Mexico celebrates Day of the Dead
Mexico celebrated the first of two Day of the Dead celebrations today with elaborate food- and flower-laden altars designed to guide the spirits of the deceased in their annual journey back to Earth.
In Mexico City’s enormous central plaza, the Zocalo, artisans mounted enormous papier-mache skeletons alongside altars decorated with tortillas, tamales, and other favourite foods of those who have passed on.
Also decorating the altars were skulls made of sugar, and orange “cempacuchitl” flowers, whose bright colour and strong odour is thought to help spirits find their way home.
The celebrations are held throughout the country, in honour of individual family members and in some cases, groups of people who died for a cause or under similar circumstances.
The left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party announced that it would place an altar in front of Mexico City’s performing arts centre, and at a cathedral in Acapulco, to remember all “social and political fighters who gave their lives for a better and more Democratic Mexico.”
A caravan of two dozen Indian women from the southern state of Chiapas arrived yesterday in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez to honour the hundreds of women who have been slain there in the past decade.
The women lit candles, blew conch shells, beat drums and burned incense in what they described as a ceremony of respect for the dead and solidarity for the victims’ surviving relatives. The caravan was dubbe “the Wind of 1,000 Voices.”
The Day of the Dead celebrations – a mix of prehispanic and Catholic customs - honour dead children today, and deceased adults tomorrow.
Many families camp out in cemeteries overnight to welcome the spirits at first light with music, food and drink.
Day of the Dead altars also include candles – to symbolically illuminate a path for the returning dead – copal incense to chase away evil spirits, and photos of the deceased, along with some of their favourite items – in the case of children, treasured toys.
