MEXICO'S DAYS OF THE DEAD

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4348, 18 January 1938, Page 2

MEXICO'S DAYS OF THE DEAD

In Mexican villages where old traditions still rule, Indians are busy preparing for their annual Days of the Dead—October 31 and November 1, said a writer in the ‘ New York Times ’ recently. Visitors to Mexico at this time of the year will find the marketplaces filled with candles, with delicacies, and with gifts. In Taxco, in Orizaba, in Toluca, and at all the village centres where Indians gather they are buying long wax tapers, sometimes decorated with black crepe-paper bows; gay little candy lambs with pink spots; candy dogs, chickens, and horses. And for the children there are toys made of wood and clay, and this is their Christmas; only comparatively recently has December "25, with its gift-giving significance, been widely observed among these Mexican natives. Before they can be enjoyed by the living, however, the luxuries must be offered to the dead. Chocolate skulls, pink candy coffins, and lighted candles adorn the altars in humble huts, and everywhere is the orange French marigold—“ flower of death.” All the delicacies in which they delighted while on earth are there to await the returning dead—candies, animal cakes, tortillas, chocolate, fruit, pulque, tequila, and the pan de muerto (bread of death) cut in the shape of a man, sometimes holding a cross in his hand, and frequently covered with rose-coloured sugar. All night on All Saints’ Eve and All Souls’ Eve the candles burn, and in the poorer huts, Indians kneel before their simple altars and “ converse ” with the dead, who partake of the essence of the offering, according to the belief, but leave its substance for tho mourners.

In the more prosperous homes the ceremony is the same, except the offering is more generous, with tables laden, candles burning in freshly-cut gourd holders, and the incense of pine resin rising to the altar. Out of the hillside mantles of marigolds cover the graves, and after the tribute Indians gather there to feast and dance.

At the great cemeteries in Mexico City five-foot candlesticks, tied with flowing black bows, burn all day and night at each corner of the graves, while a merry-go-round and fireworks nearby contribute a seemingly contralictory note of festivity. November 1 is also the day of the “ calaveras ” —mocking caricatures and verses, the former usually portraying the heads of prominent men and women above crossed bones. To read their witticisms, to climb the hill of Guadalupe at Mexico City and see the burn r ing candles, to view the markets with their crowded stalls, and, above all, V) visit the homes in the villages and see the Indians kneeling in devotion, is to become acquainted with a Mexico not known to the casual traveller.