Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead'  Día de los Muertos). The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. It is particularly celebrated in Mexico, where it attains the quality of a National Holiday. The celebration takes place on October 31st through November 3rd, in connection with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). Traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. The Day of the Dead is a time of celebration when eating and parties are common.This holiday is similar to All Saints Day.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to a goddess called Mictecacihuatl. In Brazil, Dia de Finados is a public holiday that many Brazilians celebrate by visiting cemeteries and churches. In Spain, there are festivals and parades, and, at the end of the day, people gather at cemeteries and pray for their dead loved ones. Similar observances occur elsewhere in Europe, and similarly themed celebrations appear in many Asian and African cultures.

In popular culture

Literature

The novel Under the Volcano (1947) by Malcolm Lowry takes place on this day in a fictionalized Cuernavaca, Morelos.

The science fiction novel Necroville (aka Terminal Cafe (US)) by Ian McDonald is set on the day before and during a future Day of the Dead, in a time when the dead are reanimated by nanotechnology.

Ray Bradbury's novel The Halloween Tree (1972) includes an explanation of the holiday as part of a greater worldwide tradition and features a Mexican sugar skull as a plot device.

The character of Death in the novel Candy Skulls by McKenzie Maclaine refers to Day of the Dead being the only time when death is honored instead of feared.

Barbara Hambly's novel Days Of The Dead (2003) climaxes on this day in 1835.

Film

The film Once Upon a Time in Mexico, directed by Robert Rodriguez, takes place in the days leading up to the Day of the Dead, culminating in numerous acts of violence on the holiday itself.

The Tim Burton film Corpse Bride (2005) shows a scene where town people are surprised to discover their deceased loved ones among calaca-like characters and thus take the opportunity to reunite again and have a family moment with the departed. This is reminiscent to similar beliefs that are the basis for the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration.

The movie Assassins has a scene that takes place during a Day of the Dead procession crossing the streets of San Juan, but this is inaccurate since the procession is not celebrated in Puerto Rico.

The film The Crow: City of Angels takes place in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles during the Day of the Dead celebration. Sugar skulls and tribute altars are referenced, and the film's climax takes place during a large Day of the Dead street party.

In the movie Blood In Blood Out the members of the jail gang "La Onda" selects the Day of the Dead as the date to exterminate their rival racial jail gangs.

Games

The computer game Grim Fandango (1998) relies heavily on Day of the Dead imagery, with most characters resembling calaca-like figurines. The plot spans four consecutive years from one November 2 to another.

The computer game World of Warcraft added in 2009 an in-game event with the same name and similar unique items related to this celebration, only accessible between November 1 and 2.

In the video game LittleBigPlanet, one of the arcs of the main storyline has a Day of the Dead theme. Oddly, this arc is set in South America rather than in Mexico.

Social Media

A calavera with crossed crutches and a helmet is used as the logo for the Facebook page Derby Hurts, which is an on-line community for injured roller derby skaters. Furthermore, some Latina skaters use Día De Los Muertos imagery as their regalia.

Television

The first episode of the Adult Swim series The Venture Bros., "Dia de Los Dangerous!", takes place on this day. Hank and Dean Venture purchase sombreros and sugar skulls, and then Hank describes the events to their father, who has just given a lecture to a very small audience, due in part to the holiday.

The Nicktoons Network animated series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, has an episode dedicated to the Day of the Dead, "The Grave Escape," in which Manny and Frida, after ridiculing the celebration and eating Manny's ancestor's ofrendas, discover that Sartana of the Dead has summoned an army consisting of the dead that had been forgotten. During their fight with the enraged beings, the two are transported into the Land of the Dead, where they meet Manny's ancestors.

On the seventh episode of Community, Annie hosts a Day of the Dead party for extra credit in her Spanish class.

Beliefs

People go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages as well as photos and memorabilia of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so that the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them. Celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember funny events and anecdotes about the departed.

Plans for the day are made throughout the year, including gathering the goods to be offered to the dead. During the three-day period, families usually clean and decorate graves; most visit the cemeteries where their loved ones are buried and decorate their graves with ofrendas ("offerings"), which often include orange mexican marigolds (Tagetes erecta) called cempasúchitl (originally named cempoalxochitl, Nahuatl for "twenty flowers").

In modern Mexico, this name is sometimes replaced with the term Flor de Muerto ("Flower of the Dead"). These flowers are thought to attract souls of the dead to the offerings.

Origins

The Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico can be traced back to the indigenous cultures. Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors have been observed by these civilizations perhaps for as long as 2,500–3,000 years. In the pre-Hispanic era, it was common to keep skulls as trophies and display them during the rituals to symbolize death and rebirth.

The festival that became the modern Day of the Dead fell in the ninth month of the Aztec calendar, about the beginning of August, and was celebrated for an entire month. The festivities were dedicated to the god known as the "Lady of the Dead", corresponding to the modern Catrina.