By Lena Katz
Sugar Skulls for sale at a Marketplace in Oaxaca (Courtesy of the Mexico Tourism Board)
Snack on sugar skeleton, picnic in a cemetery, party in a mummy museum, and build an altar to the dearly departed right in your foyer. While all these ideas might shock you, they’re beloved holiday traditions south of the border. November 1 marks Dia de Los Muertos, the famous Day of the Dead holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and in U.S. cities with a large Hispanic population. Drawing from Roman Catholic Spanish traditions and pre-Colombian rituals, this annual holiday is a time to remember and honor the deceased. It is an exotic and eccentric holiday, but not a scary one, despite all the skeletons on every corner. In the places that really celebrate, street corners and shops display countless homemade altars, while the church steps and sidewalks flow with colorful flower petals and candles.
If there is an epicenter for Dia de Los Muertos celebrations, it might be the tiny island of Janitzio in Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico. Indigenous pre-Colombian people believed Lake Patzcuaro might be the doorway to heaven. People have traditionally made pilgrimage to this island each year to observe Dia de Los Muertos through prayer, offerings and traditional dance. (more…)
