning.Whenever I take pictures of people I try to ask their permission. I have taken rather few pictures as I traveled in Mexico not because anyone said no, but because I did not feel a need to capture everything, and I preferred to relish experience. That said, above are a couple of pictures taken in the open air market in Merida: traditional Day of the Dead flowers wrapped in newspaper and traditional sugar candies, including calacas, or skulls, and calaveras, or skeletons. Below are some pictures taken during the exhibition of altars in the zocalo of Merida, Yucatan. Men are constructing pole huts the day before the exhibition of altars. By morning the following day people from surrounding villages have created offrendas, or offerings, inside the huts according to the particular ways passed down through generations in their communities. This is in the Mayan Yucatan, and the name for Dia de los Muertos in the Mayan Yucatan is Hanal Pixan.
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| Merida, Yucatan |
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| Patzcuaro, Michoacan |
In 2001, I visited Patzcuaro, Michoacan for Dia de los Muertos with support from a grant for writing from Minnesota's Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Board. I was fortunate that trip to be welcomed by staff at Patzcuaro's public library and to be able to help with their Dia de los Muertos program, exhibit, and main altare and offrenda (above and below).
I was also welcomed and included at the judging of the altar competition at a local vocational technical school (below).
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| Patzcuaro, Michoacan |
In Michoacan and in the Yucatan the orange yellow marigold is a primary decorating feature in the creation of the altars. They are grown in abundance. The Aztec word for marigold is campasuchil, or cempasuchil. It is called the flower of 400 lives and is known for its healing properties.
Students created altares and offrendas that retained traditional particularities of villages in the area surrounding the city of Patzcuaro. Michoacan was and is home to Purepecha people, known externally as Tarascan. In these pictures are elements of the Purepecha culture mixed with Mexican culture, a mix of Spanish and indigenous culture, that is, and passed down through time.
My 2001 visit to Patzcuaro for Dia de los Muertos culminated with an experience of Noche de Muertos. I was welcomed by a close-knit community into a cemetery on a lesser visited small island in Lake Patzcuaro. I spent the entire chilly night in the cemetery while family reunited with family who were come home to visit. I do not have pictures but the imagery would in a general way look similar to that in photos others have taken in cemeteries in Michoacan during Noche de Muertos. The memory is more than pictorial to me in any case, and as long as I still have memory, I hold dear the memory of that Noche de Muertos.
2018 Emily Kretschmer
Disclaimer: At the time of my visits in Mexico I was an adjunct instructor in English, teaching writing at a state university in Minnesota, and I was a creative writer with interest in and appreciation for Dia de los Muertos traditions. I am not a trained cultural anthropologist. I do have an interest in cultural anthropology and its ideas and theories.
Many excellent well-informed resources exist if you are interested in learning more about Dia de los Muertos and the complex web of its indigenous history, transformation under Spanish colonialism, modern and current-day appropriation under tourism, and other related ongoing sociocultural issues.
I have begun posting related videos at my YouTube Dia de Los Muertos page.