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Title: Merry mortality
Source:
Orange County Press Telegram
URL Source: http://www.presstelegram.com/entertainment/ci_4470710
Published: Oct 11, 2006
Author: Alessandra Djurklou
Post Date: 2006-10-11 22:21:43 by Morgana le Fay
Keywords: None
Views: 94
Comments: 2
Mexicans honor death in their Day of the Dead festival on the two days after Halloween DEATH IS ONE of the few guarantees in life. If you are born, your life will eventually end, and no culture on Earth is unaware of that fact. All cultures, however, don't have the same attitude toward death. Halloween, which is celebrated in this country on Oct. 31, treats death as something scary and upsetting. Death is the Grim Reaper, cruelly taking loved ones away, his skull of a face unyielding and uncaring. Loved ones who have died come back as ghosts, terrifying us and perplexing us. We dress up in costumes, hoping to trick death into thinking we are somebody else, and to trick our neighbors into giving us candy. Like its neighbor to the north, Mexico celebrates Halloween. Costumed children in the capital and other big cities go from door to door, saying "queremos Halloween!" (we want Halloween!). But when they get home, their families are likely gearing up for a holiday with a completely different take on death: the two-day Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival, which runs Nov. 1 and 2. During those two days, families celebrate dead loved ones by building altars to them in their homes, full of mementoes, pictures and favorite foods. They go to cemeteries, and Advertisement In short, this is a two-day party, and everyone, living and dead, is invited. "It really should not be called the Day of the Dead," said Gregorio Luke, director of the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA) in Long Beach. "It is a day where there is no death ... That day, death is abolished." MoLAA is having a Day of the Dead festival of its own, Luke said, though not on Nov. 1 and 2, but on Oct. 29. (Both Halloween and Day of the Dead fall midweek this year). The festival will be held at the museum between 1 and 5 p.m. Apart from food, art exhibits and entertainment, there will be several activities. These include sugar skull decorating, cutting paper shapes (papel picado) and making paper flowers (marigolds are traditional). All these things normally go on altars, and there will be an altar-making contest the week before the event with a $500 prize. The altars will all be on display until Nov. 2. Luke is set to give a lecture about Day of the Dead, where he plans to discuss Mexico's attitude toward death and compare it to that of other countries, including this one, which he said has trouble accepting the concept of death. People in this country even hesitate to use the word "dead," preferring the term "passed away," Luke said. He remembered one memorial service he attended where that attitude was particularly in evidence. "Everybody was pretending to be so smooth," Luke said. "Suffering is not socially acceptable." A culture's attitude to death, of course, has a lot to do with its history. Mexico's culture is a combination of the values of ancient civilizations like the Toltecs and the Aztecs, and the Spanish who conquered Mexico in the 1500s. The Day of the Dead festival has pre-Hispanic roots, said Mary J. Andrade, a San Jose-based photographer. She specializes in Day of the Dead, has traveled all over Mexico covering various celebrations and has a Web site, http://www.dayofthedead.com, devoted to the subject. When the Spaniards conquered Mexico, Catholic missionaries adopted the death day festivities already in existence and added a Christian twist. These days, the festival has both Christian and pagan elements, with church-organized processions and masses, as well as altars and cemetery visits. DAY OF THE DEAD FESTIVAL Where: Museum of Latin American Art, 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach When: 1-5 p.m. Oct. 29 Information: (562) 437-1689 Though the festival begins on Nov. 1, altars are usually built the night before. "The altar is created to welcome the souls to the homes," Andrade said. "It is a beautiful part of the celebration. Many of the altars are a work of art." This art, however, is very personal. "It has to be personal, it has to be real, it has to come from a real memory," Luke said. Altars usually have photos of the person honored, as well as small tokens that represent their favorite things, such as music and art, or a postcard of a place the deceased loved to visit. Every altar has something representing the four basic elements of earth, wind, fire and water. Wind is represented by tissue paper with shapes cut out of it - papel picado. Fire is represented with lit candles. Earth is usually represented by food, and it can be the deceased's favorite food, as well as sugar skulls or bread of the dead. Water is represented by glasses of water. The food and the water, Andrade said, is also meant for the spirits to quench their hunger and thirst, though families usually wind up enjoying them. The sugar skulls are also given as gifts, and it is customary to write the recipient's name across the forehead. While sugar skulls and bread with bone decorations may seem a bit macabre to some, they are a way for Mexicans to cope with death, Andrade said. "It is a way of mocking death," she said. "Life will eat death." Also, Andrade said, skulls and skeletons are not seen as scary. The skeleton figurines often on display, dressed in pretty clothes, are another way to make light of the state we will all end up in eventually. The holiday celebrates two separate groups on the two days. The first is dedicated to deceased children, los inocentes, the innocents. Families often build smaller altars in the house to commemorate children. Most families, Andrade said, build their altars in their living rooms. However, more public altars are also on display. For a glimpse of a public altar in Long Beach, people need only go as far as City Hall, where seventh district Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga builds one every year at her district office. This year's altar honors a young man who died two years ago at age 17, leaving behind a daughter. The Day of the Dead is one of Uranga's favorite holidays, and she remembers celebrating with her family as a child. "It is a continuation, a celebration of life," Uranga said. And whatever your attitude toward death, it can't be argued that the life that preceded it should be celebrated as much as possible. Alessandra Djurklou, (562) 499-1252, alessandra.djurklou@presstelegram.com Print Friendly View Email Article Return to Top
have a picnic by their loved ones' graves. In some cities, they hold parades. In the weeks before the holiday, stores start selling pan de muerto - bread of the dead, a sweet bread decorated with bone shapes, and calaveras de azucar, small sugar skulls. These sweets, along with traditional drinks like atole (made from corn flour), are always served during the festival. Even the personification of death in Mexico is not a grim and scary reaper. Rather, it is a skeletal woman in a pretty dress and hat, called "La Katrina."
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#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
Has the author ever heard of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day?
In our culture death has become somewhat taboo, if a loved one dies people are urged to pull themselves out of their grief, to just stuff it, forget about it and move on. At least other cultures recognize their dead and mourning is accepted as normal and neccessary.
#2. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
Luke is set to give a lecture about Day of the Dead, where he plans to discuss Mexico's attitude toward death and compare it to that of other countries, including this one, which he said has trouble accepting the concept of death.
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