Day of the dead (Día de muertos)

Before the Spanish people came to this land to conquer, our aboriginal ancestors had many different times of the year to honor the dead. But when Spanish start to convert everybody to Catholicism they mixed their holidays with the autochthonous beliefs so they concentrate all dead holidays in two witch in the catholic tradition where the days of the holly dead, so what came from that is the first day of November to remember the kids that had passed away and the second for the adults.

The general idea is that the dead will come back this day to share with the family, so to honor them we should make an altar offering the things that this person liked in life. Specially food, drinks, tobacco. Also is needed to put a candle for each person that is remembered and an extra one for someone that would not be remember by any one. The candle will be light all night. Also we place pictures of the departed and flower, a special flower called ¨cempasúchitl¨ witch means flower of the dead in Náhuatl language, and we have this flower in two colors orange and red, it has a very special odor. And in towns families will make a path of cempacúchitl petals from the grave to the altar in the house.

This days families goes to the graveyard to celebrate with their beloved departed and they eat there and play music.

So it is a very colorful an cheerful way of take dead.

Here I gave you some images of altars one of them at my house.