Día de los Muertos, Todos Santos, Xantolo, 30 October - 2 November

An important religious festival honoring the souls and/or spirits of dead. In ancient times the Indians held a month-long festival of Death and Flowers as a reminder of the beauty and fleeting nature of life. The last day of their celebration fell on November 1. This was the same day as the Spanish festival called All Souls’ Day, when spirits of the dead were thought to return to earth. Today in Mexico El Dia de los Muertos, or Todos Santos, begins on October 31 and lasts through November 2. All manner of ephemeral decorations relating to death are created for the occasion. Families make careful preparations for the fiesta. Graves and tombstones are swept and cleaned. In their homes they set up altars with pictures of dead family members. Around these altars they place candles, flowers, incense, favorite foods an other ephemeral offerings. A traditional bread called pan de muertos is baked, often in human form. The festival is a time of processions featuring skeleton masks and other costumes representing death. Above all, the Day of the Dead is a time for families to visit cemeteries. They bring candles, offerings of food, drink, and bundles of zempasuchil, (marigolds - the flower of the dead). Families have picnics in the cemeteries. At night, candles glow as families keep watch beside the decorated graves communing with those buried there. Although the festival is centered on death, it is not an unhappy time. Rather, it is a time to connect the past and the future with the present. These slides document musicians, dances, costumes, masks, cemeteries, ephemeral grave decorations, household altars, church altars, families and individuals paying homage, merry-making, effigies, folk art, food, and other local traditions associated with these individual towns and villages.

These slides are housed in LSF Container EE, Container FF, and Container GG.

A descriptive narrative of these slides is found on audiocassettes #12 side B, #13 sides A and B, and #14 side A, which are housed in LSF Container RR.