Dia De Los Muertos is a Spanish tradition celebrated mainly in Mexico, or by Mexican families that live elsewhere. This celebration occurs on November 1st and November 2nd, All Saints Day and All Souls Day respectively. This celebration my be seen as odd or wrong, it is accepted in the Spanish culture because it is about honoring the lives of the deceased, and instead of seeing these people as having their lives ended, the believe that death is the beginning of a second life.
People show their beliefs by going to cemeteries and churches, and leaving gifts for their family who have passed on. They wear wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their decease relatives. These wooden skulls are also put on the altars to dedicate to the dead. Sugar skulls are made with the dead persons name on the forehead, and are eaten by the family. When the people in Mexico go to the gravesites and cemeteries, they decorate the site with marigold flowers and candles. They also bring toys for dead children and bottles of tequila for adults. They also sometimes eat food in a picnic next to the gravestones, usually eating the favorite foods of that loved one.
In the United States and in Mexico's larger cities, people make altars in their homes to celebrate the dead. They also put food, flowers, and pictures to decorate, according to the passed loved ones liking. They also light candles and place them near the homemade altars. This celebration isn't always about the families lost ones, but also loved ones lost in history, and ones that are lost in accidents, like when people try to cross the border to the United States. They also celebrate the deaths of friends families and others around them.
Different countries see this holiday differently. Some see it as remembering the lives of the dead, and some see it as a time that the dead revisit you and your family. This may be why they decorate the homes of the dead, and how they make the favorite food of the dead relatives. They sometimes make it more of a party like affair, where they make a feast of sorts, and they have company over at the house to have a good time. Some of the foods they make are meat dishes in spicy sauces, chocolate drinks, cookies, and sugar skulls made to look like animal or human skulls. Sometimes these families celebrate the deaths of their animals also.
An article by Ricardo J. Salvador describes it best, “Because of this warm social environment, the colorful setting, and the abundance of food, drink and good company, this commemoration of the dead has pleasant overtones for the observers, in spite of the open fatalism exhibited by all participants, whose festive interaction with both the living and the dead in an important social ritual is a way of recognizing the cycle of life and death that is human existence.”
