It is the beginning of
November, and that means that is time for El
Dia de Ls Muertos, the Day of the Dead, in Mexico! I had the opportunity to
travel with my host family to Taxco, Guerrero, to the farm of my family`s
relatives, in order to celebrate the holiday.
El Dia de Los Muertos is celebrated at the end of October and
beginning of November because it is a time when the spirits of the deceased are
especially close to earth. Families create altars in honor of their deceased
relatives as a way to remember the family and pay tribute to their life and
their afterlife.
Different parts of the
country celebrate the holiday in very different styles, so my experience in a
rural community was very different than the experience of my friends who stayed
in Cuernavaca!
On November 1st,
my host family and I headed out around 2:30 to start attending ofrendas in the community. For each
individual who passed away in the past year, there was an altar created in
their home. The altars consisted of pictures, flowers, food, candles, and many
decorations. My family and I walked to each ofrenda
with baskets full of candles, flowers, special bread made specifically for the
holiday, and fruit, and when we arrived at an ofrenda we would greet the family, off our gift, and then spend
time in the room with the altar having a moment of peace to celebrate the life
and spirit of the deceased.
After some time, we greeted the family once more, and was then invited to eat the dinner
that had been prepared for all of the visitors. With nine ofrendas in one day, that is nine full meals! But it is impossible
to leave without eating the meals – there are family members stationed at the
exist to ensure that every guest eats. If you try to duck out without eating,
or use an excuse, they either guilt you into eating “just a little” (which
means an entire meal), or they send you with food as you leave. The food, of
course, was delicious – tamales, mole,
pozole – but it was a lot to eat in all in one
day! With all the walking, eating, and time with the altars, we didn’t return
back to the house until after 10:00 – it was a long, exhausting, but satisfying
day!
Have you ever celebrated El Dia de Los Muertos? How
was your experience different than mine?
By Elizabeth Rupert
Your Día de los Muertos sounds wonderful. Mine was in a rural area too, with my homestay family. It was mostly just a mishmash of beautiful sensations…I came home from a regular day at school to a house filled to the brim with candles, smokey smells, mole made out of squash seeds, and just wandered around the pitch-black night with a few children, singing at the top of our lungs and mining every neighbor for tamales. At each house, there was a trail of orange flower petals ending in a cross at the bottom of the altar. The altars ranged from giant to small, with lots of pictures or just one, with flowers and food, smoke and fancy tablecloths - it seemed like a really joyous and wonderful way to celebrate one's loved ones.
ReplyDeleteThe next day we all marched to the cemetery, sunny and filled with laughter, and put candles on graves already totally covered with plants and food offerings. We joined in really off-key collective singing to hymns I now know by heart, and then finally piled into the back of the truck for a ride to my host-aunt's house. There we ate more mole (this time red), and joked around well into the night. It was really a holiday to remember.