The taste of Hallowe’en, for most of us, is a taste of alcohol and euro-store Snickers. A brack your mam bought you might sit on the side table, and maybe some monkey nuts sprinkled around a Chinese-imported pumpkin. The flavours and traditions of Samhain, the Celtic origin of Hallowe’en, has all but faded out in the wave of American suburban store-bought spooky lollipops and trick or treating.
However, near enough to our neighbours across the pond, the spirits of the dead come alive at midnight on October 31 in Mexico, kept breathing by a tradition still strong after three thousand years, enduring through war and the rise and fall of empires.
Día de los Muertos, or ‘Day of the Dead’, is exploding in popularity thanks to its distinctive skull designs — although any overseas recreation of it is usually not much more than a rave with face paint. What people miss behind the artsy aesthetic is a rich and touching tradition of honouring loved ones, infused with Mesoamerican indigenous religion, Spanish Catholicism and the culture of 41 of Mexico’s ethnic groups. Honouring the dead features in almost every society, but few do as the Mexicans do, with ‘Day of the Dead’ being declared by UNESCO as a ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’.
Originally a month-long Aztec festival to honour the goddess Mictecacihuatl, or ‘The Lady of the Dead’, it fused with the Catholic All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ day to form a two day celebration starting November 1, celebrating the brief return of family members who have passed, and one’s own mortality. The festival also coincides with the completion of the cultivation of maize, the staple food of Mexico.
Although traditions vary in regions, with the rural areas of Tzintzuntzan and Huaquechula still performing the older, more elaborate customs, all feature the decoration of graves and preparation of ofrendas, three-tiered alters to the deceased. Decorated with papel picados, beautiful, fragile paper cutouts, on each tier the dead are invited into the home and welcomed with photographs, religious symbols and candles, each item holding a significance. Ofrendas are meticulously crafted to please the deceased, who can bring either prosperity or misfortune into the home.
After a long journey from the afterlife, they arrive hungry and thirsty, but are nourished with food and drinks they loved, placed on the ofrendas — bottles of mescal, tequila and pulque for the adults, and for los angelitos, the children who have passed, their favourite sweets.
Food unites the living and dead over the two days. This is seen in the intricate sugar skulls, crafted often months in advance, and the pan de muerto (‘bread of the dead’) enjoyed during the Day of the Dead. A delicate sponge bread made with orange blossom water, pan de muerto is decorated with bones, flowers and the tears the Aztec goddess Chimalma sheds for the living. Although not restricted to the ‘Day of the Dead’, candied pumpkins, tamales, and mole are eaten during the festivities, tastes that are not solemn and grey as one would expect from a memorial of the dead, but full of the bright yellow sweetness of corn, browns of cinnamon and the deep, rich red of chillies, fruits, spices, and chocolate.
Once November 2 passes, the living are free to consume the food on the ofrendas, lacking now in nutrition and their ‘essence’, which were enjoyed by the spirits during their stay.
The ‘Day of the Dead’ is not a day of mourning and sadness, nor does it share the ghouls and goblins of Hallowe’en. Like the flavours which grace the altars, it is bittersweet, as families gather to reminisce about their loved ones, and the happy times they shared. In doing so, the memories of generations are kept alive, consoling those afraid of being forgotten and comforting those who have lost.
Death itself loses its fear amongst the festivities — whilst skulls and bones may seem morbid and depressing, the colours and beautiful patterns they are given show a celebration of the cycle of life. The ‘Day of the Dead’ is especially important to Mexico’s indigenous communities, giving them recognition as well as bringing together the two worlds of European and indigenous beliefs.
Perhaps the best example of the philosophy of the ‘Day of the Dead’ is La Calavera Catrina. The origin of the well-dressed skeletons of the festival, La Calavera Catrina is a fashionable cartoon skeleton, created by José Guadalupe Posada in 1910 to satirise the Europhilic upper-class Mexicans of the time. We are all La Calavera Catrina in some way, and by laughing at ourselves and our airs of importance in the equalising face of death, its gloom clears.
Karla Sanchez, a Mexican living in Ireland for the past number of years remembers celebrating el Día de Muertos as a child:
“The Day of the Dead was my favourite festivity of the year. Ours was an ofrenda for all the dead, so we never included photographs of relatives as other families did. But it was always a happy occasion to celebrate life and eat delicious food. It never seemed ‘gory’ or scary, quite the opposite. All of this was supposed to make you laugh and make light of your daily problems, because life is so short.”
Many thanks to the Mexican Embassy in Ireland for their help with this article.
