by L. Crystal Michallet-Romero
Copyright © Nov 2001 L. Crystal Michallet-Romero
All Rights Reserved
pay tribute to their livess. When the Catholic church entered into Mexico, they tried to stop the people from celebrating what
was thought to be a pagan holiday (Andrade 9). When this failed, they replaced the holiday with the Catholic holiday called,
Todos Santos, or All Saints?.
All Saints day was intended to honor the Catholic saints and all of their good deeds. Despite the Church's attempt to stop the
pagan holiday of Dias de los Muertos, it has become a major holiday in Mexico and is celebrated from October 31st to Nov 2nd
in the United States by Mexican immigrants and Chicano?s (Andrade 10). Although the Catholic church still calls it All Saint?s
Day, amongst the Mexican?s it is still retained as Dias de los Muertos (Sayer 14).
It is believed that on Dias de los Muertos, that the spirit of the dead return to communicate with their living relatives. The return
of the dead is not viewed as macabre, or frightening, but is viewed as the spirit returning from another world. The world of the
dead is seen as being similar to our own world, and not something to fear (Sayer 14). Mexican Indians believe that the living
and the dead exist in a state of permanent interaction, where messages and conversations could be exchanged between the living
and dead (15).
Dias de los Muertos is a holiday which families prepare for months in advance. They plan the special menus, the art work, and
altars that will be used for the holiday. On the day of celebration, families will travel to the grave site of their families with hedge
clippers and other tools that will help them trim and clean up on and around the grave stones of their deceased relatives. Once
the area is clean, altars are placed on the gravesites. Families will include a picture of the person who is buried, candles, and the
favorite food and drinks of the deceased. Flowers are often used to decorate the tombstones.
The celebrations are carried over into communities. Within communities, Dias de los Muertos becomes a lavish holiday event
which is expressed through artwork, parades and costumes which centered around skeletons, the representation of death.
Contemporary art incorporates the images of skeletons with images of life. In the artwork, paper mache art was made to
represent skeleton figures doing ordinary things such as driving a car, dancing, a skeleton couple getting married by a skeleton
priest, just to name a few. Artwork is also utilized within their ceremonial parades where the participants of the parades will
dress in regular clothes, and have make up, or a mask that resembles a skull.
Like the skeleton figures, the masks are made of paper mache. The masks are created to incorporate the aspects of death and
life. The skulls represent death, the intricate art work on and around the mask represents life. By mixing life and death, beauty
with the skull image, the artist is demonstrating the original belief that life and death peacefully coexists.
Works Cited
Andrade, Mary. Through the Eyes of the Soul. La Oferta Press. San Jose, CA. 1996.
Lasky, Kathryn. Day of the Dead. Hyperion Books. New York, New York. 1994.
Sayer, Chloe. Skeleton At The Feast, The (The Day of the Dead in Mexico). University of Texas, Press. Austin,
Texas. 1991.
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