Death.
So
often, we give no room to death. Instead, we try and prolong life as long as
possible sometimes at the expense of quality of life. We cling to stories of immortality
– the holy grail, vampires, a fountain of eternal life, Botox. We devour
stories of murdered people being avenged as if that creates legacy, as if that will,
in a way, bring them back to life. In day-to-day life, in movies, in games, in conversations
it’s evident that we’re both repelled and fascinated by death. Especially when
it’s not our own. None of this is intrinsically wrong.
These
things come to my mind, though, when Halloween and then Dia de Los Muertos roll
around.
This
year, at that time, I’m staying in central Mexico some miles north of Mexico City
and the family I’m with is shivering with excitement for Halloween. Once, the
youngest girl says, “If we give each other presents on Halloween we won’t even
need to celebrate Christmas!”
Knitted
bats, spiders, ghosts, and Draculas, made by one of the teachers from the children’s
school, hang from the birthday tree downstairs and keep me company upstairs in
my study. Hand painted wine corks become spiders and toothy vampires under the
children’s artistic fingers. Pumpkins, grouped together at the end of a side table,
add their splash of autumnal coloring to the dining room.
As
the season ripens, the children plan out and refine their costume ideas. Material
and masks are put together to create an astronaut, Willy Wonka, a werewolf,
Sunny Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events, a zombie, and The Mad
Hatter.
On the
day of the first event for the ghoulish season, a school party, the children
are in costume hours before the starting time. I don’t dress up, but I go along.
As
the vendors are setting up food, drink, and handmade items such as knitted
creatures and wooden cutting boards, as the tables begin to fill with people, as
the Halloween playlist blasts music into the open air through a portable
speaker, and as many of the partygoers show up dressed as the skeletal and recognizable
Catrinas and Catrines with their fancy, formal dress and elaborate face paint, one
of my friend’s friends (now my new friend), takes me in hand to tell me about
the Day of the Dead.
The
Day of the Dead is a two-day celebration that falls on November 1st
and 2nd and which happens to coincide with All Saints’ Day and All
Souls’ Day from the Catholic Calendar. This because of the strong Catholic influence
on the Mexican culture pressed down upon it during the Spanish colonial era.
Halloween,
coming just before these dates on October 31st is actually a celebration
on the Eve of All Hallow’s Day (also known as All Saints’ Day) and was once a
time when people came together to pray for protection from evil (and probably
to party a little bit too). Sometimes, maybe even often, these long-ago people
would dress as evil spirits or saints to show the battle between the forces of
heaven and of hell. Our modern Halloween evolved out of that tradition.
As
alluded to above, when the Spanish galloped into Mexico with their religion in
hand, the autumnal traditions of Europe and North America collided and melded
together. However true that might be, Dia de Los Muertos is not a Mexican version
of Halloween.
My new
friend explains that Dia de Los Muertos is a tradition that dates back far into
the culture of the pre-Hispanic people (such as the Aztecs or Mayans) who
celebrated the dead rather than mourning them. For them, the Day of the Dead
was a time for welcoming spirits back to the land of the living—even if only for
one night. It was a way to keep the dead a part of the community even after
they’d left their physical forms behind. Maybe it was also a way to share any
excess of perishable food from the last of the harvests.
After
laying down the holiday basics, my friend takes me to the other end of the
school campus and inside a building to where the school’s Day of the Dead ofrenda
(altar) sits in marigold glory. Marigolds guide the dead back to the land of
the living with their bright color and wafting scent.
She
explains that the food and drinks left on the ofrendas are usually the favorite
food and drinks of the people whose pictures sit at the top of the altar.
She points
out the decorations, including the cut-out, intricate designs on tissue paper (similar
to my mind to the paper snowflakes I made as a child) with images of skulls and
Catrinas and angels and crosses and hummingbirds that are hung together to
create a colorful banner.
She
explains that many altars are seven levels high. “Seven had special
significance for the pre-Hispanic cultures but the Catholic Church tied it in
to the seven deadly sins.”
We’re
speaking in Spanish, at least I’m listening in Spanish and doing my best to ask
my questions in Spanish, so I wonder, maybe aloud, if the seven levels also have
anything to do with levels like purgatory. Is there more to the afterlife than
heaven, hell, and purgatory? Does Abraham’s Bosom count as a fourth level? What
are the remaining three then?
No
matter what their origin was, the Catholic influence is evident in both
Halloween and Day of the Dead.
What
strikes me as different between Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos is that for me
Halloween has always symbolized the frightening, the terrifying, the disgusting,
and the RIP end in a cemetery whereas Dia de Los Muertos, as I see it here with
my own eyes, is full of color, the sharing of life with those who have passed,
and an emphasis on getting together with family to celebrate life even if the celebration
is held inside the walls of a cemetery. Death is not to be feared then, but to
be celebrated.
At
the school party it’s almost as if two ancient cultures have collided to form
this new hybrid Halloween-Day of the Dead holiday. In this blending, the Celtic
tradition to ward off ghosts is joined by the pre-Hispanic tradition of welcoming
the spirits home again. What exactly this collision creates, I don’t know. What
exactly it means to welcome and repel, I don’t know. But I’m glad the children
enjoy the magic of both holidays and the immortality of being any creature they
can imagine and costume themselves as.
Maybe,
too, in the end, Dia de Los Muertos is still, is also the human attempt to touch
immortality, to bring the dead back for one day more. To bring memory back to
life. To ensure that those who have gone on are dead but not forgotten.
There’s
nothing wrong with that either.
