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Each year, the spirits of the dead return to visit the living in this fascinating look into the famous Mexican holiday Dia de Muertos - the Day of the Dead.D...
- 60 min
- 23.1K
- Epic Pictures Group
Nov 3, 2021 · In Los Angeles, nearly 80 families created touching altars to lost loved ones as a part of the Hollywood Forever festival, the largest Dia De Los Muertos celebration outside of Mexico.
- 7 min
- 206.5K
- ABC News
What do you know about Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) and its traditions? Here's a great introduction to the holiday intended to honor our deceased loved ones.
- 2 min
- 59K
- Iowa PBS
Oct 16, 2024 · Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a tradition first practiced thousands of years ago by indigenous peoples such as the Aztecs and the Toltecs. They didn’t consider death the end of...
- Overview
- 1. The holiday dates back thousands of years.
- 2. It has been recognized by UNESCO.
- 3. Altars are an important tradition...
- 4. ...and so are literary calaveras...
- 5. ...especially the calavera Catrina.
- 6. Families bring food to the dead.
- 7. People dress in costumes.
- 8. Streets are decorated in papel picado.
- 9. Mexico City hosts an iconic parade.
Día de los Muertos is celebrated across Mexico with skulls, skeletons, and graveside visits—but what does this beloved holiday really represent?
Hector Colin brings marigolds to decorate the graveyard in Carpinteros, Mexico, for Day of the Dead. Celebrated each year on November 1 and 2, the holiday uses a blend of pre-Columbian and Spanish traditions to honor deceased family members.
Here’s one thing we know: Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, 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 is to demonstrate 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.
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The rituals are rife with symbolic meaning. The more you understand about this feast for the senses, the more you will appreciate it. Here are 10 essential things you should know about Mexico’s most vibrant annual event.
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Sabino Marin Santos cleans up and decorates the tombs of his deceased relatives at the cemetery in Ejido Francisco Serrato, a Mazahua Indigenous community in Michoacán state.
Video: Markus Martinez Burman
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 phase in life’s long 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.
(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.
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.
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Day of the Dead ofrendas (altars) decorate the town square in Zitacuaro, a small town at the heart of Michoacán. Families create the displays to honor deceased loved ones using sand paintings, candles, food, and flowers.
Video: Thor Morales
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.)
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 ...
Left:
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
Right: 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.
Left: To prepare for Day of the Dead, people clean up a family grave in the Carpinteros cemetery.
Right: On Day of the Dead, families honor their ancestors with ofrendas (altars) decked with flowers, food, and candles.
Photographs 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 meal on the altar. Other common offerings:
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.)
Left: 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.
Right: 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.
Photographs 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. 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.
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. Papel picado isn’t used exclusively during Day of the Dead, but it plays an important role in the holiday. Draped around altars and in the streets, the art represents the wind and the fragility of life.
(These Mexican paper crafts bring the party during Day of the Dead.)
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.
- 2 min
- Logan Ward
Oct 30, 2018 · The Day of the Dead (el Día de los Muertos), is a Mexican holiday where families welcome back the souls of their deceased relatives for a brief reunion that includes food, drink and celebration.
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Oct 19, 2023 · Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a celebration of life and death. While the holiday originated in Mexico, it is celebrated all over Latin America with colorful calaveras (skulls) and calacas (skeletons). Learn how the Day of the Dead started and the traditions that make it unique.
