DÍA DE LOS FIELES DIFUNTOS

by VIRIDIANA JUÁREZ MARÍN

Mexico is a country with a lot of culture and traditions, the beliefs of this people is so big respecting their gods, thus most of the important and popular holidays involve the religion. In this part I’m going to talk about the one of the most famous holiday that the people celebrate each year in each state from this country, this holiday is called “Día de los fieles difuntos”, however most of the people called it “day of the dead”, sometimes people who don´t know about this celebration think that is a ritual to venerate the dead like a black magic, but if we return to the history we can noticed that this festival come from the Indigenous Aztecas. They had customs where the people used to make some rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors, also this day was dedicated to the  "Lady of the Dead", although now the people called her “catrina”.  It was an object to venerate and worship for part of some families, the calpullis (high social class) or the complete nation it depends the society status that they stay. Those kind of rituals were too with the purposes of invoke for their crops, hunting and others for war.

Nowadays modern Indigenous’ conception about these traditions means the reunion with their friends and family members who have died. This celebration beginning on November 28, this day is especially for innocent people (babies, children and saints) who have passed away. The second day is on November 1, dedicated for rest of the people who died when they were adults; before to beginning this two days the people receive the dead’s spirits with some offerings like altars which contain food, photos of the person, fruit, candies, etc. It depends the things that the dead person liked when he was alive, the people also pray for the dead’s souls and put candles and petals of flowers as a road to show the spirits the way to come their house and coexist with their dear loved ones.

In those days we make an “ofrenda” in my house, so my grandmother cook the food that my grandfather liked for example “mole, tamales, fruit, cookies, etc. also we put some of the drinks that he used to drink like coffee, water and “pulque” (the final drink is an alcoholic beverage from Mexico), my grandmother used to put an extra food and drinks because she said that my grandfather would come with a friend.

The last they is on November 2,  is the date where the spirits back to the underworld, So the people used to go to the cemeteries to say good bye and to go along with the spirits also they garnish the tombs with different kinds of flowers especially with a flower named cempoaxochitl.

In my case my family and I go on November 2, in the morning to clean my grandfather’s tomb and sometimes to paint it; we decorate and change the flowers to make the tomb more colorful, after that in the cemetery the priest does a religious ceremony to be thankful with to the spirits for staying with us and for guiding them with god.