Top 10 facts about Day of the Dead (original) (raw)

Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, is not a Mexican version of Halloween.

Though related, the two annual events differ greatly in traditions and tone. While Halloween embraces terror and mischief on the last night of October, Day of the Dead festivities unfold over the first two days of November in an explosion of color and life-affirming joy.

Sure, the theme is death, but the point of Day of the Dead is to honor the dead by demonstrating love and respect for deceased family members. In towns and cities throughout Mexico, revelers don funky makeup and costumes, hold parades and parties, sing and dance, and make offerings to lost loved ones.

From its history to the role of family and symbols, here are 10 essential, fun facts about Mexico’s most vibrant annual event.

1. Day of the Dead history goes back thousands of years.

Day of the Dead originated several thousand years ago with the Aztec, Toltec, and other Nahua people, who considered mourning the dead disrespectful. For these pre-Hispanic cultures, death was a natural part of life, a continuum.

The dead were still members of the community, kept alive in memory and spirit—and during Día de los Muertos, they temporarily returned to Earth.

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(Here are the best hotels to stay in to experience the Day of the Dead.)

Today’s Día de los Muertos celebration is a mash-up of pre-Hispanic religious rites and Christian feasts. It takes place on November 1 and 2—All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day on the Catholic calendar—around the time of the fall corn harvest.

2. It has been recognized by UNESCO.

Cultural heritage is not just monuments and collections of objects. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that cultural heritage also includes living expressions of culture—traditions—passed down from generation to generation.

In 2008, UNESCO recognized the importance of Día de los Muertos by adding the holiday to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Today Mexicans from all religious and ethnic backgrounds celebrate the holiday. But at its core, Day of the Dead is a reaffirmation of Indigenous life.

3. Altars are important family traditions.

The centerpiece of the celebration is an altar, or ofrenda, built in private homes and cemeteries. These aren’t altars for worshipping; rather, they’re meant to welcome spirits back to the realm of the living.

As such, they’re loaded with offerings—water to quench thirst after the long journey, food, family photos, and a candle for each dead relative. If one of the spirits is a child, you might find small toys on the altar.

Marigolds are the main flowers used to decorate the altar. Scattered from altar to gravesite, the golden petals guide wandering souls back to their place of rest.

The smoke from copal incense, made from tree resin, transmits praise and prayers and purifies the area around the altar.

(Here's how marigolds became iconic symbols of the Day of the Dead.)

4. Calaveras are key symbols_._

Calavera means “skull.” But during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, calavera was used to describe short, humorous poems, which were often sarcastic tombstone epitaphs published in newspapers that poked fun at the living.

These literary calaveras eventually became a popular part of Día de los Muertos celebrations. Today the practice is alive and well. You’ll find these clever, biting poems in print, read aloud, and broadcast on television and radio programs.

5. The calavera Catrina is especially symbolic.

Known as the calavera Catrina, this skeletal figure is a Day of the Dead icon. There are endless variations of the Catrina sold in many forms during the holiday—and throughout the year in Mexico.

Photograph by Tino Soriano, National Geographic

Stands of cempasúchil flowers brighten a street in Corungueo, Michoacán. Also known as Aztec or Mexican marigold, this traditional bloom is used in offerings during Day of the Dead celebrations.

Photograph by Jaime Rojo, National Geographic

In the early 20th century, Mexican political cartoonist and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada created an etching to accompany a literary calavera.

Posada dressed his personification of death in fancy French garb and called it Calavera Garbancera, intending it as social commentary on Mexican society’s emulation of European sophistication.

“Todos somos calaveras,” a quote attributed to Posada, means “we are all skeletons.” Underneath our human-made trappings, we are all the same.

(Mexico’s ‘pottery of the night’ is perfect for Day of the Dead)

In 1947 artist Diego Rivera featured Posada’s stylized skeleton in his masterpiece mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park.” Posada’s skeletal bust was dressed in a large feminine hat, and Rivera made his female and named her Catrina, slang for “the rich.”

Today, the calavera Catrina, or elegant skull, is the Day of the Dead’s most ubiquitous symbol.

6. Families bring food to the dead.

To prepare for Day of the Dead, people clean up a family grave in the Carpinteros cemetery.

Photograph by Jaime Rojo, National Geographic

On Day of the Dead, families honor their ancestors with ofrendas (altars) decked with flowers, food, and candles.

Photograph by Jaime Rojo, National Geographic

You work up a mighty hunger and thirst traveling from the spirit world back to the realm of the living. At least that’s the traditional belief in Mexico. Some families place their dead loved one’s favorite foods on the altar.

Pan de muerto, or bread of the dead, is a typical sweet bread (pan dulce), often featuring anise seeds and decorated with bones and skulls made from dough. The bones might be arranged in a circle, as in the circle of life. Tiny dough teardrops symbolize sorrow.

(Read more about pan de muerto.)

Sugar skulls are part of a sugar art tradition brought by 17th-century Italian missionaries. Pressed in molds and decorated with crystalline colors, they come in all sizes and levels of complexity.

Drinks to celebrate the holiday include pulque, a sweet fermented beverage made from the agave sap; atole, a thin warm porridge made from corn flour, with unrefined cane sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla added; and hot chocolate.

7. People dress in costumes.

A young woman dressed as a Monarch butterfly participates in a Day of the Dead parade in Michoacan. The butterflies, which migrate through Mexico, arrive around the same time as the November 1 and 2 holiday.

Photograph by Jaime Rojo, National Geographic

Monarch butterflies drink from a stream at El Rosario butterfly sanctuary, in Michoacán. They are celebrated during Day of the Dead, as a symbol of life and death.

Photograph by Jaime Rojo, National Geographic

Day of the Dead is an extremely social holiday that spills into streets and public squares at all hours of the day and night. Dressing up as skeletons is part of the fun.

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People of all ages have their faces artfully painted to resemble skulls, and, mimicking the calavera Catrina, they don suits and fancy dresses.

Many revelers wear shells or other noisemakers to amp up the excitement—and also possibly to rouse the dead and keep them close during the festivities.

(See more stunning photos from Day of the Dead celebrations.)

8. Streets are decorated in papel picado.

Papel picado, or pierced papers, blow in the wind in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. You can find papel picado around Mexico throughout the year, but especially around Day of the Dead.

Photograph by Raul Touzon

You’ve probably seen this beautiful Mexican paper craft plenty of times in Mexican restaurants. The literal translation, pierced paper, perfectly describes how it’s made. Artisans stack colored tissue paper in dozens of layers, then perforate the layers with hammer and chisel points.

Revelers dressed as skeletons take part in multiple parades in Mexico City at the end of October and beginning of November.

Photograph by Jair Cabrera, NurPhoto/Getty Images

Día de los Muertos is more popular than ever—in Mexico and, increasingly, abroad. For more than a dozen years, the New York-based nonprofit cultural organization Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders has staged the city’s largest Day of the Dead celebration.

But the most authentic celebrations take place in Mexico. If you find yourself in Mexico City the weekend before Day of the Dead this year, make sure to stop by the grand parade where you can join in on live music, bike rides and other activities in celebration throughout the city.

(Why your next trip to Mexico should be one of these festivals)

10. Other communities celebrate in unique ways.

When the Day of the Dead approaches, Estela Romero, an educator from Angangueo, Michoacán, celebrates the monarch butterflies that died in the snow storm of 2002. She picked up several dead monarchs from the sanctuaries, buried them in her town’s graveyard, and added a memorial plate.

Photograph by Jaime Rojo, National Geographic

Countless communities in Mexico celebrate Day of the Dead, but styles and customs differ by area, depending on the region’s predominant pre-Hispanic culture. Here are a few places that stand out for their colorful, moving celebrations:

Pátzcuaro: One of the most poignant Day of the Dead celebrations takes place each year in Pátzcuaro, a municipality in the state of Michoacán about 225 miles west of Mexico City.

Indigenous people from the countryside converge on the shores of Pátzcuaro Lake, where they pile into canoes, a single candle burning in each bow, and paddle over to a tiny island called Janitzio for an all-night vigil in the cemetery.

(See how Oaxaca celebrates Day of the Dead)

Mixquic: In this Mexico City suburb, bells from the historic Augustinian convent toll and community members bearing candles and flowers proceed to the local cemetery, where they clean and decorate the graves of their loved ones.

Tuxtepec: This small city in the northeastern part of Oaxaca state is best known for its sawdust rugs. For days, locals painstakingly arrange colored sawdust, flower petals, rice, pine needles, and other organic materials in elaborate, ruglike patterns on city streets. Traditionally made for important processions, Tuxtepec’s sawdust rugs are judged in a contest held during Día de los Muertos.

Aguascalientes: Located roughly 140 miles north of Guadalajara, Aguascalientes—birthplace of engraver José Guadalupe Posada—stretches its Day of the Dead celebrations to nearly a week during its Festival de Calaveras (Festival of Skulls). The Day of the Dead event culminates in a grand parade of skulls along Avenida Madero.

Editor’s note: This story originally ran online on October 26, 2017. It has been updated.