preview

The Day Of The Dead By Dia De Los Muertos

Decent Essays
Open Document
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a holiday that commemorates the family and its importance to human beings, both personally and culturally. Through various rituals, people honor their ancestors and those that have already passed on before them. The rituals that go on during this time are culturally rich practices that have been passed on for hundreds of years. Family members will go to graveyards to decorate relative’s graves with altars and tell fond stories of the deceased. Others will perform traditional dances or make quilts as tribute to their ancestors. Overall, Day of the Dead emphasizes the remembrance of loved ones and their significance to us through deeply embedded customs. The hours that I volunteered at the Caesar…show more content…
Additionally, our quilt making together as a class also gave me further insight on another sort of ritual that is practiced during Day of the Dead. As a class, we decided that the theme for our quilt would be family. My own quilt patch honored my older sister and the close relationship that we shared. We had never really been far away from each other our whole lives, so when we were forced to separate for a couple of weeks in Thailand, I was really dejected. I found that making this patch really made me appreciate my sister even more. Likewise, when everyone brought in their individual squares, I observed that most people memorialized a special time with their loved ones. The patches that they made varied from what seemed be trivial everyday moments like eating breakfast as a family to really specific events, like going skiing together with a relative. It made me think about how our busy everyday lives make us take the time we spend with relatives for granted. It’s through rituals like quilt-making that we are truly able to think about how much family means to us. This is what I believe is one of the messages that Day of the Dead tries to communicate with the people who celebrate it. During the actual Day of the Dead event hosted at Cal Poly, I got the opportunity to see even more rituals, which were the altar displays and traditional dancing. Women, men, and even children dressed in traditional Aztec clothing and huge
Get Access
Related
Get Access