Mexican Stories: Day of the dead

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Before we get into any explanation about El Dia de Muertos, let’s talk about the history of this tradition.

What we currently know (and what is currently celebrated) of El Dia de Muertos is the mix of two completely different cultures. It was in the XVI century when the Spaniard expansion made the meeting between these two cultures possible. El Dia de Muertos wasn’t the only thing that changed with the mix of Spaniards and indigenous Mexicans, it’s just one of the multiple side effects of this convergence! Of course, right now we are going to focus on this particular tradition.

The annual celebration of the dead is a privilege, a meeting between us, Mexicans, and our ancestors, but also a meeting between the living. El Dia de Muertos is a time where families and entire communities come together for ceremonial get-togethers, where they bond over their shared traditions and beliefs.

El Dia de Muertos is also heavily linked to the last harvest cycle of the year, before winter starts, corn, and pumpkin (seasonal crops) are ripe to harvest in October-November. How is it linked?

Well with the cycle of life and death, throughout the year there is one period of scarcity and one period of abundance, during this period of abundance is where we celebrate El Dia de Muertos, we share our food with our ancestors. We put altars and on them, we put delicious traditional Mexican food, it would inconceivable to grow corn and other crops without the intervention of our ancestors. One simple way to see this is that it’s an offering to our dead loved ones so that we get blessed and have food on our table throughout the year.

Now let’s get more into the details of this celebration.

First, what is death? Well, it’s an event, something that happens, right? We call death when someone stops breathing, they can’t move, they can’t think, they can’t speak, basic stuff, now what I said it’s not exactly a definition, it’s more of a description. But a word needs to mean something to us, whether it is a description or a definition, so we can assign symbolism. This is also the case for El Dia de Muertos.

First and foremost the grieving play a very important part in these funeral rituals, why? Because these rituals reflect how we want the dead to get to the other side safely, the objective of funeral rituals is to soothe those who grieve, those who suffer the loss. But how can El Dia de Muertos soothe us? How does El Dia de Muertos fit into these funeral rituals? Well, a very simple explanation of El dia de Muertos is that before it is November 1st, we build an altar for someone we cherished, then on November 1st, midnight (basically Nov. 2) the dead come back from the grave to spend time with us, to eat traditional Mexican food, and celebrate that we are together as a family, then in the morning of November 2nd, they go back to Mictlan (afterlife). So this celebration aside from soothing us, gives us hope, that while our loved ones are not here anymore they still exist in spirit, that maybe we can´t see them but they are here, that they can still be with us, even if it´s just for one day, we don’t celebrate that they’ve died, we celebrate that they come back to us!

Death is a very important part of our culture and also very present, though with foreigners this might create a misconception. We, Mexicans, do fear death but we have our way of dealing with it. Yes, the death of loved ones affects us just like anyone else but we chose to celebrate.

In present days, El Dia de Muertos is obviously not celebrated like in prehispanic times, now this tradition is a mix between old and new, indigenous people and non-indigenous celebrate El Dia de Muertos.

Now let’s get a little more into El dia De Muertos:

First of all, according to the catholic calendar, November 1st is “El dia de todos Los Santos” (All Saints Day), on this day well, saints are celebrated, and on November 2 is “El dia de Los Fieles Difuntos” (All souls Day), which is basically a religious (Christian/Catholic) take on El dia de Muertos. As I said, those are according to the catholic calendar, in Mexico, on those same dates, November 1st and 2nd are something different. In Mexico, Nov. 1st is dedicated to the mourning of all the children who’ve died without being baptized, and Nov. 2nd is dedicated to mourn deceased adults. Throughout the country, variations exist though! For example in some places, October 28th is dedicated to those who’ve died in accidents, and October 30th is the arrival of the souls from limbo, like the children who return on November 1st.

We see here that we have two dates to celebrate the dead. These two celebrations have prehispanic roots. However, the dates chosen to celebrate El Dia de Muertos are purely Catholic. As I said before the current way we celebrate El Dia de Muertos is a Mix between the catholic church and prehispanic rituals.

But, how was El Dia de Muertos celebrated in the prehispanic era?

First I have to explain a few things!

Mexica afterlife:

For the Mexicas, the dominant culture of Mesoamerica, Mictlan was their underworld, their kingdom of the dead.

Mictlan is the place where some of the souls of the dead go.

Of course for the soul to go to Mictlan, first it has to leave the body. Tlaltecuhtli, the goddess of earth, is also known as earth lady or earth monster. According to the Aztec myth, Tlaltecuhtli ate the buried bodies, after eating their bodies she birthed their souls, and from then on the souls, depending on how they died, they are sent to different places. If the souls are to go to Mictlan, then the souls travel for 4 years until they arrive at Mictlan, where they meet Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, basically the male and female representation of the God of the Dead, the king/queen of Mictlan.

You heard right, 4 years until they meet the god of the dead. They had to travel through the 9 levels of the Mexica underworld.

You hear me say that only SOME souls have to go to Mictlan, well that’s because there were four destinies in total for the souls to go to, it all depended on how they died.

Here are these four destinations:

Tanotiuhichan is also called “casa del sol” (house of the sun). This is where the souls of the warriors who died in battle, those captured for sacrifice, and pregnant women went to.
Tlalocan, or paradise of Tlaloc, for those who died drowned, or just a water-related death.
Chichihualcuauhco was a place for the souls of babies, they were fed by a tree that produced sweet milk so that they never suffered hunger, they would stay there until they were ready to be “born again”
And finally, Mictlan, the kingdom of the dead for those who didn’t belong in any of the categories mentioned before, the journey to Mictlan was long; a dog aided them in that long journey.

Once they were devoured by Tlaltecuhtli, their 4-year journey to Mictlan would start, they had to go through the 9 levels of the Mexica Underworld.

These 9 levels are

Cross the Apanoayan river.
They had to go through the Tepétl Monanamicyan NAKED, a place where two hills constantly collided.
They had to fight a snake that safeguarded a path
They had to cross the Iztepétl, also known as the hill of razors
They had to go through 8 mountain summits where it’s constantly snowing, this place is called Cehuecayan.
Travel 8 paths in Itzehecayan, the place where the wind cuts like razors.
Walk over the Apanhuiayo, a sewage canal where the feared lizard named Xochitonal lives.
Cross another river, the Chiconahuapan, with the help of a Xoloitzcuintle dog
And finally, arrive at Itzmitlanapochcolacan, the precinct where the gods of death dwell

In this last place is where Mictlantecuhtli is found. Once the souls met Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, if the soul succeeded in passing all the 9 levels of the underworld their souls would be freed from the ailments of the physical body.

One thing to note here is that to pass the levels the dead would need to have amulets some of his belongings to make his journey easier. Remember that he still wasn’t freed from the ailments of a physical body, so he needed water, blankets, etc. The dead also needed to have tributes for when they arrived at Mictlan and met Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, one couldn’t meet the God of the dead with empty hands.

Celebration of El dia de Muertos before colonization:

There were two celebrations for the dead, one of them was Miccailhuitontli, which was dedicated to dead children and it was celebrated in August. And Hueymiccailhuitl, which was celebrated in September. This last one was considered the big feast of the dead, both celebrations lasted for 20 days.

Hueymiccailhuitl was the most important one, and it was usually celebrated at the end of harvest cycles, which was during September and November.

Now that we covered El dia de Muertos before colonization, let’s see what changed!

Let’s look into El dia de Muertos with the arrival of Spaniards.

Día de muertos

Celebration of El dia de Muertos after colonization:

With the arrival of Spaniards, El dia de Muertos did not disappear completely, unlike other Mexica celebrations. The colonizers realized the celebration date for El dia de Muertos matched with “All saints day”, and also “All Souls Day”. The Mexica celebration of the dead depended on the end of the harvest cycles, so the most probable thing is that the colonizers observed their celebration when it was November, hence why they thought it matched perfectly to their Catholic celebrations. And that’s how 2 celebrations for the dead that lasted for 20 days each, were reduced to 2 days, November 1st and 2nd.

This is where both cultures converge, while El dia de Muertos did not disappear, Spanish customs began to replace old ones.

Prehispanic used to incinerate their dead or bury them in their home, but both these costumes were erased, instead, their bodies were buried in the Church (the rich inside and the poor outside).

Another Spaniard custom that was adopted was eating bone-shaped desserts, from which El Pan de Muerto and Calaveritas were derived.

And it’s also how altars with candles became popular, with the arrival of catholicism, families would pray that the soul of their loved ones would go to heaven.

On the altars, Mexican families would put “Ofrendas” (offerings in Spanish) for the dead.

Remember how the dead would travel through the 9 levels of the Mexica underworld? And remember how they needed, amulets, personal belongings, water, blankets to successfully journey through? Well, those stayed and became the offerings on the altars, other elements foreign to Mexica’s were added to the altar, for example, some flowers, wax, candles. The type of flower that stayed is Cempasúchil.

Elements of an altar and their meanings:

These are the elements needed to receive the souls

Water: it is offered to the spirits to qualm their thirst after a long way to visit the living, and also to aid them on their way back to the afterlife.
Salt: It’s to purify the soul so that they don’t become corrupt, on their journey from the afterlife and back, and for next year too!
Candles: Before slits of Ocote* were used. In the present-day candles are used. The light they produce means “the light”, faith, hope. It’s a guide for spirits to help them find their way back. In different communities, each candle represents a spirit of a relative, so depending on how many souls the family will receive is the number of candles that they will use. If the candles are purple, it means they are grieving. If they are in a cross shape, then these represent the cardinal points, so that the spirit doesn’t get lost.
Copalº and incense: Copal was used to offer to the gods, incense was brought by the Spaniards. It’s used to cleanse a place from evil spirits and that way the souls we receive can arrive without any danger.
Flowers: Alheli and Nube are important, their colors mean pureness and tenderness, they accompany the spirit of children. A path of Cempasúchil flowers is made for the altar, to guide the spirits from the afterlife to the altars. Indigenous people used to think that Cempasúchil had healing properties, but now it is only used to decorate altars and tombstones, for this reason, it is said that with time Cempasuchil has lost the healing properties.
Petate: it was different uses, for example, it can be used as a bed, table, or graveclothes. On El dia de Muertos petates are used specifically so that the spirits can rest. Its also used as a cloth to place food.
Izcuintle: This is for the spirits of children, it’s a toy dog, that way children feel happy to arrive at the feast. Also, the dog, izcuinlte, is the one that helps souls cross the Chiconahuapan river (the last step to arrive at Mictlan).
Bread: The church represents it as the body of Christ. Bread is the most valuable element of the altar.
Gollete and sugar canes: They are related to tzompantli. Gollete is a bread with a wheel shape, and a sugar cane upholds it. The bread symbolizes the heads of their defeated enemies and the sugar canes upholding the bread means the heads of their enemies being impaled.
Portrait: It represents the spirit that will visit us but it has to be hidden, that way the spirits can only see themselves through a mirror, which means that they can still be seen, but they no longer exist.
Religious images: They are placed as a sign of a good relationship between the dead and the living, they also symbolize peace in the household.
Food: Mole, made with chicken or turkey, is the favorite food plate to use as an offering on an altar. Sometimes barbeque is also used. Extremely aromatic and flavorful foods are made, they are made to delight the visiting spirits.
Hot chocolate: Made with water, in prehispanic tradition, it is said that the guests drank the chocolate prepared with the water that the dead used for bathing, that way visitors would be impregnated with the essence of the dead.
Sugar skulls: Medium-sized skulls are an allusion to death, that it is always present. Small-sized skulls represent the holy trinity and God (catholic god)
A jug of water, soap, and cloth was also placed, in case the spirits wanted to wash their hands after the long journey.
Liquor: It’s placed so that spirits can remember the great things they did in life.
Big ash cross: It’s used so that when the spirit arrived at the altar they can atone for any lingering guilt they still have.
Offerings for children: In some places, especially urban families, on October 31 an offering is prepared for the children, their spirits arrive on November 1st, with the offering they get nourished from the essence and smell of the food their parents made. Alfeñique candy is made, figures can be created with this material like animals. All altars for children have miniature bread, along with tortillas, fruit, and pumpkin candy. Compared to altars made for adults, the ones for children are smaller and one cannot put elements of the adult altar on them. It is also very important that the flowers and candles are white, this color is a symbol of their pureness and innocence.

If you want to build your altar for El dia de Muertos, you should have it prepared by October 31st.

How to make an altar: an altar can have 2 steps, 3 steps, or 7 steps (levels).

Two steps/levels: each step represents the division between heaven and Earth.
Three steps/levels: each step symbolizes heaven, Earth, and the underworld.
Seven steps/levels: they can represent the steps a soul has to go through to reach spiritual rest, the seven deadly sins, or, according to the Aztecs, the seven destinies or seven different types of death.

The arrangement of the seven-step altar:

The steps MUST be counted from bottom to top.

A religious image is placed, like a saint.
A candle is placed for spirits of the purgatory, also a glass of water and a mirror. The mirror is so that can see their reflection to not forget that they’re dead, that way they don’t stay with us.
Salt for the children of the purgatory.
Pan de Muerto, must be put in pairs.
Food and fruits that the spirit used to love.
A picture of the person that the altar is for.
A cross of a rosary made of tejocoteª and limes.

*An aromatic and resinous Mexican and Nicaraguan tree.

ºAn aromatic tree resin, offered to the gods, used to cleanse their temples, during funerals, and in ceremonies to ask for a good harvest. In every important celebration, Copal was used.

ªMexican hawthorn.

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Mexican Stories

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Day of the dead

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