For example, if your father enjoyed eating marzipan treats, set a few on the altar for him. You can start by setting up an altar in your home and decorating it with candles, photos, and various objects that belonged to or represent a deceased loved one somehow.
It’s a time to feel grateful for their contribution to your life. One important thing to remember is that this is not a time to mourn or feel particularly sad, but a time to celebrate the life of your departed loved ones in a positive way. At local cemeteries, families can also be seen delivering ofrendas, or offerings, while carrying candles and photos of their deceased in hand. Many honor them with gifts of sugar skulls, chocolate, flowers, sweetbreads, and trinkets.
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How to Authentically Celebrate Day of the DeadĪ post shared by Violeta Santiago our modern times, families still gather to celebrate their dead by building altars in their homes, schools or other public places. 1 and 2), which is when it’s celebrated today. Ultimately, to make the ritual more Christian, the Spaniards moved the holiday so it coincided with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day (Nov. Over the years the Spanish conquistadors tried to eradicate the ritual through conversion to Catholicism. And that creeped out the Europeans who considered the ritual to be sacrilegious. Instead of fearing death as the Spaniards did, they embraced it. Mexico’s pre-Columbian cultures viewed death as the continuation of life, a perfect cycle. Since Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations believed their dead came back to visit them during this month, they made wooden skulls in their honor to place on altars. Festivities were presided over by the goddess of the underworld and the keeper of bones, Mictecacihuatl. Originally, the Day of the Dead fell on the ninth month of the Aztec Solar Calendar (around the beginning of August), and was celebrated for the entire month. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate,” writes Miller.
It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. So when did this ritual take notice outside of Meso-America? According to T he Arizona Republic ’ s Carlos Miller, more than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now central Mexico, they encountered “natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death.
Mexicans, it seems, keep their dead happy or else fear the revengeful consequences. It’s believed that if the dead are, say, in a foul mood, they will harm the living unless ceremonies are performed to keep them from doing so. This is why the custom of burying possessions and useful objects with the dead was so common. According to the Myths Encyclopedia, it’s connected to the ancient belief that people’s personalities and needs continue unchanged after death. What inspired this sweet, yet morbid tradition that is said to date back to the Aztecs? Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors have been observed by pre-Columbian civilizations for as long as 2500–3000 years. Throughout its history that very macabre humor has created memorable depictions of the holiday in pop culture ranging from Diego Rivera’s painting “The Day of the Dead” to the animated film The Book of Life (2014). On El Día de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, officially observed on November 1st and 2nd, Mexico pays tribute to the souls of their beloved deceased with lavish, kitsch-filled ceremonies featuring skeletons and sugar skulls decorated in floral regalia.įew countries pay homage to death the way Mexicans do. Once Halloween’s trick-or-treaters are tucked safely into bed in the U.S., Mexico’s dead prepare to walk the earth again.