The Day Of The Dead By Dia De Los Muertos

Spanish has been crucial to me for my whole life because it shows that I’m bilingual. Not only do I use it in school, but also at home with my family. For the most part, this language has been with me since I was a little girl. I began to speak Spanish at age two and learned how to write it at age four. My parents helped me practice Spanish by speaking it. They also told me read Spanish books out loud, so I could speak it fluently. Luckily I went to Mexico when I was seven, but I only went that one time, so I haven't been able to practice with my whole family. In addition, I’ve had Spanish classes since kindergarten and now as a junior I continue to learn new things. As a teenager, I seem to use it more in my daily life, because my parents only speak Spanish which is how I’ve gained experience. For example, when my parents took me to Mexico at age seven, I learned to speak with all my family.

II. Relevance to the audience: Everyone has had a loved one or someone they know pass away and have gone to the cemetery to honor their death, which is why Dia de los Muertos is celebrated in all parts of the world.

Every individual experiences the act of death, and most persons experience the death of someone they know of. Whether family, kin, or someone infamous, the living deal with the process of dying. Anthropology seeks to understand the universal process of death ritual and how different cultures deal with death differently. An anthropologist can extract social values of a given culture, past or present, from how death ceremony is practiced. Such values could be regarding political hierarchy or an individual’s status in a society, and about a culture’s spiritual or religious faith. By exploring death ceremony in ancient Egypt, contemporary Hindu death practice in India, and current North American funerary rites, it can be illustrated that

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

The dead are within the community, but invisible to the living. Shells and noisemakers were used to wake the dead from their sleep. The Day of the Dead is a celebration where music is important for the joyous atmosphere. Family members cleaned and decorated the graves and ofrendas of loved ones with different items that were related to the person being commemorated. They also kept the skulls as trophies and displayed them during the rituals. The skulls symbolized death and rebirth. Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life (a a sad and mournful event), the natives

The Aztec culture honored their dead in traditions similar to the celebrations held in Mexico during the three day celebration. Slowly, through time, these traditions were spread through the population of the neighbouring lands. Latin America was colonized by mostly catholics, and catholic traditions were spread into Mexican culture through marriage and joint-celebrations. All Saints Day and All Souls Day were based largely on catholic traditions. The celebration as a whole is a combination of Mexican and catholic traditions combined in a compromise deal.

One of the most telling parts of a society is how they handle the traditions that surround one of the hardest things that humans experience: death. Northern Ireland is a prime example of how a group of people can build up a set of traditions that help the morning process and how those traditions can be a healing experience that helps a family and community celebrate the life of the deceased. Washing and preparing the body is an important part of the process that has been mentioned in several works of poetry. The traditional Irish Wake is also extremely important in celebrating the life of the dead and all they accomplished, complete with drinking and laughter and being with family and

Celebrations today include community festivals, parades, and street parties. The most important tradition for Day of the Dead is decorating an altar for a loved one. The altars are usually set up two days before the holiday and are typically set up in people’s homes to honor the deceased. The altars contain offerings to the dead which include candles, a Christian cross, statues or pictures of the Blessed Virgin Mary, flowers, photographs of the deceased, favorite food and drinks of the deceased, water and incenses (Barbezat,). “It is common for families to spend a lot of money for the Day of the Dead, to buy new things to go on their altars.

I’ve attended the Day of the Dead celebration in Hollywood which is a completely different experience compared to CI. Not only is the celebration in Hollywood so much bigger, it is also a lot more Americanized in the sense that there’s portable toilets and beer tents along the sidewalks. Also the celebration lands on days that isn’t the official Day of the Dead date. You can also see people dressed in different costumes, wearing beautiful bright dresses, and have elaborate face paints. Your other senses get a feeling too, like the smell of food getting cooked and the sound of Cumbia, Rancheras, and Aztec tribal music playing in the background. As is it gets later more people show up with offerings and candles to the Hollywood Forever cemetery. In spite of their strong dissimilarities and different locations, both CI and Hollywood end with everyone coming together to strength bonds with the dead and the

I’m having a lot of fun learning about Spanish. I’ve learned of the Spanish culture, traditions and events. One of the many events I’ve learned about is the Day of The Dead. It is celebrated on October 31 and November 2; there’s lots of food and dancing. I’ve studied many many new words and lots of boot verbs. I’m hoping to learn much more this year.

The day of the dead is known as an extraordinary occasion every year to respect the dead, including gatherings, feasts, unique foods, melodies and parades. To add, in many societies this holiday brings the living and the dead together, for an awesome banquet, to recall the departed and to appease them for one more year. This love towards the spirits is an antiquated and widespread practice, and it proceeds in numerous parts of the world (Guiley, 1956).The Chinese, who glorify their ancestors, perform unique services in spring, summer and autumn to free mankind's two souls: incorporeal and corporeal. The incorporeal soul is requested to express unique thoughts towards the deceased relatives, and the corporeal soul is disheartened from rousing

The most interesting ways that people honor the dead to me is, eat the dead because they will always have them with them. If you are willing to eat another dead person in memory of them then that’s awesome. I mean sacrificing the three meat pizza is terrible it is all flaky. But if you eat them I’m sure you will remember them as a core moment. But if you lived in an age where people die like flies then you would eat a lot of people.

The death and dying system is defined as the interpersonal, sociocultural, and the symbolic network which an individual’s relationship to mortality is meditated by his or her society. The death and dying system in any given society has a number of components. First people are connected to the death system because death is inevitable. At one time or another everyone will be involved with death. The second component of the death and dying system is places. These places include hospitals, funeral homes, morgues, cemeteries, memorials, and battlefields. Family members may harbor superstitions or simple memories of a room or area where a loved one died. The third component of the death and dying system is time. Holidays in the U.S culture like Memorial

Rituals are symbolic actions that help us express our genuine opinions and feelings about life and its important events. Rituals take many forms, which may consist of procedures of an individual or a group that preforms on a daily, annual or calendrical basis (Wolfelt, 2007). Rituals come across in different religions, the top five religions consist of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam. Some religious rituals include, funerals, marriage, rites of passage, Bat/bar mitzvah, pilgrimages, rites of personal devotion and the sacraments (Bro, 2014). Rituals are not always religious, there are secular or non-religious religions that exist and are practice annually and or daily. These include celebrations such as Anzac Day, Olympics, Halloween, graduation, pagan rituals and birthdays. The ritual I will be explaining is Buddhist funerals. Religious rituals such as funerals have more meaning than secular rituals as it expresses the sense of transformation of the deceased soul separating from the body. It is rich in tradition and widespread with symbolism as it acknowledges the truth of death and gives testimony to the deceased. It encourages the expression of grief in a way consistent with cultural values and provides support to mourners; as it allows for the embracing of faith and beliefs about life and death.

Day of the Dead was going to be my topic for my cultural experience from the beginning. It just so happens that my Spanish 4 teacher, Señora Potter, was planning a field trip to go to the Grand Rapids Public Library where they had ofrendas (altars) and a phenomenal video lecture about Day of the Dead. Immediately, I signed up to go to the field trip on October 30. As we stepped into the library, we saw decorations like tiny skulls and banners for Day of the Dead plastered everywhere. Our tour guide greeted us in spanish and told us