In a nutshell, the Day of the Dead, or El Día de los muertos, is a celebration the Spaniards have been practicing for over 3,000 years. People whose family members passed wore wooden skulls called calacas to honor their family members.
2 Traditions
1. On El Día de los muertos, the skeleton is a common symbolization. To us, the skeleton is an unnerving reminder of the dead, but to the people who celebrate, it helps them remember their lost loved ones. If you were to ever visit Mexico for the first time, you could find skeletons everywhere you look.
2. Another common tradition is to decorate with special flowers, which are marigold and fuschia. Marigold are spread around all over the celebration grounds. They’re used to decorate almost anything,
Dias de los Muertos is a Mexican Holiday that honors and celebrates friends and family who have passed away. The celebration originated nearly 3,000 years ago when the Spaniards arrived in Central Mexico and viewed a similar ritual being celebrated by the Aztecs. Through the years Dias de los Muertos has evolved and flourished beyond Mexico, and now it is even celebrated in certain regions of the United States, Guatemala, Brazil, and Spain. Every November 1 (All Saints’ Day) and November 2 (All Souls’ Day), the celebration takes place. On the first, which is called Dia de los Inocentes (Day of Innocents), children who have died are honored and their graves are decorated with toys, sweets, white orchids and baby's breath. On the second, which is called Dia de los Muertos, the adults are honored and their graves are decorated with bright orange marigolds, the Mexican flower of death. During the celebration, family members go to the gravesites and clean and decorate their loved one’s grave with beautiful flowers, food, drink, and a photo
As a little girl, I learned a lot about my Mexican heritage. I even joined my parents in their dance group and still involved in it today. Over the years it’s been so fun, and it helped me learn a lot about different Mexican counties. Who would've thought that I would learn so much just by dancing. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. Also being a little girl I learned about “Day Of The Dead” which in Spanish is called “dia de los muertos” which is a two day celebration. The day’s in which this takes place is September 1 and 2nd. September 1st we honor the children and September 2nd we honor the adults. When I was little I never fully understood why we celebrated people deaths. I always thought when someone dies we show our respects and grief about it, but throwing a whole
Ever since fourth grade, one of my best friends have been Taylor Elam. Over the years that we’ve been friends we’ve had some jokes. My mom loves Mexican food; Taylor used to not like mexican food very much. Whenever our families would go out to eat, my mom would suggest something mexican. Whenever mexican was suggested by my mom, Taylor would respond “of course Hope wants mexican,” and whenever someone would ask where we were going to eat Taylor would say, “Hope wants mexican!” which we would always laugh about.
I. Attention getting device: When most people think of how to honor the dead, right away they think of mourning but the indigenous people of Mexico had a different idea. Instead of mourning, they think of honoring the dead as a celebration with dancing, food, and reminiscing. The name of this celebration is called Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead in English.
The belief in the afterlife involved with this holiday is very similar to that of the mesoamericans. The aztecs in particular had a month long celebration, very similar to that of Day of the Dead, in which they honored and delivered offerings to the deceased. When the spaniards arrived they did a fair job of popularizing their faith among the mesoamericans. The mesoamericans moved their month long celebration of death to coincide with the catholic holidays of All Saints and All Souls(November 1st and 2nd). Today, Day of the Dead is about celebrating death by creating altars carpeted with offerings to the souls of loved ones. Today, an iconic symbol of Día de los Muertos is the skeleton, one of the most significant skeleton characters is La Catrina. Day of the Dead is now picking up bits and pieces of Halloween tradition. Children are now participating in pedir los muertos, or ask the dead, during which children dress in costumes and meander, receiving candy as well as things from people’s day of the dead altars, in some places.
Death, and the skeleton represented as Death, is seen in a much different way by the Mexicans than by most other cultures. It is seen in a mocking, cheerful light. A symbol that can be as playful as it is serious, it appears everywhere during dia de muertos as wood, paper mache, sugar, and plastic.
The camera pans into a city with brightly colored banners. Two skeletons pop up dancing, dressed vibrantly. The title “Dia de los Muertos” fades in from the back to the foreground. Balloons carry the picture to another scene where we see a young girl kneeling near a headstone. The girl sets a sugar skull down near a picture of her mother. As she starts to cry, a flower wraps around her wrist and rips her under the ground where there is dust whirling around.
Cinco de Mayo means the fifth of May. It is not an independence day for Mexico like most unknowledgeable people think. Mexican Independence Day is celebrated on the 15th of September. Mexico declared independence from Spain on the 24th of August 1821. Cinco de Mayo is not an American holiday either. Mexico and the United States savor this holiday because it is the day where Mexican peasants/ commoners defeated the French and Mexican traitor army that double them in size in Puebla, Mexico one hundred miles away from Mexico city on the 5th of May, 1862.
Dia de Los Muertos, also known as the Day of the Dead, is an internationally recognized Mexican holiday which consists of the gatherings of friends and family to honor those who have passed. Similar rituals commemorating those who have deceased are believed to have began around 3,000 years ago. Dia de Los Muertos takes place three days from October 31st to November 2nd. October 31st is known as All Hallows Eve and is a time when the children invite the spirits of deceased children to come back. November 1st is All Saints Day and is when the adult spirits are said to return. November 2nd is All Souls Day and is when families go and decorate the graves of their lost loved ones. The building of private altars in cemeteries containing the
Day of the Dead (or Dia de los Muertos) is a Mexican holiday that`s celebrated in parts of Latin America and the U.S. and it is to remember and pray for family and friends who have died. This holiday is celebrated on November 1st. The Day of the Dead celebrates and remembers friends and relatives who have died. In most parts of Mexico, the Day of the Dead is meant to honor children and infants that unfortunately died. Adults that have passed are honored on November 2nd. The atmosphere of Day of the Dead is
Every May fifth Americans across the United States take the opportunity to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with parades, mariachi music, folk dancing, Mexican food and of course margaritas. But for most Mexicans Cinco de Mayo it’s not a big deal. It is nothing more than a national holiday. Cinco de Mayo is one of the most misunderstood Mexican holidays.
Day of the Asleep is a Mexican break that is commended on October 31 - November 2 of every year.
3) Impact: Dia de los Muertos is an important part of culture the Mexican and latin
One depiction of Mexican holidays shaping the city of Los Angeles into a Latino city can be seen in the Mexican holiday El Dia del Los Muertos. For instance, Mexicans believe in the concept of death not being the end of a person’s life as Paz
In Mexico religion and culture interact in a daily basis to create the complexity of the Mexican lifestyle. Traditions like “Dia de muertos” interact with Catholicism in a way where the tradition is respected without offending the catholic beliefs. Since Catholicism take really negative any interaction with magic, superstition or other religions, the tradition grew and adapted to be about honoring and remembering our death relatives who die and went to heaven. (Pages 1-2)