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Indigenous
people wouldn't let 'Day of the Dead' die
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Copyright
Patrick Murillo |
Carlos Miller
The Arizona Republic
More than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in
what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual
that seemed to mock death.
It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least
3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to
eradicate.
A ritual known today as Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.
The ritual is celebrated in Mexico and certain parts of the United
States, including the Valley.
Celebrations are held each year in Mesa, Chandler, Guadalupe and
at Arizona State University. Although the ritual has since been
merged with Catholic theology, it still maintains the basic
principles of the Aztec ritual, such as the use of skulls.
Today, people don wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in
honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls are also
placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. Sugar skulls,
made with the names of the dead person on the forehead, are eaten
by a relative or friend, according to Mary J. Adrade, who has
written three books on the ritual.
The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as
trophies and displayed them during the ritual. The skulls were
used to symbolize death and rebirth.
The skulls were used to honor the dead, whom the Aztecs and other
Meso-American civilizations believed came back to visit during the
monthlong ritual.
Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the
natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing
death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in
death did they become truly awake.
"The pre-Hispanic people honored duality as being dynamic," said
Christina Gonzalez, senior lecturer on Hispanic issues at Arizona
State University. "They didn't separate death from pain, wealth
from poverty like they did in Western cultures."
However, the Spaniards considered the ritual to be sacrilegious.
They perceived the indigenous people to be barbaric and pagan.
In their attempts to convert them to Catholicism, the Spaniards
tried to kill the ritual.
But like the old Aztec spirits, the ritual refused to die.
To make the ritual more Christian, the Spaniards moved it so it
coincided with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (Nov. 1 and 2),
which is when it is celebrated today.
Previously it fell on the ninth month of the Aztec Solar Calendar,
approximately the beginning of August, and was celebrated for the
entire month. Festivities were presided over by the goddess
Mictecacihuatl. The goddess, known as "Lady of the Dead," was
believed to have died at birth, Andrade said.
Today, Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico and in certain
parts of the United States and Central America.
"It's celebrated different depending on where you go," Gonzalez
said.
In rural Mexico, people visit the cemetery where their loved ones
are buried. They decorate gravesites with marigold flowers and
candles. They bring toys for dead children and bottles of tequila
to adults. They sit on picnic blankets next to gravesites and eat
the favorite food of their loved ones.
In Guadalupe, the ritual is celebrated much like it is in rural
Mexico.
"Here the people spend the day in the cemetery," said Esther Cota,
the parish secretary at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. "The
graves are decorated real pretty by the people."
In Mesa, the ritual has evolved to include other cultures, said
Zarco Guerrero, a Mesa artist.
"Last year, we had Native Americans and African-Americans doing
their own dances," he said. "They all want the opportunity to
honor their dead."
In the United States and in Mexico's larger cities, families build
altars in their homes, dedicating them to the dead. They surround
these altars with flowers, food and pictures of the deceased. They
light candles and place them next to the altar.
"We honor them by transforming the room into an altar," Guerrero
said. "We offer incense, flowers. We play their favorite music,
make their favorite food."
At Guerrero's house, the altar is not only dedicated to friends
and family members who have died, but to others as well.
"We pay homage to the Mexicans killed in auto accidents while
being smuggled across the border," he said. "And more recently,
we've been honoring the memories of those killed in Columbine."
Handmade decorations are what Día
de los Muertos is all about
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Copyright
Patrick Murillo |
azcentral.com
Día de los Muertos is a celebration of expression in many ways.
Not only is it dedicated to remembering and honoring those that
have passed before us, it is also centrally focused on the
artistic expression of the living through the creation of
ofrendas, costumes, cooking etc.
Crafting and handmade decorations have a long tradition in Day of
the Dead celebrations as well as other fiestas central to Latin
cultures. Instead of using store bought decorations for your altar
or party, simple crafts like the ones below can make this Día de
los Muertos one to remember.
Four
Simple Projects
•
Easy Paper Flowers
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Sugar Skulls
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Reverse Glass Painting
•
Dia de los Muertos Pin
Festival for departed souls begins
with food
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Copyright
Patrick Murillo |
Judy Walker
The Arizona Republic
Culture is a really flexible thing, says Tempe resident and
cultural anthropologist Linda McAllister. At a Día de Los Muertos
observance in Guadalupe a few years ago, she saw a Big Gulp as a
grave offering.
"The biggest one," she said. Beverages are a common offering on
ofrendas, altars constructed in homes and cemeteries across Mexico
for the festival that is The Day of the Dead -- the day that
departed souls return to earth.
McAllister, who holds a master's degree in art history,
specializes in Mexican folk art and looks at food as an extension
of folk traditions. She has lectured on food as ritual and
ephermeral art.
Día de Los Muertos traditions "vary from town to town because
Mexico is not culturally monolithic," McAllister said. "Things are
very different from Yucatan to Central Mexico to the northwest to
Northern Mexico."
Day of the Dead is a family event to remember ancestors, whose
spirits visit the earth once a year. This concept of the cycle or
circle of life is a strong tradition with many native and
indigenous peoples worldwide, says Heard Museum Educational
Services Manager Gina Laczko said.
"To me, it's a very interesting and in so many ways a very healthy
view of death, which Americans find so difficult. Americans don't
even want to talk about aging, let alone death.
"In agricultural societies, as in many traditions around the world,
if you have life, you have death. It's considered a passage from
one type of living to another, and that's something that was
believed in pre-conquest Mexico," Laczko said.
This cyclic view fused with Catholicism's All Souls Day on Nov. 2
and All Saints Day on Nov. 1 to become Day (or Days) of the Dead,
Laczko explained. In a society without written family trees,
celebrants tell stories to their children, "and it's not just the
landmark things about your parents or great-grandparents," she
added. "You remember a lot of anecdotal things, such as what was
her favorite food, or that time he got me with that good practical
joke."
Although many Americans see the prototypical dancing skeletons and
celebration of death as macabre or related to Halloween, it's not,
Laczko and others emphasize. As harvest festivals both fall at the
same time of the year, but El Día de Los Muertos is not scary.
It's reflective, but not sad.
What relates it to Halloween in many minds are images of cavorting
skeletons. Laczko notes that these are a direct result of the work
of Mexican press artist Jose Guadalupe Posada, who died in 1913.
Posada inspired muralist Diego Rivera and others with his
caricatures of the rich and political, all depicted as skeletons.
Katarina, a skeletal figure in a plumed hat and dress, has become
the instant visual signal of El Día de Los Muertos.
Katarina and company are in evidence all over Mexico as altars are
set up Oct. 30 and 31. In homes, tables are covered with flowers,
fruits, vegetables, candles, incense, statues of saints, photos of
the deceased. The sky is represented by a sheet or strings of
paper cutouts.
Traditionally, the flowers used are marigolds, and the incense
used on the altar is copal, the resin from a particular tree. Like
moles and chile-laced dishes prepared for some of the ancestors,
the flowers are quite aromatic and the copal has a distinctive
smell.
The aromas are used or consumed by the spirits, which, like the
scents, can't be seen. The foods are eaten (or given away) by the
living later, after their essence has been consumed, Laczko.
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