Day of the Dead: Ancestral Origin and Meaning
The return of the deceased is one of the oldest and most representative traditions among indigenous Mexican
festivities. On Día de Muertos, the world of the living welcomes happily and lovingly the souls of the underworld
through millenary traditions such as the ofrenda (traditional memorial displays), the sugar skulls, the pan
de muerto (sweet bread of the dead), papel picado (pecked paper), candles, or the cempoalxóchitl flower (a marigold genus).
This festivity is one of the richest among the Mexican traditions. UNESCO inscribed Day of the Dead to its list of
Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity in 2008.
The Mexica used to celebrate their dead by honoring Mictecacihuatl and
Mictlantecuhtli, the underworld couple, during the ninth month of their calendar (around August in
the Julian calendar) and they would celebrate for an entire month dedicated to Mictlán’s ruling
duality.
During the Mexica festivities of the departed, the main days were Miccailhuitontli—the Feast of The Lesser Dead, and the Huey Miccaihuitl, the Feast of The Greater Dead. These coincided
with Europe’s Day of the Faithful Departed—then observed because of the deaths caused by epidemics—and All Saints’
Day—when they venerated all the saints without a specific holiday in the ecclesiastic calendar. At around the Day of
the Dead and of the Faithful Deceased, the Irish Celtic Samhain Day—a pagan ritual that gave rise to Halloween—celebrated a banquet
for the dead.
In ancient Mexico, the dead continued having an important role in society as they were honored depending on their
rank and spiritual and social achievements. When someone died, the female elders in Tenochtitlan would announce
plaintively the loss of that person. They could be memorialized by their families or by their
calpulli (neighborhood), or by all the Mexica. For example, those hidden by
Mictlantecuhtli, or who had gone to atlan oztoc, “the place of water in the cave” were
called upon with rituals for sowing, hunting, or war. It also included birth and marriage as well as other magical
rituals.
For the Mexica, skulls were important in their rituals. In the main temple, they would exhibit skulls of captives
publicly impaled in the sacrificial altar to Tzompantli, to honor their deities and to show the power they had and extended beyond
Tenochtitlán.
The precursor of the Pan de Muerto was the baking tradition
in the Spanish
kingdoms of León, Aragón and Castile to shape bread in the form of bones to imitate those that had allegedly
belonged to saints (relics).
Each of the thirty-two Mexican states nowadays has its own distinctive touch for this celebration. For example, On
October 28, some memorialize people who died in an accident; on October 30, some honor the babies who died before
their Baptism. On October 31, they pay respect to children younger than 12, and November 1st is All Saints Day, when
they honor the souls of those who died of natural causes. Finally, on November 2nd, after noon, this is when the
souls of the departed return to their world. It is then that the ofrendas and the altars are cleared.
The communities prepare ahead of time and pay a lot of attention to the details because the ritual is extremely
important, and as long as they do it properly, they believe that the dead are capable of bringing prosperity, for
instance, an abundant corn harvest, or disgrace to their families. This encounter among the living and the dead
consolidates the community’s social connections.
References:
“Día De Muertos: Su Origen y Significado En 10 Datos Curiosos.” NeoMexicanismos, 1 Nov. 2020,
https://neomexicanismos.com/cultura-mexico/dia-de-muertos-origen-en-mexico-porque-se-celebra-significado-tradiciones/.
Portions accessed and translated from original in Spanish with permission on 10/24/2021
García, Barbara. “Mictlan: Souls' Journey through the Underworld.” Mas México USA, Pepe Perez, 30 Oct.
2019, http://mas-mexico.com.mx/usa/index.php/2019/10/31/mictlan-souls-journey-through-the-underworld/.
Herz, May. Inside Mexico, Babbel, 27 Sept. 2021, https://www.inside-mexico.com/category/myths-and-legends/.
“Indigenous Festivity Dedicated to the Dead.” UNESCO, https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/indigenous-festivity-dedicated-to-the-dead-00054.
“Mexica.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Oct. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexica.
Patowary, Kaushik. “Tzompantli: The Gruesome Skull Racks of the Aztecs.” Amusing Planet, Blogger, 25
Aug. 2021, https://www.amusingplanet.com/2021/08/tzompantli-gruesome-skull-racks-of.html.
Vela, Enrique, “Días de Muertos”, Arqueología Mexicana, edición especial núm. 77, p. 80.