all images © Sarah Gilbert
It was after midnight and I was standing outside a cemetery with the grim reaper. He handed me a skull, my name inscribed on its forehead in pink icing. As I bit into its crumbly sweetness, I was reminded of the Mexican saying: “We are not here for a long time, we are here for a good time.”
Despite its name, Mexico’s Day of the Dead – Dia de los Muertos, in Spanish – is a far from macabre festival. It is a time to remember and honour the dead. And, much like a family reunion, it is a time for celebration.
Dining with spirits
The festival combines pre-Hispanic Indian traditions with Spanish Catholic influence. The Zapotec Indians believed the spirits of the dead visited the living once a year to eat, drink and be merry. The spirits of children are thought to return on November 1 (All Saints’ Day), with adult spirits following on November 2 (All Souls’ Day). And in the beautiful city of Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ca), the ancient Zapotec capital, the festival involves more ceremony and ritual than in any other part of the country.
It all began with a shopping expedition. Outside the lively local market, indigenous women, coloured ribbons woven into their long black plaits, sold mounds of sweet-smelling orange marigolds, or cempasúchil. Children dressed in Halloween costumes pestered passers-by for sweets and pesos.
Inside, the market had a festive atmosphere. Brightly coloured papel picado – tissue paper cut into intricate designs – was strung from the walls and ceilings.
Chillis – red, green, brown and black, in all shapes and sizes – were heaped together. Stalls overflowed with sacks of pungent spices and fragrant sticks of cinnamon. Bottles of mescal – a tequila-like spirit distilled in Oaxaca from the agave plant – sat next to bowls of still-wriggling worms.
Bread of the dead
The air was filled with the delicious smell of steamed tamales – corn dough filled with meat and wrapped in plantain leaves – while stallholders nibbled on chapulines, the surprisingly tasty local delicacy of deep-fried grasshoppers.
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The market aisles were stuffed with skeletons engaged in everyday activities: eating, drinking, working. Rickety stands were piled high with elaborately decorated sugar skulls and special bread called pan de muerte (bread of the dead), a sweet-tasting roll with a little wooden effigy baked into the dough. Everything, in fact, that you need to build an altar in honour of your deceased family and friends.
The altar is an invitation to the spirits to return and join the celebrations. Most families build an altar in their home; they can range from a simple decorated table, to a towering five-tiered affair, but all have the same basic elements.
First sugar cane is entwined with cempasúchil and bent into a colourful arch, representing the passage between life and death. The table is covered in a white cloth and banners of papel picado are stuck to its edges.
Mexican virgins
A picture of Mexico’s favourite saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, is put on the table-turned-altar, which is loaded with more flowers and gifts - ofrendas - of food and drink for the family spirits, including the dishes they most enjoyed in life.
Pan de muerto, nuts, seasonal fruits such as tangerines and pumpkin, along with hot tamales, chicken with mole (a rich sauce consisting of bitter chocolate and an impressive assortment of chillis and spices) and sugar skulls. The food is a feast for the dead to savour. Although, as spirits only consume the essence of the food, the living get to eat it later.
Every altar has to have a glass of water. Not only because it represents purity but because the dead are thirsty after their long journey. And not just for water. Coca-cola, beer and mescal also feature. Cigarettes and cigars, too. It appears that the spirits continue their bad habits beyond the grave.
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Finally, flowers are torn up to create a pathway of petals to the altar, candles and copal incense are lit – the light and scent helps to guide the spirits home – and photographs of the deceased are put in pride of place.
Cemetery boogie
After sunset, everyone heads to the city’s largest cemetery, the Panteón San Miguel. Outside, on my visit, a carnival was already in full swing, with neon-lit amusement rides, blaring music and stalls selling beer and tacos and waffles in the shape of crosses.
At the gates of the graveyard, a brass band pumped out popular tunes, as people – some dressed as ghosts, skeletons and mummies – filed past the ornate sand carpets created especially for the festival.
Then we moved on to the smaller and more remote Xoxocotlan cemetery. In the run-up to the festival, families spend days cleaning and tidying the jumble of graves. Now they were aglow with hundreds of flickering candles and bathed in smoke from the burning incense, giving the burial place an otherworldly atmosphere.
Like the altars, the graves overflow with ofrendas. The best way to honour the dead is to bring them the things they most loved in life. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could see that some of the graves were surrounded by entire families, with children jumping around. Others were occupied by elderly couples, tightly clutching their rebozos, or shawls, around them against the cool night air.
Graveside chat
The last stop was San Felipe del Agua cemetery where the festivities were at their peak. Families sat around the graves, eating, drinking, laughing and telling stories. Mariachi bands strolled from grave to grave where, for a few pesos, they would play the favourite song of the deceased.
As they launched into the Spanish version of My Way, I marvelled at the Mexicans’ apparent nonchalance in the presence of death. Or at least they were happy to accompany the dead for a night or two, but happier still to be in the land of the living.
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