![]() ![]() □ On the blog today I’ve gathered 10 essentials from some of my favorite shops like & to make a simple altar. ✨ If you don’t have an altar tradition, it really is a beautiful way to celebrate the lives of those who have passed before us. Photosĭo you set up a #DayoftheDead altar or ofrenda in your house? □□□ Once we move into our new home I’d like to build a more intricate one, but until then we will use what we have and I want to encourage you to do the same. Learn about 13 items you will see in practically every Dia de los Muertos altar. These several elements welcome, celebrate, and pay homage to the dead. It usually contains three levels-for Heaven, Earth, and the underworld and represents the four elements earth, wind, fire, and water. The adult spirits visit on the All Souls Day and on the last day families attend cemeteries to decorate the graves and tombs of their ancestors.Ī major part of the Dia de los Muertos celebration, which originated in ancient Mesoamerica, is the altar, or ofrenda (offering). Altars are made by children on the 31st to invite the spirits of dead children (angelitos) to come back to visit their families on earth. The multi-day holiday which is celebrated over three days in Mexico (and other Latin American countries) takes place on October 31 (All Hallows Eve), November 1 (All Saints Day), and November 2 (All Souls Day). The holiday’s popularity has since spread to other races and cultures.El Dia del Los Muertos is a special holiday for a lot of people in the Latinx community-Mexican and Central Americans especially. Even images carved in the ancient Aztec monuments show this belief – the linking the spirits of the dead and the Monarch butterfly.Įxperts say that the holiday was nearly forgotten by Mexican-Americans until it was resurrected in the United States in the early 1970s when Mexican-Americans underwent a cultural reawakening. The Aztecs believed in an afterlife where the spirits of their dead would return as hummingbirds and butterflies. But with added influences from the Aztec people of Mexico. The celebration of Los Dias de los Muertos, like the customs of Halloween, evolved with the influences of the Celtics, the Romans, and the Christian holy days of All Saints Day. Calacas usually show an active and joyful afterlife. ![]() Handmade skeleton figurines, called Calacas, are especially popular. Sometimes, paths of marigold petals are spread by families to aid the souls in finding their way home. Yellow marigolds, known as “the flower of the dead”, and other fragrant flowers are used to communicate to the spirits the richness of the offering. The spirits may not partake of the altar’s many confections, but there are plenty of those not among the life-disenfranchised more than happy to devour the candy skulls, sugar skeletons and sweet pan de muerto (bread of the dead). ![]() Revelers construct ofrendas, the offerings set out for returning souls. In the post-conquest era it was moved by Spanish priests so that it coincided with the Christian holiday of All Hallows Eve “Dia de Todos Santos,” The result is that Mexicans now celebrate the day of the dead during the first two days of November.Įl Dia de los Muertos has evolved in Mexico and other Central American countries to include visits to graveyards, where families spruce up sites of deceased loved ones. In the Aztec calendar, this ritual fell roughly at the end of the Gregorian month of July and the beginning of August. Death’s morbid side is buried under music and remembrances. Flowers, fruit and candy decorate altars. The annual rite features skeletons, altars and other trappings of death, but the ancient holiday celebrates life in its embrace of death. Festivities were presided over by the goddess Mictecacihuatl. El Dia de los Muertos goes back to the Aztecs, who had not just a few days but an entire month dedicated to the dead. The inevitability of death is accepted rather than feared. Families come together to honor their ancestors. El Dia de los Muertos is perhaps the most popular holiday in Mexico. ![]()
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